The reason the WordPress PAD was off for a couple of weeks recently is because I was working on a new project dear to my heart. Oh, My! Oakland is a blog, directory and all around homage to the City of Oakland, where I live, work and play. Months and months ago I wanted to create a directory of Oakland businesses because I love Oakland and unlike other major and more organized surrounding cities like San Francisco, Oakland has a scattered web presence as far as websites dedicated to Oakland entertainment, information, business or anything for that matter outside of newspapers and official City of Oakland websites. A couple of weeks ago I decided to take the Oakland Photo Blog I created months back and expand it to a website completely devoted to promoting the positive in Oakland which includes a directory of other websites that are Oakland-centric. using a fabulous WordPress Directory Plugin that is truly impressive and customizable.

We’re ba-aaack! Refreshed and ready to inform and delight! So, this morning I was reading an article from Weblog Tools Collection about the 25 most valuable blogs and was stunned! These blogs are worth millions! I was just talking with a co-worker about blogging. She had been listening to a book on tape a few weeks back and she heard the term “blog” for the first time. Ever since then, she says she has seen the word “blog” everywhere. Anyway, I thought it was interesting that just after I was talking to my co-worker about that, that I read an article about this “blog” phenomenon that’s still so very new to so many people, but apparently can be worth millions…one day…if done right…and about tech stuff…or celebrity crap…or political yadda yadda.

Ciao everyone. The WordPress PAD is out of the office for the next two weeks. Please come back then for more fab articles on WP, blogging and more. Thanks. See you soon.

On the Blog Herald yesterday there was an article about preparing a checklist before upgrading to WordPress 2.5. Now you’re probably wondering, isn’t WordPress at version 2.3.3 now? What happened to 2.4? Well, it got canceled, or rather delayed and then skipped over. Read more about WordPress 2.4 skipped to WordPress 2.5. Anyway, this got me to thinking about troubles I’ve been having with a recent installation of WP 2.3.3. A quite frustrating experience. Nonetheless, It got me thinking about how important it is to due more testing and creating your own checklists before launching blogs or regular websites when using third party open source software even as popular as WordPress. Something to think about, I think.

Yesterday I revived an old wordpress.com blog I let drift into obscurity. I decided to revive it because I needed an outlet for this particular topic. Anyway, this morning I thought, damn, now I have how many blogs to write for? I think having numerous blogs work for me because I like to write and blather on. But, I suspect not all bloggers like writing. Fortunately there are a few choices, or rather alternatives to article blogging like video blogging, link blogging, podcasting and photo blogging. What kind of blogger are you?

One of many personal / business projects I have been working on is creating a business network for small business owners and self-employed individuals such as myself that works similar to BNI. I want this network to have an online presence, a members only secured area that requires password entry, and a home web page for anyone to view and learn about the network before requesting membership and access to the members only area. Initially I started with a Ning network account but wanted more control over what got displayed and how without too much hacking and also without hacking to pay for upgrades when otherwise Ning is free. Plus Ning has annoying adsense ads on the right (which I got rid of. ask me how). Well, I thought, WordPress is very extensible, I’m sure I can create my business network with WordPress by password protecting the WordPress blog installation and customizing the WordPress login screen.