19
Apr | 2010

Posted by: Jeffrey Zinn

Let’s Share the Love

The countdown begins. We’re less than a week away from Orange County WordCamp and we’re stoked about all the stuff we have for you.

But, we want to go bigger.

World Map

A lot of you are coming to Orange County WordCamp, but there are people all across the world who can’t make it to the conference due to the sheer distance they’d have to travel to get here. We have no doubt that WordPress fans around the world would also benefit from the presentations you’re going to experience first hand this weekend. So, we got to thinking…why should we limit our audience to those who can make it in person? Why shouldn’t we try to spread the WordPress love all around the world?

We started talking to Joe Christensen of Blaze Streaming Media. They’ve streamed other WordCamps live in the past, so they know what to expect. The other benefit of having them in Orange County is that they’ll be able to archive our presentations on WordPress.tv so that you can go back and use these presentations as a reference.

There’s only one problem…and it’s a big one.

It’s a bit out of our budget to bring these guys to the event. We haven’t gotten as great a response to our call for sponsors as we’d hoped and we’re already over budget. If you have it in your wallet, or you work for a company that does, please help us bring Joe and his crew to OC WordCamp. Any amount of donation you can make will help to make this happen.

Posted in Community Support | Comments Off on Let’s Share the Love
18
Apr | 2010

Posted by: Jeffrey Zinn

Beginning Plugin Development

Wow, can you believe we are only a week away from WordCamp Orange County?!? I’m very excited to be a presenter and I’m looking forward to sharing my presentation on Beginning Plugin Development. Though, I really hope you aren’t looking forward to a PowerPoint presentation… I just don’t roll like that.

Instead, during the session we’ll be working in a text editor, walking through the process of creating a simple WordPress plugin. We’ll start with a quick intro to some tools you can use to create your plugin, but then we’ll jump right in with how to:

  • modify content
  • add an admin options page
  • add a sidebar widget
  • add a shortcode
  • add a dashboard widget

You’ll be surprised at just how easy is!

Don’t be shy. If you have any questions during the presentation, just ask.

See you all on Saturday!

Posted in General Awesomeness, Presentation Topics | Tagged , , | Comments Off on Beginning Plugin Development
17
Apr | 2010

Posted by: Jeffrey Zinn

Unconference/Ignite Sessions

@Mac_Boy mentioned a sort of niche topic in a comment on the CMS talk teaser post. It got me thinking…Is anyone interested in giving some short informal talks during lunchtime? We have the rooms all day, so we might as well use them. The topics can be anything you’re comfortable presenting on (hopefully WordPress/blogging/Internet related) and that you think people would be interested in.

Leave a comment on this post if you’d like to hear a presentation on a specific topic, or if you have a topic you’d like to present on and we can get a list going.

Posted in Community Support, General WordCamp, Planning, Presentation Topics | Tagged , , | Comments Off on Unconference/Ignite Sessions
17
Apr | 2010

Posted by: Jeffrey Zinn

Lucy Beer

Lucy Beer of Web Training Wheels is an online marketing professional of 8+ years. She has a background in constructing and executing online marketing campaigns for small business, entertainment and art clients.

These days she loves to teach small businesses and entrepreneurs how to develop their online marketing strategies. She has been using WordPress since around 2004 and has never looked back 😉 In addition to marketing consulting she provides WordPress training through one-on-one or small group sessions to help businesses build a solid online foundation for their marketing.

Posted in Speakers | 1 Comment
17
Apr | 2010

Posted by: Jeffrey Zinn

Your WordPress Plugin Idea Built Live

During this session, I will be creating a new plugin from scratch. And with my eyes closed and my hands tied behind my back. Not really, but that would be way cooler!

My goal is to provide real insight into the plugin creation process. Together, we’ll walk through the planning process, basic documentation and then we’ll write some actual code. (And the crowd goes… ooooohhhh.)  🙂

This process starts right now. I would like to start gathering ideas here. Right now. Please post your plugin suggestions in the comments section of this post.

I’ll review the suggestions on Saturday morning and (with your help) finalize the plugin concept by lunchtime. This will give me a few hours to do some brainstorming, planning, and documentation.

I look forward to your suggestions. This should be fun!

Posted in General Awesomeness, Presentation Topics | 2 Comments
17
Apr | 2010

Posted by: Jeffrey Zinn

5 Lucky Attendees

Professional WordPress, WordPress 24-Hour Trainer, Smashing WordPress, WordPress Bible, Teach Yourself VISUALLY WordPressThanks to Wiley (@WileyTech), publisher of all kinds of awesome WordPress books, five lucky attendees will be walking away from Orange County WordCamp with one of the fine titles shown below.

Posted in Community Support, General Awesomeness, Sponsors | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments
13
Apr | 2010

Posted by: Jeffrey Zinn

Last Call For Tshirts

Ladies and gents, we’re getting ready to put in our order for the t-shirts that you get with your ticket. I’m sure there are some of you who are waiting for the last minute to buy tickets, but if you do that, you might be left with a shirt that doesn’t fit you (or one that doesn’t fit you). This Friday, April 16th, at 12pm Pacific time we’re placing our order. If you buy tickets after that, you may not get a t-shirt in your size. We’re going to do our best to buy extra shirts in all sizes, but if you buy your tickets after this Friday, it will be first come, first served. If we run out of t-shirts in your size, you’ll be out of luck. My suggestion is, don’t wait. Go buy your tickets now!

Posted in General WordCamp, Tickets | Comments Off on Last Call For Tshirts
13
Apr | 2010

Posted by: Jeffrey Zinn

WordPress as a Content Management System

Many people I’ve worked with on projects hear “WordPress” and immediately say that it is just for people who want to run a blog. This is no longer true. WordPress has come a long way and a lot of designers and developers are using it to create some very impressive projects.

Current State of Content Management Systems (CMS)

  • Bloated with features
  • Complex templating systems
  • Plugins and extensions are difficult to write without a degree in computer science

Why is WordPress an ideal candidate to use as a CMS?

  • Lightweight & flexible
  • User-friendly admin interface
  • Rich, existing developer and user community
  • Large number of existing plugins and themes

Join me for an in-depth look at how and when to use WordPress as a content management system. It is by no means a silver bullet for content management in all situations but there are quite a few plugins and tricks you can learn for getting the most out of WordPress.

We’ll step through some of the techniques including:

  • Use categories & tags
  • Creating a Functions.php file in your theme
  • Custom loops
  • WordPress 3.0 (Custom post types and improved custom taxonomies)
  • Plugins
  • Using the Codex to extend your themes

This session will address topics for all experience levels. If you’ve ever thought about using WordPress as a CMS to run a website or project, above and beyond a typical blog or podcast, this is where you will learn how to make it possible.

Posted in General Awesomeness, Presentation Topics | 3 Comments
06
Apr | 2010

Posted by: Jeffrey Zinn

Pimp Your WordPress Plugin

WordPress PimpMost WordPress Plugins are little more than small utilities but there are a growing number of them that can dramatically augment the way WordPress behaves or give WordPress advanced new features.

Platform Modifying Plugins

I like to refer to these plugins as Platform Modifying Plugins (PMPs or Pimps) because even though they exist in the same repository with all these other smaller, utility plugins, they are more substantial with more features. A few examples of PMPs include BuddyPress (and my own lighter-weight alternative — Mingle), NextGEN Gallery, WPTouch, Pretty Link and Formidable. Many of these PMPs have also become platforms themselves sporting their own hooks and APIs — with other 3rd party plugins in the repository that alter their behavior.

In my presentation at OC WordCamp, I’m going to show you an effective way to develop your own PMPs using a Model View Controller (MVC) approach with some additional tips and tricks that I’ve learned from coding and supporting two different PMPs. Continue reading →

Posted in General Awesomeness, Presentation Topics | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | 10 Comments
04
Apr | 2010

Posted by: Jeffrey Zinn

Theme Workshop

Join me for a theme workshop titled “Customizing your WordPress theme: Best Practices” . The workshop is targeted towards beginners interested in learning how to customize a WordPress theme the “right way”. It will focus on six best practices relating to theme customization. An overview of each practice will be presented followed by a live demonstration. The goal of the workshop is to help you build a solid foundation and give you the confidence to start customizing your WordPress theme. The six best practices:

  • Setup WordPress locally
  • Use a proper text editor
  • Use a child theme
  • Use an FTP client
  • Use Firebug
  • Use the Codex

As you can see this talk will be targeted specifically to beginners that have little to no experience customizing a WordPress theme. If you are wondering what the heck a child theme is and have never heard of FTP or Firebug, then this is the presentation for you!

Posted in General Awesomeness, Presentation Topics | 4 Comments