wordcamp-dallasOver 250 bloggers and new media types from all over the Dallas/Fort Worth area and as far away as Germany made our first WordCamp a smashing success in March, 2008. Capitalizing on the energy and excitement of the event, we formed the Dallas/Ft. Worth Area WordPress Meetup Group that has since grown to include nearly 200 members and is the 2nd largest WordPress Meetup group in the world!

This year, we’re moving WordCamp to the Richardson, Texas campus of the University of Texas at Dallas where we expect to have upwards of 300 attendees. The cost for the two day event is only $30 and you’ll get an official WordCamp Dallas 2009 t-shirt and be provided lunch both days. Check out our scheduled speakers, get signed up, follow us on Twitter (hash tag #wcdfw09), and come join us!

One of our sponsors, ZipServers, has put together a special offer just for those of us in attendance at WordCamp. The details of the program are below. Enjoy!

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Campers will receive 3 months free OnePlan in Dallas, Seattle, or Washington, D.C. (1) OnePlan per camper. Offer expires July 15, 2009. $7.95 per month after initial 3 months free.

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Tomorrow afternoon, Matthew “Spamboy” McGarity will demonstrate how to create local WordPress installations.

You are encouraged to follow along and create one on your own system, if you wish. However, there’s one thing you’ll need to do before tomorrow: install a software package that provides you with PHP and Apache & MySQL servers.

Depending on your computer’s OS, install one of the following easy (and free) options using instructions available on their websites:

The reason you are being asked to do this beforehand is to save time — it takes 15-20 minutes to download and install either package, while Spamboy’s presentation lasts only 30 minutes long. This way, you can hit the ground running!

As soon as we announced that WordCamp had sold out, we got a flurry of requests from people who really need to attend but who for various reasons did not register in time.

As a result of these requests, we’ve opened up 25 additional slots which are available right now. These are the last slots that we can accomodate, so when they are gone we simply can’t do any more. So, if you’re trying to get in, it is important to register as fast as possible.

The good news is, even if you are not able to get into the event physically, we’re planning to live stream all the presentations, so you should be able to participate remotely. In addition, we’ll be filming the speakers and we’ll make videos available after the event is over.

Well folks, we have one more big surprise and a huge first for WordPress and WordCamp fans. We are planning on live streaming WordCamp Dallas this year to anyone who would like to attend, but who can’t be here in person to take place in the face-to-face interaction.

We realize it’s short notice, but please blog, tweet, and otherwise help spread the word so that all those who can’t be here with us in person, can at least be here in spirit!

The live streaming is being brought to us courtesy of GeekBrief.TV, and those that want to join in can head over to http://www.geekbrief.tv/wordcamp-dallas. The streaming will follow the published schedule, and please keep in mind that times listed are all CST (Texas).

Thanks once again to George for these wicked banners we can use on our Web sites!

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Well folks, we did it! 300 attendees will pack UTD’s Davisdon auditorium, so I hope everyone comes early because the lecture hall will have every seat filled!

If for some reason you know of someone who wasn’t able to get registered but who desperately needs to be there, please contact us and we’ll evaluate each individual on a case by case basis. But keep in mind that it is not to anyone’s benefit for us to oversubscribe the event and cause all to suffer, so it’s unlikely we’ll be able to accomodate late registrations.

To those of you who managed to get in, we’re looking forward to seeing you in just a few days!

Well folks, I hope you love the official 2009 WordCamp Dallas Logo as much as I do! We asked George Learned to tackle the task of giving us something exquisite that could put WCD on the map with everyone else in terms of our T-shirt design, and I think he has… but you’re going to have to wait and see them at the event!

However, you do get a sneak preview by taking a look at part of the design with our WordCamp Dallas Brand!

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Hey WordCampers, we’ve got another huge treat for the few of you who can make this one…

On the afternoon of Friday June 26, we’ve been extended a very special, and very limited, offer by our friends at the University of Texas at Dallas. We are going to have three back to back campus tours available ONLY for WordCamp Dallas attendees to learn about some of the cutting edge research being developed by the brainiacs at UTD.

These tours will make for excellent blogging material I’m sure, and you’ll have unrestricted access to the program directors! So bring your cameras and notepads… Each of the tours we’ve been offered will be headed by the program director and will be limited to 15 bloggers.

Since there is really no better way, if you are interested in attending one or more of these tours please leave a comment below. Since there are so many attendees and so few slots, please list the order of preference for the tours you want, and we’ll let you know as soon as we’ve made the list of attendees.
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You know what folks, WordCamp Dallas has a history of leading the WordPress pack, and this year is no exception. We’ve got several extremely generous sponsors who are going to be making WordCamp very special for a few lucky attendees!

So far, we’ve got the following prizes lined up and we’ll be handing them out to attendees all weekend:

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Layered Tech

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We’ve finalized the plans for the WordCamp Dallas 2009 Welcome Party. We’ll be getting together at the AMF Richardson Lanes on Friday night for an evening of bowling, beer and buddies!

The AMF Bowling alley is essentially just down the road from the UTD campus where we are holding WordCamp, on the NorthWest corner of Campbell and I-75 directly behind Cafe Brazil. We’ll be meeting there as early as 7:00pm and we have lanes reserved for bowling from 8:00-10:00pm. Food, drinks, shoes… it’s all included, so you just need to get there!
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