The last 2 years I’ve volunteered to be a speaker.  Both years I’ve given an instruction on the importance of and a crash-course on revision control.  While I feel it is a subject all programmers should be more than familiar with, I wanted to do something a little different this year.

I like to stick to beginner level subjects.  While I could get into serial port and socket programming in Delphi and Java, I feel Code Camp already has a good selection of subjects for the intermediate to advanced programmers.  Since Code Camp targets all audiences, I want to give people a chance to pick up something completely new to them without falling asleep because the material is far above their experience levels.  At the same time I like to choose something I will learn from while I prepare my demonstration.   As an example, the first time I taught revision control I did it along side Jim Munn.  I knew some of the Subversion basics but branching and merging were something I hadn’t done yet.  Jim showed the attendees (including me) that part and I focused on the integration with Trac.  The following year I explored it a little more in depth and taught the whole kit and caboodle.

Here are some of the subjects I considered  for my presentation:

• Test Driven Development in Java
• Beginner’s Home Automation using Misterhouse
• AGI programming for Asterisk
• WordPress widget/plugin development
• Dojo web programming

All of those subjects are topics I’ve dabbled in on some level.  I’ve started with some basic Dojo application development for example, but I’ve worked extensively with Asterisk.  I could even combine some of the above topics, such as using a Dojo interface to a Java based Asterisk AGI program in order to interface with a home automation system that makes a WordPress blog entry when it is complete!  The fun never ends.

In the end I decided to give a beginner level presentation on developing for the Xbox 360 console.  I’m already familiar with the language required due to some projects at work, so this will make for a fun project.  It will also be something a little different and I’m hoping will help attract some of the younger audience to Code Camp that may not have attended otherwise thinking it would be all about business programming topics.

On the other hand, they are linking back to me from their pseudo-blog sites, so they are providing a place for exposure to my blog.  This can also help with search engine relevance since there are more sites linking  back to me.  But they’re still a form of spam.

I need to do some research and see what others are doing about it, if anything.  Akismet is blocking a majority of them, so I need to see if I should let it continue to block them, or if I should go ahead and allow them through.  So far I’ve allowed them through if they’re using an excerpt of my post and/or a related posting, but there are so few that it will only take a moment to cull them if I decide that is the best route to go.

I’ve also added the Google Analytics plugin so I can see how my blog is being used.  The primary motivation behind this is so I can become more familiar with Analytics.

In all seriousness, this site is run on a scrounged together server in a garage, and the hard drive had a physical failure.  The backup was corrupt so I had to rebuild from scratch.  A few posts I was able to recover from Google Cache, but most of them went the way of the dodo bird.  I now have a chance to rebuild the entire site, and can accomplish some of it better than before using what I learned last time.

Please pardon the dust while the remodeling takes place.