February 9, 2012 By 2 Comments

WP Austin meetup 7 Feb: Brainstorming direction for WP Austin

Meetup announcement:

The Hands-On WordPress meetups (the second meetup of the month) will move from second Tuesdays of the month to fourth Tuesdays of the month.

Tonight’s meetup:

  • Who is WordPress Austin?
  • Where are we going?
  • How can we improve things? What can we do that’s different? What do people want to see?

Who are we?

Website could be improved:

  • Allow registration on website
  • Give registered users profile pages
  • Weekly roundup of what members are writing on their blogs
  • Continue with postings of meetup summaries

Your ideas? Brainstorming…

These are some ideas that came out of our discussion, as people brought them up. It’s a rough list to be sure. Please add your own ideas or feedback on these in the comments for this post.

  • All of our ideas on the google group don’t get searched by google in a way that’s searchable outside of the group. Would be great to have the discussion archived under WP Austin. However, the google group option does allow nice functionality including search functions, email or web access. How best to handle this?
  • Videotape meetings and post on website; registered members can view. Also livestreaming. We have been livestreaming many of our meetings but some still need to be posted. We need to make sure the links to slideshows, videos etc get posted on the WP Austin site.
  • How do we generate meetup topics? Could we use the website to generate ideas/wishlists?
  • Discussion forum? Needs development time, moderation.
  • What are the goals of the organization? Maybe we need to consider this question…
  • We like the idea user/member created content. Build an audience for our topics/conversations on Facebook, Twitter etc.
  • Do we want original blog posts from members or do we link to other blogs?
  • We can build up the WP Austin group and our reputation.
  • We don’t publicize our site. Our online presences (google group, WP Austin, meetup, etc is spread apart and not connected). How do we fix these things and tie everything together? Need to bring content channels together.
  • Can we get away from Google Groups?
  • Code snippets, tips
  • Places to volunteer!!
  • Blog AND Forum
  • What is uniquely WordPress Austin? What can we offer that isn’t just reinventing the wheel?
  • Burning question list… what do we want someone to answer?
  • Resource database and Q&A
  • Voting on what topics do we want, opportunities to break away to do smaller topics; really important for the user to make decisions and steer the direction of the site, the meetups. We have a great and vital community!
  • Membership directory – put that into profiles, everyone can put their specialties in their profile; needs to be searchable
  • Don’t forget the beginners!! Beginners’ corner of website?
  • Open mic night… membership all contributes ideas on a topic, such as plugins, themes, etc. Five minute presentations on how to solve problems, etc.
  • If we bring in new content, we need to be able to index it in an effective and agreed-upon tagging system

Please use the WP Austin Google Group to discuss these ideas more! And if you weren’t at the meetup, feel free to chime in!

 

Austin WordCamp 2012 – May 19, 2012

It will take place on the AOMA campus on Westgate. Tickets will not exceed $20 and that includes a t-shirt and lunch.

We will have a general track and a bloggers’ track.

Everyone on the WP Austin meetup group will receive a message soon seeking volunteers. You will hear more details about location, signup, speakers/topics. Clark Wimberly will be doing the website which will launch in time for SxSW.

 

 

 

 

Filed Under: meetup
January 10, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Introducing WordPress 3.3.1

Welcome to the first WordPress meetup of the year!

 

Announcements

1. WordCamp

We will be having a WordCamp Austin in May. We will be contacting the group for volunteers in February and have a website up then; we will be selling tickets in March.

WordCamp will be held on May 19th, South Austin at AOMA

We will be able to have 230 attendees so a lot more people will be able to attend this year! Tickets will be in the $20 range and will include meals and a t-shirt. But to make that happen, we need sponsors! If you know of a business that might like to sponsor the group, we will be seeking that information in February as well.

2. Austin AIR: Accessible Internet Rally

We need teams who want to participate in the competition to build an accessible website for a non-profit organization. Part of the program includes training on how to make a website accessible. Even if you’re a freelancer or individual who doesn’t have a team already, you can recruit from other folks in WordPress Austin or contact AIR to help you find others. Many members of WordPress Austin, including Pat, Nick, Sandi and Jackie, have served on teams in the past so feel free to seek us out if you want to learn more about how it works and what you can get out of the experience.

For more information, visit AIR: Accessible Internet Rally

Austin Adobe User Group: InDesign Basics by Graphics Designer Veronica Primeaux at Friday January 13, 2012 (1:15 – 3:30)

Date: Friday January 13, 2012

Time: 1:15-3:30 p.m. Central Standard Time

Place: New Horizons Computer Learning Center (300 E Highland Mall Blvd. Suite 100) turn north onto Jonathan and park in the Visitor parking area

RSVP: To help our host New Horizons Computer Learning Center select a room that comfortably seats everyone, please RSVP to this free event

More info: http://austinadobeusergroup.com/

 

 

What’s new with WordPress 3.3.1

Quick highlights of what’s new and fun by Pat Ramsey. Presentation at http://wp3.slash25.com/

  • WordPress 3.3 has been downloaded over 4.5 million times already! That’s a LOT of websites!
  • 3.3 is the major release; 3.3.1 is a patch update.

1. Uploading media

  • Single upload button on the editor
  • file-type detection
  • drag and drop upload

2. Dashboard design

  • Flyout menus: keeps you from having to scroll a lot
  • Persistent toolbar (combines admin bar and header)
  • Responsive design: the admin area is more responsive for varying screen sizes
  • The toolbar has links to make new posts, pages, etc., link to visit site, and other goodies

3. New feature pointer: boxes that open up announcing new features with the option to get more info or dismiss

4. New Welcome/About WordPress splash screen that loads when you update your version

5. Better co-editing: releases post-locks immediately when one person finishes editing so another can access the page etc.

6. Widgets get saved if you switch between themes – y0u no longer have to reset them if you swap out themes

7. Tumblr import

  • Correctly handles post formats
  • WP-Cron based background importing: start it up, then come back to see how far it’s gotten
  • Duplicate checking, will not create duplicate imported posts
  • Imports posts, drafts, pages
  • Media sideloading (for audio, video and image posts)

8. %postname% permalinks

  • Using just  /%postname%/ used to cause a performance hit but no longer! We recommend leaving this alone for existing sites unless you redirect your links.

9. WP_Editor

10. Help and screen API changes

11. is_main_query()

  • Enables someone to hook into pre_get_posts and modify only the main query. Conditional function that will allow you to do one thing and ignore the others. Allows you are only modifying the part of the site you want. Simplifies life for developers.

12. More 3.3 dev goodness

 

Questions:
Does 3.3.1 work with all browsers? Yes, other than IE 6
Backups: VaultPress, Backup Buddy are good paid backup services. Many of the major hosting companies like HostMonster, HostGator, and BlueHost will either do backups for you or will allow you to do global backups yourself.

 

Filed Under: meetup, WordPress News
November 8, 2011 By 1 Comment

Informal WordPress Q&A Gathering

Announcement: Austin WordCamp -  tentatively to happen on a Saturday during the last two weeks in May. We are currently seeking a venue for 300 people that would allow us to split into two tracks, would be low-cost, have internet access and would allow us to cater our own food. If you have any good [...]

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Filed Under: Tips and Tools, WordPress Beginners Track
November 1, 2011 By 1 Comment

Moving your WordPress site from one server to another

We had a great meetup tonight! The livestream lost connection briefly towards the end of the presentation, but we restarted it and recorded both pieces. The topic was how to move a WordPress site from host to host. For example, you’re developing a new site on your laptop using MAMP, WAMP, XAMP, etc. The steps [...]

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Filed Under: meetup
October 11, 2011 By Leave a Comment

WordPress Show and Tell

Tonight we welcome a few of our regular WordPress Austin members who graciously agreed to show off their websites and tell us a little about them.   Debra Schmidt, Cousins Count A blog Debra started 4 1/2 years ago. It runs using the Thesis theme. Her audience is a few hundred people in her family; [...]

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Filed Under: meetup, Tips and Tools, WordPress Themes
October 4, 2011 By Leave a Comment

WordPress Meetup: Q&A

Thanks to Clark Wimberly for setting up tonight’s meetup. See his notes at clarklab.net. Look for the video online soon at Austin Tech Videos. Using a staging server to deploy changes Presented by Chris Lazan and Mark Kelnar of WP Engine They demonstrated their staging system which allows you to upload plugins and themes and [...]

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Filed Under: meetup, Tips and Tools
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