BWPM Apr 2011 – Dev/Design: Unpack WordPress Today

Posted on April 29, 2011 by Kurt Eng

npack WordPress Today! (WordPress Out of the Box)

We have to think outside of the box if we are going to be able to harness the full power of WordPress. We can build directory sites, job boards, inspirational sites, social networks and more with WordPress.  The key here is leveraging plugins, inherit WordPress functionality and features so we aren’t creating more work for ourselves and getting our sites live before our competitors do.

Presented by Jesse Friedman

Jesse has a unique adoration for the web, the industry and our community. He is the Director of Web Development at Neal Advertising & Karboodle, Professor at Johnson & Wales University and Samurai at SWORD Studios.

http://jesserfriedman.com/
http://about.me/jesse-friedman

Slides”

BWPM April 2011 Intro Slides

Video”

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BWPM Mar2011 – WordPress Theme Framework Bake-off

Posted on March 31, 2011 by Kurt Eng

Monday, March 28th, 2010 from 7:00pm – 9:00pm

Suggested & facilitated by member Alan Bergstein, this month we will collectively evaluate three popular WordPress theme frameworks, Thesis, Headway, and a third (to be decided). This will take place live during the March meetup, from 7:30pm – 9pm. We will select three people to drive each of the three themes in attempt to complete a specific goal (e.g., create a simple, three-page site with certain images, sidebars, posts, and functionality). We will not proclaim a “winner” but instead use this experiment to understand how these themes work in an apples-to-apples comparison, and determine how flexible and intuitive they are, or are not.

7-7:30pm – Networking, Pizza
7:30-7:40pm – Opening remarks, updates, any other business
7:45-8:50pm – Live framework Bake-off begins!
8:50-9pm – Wrap-up
ATTENDEES: During the RSVP process, you will be asked for: (1) your vote on the third theme to test-drive, and (2) if you would like to be included in the selection pool of three people to drive the themes during the live session.

Slides:

BWPM Mar2011 – WordPress Theme Framework Bake-off

Video:

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BWPM Feb 2011: WordPress Actions & Filters (Dev)

Posted on March 7, 2011 by Kurt Eng

There are a couple of announcements before we get to the video/recap:

  • For those who would like to attend the WordPress Beginner’s Class on Friday March 25th, early registration at the discounted price ($215) will only be available until Friday March 12th. It will increase to $265 thereafter. Registration details can be found here: http://bostonchi.org/eng-coletti.html
  • WordCamp Boston dates: July 23rd and 24th (with the 22nd as a possibility).  Follow WordCamp Boston:  website, Twitter, email
  • Be sure to thank your volunteer genius if you received help that night!
  • And a big thanks to Ndlela who films these videos!

Genius Bar (Toolbox):

We will have a Genius Bar set up for help with WordPress-related issues. James Coletti & Kurt Eng will run this session, as well as anyone else who would like to volunteer their time providing user support.

Volunteers:
Ken Gagne (@kgagne)
Erick Hitter (@ethitter)

WordPress Actions & Filters (Dev/Design):

“Filters Are For More Than Making Coffee” (click the title for slides)

Presented by Gregory Cornelius (@gcorne)

Every plugin author knows the basics of actions and filters, but do you know the “nitty-gritty”? This month’s meetup will dig into the various ways actions and filters can take your themes and plugins to the next level. Along the way, get a taste of the CMS that drives over 400 Boston University websites and various tips from one of the project’s lead developers. Intermediate WordPress or PHP experience recommended.

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BWPM Jan 2011: Theming

Posted on February 21, 2011 by Kurt Eng

Meetup: http://meetup.bostonwp.org/events/15927914/

Happy New Year everyone! With the new year, we bring new topics and new excitement to you, the Boston WordPress community. This month, we welcome the return of the 2-session meetup.

ToolBox Session: Website Critiques (Kurt Eng)
We will have 1 hour to critique as many of your sites as we can (5 minutes per site). Send us your site that you would like to have critiqued and everyone will have a say about your site, appearance, flow and content. But remember, take everything with a grain of salt. We are here to help you and give you tips and advice to improve your site. You will be asked to give us your site when you RSVP and we will choose about 20 sites.

Dev/Design Session: Theming – From Design to WordPress (James Coletti)
So you have a hand-drawn concept for your next website, or a fancy Photoshop mockup from a client, and you need to turn it into a working WordPress theme. Now what? It’s been requested many times, and now we finally bring you a walkthrough of the basic art of theming WordPress. We’ll take a basic, static design and code a working WordPress theme, incorporating a header, footer, blog posts, static pages, widgets, and WordPress 3.0 features like dynamic menus.

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BWPM Nov 2010: Widgets

Posted on December 15, 2010 by Kurt Eng

Thank you all for another wonderful Meetup.  A couple of notes:

A great thanks to our sponsor HostGator.  Use “BostonWPMeetup” for $9.94 off your order and help support Boston WordPress.

Another thanks for Jeremy Clarke who came from Montreal to give us this great talk!

And now… the video:

Sorry for the last minute RSVPs, but we’ve squared away our issues with venues and we will still be having a meetup on November 29th. We have some very exciting announcements before our 1 and only speaker: Jeremy Clarke · Simian Uprising:

Widgetize everything: building smarter themes with widgets and sidebars.

Description: We all know the value of using widgets to customize “the sidebar” of WordPress themes, but the underlying system is rarely used to its full potential. By creating many specialized and contextual sidebars any part of a theme can quickly be made customizable and extensible. This talk will cover all aspects of widgetizing themes, including how to register sidebars, problems to watch out for and tons of ideas for how to make the most of them. Theming and PHP/HTML knowledge definitely a plus, but not necessarily required.

Bio: Jeremy Clarke is a PHP, HTML, CSS and WordPress hacker from Montreal. He loves his job working on the nonprofit citizen media site Global Voices, where he manages dozens of WordPress sites, blogs, plugins, themes and a couple of bitchy Linux servers. He has a communications degree from Concordia University, but is mostly a self-taught web developer.

Agenda:
7-7:30pm – Networking, Pizza
7:30-7:45pm – Opening remarks, updates, any other business
7:50-8:50pm – Session (Sampson/Paul)
8:50-9pm – Wrap-up

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Live Blog: Tampa Bay WordPress Meetup

Posted on December 8, 2010 by Kurt Eng

For more info, please visit their meetup page here: http://www.meetup.com/TampaBay-WordPress-User-Group/calendar/15223040/

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Black Friday web host discount!

Posted on November 26, 2010 by James Coletti

Need WordPress hosting? HostGator, an official sponsor of Boston WordPress, is giving away a special deal through their affiliates, today only! Click below to sign up and take advantage of this exclusive Black Friday offer!

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October 2010 Meetup: Chris Brogan and Content

Posted on November 11, 2010 by Kurt Eng

We would love to thank everyone who attended this past month’s meetup as it was our biggest event yet! We’ve received positive reviews and we hope to bring you high quality talks and topics. We can’t do this without you so please be proactive in your comments, topic ideas and don’t forget to track us down and say hi!

Without further ado, we have the video from this past month’s meetup. A big thanks to Uptown New Media for recording the video.

And! Remember, if you need any help with WordPress or any advice, please email us at help@bostonwp.org

This month, we are thrilled and excited to have Chris Brogan give a talk on WordPress and the power of content! There will only be 1 speaker this month and we hope you can join us for this great event!

A bit about Chris:
Chris Brogan consults and speaks professionally with Fortune 100 and 500 companies like PepsiCo, General Motors, Microsoft, and more, on the future of business communications, and social software technologies. He is a New York Times bestselling co-author of Trust Agents, and a featured monthly columnist at Entrepreneur Magazine. Chris’s blog, [chrisbrogan.com], is in the Top 5 of the Advertising Age Power150. He has over 11 years experience in online community, social media, and related technologies.

Chris is President of New Marketing Labs, a new media marketing agency serving primarily Fortune 100 and 500 clients, and president of Human Business Works, an online education and community company for small businesses and solo entrepreneurs.

Chris is also the cofounder of the PodCamp new media conference series, exploring the use of new media community tools to extend and build value.

He has 16 years of enterprise telecommunications and wireless experience prior to all this.

Agenda:
7-7:30pm – Networking, Pizza
7:30-7:45pm – Opening remarks, updates, any other business
7:50-8:50pm – Session (rooms TBD)
8:50-9pm – Wrap-up

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No (formal) September 2010 Meetup

Posted on September 15, 2010 by James Coletti

We will not be formally meeting this month (9/27) at the NERD Center, partly due to the lack of speakers and because the Boston PHP Meetup group already has an event scheduled the same evening at NERD. We would recommend you attend & support their HTML 5 Redux event, but unfortunately it’s completely full.

In lieu of presentations, join us for drinks at the Asgard Irish Pub & Restaurant at 7pm on Mass Ave, about 1 mile from Microsoft. These social events are a great chance to pick people’s brains, learn about what others are working on, and grow your social network.

See you there!

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Meetup August 2010: Videos and SiteMapping

Posted on September 13, 2010 by Kurt Eng

The first Boston WordPress Workshop was a huge success.  We’d love to thank Page.ly for sponsoring lunch and hope that we’ll see them at future workshops!

Here are our opening remarks. Remember, if you want to post jobs or have questions for the Boston WordPress community, please visit the appropriate sections! We are also looking for speakers. If there is a topic you would like to talk about, please let either James or myself know! This is a rather lengthy post, so you’ll need to hit the bump for the 3 videos and slides!

And as always, a great big thanks to Microsoft NERD for the venue/support (and of course pizza) and Uptown New Media Inc.

Continue reading →

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