Tag: Meetup

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WordPress GTA

There’s a new Meetup group in town … the WordPress Greater Toronto Area Meetup group, or WPGTA for short. I have been considering starting a Meetup group focused more on WordPress design and development for the last several months but I have also felt there was never enough time to devote to organizing it.

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)

To see the footnotes click here.To hide the footnotes click here.
Footnotes:
(1) 2006 Census data as noted on Wikipedia
(2) Starbucks comes to mind first but there are other eateries and venues that may work well for small gatherings.
(3) Bringing a laptop is probably a good idea … you can write good code anywhere but not if you don’t have the tools to do it.
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10 Minutes

Start writing … and do not stop for ten minutes. This was a suggestion by a friend on how to generate content for a blog. It’s not a bad idea as it can be used as a stream of consciousness exercise. As long as you keep typing the content will keep growing. Although you may not have any serious masterworks of prose it does provide a good base to start from and with judicious edits it is a great post idea.

The whole concept in my opinion is to not really think about what you are writing in as much as make sure you are. A practice to create a habit, a habit to create a skill, a skill to replace a practice.

The opportunity to delve into your own creativeness simply occurs on its own as the thoughts start to flow freely and easily. A great idea or an insightful bon mots are just some of the potential you can, and will, discover.

There will always be more that can be written and there are never-ending streams of ideas to put to digital paper at least in the case of a blog. This method works just as well with the “old school” tools known as pen and paper, too. I believe with living in this digital age the environmental benefits of not using a resource that can better be used elsewhere is a good idea. I’m writing this on my iPhone, as is common for my Sunday posts, and it actually saves me edit time afterward with its auto-correct functionality … stop writing.

Thanks to Alex Frakking for suggesting this idea at the last WordPress Toronto Meetup gathering on August 21, 2010 … just another of the many benefits of the group.

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WordPress Toronto August 2010 Meetup

Traveling home on the TTC Subway after the latest gathering of the WPToronto Meetup group, I am putting some thoughts into the next Meetup currently scheduled for Sept. 18, 2010.

The turnout was quite good with a peak attendance of 15 people. This was another summer workshop session with no agenda or scheduled topics for discussion.

Once again there were many new faces and several returning members as well. We solved some issues, shed light on others, and added insights to ideas being formulated … or in others words a very successful Meetup in my opinion.

Although the concept of more than one monthly meeting is still left up in the air and we did not sort out a major speaker or idea to have for the September Meetup, I believe the group in general would benefit from short presentations on a regular basis.

Andy McIlwain put forward the idea of discussing how to generate content for a blog taking into consideration the general audience that would be visiting and reading it.

I am suggesting as a possible follow-up presentation of what can done afterward, such as using plugins to measure the traffic being generated by what content.

Alex Frakking suggested the premise of a short introduction period followed by some social interactions and then the presentations would be a good general agenda.

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Pi and I

Last month I recapped the Toronto WordPress June 2010 Meetup and wrote about the new friends from China I met on the TTC subway system. I did not think to take any pictures myself, but most of these visitors did. I asked one to send me a copy and was very happy to open my email this morning and find this picture from Pi Yizhou:

Myself and Pi Yizhou
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Recap WPTO June 2010

Yesterday was another great gathering of the Toronto WordPress Meetup group.

Alfred presented a great overview of Custom Fields and some of their potential uses. There was a great follow-up discussion talking about various uses and ideas how to implement them. Potential issues and concerns were also discussed as part of the presentations Q&A session afterward.

Our second presenter, Martin, was unable to attend due to an emergency which, to my understanding, the situation is much improved … stay healthy, Martin!

With the open session, the group discussed various points in regards to the recent release of WordPress 3.0 as well as helping one of our members work through a manual upgrade of one of their web sites.

Last, and actually first as well as on a personal note, I was given the fortunate experience of meeting a visiting group of Chinese Professors from north of Shanghai on my way to the Meetup.

I like to watch people, and simply could not help myself but smile when I saw this group of people enter onto the subway train and in a very tourist fashion start taking pictures of the various items of interest, such as the route map above the door, the station platform through the door windows … and me. I’m hoping to have copies of the pictures I was in emailed to me for a future post. In the meantime, please visit one of the group’s web site here: http://QQ.com (we exchanged calling cards). It may not be a WordPress site but maybe being a dot-com they will consider it … and QQ, as my new friend says refers to laughing. Enjoy the site, although you may need to brush up on your Chinese (or use a translator).

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Toronto WordPress Meetup June 2010

The Toronto WordPress Meetup for June 2010 is tomorrow the 19th at 2:00PM. We are meeting for the third time at Paupers Pub at 539 Bloor Street West, Toronto, ON M5S 1Y6; and, as I just checked on the Meetup web page we had our 20th RSVP Yes this morning!

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.

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WPTO: Creating a Plugin

I will be delivering a brief overview at the WordPress Toronto April 2010 Meetup on how I recently created a plugin. This will be the first presentation made for the Meetup group; and, as part of the ongoing agenda ideas, the WordPress theme for this meeting.

The plugin, BNS Category Plus, was created for the HCAS Volunteers group and may be publicly available in the near future. The concept extends the default Categories plugin to allow additional options. The overview will cover some design ideas and programming tips on how this and other plugins can be quickly created to fill a niche. I will also talk about the tools and resources I use to write and research plugin code.

The slides from the presentation are available as a PDF here: [download id=”1″]

A link to the BNS Category Plus code will be provided once it is publicly released; meeting attendees are also welcome to contact me for a copy of the BNS Category Plus code before its release.

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WPToronto Meetup April 2010 #wpto

The Toronto WordPress Meetup Group‘s next meeting is set for April 17, 2010 at 2:00PM. This meeting’s venue will be Paupers Pub at 539 Bloor Street West, just east of Bathurst Street.

This will be another socially oriented meeting as the group continues to work on future themes, agendas, and presentations by WPToronto members … and other interesting people.

Come to the meeting and get to know some interesting people talking about WordPress and other related ideas … I’ll be there!

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WPToronto Meetup First Meeting

I would have to say that our first meeting was a rousing success.

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):

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