January 2012 Meeting Cancelled

by Declan O'Neill on January 25, 2012 in meetups with 4 Comments

Due to circumstances beyond our control, we’ve had to cancel tonight’s (January 2012) meeting. We had some room scheduling issues with the Workantile (not their fault, they are amazing!) Unfortunately, the space is not available to our group this month. But we will be back on Feb 29, 2012 with a session on blogging. Sorry about the inconvenience, and really sorry about the short cancellation notice.

Cheers, Declan and Ross.

P.S if you know someone who was planning on going tonight, do us a favor and let them know we’ve cancelled tonight’s meeting.

January 2012 WordPress Ann Arbor Meetup

by admin on January 12, 2012 in meetups with No comments

While WordPress continues to evolve as a web platform it’s roots have always been in blogging. Come by this January for our expert blogging panel. We will have 2 – 3 long term bloggers discuss what they have learned over the years and mistakes they have made. The panel will be taking questions throughout the evening, or feel free to suggest questions on the event page.

Event is at the Workantile Exchange at 118 South Main Street, Ann Arbor, MI 48104 on 1/25/2012 – 7:00pm – 9:00pm. Cost: Free!

Panelists:

  • Ross Johnson of 3.7 DESIGNS – Blogging for business, fun and opportunities.
  • JT Pedersen – Lessons learned from years of blogging.

If you have a question you want answered, post it to the event wall and we will consider including it for the structured portion of the event. Invite your friends.

WordPress 3.3.1 Security and Maintenance Release

by Declan O'Neill on January 5, 2012 in WordPress with No comments

WordPress 3.3.1 is now available. This maintenance release fixes 15 issues with WordPress 3.3, as well as a fix for a cross-site scripting vulnerability that affected version 3.3.

WordPress 3.3 “Sonny”

by Declan O'Neill on December 13, 2011 in WordPress News and Updates with No comments

The latest and greatest version of the WordPress software — 3.3, named “Sonny” in honor of the great jazz saxophonist Sonny Stitt — is immediately available for download or update inside your WordPress dashboard.

For more details on version 3.3 see http://wordpress.org/news/2011/12/sonny/

Related Links:

Backup Buddy

VaultPress

WP- DB- Backup

 

Twenty Eleven Child Theme

by Declan O'Neill on December 1, 2011 in WordPress with 7 Comments

As promised, here is the Twenty Eleven Child Theme (zip 25kb)

Child Theme screenshot

 

Have Questions? Of Course You Do.

What is a Child Theme: A WordPress child theme is a theme that inherits the functionality of another theme, called the parent theme, and allows you to modify, or add to, the functionality of that parent theme.

Why do I need a child Theme? When there is an update to the core features in the parent theme, you can update the theme without affecting the customizations that you’ve made in the Child Theme.

How do I activate the Child Theme? WordPress Child Themes are located in /wp-content/themes/ just like any other WordPress Theme. And they’re also activated from the WordPress admin like any other theme.

Dashboard - Appearance - Themes - Upload - Add new Theme

Installing a new theme

I don’t use twenty eleven, can I still use your style theme? Yes, just open the “style.css” and update the following lines to suit your own installation.

Theme Name: Twenty Eleven Child Theme
Theme URI: http://theme.wordpress.com/themes/twentyeleven/
Description: Child theme for customizing Twenty Eleven.
Version: 1.0
Author: WordPress Ann Arbor
Author URI: http://wordpressannarbor.com/
Template: twentyeleven
@import url("../twentyeleven/style.css");

A quick explanation of each line:

  • Theme Name: (required) Child theme name.
  • Theme URI: (optional) Child theme webpage.
  • Description:(optional) What this theme is. E.g.: My first child theme. Hurrah!
  • Version: (optional) Child theme version. E.g.: 0.1, 1.0, etc.
  • Author: (optional) Author name.
  • Author URI: (optional) Author webpage.
  • Template: (required) directory name of parent theme, case-sensitive.
  • @ import url(“../twentyeleven/style.css”); Change twentyeleven to the directory name of parent theme, case-sensitive
Goog Luck, if you have any questions – please leave a comment below.

November 2011 WordPress Ann Arbor Meetup

by Declan O'Neill on November 21, 2011 in Events with No comments
November 30, 2011
7:00 pmto9:00 pm

This month we will have a panel of WordPress experts discussing WordPress, design, usability and e-mail marketing. Initial half of the discussion will include pre-selected questions the rest will be driven by you.

Take this opportunity to get advice specific to what you are struggling with and improve your website (and WordPress knowledge) for free!

Event is at the Workantile Exchange at 118 South Main Street, Ann Arbor, MI 48104.

Panelists:

  • Declan O’Neill of Cake.ie – WordPress essentials, MailChimp and e-mail marketing.
  • Lyndsay Dusek of MeadowFete Media – Design and usability expert.
  • Ross Johnson of 3.7 DESIGNS – Design and SEO expert.

If you have a question you want answered, post it to the event wall and we will consider including it for the structured portion of the event. Invite your friends.

WordCamp Detroit, November 12th & 13th, 2011

by Declan O'Neill on October 27, 2011 in Events with No comments
WordCamp Detroit
November 12, 2011
November 13, 2011

WordCamp Detroit 2011 will be held at Detroit’s own Renaissance Center. The event will be on Saturday, November 12th and Sunday, November 13th, 2011.

http://2011.detroit.wordcamp.org/schedule/

http://2011.detroit.wordcamp.org/speakers/

WordCamp Detroit is an event in which we can bring together the community to share and experience the power of WordPress.  Organizing this event is just a small way for us to give back the community as a way to say thank you.  WordPress has effected all of us in many ways and by leading this event we can connect local WordPress users and developers as well as introduce new people to the amazingness we all know as WordPress.

Oct 2011 WordPress A2 Meetup

by Declan O'Neill on September 29, 2011 in Events, meetups with 1 Comment
meetup-header
October 26, 2011
7:00 pmto9:00 pm

WordPress A2 Meetup Format:

We have two presenters covering basic, intermediate and advanced WordPress topics. The session will last approx. 90 minutes, with 15 minutes of questions and answers. Networking before and after along with general Q&A and help requests.

Date: Oct 26, 2011
Time: 7pm – 9pm
Location: Workantile Exchange, 118 S Main Ann Arbor MI 48104

Oct 2011 Speakers:

  • Introduction to WordCamp Detroit – Anthony Montalbano
  • Getting you Ready for WordCamp Detroit - Anthony Montalbano, Ross Johnson, John Pratt, Declan O’Neill

Agenda and Timeline

  • Workantile Member welcomes you our group the Workantile Exchange
  • Introductions 7:00pm – 7:10pm
  • House Keeping: 7:10pm – 7:15pm
  • Speaker 1: 7:15pm – 7:45pm
  • Speaker 2: 8:00pm – 8:45pm
  • Open Discussion: 8:45 pm – 9:00pm
  • Beers – 9:00pm

Sign up for Newsletter Alerts: http://eepurl.com/brqaj

Really Useful WordPress Plugins – Sept 2011 Session.

by Declan O'Neill on September 29, 2011 in Previous Meetings with No comments
useful-plugins

The following is a list Free and Paid WordPress plugins that Declan recommended for use on your WordPress website. They are part of a session he gave at WordPress Ann Arbor. If you have any other suggestions you think should be added to the list, please feel free to leave your recommendations in the comments below.

Gravity Forms

gravity-forms

Contact Forms for WordPress Just Don’t Get Any Easier than Gravity Forms. Quickly build and design your WordPress forms using the form editor. Select your fields, configure your options, and easily embed forms on your WordPress powered site using the built in tools. Gravity Forms requires a minimum of WordPress version 3.0, MySQL 5 and PHP 5 in order to function properly. Please note that Gravity Forms is not compatible with the WordPress.com hosted service. Gravity Forms costs $39.99 for a personal license.

http://www.gravityforms.com/

WP-Table Reloaded

WP-Table Reloaded
WP-Table Reloaded enables you to create and manage tables in your WP’s admin area. No HTML knowledge is needed. A comfortable backend allows to easily edit table data. Tables can contain any type of data and additional JavaScript libraries can be used to extend it with features like sorting, pagination, filtering, and more. You can include the tables into your posts, on your pages or in text widgets by using a shortcode or a template tag function. Tables can be imported and exported from/to CSV, XML and HTML.

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-table-reloaded/

WP-DB-Backup

wp backup
WP-DB-Backup allows you easily to backup your core WordPress database tables. You may also backup other tables in the same database.

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-db-backup/

Redirection

redirection

Redirection is a WordPress plugin to manage 301 redirections, keep track of 404 errors, and generally tidy up any loose ends your site may have. This is particularly useful if you are migrating pages from an old website, or are changing the directory of your WordPress installation.

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/redirection/

Broken Link Checker

Broken Link Checker

This plugin will check your posts, comments and other content for broken links and missing images, and notify you if any are found.

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/broken-link-checker/

Search and Replace

search and replace

A simple search for find strings in your database and replace the string. You can search in ID, post-content, GUID, titel, excerpt, meta-data, comments, comment-author, comment-e-mail, comment-url, tags/categories and categories-description. It is possible to replace the user-ID in all tables and the user-login for more security in the WordPress-Application

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/search-and-replace/

Widget Logic

widget logic

This plugin gives every widget an extra control field called “Widget logic” that lets you control the pages that the widget will appear on.

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/widget-logic/

Cart 66

cart66

The Cart66 WordPress ecommerce plugin makes it easier to make money online than ever before. Not only can you sell physical products, digital products, and services, Cart66 will also turn your WordPress site into a membership website allowing you to sell subscription access to your content.

http://cart66.com/
Free Version: http://cart66.com/lite/

Theme My Login

theme my login

This plugin themes the WordPress login, registration and forgot password pages according to your current theme. It replaces the wp-login.php file by using a page template from your theme. Also includes a widget for sidebar login.
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/theme-my-login/

WordPress SEO Plugin

WordPress SEO Plugin
WordPress SEO is the most complete WordPress SEO plugin that exists today for WordPress.org users. It incorporates everything from a snippet preview and page analysis functionality that helps you optimize your pages content, images titles, meta descriptions and more to XML sitemaps, and loads of optimization options in between.

http://yoast.com/wordpress/seo/

Woopra Analytics for WordPress

Woopra
This plugin adds Woopra’s real-time analytics to any WordPress installation

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/woopra/

Akismet

akismet

Akismet filters out your comment and track-back spam for you, so you can focus on more important things.

http://akismet.com/

Sept 2011 WordPress A2 Meetup

by Declan O'Neill on September 14, 2011 in Events, meetups with No comments
September 28, 2011
7:00 pmto9:00 pm

WordPress A2 Meetup Format:

We have two presenters covering basic, intermediate and advanced WordPress topics. The session will last approx. 90 minutes, with 15 minutes of questions and answers. Networking before and after along with general Q&A and help requests.

Date: Sept 28, 2011
Time: 7pm – 9pm
Location: Workantile Exchange, 118 S Main Ann Arbor MI 48104

Sept 2011 Speakers:

  • Declan O’Neill – Topic: Really UseFul WordPress Plugins.
  • AJ Morris – Get a sneak peak at the next generation of Headway Themes Drag & Drop WordPress Theme and how it’s going to change the WordPress theme arena. We’ll explore the new grid system, loosely based off of 960.gs, see the Visual Editor in action, and see Headway Themes’ take on a truly drag and drop WordPress theme.

Declan is the Founder of Cake.ie, a small Web Design company specializing in WordPress and MailChimp.

AJ is the Founder of SurfCubes, a small consulting firm specializing in WordPress.

Agenda and Timeline

  • Workantile Member welcomes you our group the Workantile Exchange
  • Introductions 7:00pm – 7:10pm
  • House Keeping: 7:10pm – 7:15pm
  • Speaker 1: 7:15pm – 7:45pm
  • Speaker 2: 8:00pm – 8:45pm
  • Open Discussion: 8:45 pm – 9:00pm
  • Beers – 9:00pm
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