This past weekend John and I took the ferry over to Victoria to participate in WordCamp Victoria. I was slated to speak as a part of a blogger panel with Lorraine Murphy and Mike Vardy, as well as give a talk about securing WordPress (for beginners, just the basics). While no voice-over commentary is included, you can view my slides here:

During my session there was a question from Twitter about plugins and that since they are third party applications, they should not be trusted.

My response was that you can’t fear all plugins, but you can look out for the most effective and least damaging. Look for the version number and the date it was last edited. If a plugin was submitted yesterday and has no feedback, it may not be the best idea to install it. You want trusted plugins that have been updated, reviewed, and that work with your version of WordPress. Also, always install plugins from the WordPress directory and not third party websites.

As you can see form Lloyd’s response (he works with Automattic), plugins added to the official directory are vetted for malicious code. I would also add that the community is pretty good at policing plugins as well. If something’s not working, you’ll hear about it in the feedback, comments, and probably even on Twitter.

Should you have any questions about the basics of securing WordPress, please feel free to drop a note in the comments.

Finally, having organized WordCamp Whistler and WordCamp Vancouver before, we can appreciate all of the time and effort organizers put into these events and I must say, WordCamp Victoria was pretty stellar. Over 175 people showed up to participate, present, ask questions, and have stimulating discussions in the coffee room. Lunch was provided and Twitter was abuzz with backchannel chatter. Kudos to Paul Holmes and his team on another successful event.

When John and I started up our company there were several resources and tools that helped us through the entire process. One of those resources was Small Business BC online and in Waterfront Station. We got forms, advice, and flipped through micro-fiche listings of business names before we settled on sixty4media.

Next month Small Business BC is hosting the Successful You Business Awards and we’ve been invited to check it out.

The event will announce the winners of the Successful You Awards and provide a unique opportunity for aspiring entrepreneurs and the media to network with over 350 local business professionals and successful small businesses. Keynote speakers, Larry Finnson and Chris Emery, founders of Clodhoppers Candy, will share their success story of making Grandma’s candy recipe into a recognizable worldwide brand. [Small Business BC]

Where Birks Flagship Store, 698 Hastings Street
When Thursday June 10th from 5:00pm – 8:00pm

If you’re a small business and aren’t familiar with the services offered by Small Business BC I highly recommend checking them out or at least coming by the event. Tickets for the awards event are currently on sale starting at $36 (early bird) and $60 (then $70 at the door).

sixty4media’s Rebecca Bollwitt is one of the web’s 20 most-visible individuals in Vancouver

This afternoon I discovered that NowPublic, along with the Vancouver Sun, issued a list of “the web’s 20 most-visible individuals in Vancouver.” I am very pleased to announce that I have come in at number 8, which is great news for sixty4media.

Here is the full list of web influencers from NowPublic and the Vancouver Sun (see also: GlobalTV)

1 Darren Barefoot
2 Tim Bray
3 Boris Mann
4 Kris Krug
5 Roland Tanglao
6 Tom Williams
7 Megan Cole
8 Rebecca Bollwitt
9 Arieanna Schweber
10 Tod Maffin
11 Dick Hardt
12 Tris Hussey
13 Alf Hermida
14 Matthew Good
15 Ian Andrew Bell
16 Travis Smith
17 Danny Robinson
18 Paul Sullivan
19 David Beers
20 David Eby

I would like to congratulate the others on the list, whom I admire very much and many of which have all supported sixty4media in their own way over the last year.

I would also like to mention the lovely, brilliant, and talented Megan Cole and Arieanna Schweber who put Vancouver’s women on the map every day with their content production and influence in the digital realm.

Pano from Trainharder.com contacted us a few months ago with great aspiration for his website which he wanted to grow into an all-encompassing resource for the outdoor community. He has been blogging on his WordPress-based site for the last few years and the overall design was something he wanted to rethink in the hopes of expanding his readership. Having the basic idea and concept of what he wanted to achieve, he looked to sixty4media to help him reach that next step.

The previous design of the site was a four column layout that had outgrown Pano’s vision of Trainharder.com. Cranking out great content relating to “an adventure resource and news site for people who like to get outdoors in B.C.” takes a lot of work, especially for someone who is getting outdoors himself on a regular basis. On top of regular posts, there is an events listing to create an on going hub of information relating to outdoor races or gatherings. Doing this on a small scale basis is a large task, to say the least so optimizing the content output and the flow of the site was key.

sixty4media’s custom theme cleaned up the overall design of the site, giving more focus on the content. The front page was revamped with a three column design while a two column design was applied to the individual posts and pages. The idea was to cater to two specific groups of audiences: those who are frequent visitors to the website’s front page for visual appeal and those who are RSS subscribers that tend to pay more attention to getting the raw information out of the content.

Elements were specifically tailored for this WordPress-powered site and by using the events calendar plugin, we were able to customize listings, which helped to make this portion of Trainharder.com more effective as a resource. Essentially, if there is a foot race or trail running event in B.C., there is a good chance that it will be listed here.

Last but not least, we brought the WordPress install up to the latest version of 2.5.1, a much needed upgrade to the back end of the site.

Feel free to visit Trainharder.com if you are interested in seeing how the plan came together. Pano is actively building a community based on this unique market, making this a very strong online portal for folks who get outdoors and away from their computers. It’s very cool stuff.