Category: Presentations

WordCamp Las Peñitas: A 1000-Hour Head Start with Underscores

I presented at WordCamp Las Peñitas in May 2014 on the _s WordPress starter theme; how it gives theme designers and developers a thousand-hour head start.

Slides (in Spanish) are available here: Ahorra 1000 horas con Underscores. For information on _s in English, check out these Underscores articles on ThemeShaper.

It was a fun and impactful event! I’m happy to see the WordPress community in Latin America growing and strong, and it was great to connect with the Nicaraguan open source community. Maybe next year we’ll see a WordCamp, somewhere like Guatemala?

Jepser Bernardino with a cool t-shirt.
On the bus to León.
On the beach.
Leo with his cool t-shirt.
Damián presenting on the WordPress.com REST API.
How Shredder become “El Tiburón.”
A beautiful beach location, Suyapa Beach Hotel in Las Peñitas.
Karen showing the fried fish!
WordCampers!
Mike “El Tiburón” Schroder (aka Shredder) presenting on WP-CLI.
Presenting on Underscores starter theme.
Karen presenting on awesome WordPress support tips and tricks.
A big, fried fish.

To see more photos from the event, here’s the #WordCampNI hashtag on Twitter and the official WordCampNI stream.

I’m Speaking at WordCamp Phoenix 2013

speaking-banner I’m attending and speaking WordCamp Phoenix 2013, and for my second year in a row presenting on themes in the Jumpstart track as part of the Saturday schedule. The conference is Friday Jan 18 through Sunday January 20.

If you’ll be at WordCamp Phoenix please say hello — let’s talk some WordPress, Arizona.

Update: Video is now up on WordPress.tv: http://wordpress.tv/2013/01/31/lance-willett-finding-the-perfect-theme/.

Speaking at the June 2012 Portland WP User Group

This coming Tuesday (June 26, 2012 at 6:30 PM) I’m giving a talk on WordPress themes, as part of this month’s Portland WP User Group.

My talk is titled Theme Busters R Us—theme breaking is one of my passions, so it’s a logical choice.

Breaking themes for fun?! Crazy talk. Busting your WordPress theme – on purpose – can be both fun and useful. The process is a crucial part of building sites with WordPress, whether it’s for a client project, a personal blog, or releasing an awesome new theme to the world.

Testing is often considered a dirty word; we either have no time to do it, or we think it’s boring and tedious. Breaking stuff should be fun and something we are excited to dig into. Even better if the breaking means pushing your theme to extremes to simulate real usage, with a goal of making it the best it can be: the best quality possible, and the best experience for people using it.

See details, location, and RSVP at Portland WP User Group. If you’re in the Portland area, hope to see you there.

Thanks to Daniel for the invite.

WordCamp San Diego 2012

It’s time again for WordCamp San Diego 2012. Sat Mar 24 and Sun Mar 25 will be two days filled with WordPress geeky goodness, a full conference on Saturday and a developer hack day on Sunday.

I’m speaking in the Developer track on Saturday at 2:10 pm—my topic is Theme Busters R Us:

Breaking themes for fun?! Crazy talk. Busting your WordPress theme–on purpose–can be both fun and useful. The process is a crucial part of building sites with WordPress, whether it’s for a client project, a personal blog, or releasing an awesome new theme to the world.

See the rest of the talks on the full Saturday schedule; there are two tracks to choose from (End User, Developer) with great speakers and topics.

If you’re not at the event you can still join in, the talks will be live-streamed. Check the WordCamp San Diego 2012 website for details.

WordCamp Phoenix 2012

It’s that time of year—your favorite WordPress conference is back in the desert!

That’s right folks, WordCamp Phoenix is coming up this weekend, Fri Feb 24 through Sun Feb 26. Three days of WordPress geeky goodness, including full-day workshops on Friday, the conference on Saturday, and an “unconference” on Sunday.

I’m speaking in the “Jumpstart” track on Saturday at 10:30 am—my topic is Navigating the Theme Landscape:

Learn what types of themes are out there, how to find and choose a theme, and dive into basic modifications to your theme so it fits you perfectly.

See the rest of the talks on the full Saturday schedule; there are three tracks to choose from, and lots of great content.

I’ll also be working the help bar Saturday, from 2:15 pm onward. Come say hi!

Let’s talk WordPress, Arizona. More info: http://2012.phoenix.wordcamp.org/

Update Feb 26: Slides and links to all the themes and resources I mentioned are here: http://themeshaper.com/jumpstart/

Update Mar 8: The video of my talk is now online at wordpress.tv: http://wordpress.tv/2012/03/08/lance-willett-navigating-the-theme-landscape/

Ian Stewart: Awesome Up Your WordPress Theme with Post Formats

http://themeshaper.com/2011/09/07/awesome-up-your-wordpress-theme-with-post-formats/

Presenting at WordCamp San Francisco 2011

I’m presenting at WordCamp San Francisco 2011.

WordPress 3.2, Gershwin

Last night I shared about the latest and greatest WordPress release at the July 2011 Tucson WordPress meetup.

The focus for the 3.2 release was making WordPress faster and lighter. Highlights include a new distraction-free writing mode, a completely refreshed admin UI, faster updates (only updating files that changed), support dropped for IE6, PHP 4, and MySQL 4, and the new default theme, Twenty Eleven.

Go update now! (3.2.1 is out now, by the way, with some minor fixes.)

Here are the links I mentioned in my talk.

The next Tucson WordPress meetup is scheduled for September 7th, 2011. Mark your calendars, and see you there.

Thanks to Andy Nacin for allowing me to use his slides from WordCamp Columbus as a starting point for my talk.

Break Your Theme, WordCamp Columbus

I gave a talk called Break Your Theme in June 2011, in Columbus (Ohio, USA) for WordCamp Columbus 2011. I had a blast! The room was packed and I had great questions after my talk and in the hallways later.

Packed house! (Photo by Ryan Imel, WPCandy.)

Here are the slides and notes from the talk.

By the way, Ryan Imel of WPCandy did an awesome job of live-blogging WordCamp Columbus 2011.

May 2010 Events

I’ll be presenting at two Tucson Digital Arts Community events in May 2010.

I’m particularly excited about the “Introduction to HTML5” talk since it’s my first time co-presenting with long-time friend and former coworker Aaron Wagner. I will cover new features in HTML5 and CSS3 while Aaron will talk about the new JavaScript APIs and browser extensions. Plus, he’ll give us a demo of an HTML5 application called “Times Up” that he built for his church. Can’t wait!