It is an easy process. Go to a WordCamp, learn stuff, come home from a WordCamp. Take what you learn AND USE IT.
Don’t wait for weeks afterwards and then be surprised that there is information that you have forgotten, no matter what kind of notes you take
Now, I admit that I am a procrastinator. Look the word up in a dictionary and you won’t see my picture. I didn’t feel like showing up. Ha!
I sat down a few days after WordCamp Dayton and started going over my notes and looking through my goodie bag.
Cory Miller of iTemes gave the keynote on Saturday. The one thing that hit me the hardest was his statement of “just click Publish”, of course meaning hitting the Publish button on a WordPress post.
I went to the iThemes website, bought and downloaded Backup Buddy. Angie Meeker, one of the organizers of WordCamp Columbus, is a big fan of the plugin. I have installed the plugin on my websites that I maintain. No problems except when I did the first backup on my personal website johnparkinson.me. I ran the backup and was quite surprised to see that the backup file size was slightly over 1GB. I then remembered that I had uploaded about 900MB in PDF files about a year ago when I was having major issues with our webserver at work. I used cPanel to delete the files and was very satisfied with the results.
The plugin was easy to install and I was quickly able to do a full backup.
I am in the process of learning more about the plugin and will be able to use more of the features.
I had heard a few days prior to WordCamp Dayton that iThemes had acquired the plugin Better WP Security. Cory stated that iTemes was in the process of making the plugin available on their website and WordPress. I had installed the Better WP Security on my sites and was looking forward to the new version, which was renamed iThemes Security.
Here again, I am in the process of learning more about the plugin to protect my website.
I did find something unexpected while I was on the iThemes website. Cory has a lot of great eBooks available to download. Not only eBooks for Backup Buddy and iThemes Security but over 30 eBooks on a wide range of WordPress and web based topics. You can see the eBooks which are currently available here: http://ithemes.com/publishing/
While I was at WordCamp Dayton I met Marc Benzakein of ServerPress. I had heard a podcast by Dustin Hartzler where he talked about ServerPress. Mark had USB drives in both Windows and Mac format. I decided to install ServerPress on both of my computers. The process went smoothly.
Now I could tell right away that this process was going to be easier than installing xampplite or mamp.
The process goes quickly.
After just a few minutes you are asked to set up you WordPress site.
Fill out the usual information and then you are presented with the dashboard.
Again, I am learning more about ServerPress and its features.
So, it has been an interesting few weeks, taking what I learned and putting it to good use.
By the way, I am speaking at WordCamp North Canton. The dates are May 2 and 3, 2014 and the event will be held at Stark State College, 6200 Frank Avenue NW, North Canton, Ohio. This is the same venue as last year and is a great place to hold a WordCamp.
Oh, I forgot to mention the ‘smores!
Hope to see you there!
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