WordCamp Portland 2008 is open for registration and the Agenda is posted.

You’ll even see my name in the list of speakers. I’ll be leading a breakout session at 2pm called “Design & Debug Themes with Free Tools,” which will cover using free and open source tools like Firebug and the Firefox Web Developer Toolbar to build, edit, and troubleshoot WordPress Themes.

I’m excited and a bit nervous.

If you’re a user, developer, or are just interested in WordPress and would like to learn and network with other WordPress folks, come on down.

I hope to meet you at WordCamp Portland.

Returned yesterday morning from WordCamp San Francisco 2008 and had a good time despite over 24 hours of driving.

WordCamp was only one day long this year, but it offered two different tracks: one for developers and another for bloggers.

I was able to see several terrific presentations, my favorites being: Read more…

Congrats to the Automattic team and all of the contributors for the release of WordPress 2.6!

There are a host of new features, enhancements and bug fixes. Some of my favorites so far:

• Version control
• Better plugin management
• Enhanced security including full SSL support
• Better handling of very large numbers of categories and pages.

There’s plenty more, so check out WordPress 2.6 for yourself!

WordCamp Portland has been confirmed for Saturday, September 27, 2008 at CubeSpace.

Details are still being discussed on the Google Group for this event.

There will be great speakers, interesting topics and I’d really encourage anyone interested in WordPress, blogging, and website design and development to attend.

WordCamp Portland still needs sponsors so check the site for details on sponsorship opportunities.

Thanks to Charles and Jonathan of the WordPress Podcast for episode 42, where Matt Mullenweg answered an audio question from yours truly regarding using WordPress as a CMS.

Matt pointed out a user-maintained post on the WordPress Codex titled “WordPress CMS.”

There’s a lot of good info in this page. I’d love to see even more documentation and community spring up around using WordPress as a CMS for non-blog websites.

Maybe even a gallery where people can show off their latest WordPress-powered sites.

Hmm . . . maybe that should be part of my contribution to the WordPress community.

Of course, there’s plenty of invaluable information throughout the Codex and I use, and recommend, it regularly. With a little digging and forum forum posting, you can find answers to most questions.

Other links related to using WordPress as a CMS:

• WordPress Makes Sense For Many Non-Blog Websites
• Building alexking.org 2.0
• WordPress (as CMS) Hacking Tips
• Five WordPress ?CMS Enabling? Plugins
• WordPress as CMS

Of course, a quick Google search will turn up a lot of other helpful pages.