All posts by Tim S

WCHRVA After Party

After Party, , ,

We’ve got a fun night ahead of us at Eagles Nest Rockin’ Country Bar after WordCamp Hampton Roads. Don’t think this is just a “country bar” though. Mark and his team know how to throw a good party! Expect drinks to be flowin’, finger foods, and of course the electronic bull. That’s right, from 7pm – 9pm the electronic bull is ours! (Don’t worry they promise to take it easy on us and it’s surrounded by an inflatable “bounce house” to pad your fall)

There’s live music courtesy of the Cody Austin Band starting at 9pm if good live country music is your thing. If it’s not don’t worry there’s always DJ’s and live music on the patio too.

Grab some dinner prior to the afterparty at some local restaurants nearby. You might want to check out Shogun Hibachi & Steakhouse. If you need suggestions feel free to hit up our organizer Tim S who just so happens to be our resident foodie.

Speaker Interview: Shayna Diamond

Speaker Interviews,

Tim: What’s your WordPress “origin” story?

When I first learned about WordPress I said, “I can build a CMS, why would I use an existing one?” After a few months of working for an agency where WordPress was the standard, I fully understood that benefit of this remarkable open source platform. I now embraced WordPress with the zeal of a convert, as an active member of my local WordPress Meet-Up and by attending WordCamps wherever possible. As a freelancer, I specialize in custom theme development. I have recently joined the theme review team and am preparing to submit my first theme to the WordPress Repository.

Tim: Whats your top 3 WordPress plugins? Why?

  1. iThemes Security, because every site needs to be locked down
  2. WordPress SEO by YOAST, because it is SEO made simple
  3. Advanced Custom Fields, because of all the doors it opens!

Tim: Whats your most proud achievement around WordPress?


I built the site for Verulam Farm (verulamfarm.com) as a completely custom theme (a predecessor for the boilerplate I now use regularly). At the client’s insistence, it was developed to look exactly like the existing static & non-responsive site they had in place. Since then I have used ACF and custom post types to radically increase functionality, giving them a custom cataloging system fro their horses.

Tim: What do you want our readers to know about you?


I am really excited to be here. ‘Here’ at word camp, and ‘here’ as a developer in this stage and place in my life. I take great pride in the work I do, and I enjoy *almost* every minute of it.

When I’m not at the computer, I am at my jeweler’s bench creating other beautiful functional things, or outside digging in the dirt for rocks and mineral specimens.

Tim: Define yourself with one word.

interested

Shayna is speaking on Adding Functionality with Custom Post Types and Custom Fields at 2 pm.

jeff-matson-speaker-profile-image

Speaker Interview: Jeff Matson

Speaker Interviews, ,

Tim: What’s your WordPress “orgin” story?

I began using WordPress several years ago as an affiliate. Because of the ease of publishing new content, it allowed me to deploy site quite rapidly. Until a few years ago when I published WordPress Through The Ages, I was a mere casual user of WordPress. Fortunately, that article broke me into the community quite rapidly. I then founded a late night private hangout group called WP After Hours where I further developed various relationships, and soon began speaking at various WordCamps.

Fast forward to today. I am now working at Rocketgenius, helping change the world with Gravity Forms and rapidly developing my WordPress knowledge.

Tim: Whats your top 3 WordPress plugins? Why?

  1. Gravity Forms – Besides paying the bills for me, it is built on a “”functionality first”” approach. It is built in a way that it makes the lives of developers much easier, and also is quite simple for a beginner to use. Everything from a simple contact form to the purchasing of an advanced product with various custom options can be completed with Gravity Forms.
  2. Heartbeat Control – I’m a little fond of this one, mainly because I built it. It was initially created to serve a specific purpose in manipulation the WordPress heartbeat on a few edge cases, but is now used on over 10,000 active sites for both increased performance, as well as better code debugging.
  3. SearchWP – Incredibly useful for better control of search functionality, especially with a large amount of content. Let’s face it, WordPress’ default search functionality sucks. SearchWP solves that problem with better algorithms and fine tuning.
  4. Yeah, I know. You said 3. But, I have a new plugin coming soon that just might blow your mind. Ask me about it at the WordCamp and I’ll show you a demo. 😉

Tim: Whats your most proud achievement around WordPress?

“Building a successful plugin. Heartbeat Control took off rather quickly and while I haven’t devoted as much time to it as I would like, has become quite a staple in many sites. Rapidly approaching 20k active installs, I feel great knowing that many people find my plugin useful.

Tim: What do you want our readers to know about you?

I’m that guy who will never approach you, but loves having conversations. Find me, chat with me, and teach me something.

Tim: Define yourself with one word.

onewordistooshorttodescribeme

Jeff is dropping his knowledge on finding the right webhost at 2pm. If you need to find a host, or want to know what to look for in one, you surely don’t want to miss him speaking.

Speaker Interview: Michelle Martello

Speaker Interviews,

Tim: What’s your WordPress “orgin” story?

When I first started my business 9 years ago, I was creating a lot of yoga studio websites – and they all had information that would change daily. I knew there had to be a better way than me updating the html sites by hand – so I started looking at different CMS options. I tried expression engine, textpattern, joomla and moveable type – but nothing made sense to my visual mind until I tried WordPress.

Tim: Whats your top 3 WordPress plugins? Why?

  1. gravity forms – I call it the swiss army knife of plugins – I’ve used it from everything like taking payments to allowing contributors to submit moderated posts and update user profiles – absolutely love it!
  2. modern tribe events calendar – finding a solid events calendar that isn’t bloated and doesn’t require 10 pages of edits used to difficult – this plugin is gorgeous right out of the box and fits seamlessly with almost any site.
  3. Tie between Types / Advanced Custom Fields Pro – these two plugins allow me to design (and execute) almost anything and customize robust experiences for my clients.

Tim: Whats your most proud achievement around WordPress?

Anytime I train a client or a student and I see the lightbulb go off of their head – they feel empowered that they can control and manage their own sites. I’m passionate about helping others succeed and thrive online.

Tim: What do you want our readers to know about you?

I love being active and travel – yoga, running, hiking and kettlebells get me away from my computer and into the real world.

Tim: Define yourself with one word.

inventive

We’re excited to hear Michelle give her talk on becoming a digital strategist at 9am. Be sure to catch her!

Speaker Interview: Topher DeRosia

Speaker Interviews, ,

Tim: What’s your WordPress “orgin” story?

I first tried WordPress when it was released and didn’t really like it. Fast forward to 2010 and I had to work on some WordPress sites. Right in the middle of that WordPress 3.0 came out with Custom Post Types and everything changed. It was finally a true CMS. I haven’t built a site with anything else since.

Tim: Whats your top 3 WordPress plugins? Why?

  1. WP Rocket: for caching because it’s the best caching plugin and it makes my site so much faster.
  2. Widget Logic: because of the flexibility it provides
  3. Posts 2 Posts: because it’s just awesome

Tim: Whats your most proud achievement around WordPress?

HeroPress

Tim: What do you want our readers to know about you?

I’d love to talk to you. Find me and say hi.

Tim: Define yourself with one word.

Gregarious

Tim: If you haven’t checked out Topher’s HeroPress website, you should. You’re missing out on the very reason that makes the WordPress community special. Also, check out Topher’s talk on Getting Loopy at 11am.

Speaker Interview: Ben Bond

Speaker Interviews,

Tim: What’s your WordPress “orgin” story?

I have been a php developer for over 10 years and have tried multiple CMS. I was a huge fan of Joomla for many year until I gave WordPress a serious chance. I have now been working with WordPress for about 6 years now and have worked on some really amazing project with the awesome tool. Fast forward to today and I now feel that WordPress is in a league of it’s own.

Tim: Whats your top 3 WordPress plugins? Why?

  1. Jetpack – Jetpack is a powerful plugin that does a lot. Using jetpack also keeps my plugin count down since it has so many features.
  2. JSON API – Unlocks the power of WordPress and makes it extendable.
  3. Advanced Custom Fields – A great plugin for multiple use cases and allows you to really customize WordPress with minimal coding changes. The king of custom meta box plugins

Tim: Whats your most proud achievement around WordPress?

My most proud achievement in WordPress would have to be my development of a mobile game engine within WordPress. I pride myself in using WordPress in unusual use cases and a mobile game engine is definitely one of those.

With that achievement under my belt I have now focused my work on mobile development powered by WordPress.

Tim: What do you want our readers to know about you?

The main thing I want readers to know about me is that I’m not to far removed from being a novice in WordPress. If you’re just getting started in WordPress don’t get discouraged by all of the technical topics being thrown around. There’s a place for every skill level in the WordPress community so stay the course and find your place.

Tim: Define yourself with one word.

Experimenter

Ben is giving his talk on using WordPress as a mobile game engine at 9am on Oct. 17th. You won’t want to miss it!