Andrea Tetrault | Ride. Write. Repeat.
Crashing the bike culture party through tenacious bloggery and the relentless use of social media.
Winnipeg CycleChick started out as lonesome letters home from a mid-life crisis cycling vacation. But it was when the vacation was over that the journey truly began. In its beginnings, Winnipeg CycleChick documented the misadventures, rants and confessions of an amateur cyclist as she naively navigated the complex and often hostile world of cycling. Then came the horrific moment when she realized people were watching. Three years later, WCC has become a recognized part of that world, and an extension of the passion that started the blog in the first place.
About Andrea
Andrea is a graphic designer and blogger. She started using WordPress for her cycling blog, Winnipeg CycleChick, about two years ago when she became frustrated with the limitations of other blogging platforms. The blog has grown from an audience of one to a viewership of many, from all over the world. If she has an expertise, Andrea brings her passion for cycling to people in a non-threatening, entertaining and informative way. She has done quite a bit of public speaking, as a guest lecturer for students of design, as past president of the Society of Graphic Designers of Canada (MB), as a presenter at Pecha Kucha Winnipeg, and most recently, as “Winnipeg CycleChick” at the awards banquet for the Manitoba Cycling Association.
Brent Toderash | How to Find the Right WordPress Plugin
There are currently 24,640 plugins in the WordPress plugin repository, with an unknown number available from third-party sites as free or paid plugins. When you need to extend WordPress for a particular task or function, how do you choose the best available plugin for your needs? You’re likely to find several that seem to fit the bill, but since plugins represent a wide array of features, quality, and usability, how do you choose? When is it time to dump a plugin in favour of another one? Rather than give you a list of recommended plugins, this workshop will attempt to give you a set of tools for evaluating plugins so you can always find the best one for your or your client’s needs. We’ll highlight which criteria are more important to consider. With its recent changes, what does the WordPress repository’s rating system mean for evaluating your plugin selection? We’ll look at how the WordPress repository can be helpful to your search — or not.
About Brent
Brent has been blogging since before the Y2K talk died out, posting about Linux and the Free Software movement. His next major niche blog project taught him what it’s like to maintain a daily posting schedule for more than five years, besting his previous streak by a full year. Along the way, he moved from a homegrown CMS to WordPress back when it was still called b2. Having taken on WordPress projects for clients, this spring he quietly launched a major site developed on WordPress Multisite as an application framework. He’s been interviewed and spoken or written on a variety of IT and internet-themed topics featured by ITBusiness.ca, CIO.com, and Slashdot. As an entrepreneur, Brent has managed a web design and software development firm, an ISP and web hosting company, and run popular blogs in more than one niche. He currently freelances as a web developer, project manager, website architect, and writer who bills himself as a Freelance Thinker. He is based in Winnipeg where he ignores his own blogging project to spend time with his wife and two daughters, who would otherwise be spending all their time with their new puppy.
Dave Pensato
Ian Stewart | From Graphic Designer to Theme Wrangler
Ian went from working as a Graphic Designer to becoming a Theme Wrangler for Automattic — the company behind WordPress.com, Akismet, VaultPress, Jetpack, and more. His talk will inspire and show everyone how they can have a fruitful career working with their favorite blogging and content management system.
About Ian
Ian is Theme Wrangler in-chief at Automattic where they make amazing WordPress themes for your blog.
Joey Kudish | Plugin development 101
In his talk, Joey will show beginning developers and power users how easy it is to get started with WordPress plugin development. Many WordPress tutorials out there talk about copy this or that to your functions.php file in your theme. However, it’s just as easy to create your own functionality plugin; which makes for easier to maintain code in the future that isn’t theme dependant. Joey will begin with the basics of what a plugin is and how it’s structured. He’ll explain the hooks (actions and filters API) and talk about some of the most commonly used WordPress APIs in plugins. Finally, he’ll share some resources for developers and users to further learn from. A very basic understanding of what PHP is and how it works is recommended for attendees of this session.
About Joey
Joey is a Web Developer from Vancouver, BC. He works at Automattic, building various things on WordPress.com and open-source projects. He has authored/contributed to several WordPress.org plugins and contribute to WordPress core. He’s an avid coffee drinker, dog lover & enthusiastic traveler.
Matt Wiebe | Theming 101
Building a WordPress theme is like playing guitar: easy enough for anyone to do pick up and hit the right notes, but really hard to become a virtuoso. In this beginner session, I’ll teach you the fundamentals of WordPress themeing to set you on the path to theme perfection.
About Matt
Matt Wiebe is many things: a Winnipegger, a husband, appreciator of fine beverages, WordPress core contributor, avid reader, and overall ardent generalist. He works as a Design Engineer on WordPress.com’s Team Custom, whose mission is to make tools that let you customize your WordPress.com site perfectly to your needs.
Patrick Johanneson | The Wonders of WordPress Multisite
Patrick has become an expert on working with WordPress Multisite in his work at Brandon University. In this talk he’ll present some of the challenges and solutions he’s developed in the process.
About Patrick
Patrick started blogging with WordPress quite some time ago, but only got into the guts of the system in the last four years. He works at Brandon University, and is moving BU’s various sites from IIS/ASP to WordPress. In his spare time, he writes science fiction and fantasy stories, teaches and referees judo, and volunteers at a local indie cinema. He lives in Brandon with his wife Kathleen.
Peter Chester | Quickly and Easily Measure WordPress Performance
Have you ever wondered what WordPress is thinking about as it slowly takes it’s time, compiling your page, chatting with the database, casually sauntering between functions and finally flirting with the browser in anticipation of a long overdue response?
Well wonder no more my friend! Come learn how to quickly and easily identify which of the hamsters is falling off his wheel. We’re going to apply some very simple principles to find performance leaks in a WordPress install and patch them up with some good ol’ duct tape, chewing gum, and object cache.
You will leave this session with knowledge and tools to improve WordPress plugin and theme performance (and by proxy, increase your SEO and probably your hourly rate as well).
About Peter
As a partner at Modern Tribe Inc., Peter leads most of the technical projects, often with budgets in excess of $250k, working exclusively with freelancers. He’s released over a dozen WP plugins including the infamous image widget. He has also spoken at WordCamp LA and SXSW.
Peter is a WordPress junkie, project manager, coder, father, musician, artist, blogger, surfer and chronic list maker with an obsession over Google spreadsheet formulas (though not necessarily in that order).
Reid Peifer | Where the Heck is Everyone? Working with Distributed Teams
Offices are for suckers. Just because you’re not working in a cubical farm doesn’t mean that you’re working alone. Learn some tricks for finding talented people, coordinating teams across distance and time, motivating people you’ve never met, managing accountability, when to meet up, and how to tell if the person you’re Skyping with is actually checking their Facebook. Learn how to build your business on WordPress in the same way that WordPress is built – decoupled, distributed, and across the globe.
About Reid
Reid is a partner with Modern Tribe, a ridiculously awesome fully distributed digital agency specializing in industrial strength WordPress projects. He’s designed, coded, and managed brochure sites, giant blogs, massive MU networks, iPad magazines, and a thriving premium plugin all on top of WordPress. In his free time he’s a giant coffee snob, likes to run, and tries (and fails) to project manage his 16 month old toddler.
Sheri Bigelow | WordPress Publishing Facts You Never Knew You Always Wanted
Do you know how many features are built right in to WordPress to help you publish online? There’s a lot of amazingness packed into WordPress, and we’ll go over some of the coolest little known facts about creating new content this software’s got to give
About Sheri
Sheri combines a love of photography, a degree in Business & Chemistry, a geeky penchant for optimizing nginx, and adoration for WordPress to help the world create beautiful websites they love at WordPress.com. She’s passionate about working with the extraordinary collection of talent that is Automattic and can usually be found speaking at WordCamps, skiing the Rockies, kayaking the Adirondacks, or exploring Saratoga Springs, NY.
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