One of the good thing these conferences are for is networking. Sure some of the sessions were good and inspiring, but most of it wasn’t entirely new. The main reason why so many people go there is to network, or better “socialize”. Now, if you didn’t know Izea was live online as well on UStream. People were viewing the conference, and making comments.

I am sure some of them were laughing because they get to see the whole thing, and not pay a damn thing. Personally, I think that they did miss a whole heck a lot because right now people who went there have pictures, and more contacts. At least, next time I see these people, they won’t think I am a complete stranger. I got to interact with one of the top bloggers in the industry. None of the people online could say that unless they actually go there.

Guys these conferences are worth going to because you socialize with people in your industry. And Networking is the key to success.

Having that said, lets look at some pictures of me networking..

First up is my picture with John Chow. I am actually a bit taller than him. Not a lot, but just a little bit

Caught John Chow unplugging another person’s plug because Izea didn’t have enough outlets there.

This is my picture with Zac Johnson. I was initially in his team for Izeafest, but I had to leave a bit early. But I did get a money reign shirt which you guys will see in the coming sunday

Here I am with the CEO of Izea. The company behind Izeafest. He doesn’t take serious pictures, unless there is a crazy one to go with it, so you will see the crazy one too. He picked up Ian, but I am too big lol.

Thats me with Merlin Mann. Author of 43folders.com. Heck of a good speaker. He is all for creativity (like me). Creative picture eh lol.

That is me with Ian Fernando. We hung out a lot. I actually took him along the Uzzz crew to a Pakistani food place in Orlando. He was confused there. We also had lunch together at Subway.

Now you know what you missed eh. Well there was a whole heck a lot more in sessions. I will share some of my insights on each session later on this week.

Well, as you guys know that I was at Izeafest. During our breaks, we spent time in the play room which has a Wii Console. I asked John Chow to play a bowling game with me. John said that he would beat me. I said ok lets see. So it was a friendly challenge type game.

Now before you guys jump to any conclusions, I want to tell you that John told me that he used to bowl in real life. He had his own bowling ball and shoes. If you watch the video and the score, you can clearly tell that he was whopping my ass in the beginning. I was trying to throw all the hook shots which wasn’t working. John said, Simplicity is the best.

But if you know me, I say Creativity is the best. Well, it didn’t work in the beginning, but sure as heck in the end… I snatched the victory from him by hitting two strikes and a 9 in the last frame. Look at the score and the video.. John it was a fun game. Maybe we can have a rematch sometime in a real life bowling game.

So lets check out the score:

Now if you want to know how the scoring works in bowling – Read this article

Watch the video below: Sorry for the lights but the room was very dark. It could have been a nap room.

More of Izeafest 2008 will be up. Thanks to Amanda, Uzzz Staff, for making this video. She also took awesome notes at each keynotes which I will be sharing here on Balkhis. I don’t like to be lame like the rest who just post videos. I will actually put down my views and what I learned from each.

Alright as you all know that I was at Izeafest this weekend in Orlando. I am back at West Palm Beach for a night before I head back to Gainesville. But set aside what I am doing right now, let me tell you about a little of what I did at Izeafest, and what did I think about it.

First thing I would say is that I met some awesome awesome people. Aside from that, I got to see people who I just knew online. Made really good friends with Ian from Ianfernando.com. Aside from him, I really got to know how evil John Chow is hehe. More posts on this issue will be up either tomorrow or day after. But all to all this was an ok conference.

Things for Izea that they should note for their future Izeafest:

I personally think streaming this live is a turn down for users to pay for coming there. I personally think that I as a physical attendee should be paid more attention rather than the focus on the online community. It pissed me off that sometimes during the questions and answers session that my questions weren’t answered because we ran out of time due to some questions from the online audience. Why would I even bother paying to come there? (Suggestion: I think that you guys should stream it online if you want to, but definitely keep the online questions to the end if the physical audience have no question…)

Next thing… They gave away Scene It from Disney at a Webmaster Conference. I mean I am young, but not that young. And I was probably one of the youngest ones, so I know older people didn’t like it either. They gave away a lot of these. I don’t know what I am going to do with it, but probably give it to my 10 year old sister to play with it. Maybe, and hopefully they will have something tech related to give away.

The best move Izea did was inviting Merlin Mann from 43folders.com. All I can say is he inspired me in so many ways that you won’t believe. Not just me, but David and Amanda thought the same thing. I think I will be doing some newer projects toward the next January 2009. But I am going to say, that if you ever see him somewhere do talk to him. He is the best Keynote I ever heard. Phenomenal guy. I will write the notes that I took on his keynote.

Panel Organizations…Woof… I thought the Plugin Panel Organization was a bit funny. I had to answer a few questions for audience. I really liked the Big Money Bloggers Panel. I also liked the Blog Design Make Over Panel. I just wished I could’ve been in there. I think I could’ve done just as good of a job if not better than the rest.

Hopefully next year Izea will have power outlets on each table. They did got some for me later on the day. But I did catch John from JohnChow.com unplugging someone’s plug… The picture would be up when I get in Gainesville. Also, I beat John in Bowling. He was beating me till the whole game until the last frame, so you will see that covered later on the week.

I took Ian out to dinner with us to a Pakistani Fast Food in Orlando to give him a taste of something different. You should ask him how it was. I met with Zac Johnson, Shoemoney, Neil Patel, and so many more people that you won’t even believe.

I am a bit tired but Izea did a semi-decent job on the conference. Will hope to see you guys there.

Well, you guys might be wondering what is wrong with you Balkhis, two wordpress posts in a week? Well, I wrote to inform my readers about wordpress 2.6.2 because I know a lot of you were using that version. Because that is the most stable release at this point in time. But that doesn’t mean wordpress is not updating to something bigger than the minor updates.

Yes this is WP 2.7 in the developmental stage. Beta versions are out for developers to try and test. This is another major version of Wordpress. Followed by the Wordpress 2.5. Just like wp 2.5, This release of wordpress will also see a backend design changes. Yup AGAIN, so you would have to acclimate to another new look. It is not that hard to deal with to tell you the truth. It is actually better in some cases.

**Note: All Pictures can be magnified. Simply click on the picture, and it will show you the full preview.

Do you see the little boxes in the admin panel. Yes those, you can edit those and put what you like. Ain’t that slick. I am loving it.

Next awesome thing about this new design is the post page. I have full control over to how long my page should extend now.

You get to choose which of the extra options you want available below your post text. Also, you can choose to click the button, stick this post to the front page. I didn’t try that feature yet. But sounds useful.

Do you see that now you can reply to comments through the admin panel. Yeah its a cool feature, sadly doesn’t work with Brian’s threaded. So when I reply, it shows up as a new comment rather than a threaded comment. As this blog is growing, I am facing spam and spam and more spam. Insane how akismet is not being able to handle it. I got 53 in past 7 hours. While I was sleeping. Then deleted all spam, saw 2 again. Insane……… Anyways that is the cool things you should know about wordpress 2.7

Wait a minute, did I tell you some of the new features that are planned? Well check them out.

Features to be introduced in WP 2.7

• Admin Panel Comment Replies – I have already mentioned that part in the post above that you can reply to comments via admin panel.
• Comment Threading – Lets see how this one will go. Well wordpress will include their own threaded version of comments in this release. Right now I am using Brian’s Threaded comment lets see how good will this be.
• Subscribe to Comments – Yup this feature also. Wordpress team is trying to get everything all in one, so you never have to go out and search for essential plugins like this one. So expect to see this in wordpress 2.7.
• Widgets for Dashboard and Write Box – Like I said above, it is one of the features that I love about wordpress 2.7. I get to play with the dashboard widgets and post page widgets. I can organize them how I want to.
• Comments API – This will allow developers to create offline integration of comments, where users could use desktop clients to manage comments (moderate, edit, reply, delete, spam, unspam).
• Keyboard shortcuts – Wohoo more of these. New shortcuts like Ctrl + S (to spam comments) and Ctrl + A (to approve comments) are included in this release. Lets go spammers, I am ready.
• Wordpress Core Updates – Now you will be able to update your wordpress automatically which people were doing through the plugin now will be in wordpress 2.7. One of the features that I await for in this release.
• Theme Update API – Remember that one click plugin install? Well, last time wordpress connected the plugin developers to the users. So users would know if they need to download the new version of that plugin. This time, they are connecting designers with users. So if a designer find major error in the theme, they can update the theme, and you will see it in your wordpress admin panel.
• Default Sitemap – Wordpress will have their own sitemap generating ability in the admin panel available in this release.

While this list above is the ones that we will have, here are some that are suggested and might be included.

Some FAQs about Wordpress 2.7

To avoid getting tons of emails and replying to them individually, I will save you some time and save myself some time. I know most of you are wondering when is this version coming to release. It is being planned for November 2008. Also you are probably wondering how you can download and try out WP 2.7. Simple guys just join the Testers Mailing List and try the software out. Contribute to the community, so this release is the best one

Well What do you know, there is another release of Wordpress. And a crucial one that should upgrade to as soon as possible. I have already upgraded my site, and I recommend you guys to do the same. Recently, Stefan Esser warned developers of the dangers of SQL Column Truncation and the weakness of mt_rand().

It is mainly geared towards users who have open registration enabled because WP 2.6.1 and earlier versions allow you to craft a username so it will allow resetting another user’s password to a randomly generated password. The randomly generated password is not disclosed to the attacker, but it is still annoying to know that someone can do this, so it was more of annoyance rather than a security exploit.

Even though it wasn’t a security exploit, it can lead to many breakthroughs. So simply by seeding random numbers mt_rand(), attacker could predict the randomly generated password (so the formula how random number generates). While the attack is difficult to accomplish, and most people don’t know how to do it. But there is a possibility. And when there is, you know not to take risks. So upgrade to wordpress 2.6.2. Thanks to Stefan because with his help Wordpress team was able to fix the issue. He will be releasing the complete attack details soon.

Other PHP applications are also susceptible to this class of attack. To protect all of your applications, get the latest version of Suhosin. If you’ve already updated Suhosin, your existing WordPress install is already protected from the full exploit. You should still upgrade to 2.6.2 if you allow open user registration so you can prevent the possibility of passwords being guessed by the attacker.

2.6.2 also contains a handful of bug fixes. Check out the full changeset and list of changed files.