Now, although I have not magically added more time to the day, I also feel if I do not simply get started the ideals I have envisioned for this group will never see the light.

Ideally this Meetup group will also serve as a complimentary one to the growing number of WordPress related ones in the area. The Greater Toronto Area, or GTA, itself holds a large percentage of the population and spreads over a very wide geographic region⁽¹⁾.

Although there is no established agenda, or a first meeting scheduled yet (keep an eye on the calendar one will be announced soon), I look forward to being able to share my experiences and knowledge; especially that gained working with the WordPress Theme Review Team as well as the knowledge I have gained creating and releasing WordPress Themes and WordPress Plugins into the WordPress Extend repositories.

Also, look forward to the WPGTA Meetups to take place in the Mississauga and/or Oakville area. One, I live in the area; and two, to be quite honest, I’m not a fan of driving “into the city” … and hopefully this will allow others interested in attending a WordPress Meetup group easier access.

We will probably start out meeting in coffee shops or other WiFi hotspot locations⁽²⁾; moving into a community center, library meeting room, or other larger venue is well within possibilities as the group grows.

… and remember to bring your “tools of the trade”⁽³⁾

© 2012, Edward Caissie. All rights reserved.

• Install MultiSite for use with Theme Demos (Ron and Andrea Rennick)
• Look into PhoneGap to make HTML5 WebApps for the iPhone * Review Sencha Touch as well (Trevor Mills)
• Review all of my Themes to add a ‘description’ parameter to the register_sidebar and register_sidebars definitions * Update the codex, too, if it is not done yet (Jeremy Clarke)
• Monetize What You Do (Christopher Ross)
• Develop “site” plugin(s) (Rick Radko)
• Use inline documentation * PHPDoc (Chip Bennett)
• Review do_action and apply_filters in place of conditional function checks (Chip Bennett)

There were many more ideas and great pieces of advice, as well as some really sound tips and suggestions through the day (which I simply made myself comfortable in the Developer track for the duration).

The above were just the ones I specifically made note of (literally using the “Sticky Notes” program).  Don’t ask me why I didn’t use EverNote at the time, but all of the above are now listed in an EverNote list for future reference and recollections.

Some of these ideas I am already putting into action, such as the inline documentation in a PHPDoc style; some items I had already been looking at; and others are more as reminders to keep thinking about what can be done.

Just like my site tagline at WPFirstAid: It’s WordPress … anything is possible!

© 2011, Edward Caissie. All rights reserved.

WordCamp Toronto 2011 is now listed at WordCamp Central!

We have a date: November 5 & 6, 2011

We have a venue: George Brown College

We need sponsors! We need speakers! We need volunteers!

Most of all we want you to come out and enjoy a great WordCamp and learn more about WordPress and the Toronto WordPress community … and remember, even if you have never heard of WordPress before, you are more than welcome to come out and enjoy the time with us.

© 2011, Edward Caissie. All rights reserved.

The first presenter was Al Davis who gave a very well accepted talk on choosing a shared host service and solution for WordPress.org self-hosted blogs. The information was generally related to WordPress and also covered feature sets to keep in mind when browsing for a hosting provider. Al has also kindly posted the “slide deck” at his web site, just follow the link to his post.

Our next presenter was Trevor Mills. Trevor is a programmer and developer and shared with us one of his recent projects, an event scheduler/program generator/organizer plugin that is easily implemented into most any WordPress self-hosted blog installation. The working demo Trevor shared with us was located at http://apps.ocff.ca/conference

The balance of the meeting was in various and sundry discussions related to all things WordPress and we were fortunate to be able to make a quick announcement of the next WordCamp Toronto which has been scheduled for May 28 and 29, 2011.

Afterward, several members gathered a short walk down Bloor Street for a few social drinks; and, once again we celebrated a successful gathering of the WPToronto Meetup group.

© 2010, Edward Caissie. All rights reserved.

I am looking forward to this Meetup. We have two presentation scheduled on the agenda. The first will be a short presentation on custom fields by Alfred Ayache; and, the second will be by Martin Hurford on the template hierarchy.

There is also a remote possibility of a guest (via Montreal) invited with a comment on one of his recent blog posts here.

Remember to use the twitter hash tag #wpto when tweeting about the Meetup.

© 2010, Edward Caissie. All rights reserved.

I offered my time at WordCamp as a volunteer. I believe that choice was one of the best I have made. I was given the opportunity to meet and greet almost every single attendee from “behind the bar” giving out the complimentary tee shirts.

There were many volunteers at the event and each one really appeared to enjoy the time at their stations … don’t let these candid photos fool you, these three “behind the bar” with me were all having a great time:

Although I missed getting pictures of the other volunteers (Zamina, Paul, Sam, and Mike) they all did a great job and appeared to really enjoy themselves as well. I have a few pictures taken with my iPhone I will need to go through (and add at a later date?) but in the meantime I would like to add my thanks to the volunteers for their enthusiasm and strong work ethic. A job well done by all!

… and by all measures a very successful WordCamp!

© 2010, Edward Caissie. All rights reserved.

The location is the Swan & Firkin at 2205 Bloor Street West in the Bloor West Village.

I am expecting the same great group of people as well as a great discussion on topics of interest related to WordPress, blogging, et cetera.

See you there …

© 2010, Edward Caissie. All rights reserved.

I left home about an hour before the scheduled meeting was to start. Most people who know me also know I often get lost, sometimes by chance often by choice as I like to check out new places and areas. One of the best ways to learn a little about an area is to start by getting lost in it.

I arrived at High Park about 30 minutes later. I do not recall being inside the park but I am sure I have been there before … maybe. I drove up Colborne Lodge Drive as the Google map showed a fairly easy and clear route to the Grenadier Restaurant in the middle of the park. Less than five minutes later, about a quarter of the way in, the northbound side of the road ended?! Having reviewed maps of the area (and having a print out with me) I thought … No problem, I will just go a little further east and take Parkside Drive and enter the park from the east side.

I drove out of the park; turned left on The Queensway; and, headed east looking for Parkside … I didn’t see it. I chose Sunnyside Avenue and headed north thinking I can turn around somewhere and head back west looking for Parkside … or some other route into the park. I drove around the block that St. Joseph’s Health Centre sits on and ended back on The Queensway heading west. I found Parkside … as I drove over its underpass.

No worries, I thought to myself, I will just drive back to Colborne Lodge Drive turn south and head back along Lakeshore Blvd W to Parkside and be on my way … it was closed for construction to eastbound traffic. I believed at this point I had managed the lost phenomenon! I drove a little further east along Lakeshore and there was a turn-around to head back west, which I took; and, as I was heading west trying to sort out the next approach I saw that Parkside was open to westbound traffic and proceeded north to High Park Blvd.

I entered the park and arrived at our meeting place at just before 1:45PM … this was a truly great starting experience. I got lost(?) and I still arrived early. I walked into the restaurant and looked around. It was busy. Lots of people in the park and a good deal taking advantage of the restaurant’s good food and warmth. I did not see any particular person or group that looked like our Meetup members immediately so I started walking through the restaurant looking for a potentially familiar face, or sign. I notice there was a more formal dining area, still causal, but a maitre’d podium with a “Please wait to be seated” sign drew me closer.

Craig Taylor, the organizer, was waiting to be seated … and so we began. We were followed by five more people and the meeting lasted for well over two hours. We discussed various WordPress related topics and sorted out some ideals for future meetings. The attendees (in an order following how we were seated around the table):

• Craig Taylor
• Chris O’Brien
• Martin H
• Joel but you can call me Joe
• Joel’s +1 (my apologies for not getting your information for this post)
• Alex Frakking
• Daria Sukman
• Edward Caissie

To join the group, just follow this link: http://www.meetup.com/WPToronto/

© 2010, Edward Caissie. All rights reserved.

I am suggesting the twitter hash tags: #wpto (WordPress Toronto) and/or #wptomu (WordPress Toronto Meetup) for following …

© 2010, Edward Caissie. All rights reserved.