Author Archives: Justin Near

What is Track 0?

During WordCamp Nashville 2013, an impromptu Help Desk was created by some willing and able volunteers who saw a need. For 2014, we hope to build on last year’s hectic but successful Help Desk by offering it as a special track…Track 0.

Joel Norris Help Desk WordCamp Nashville 2013

Track 0 will be unlike the other three tracks for beginner, intermediate, and developer WordPress users. For one, there are no formal sessions or speakers. The setting will be informal, and you’ll be able to come and go as you please throughout the entire day (except for a brief lunch break).

But best of all, Track 0 isn’t just for beginners, intermediates, or developers – it’s for everyone.

In the morning, from about 9 a.m. to about noon, we will host a 3-hour general Q&A session. We will have leaders from the Nashville WordPress community answering (ideally) any and every question you can think of regarding WordPress.

Don’t have a question? Come anyways – you’ll probably have one after hearing everyone discuss a topic for a few minutes. And you might just get an answer to a problem you haven’t had yet. Remember, come and go as you please, and if you’re lucky enough to be the only one in the room, you’ll get special attention.

During lunch, we will have volunteers taking names for afternoon 1-on-1 sessions across a range of WordPress experience levels. That’s right – you’ll have the opportunity to get one-on-one attention from experts in the field. We’ll even try to match your specific question up with someone who is an expert in that particular topic (no guarantees!).

These 30-minute sessions are first-come, first-serve, so you may want to sign up before grabbing your lunch. Room space and volunteers permitting, we’ll continue a smaller version of the morning Q&A.

The Help Desk doesn’t stop at the end of WordCamp! Join our meetup.com group – http://www.meetup.com/NashvilleWordpress/ – to get direct access to Nashville’s WordPress community. If you want to get a headstart on your questions, this group will host a preliminary Help Desk at the next meetup on Monday, April 2 at 7 p.m.

FACES OF WORDPRESS: Noe Lopez

Noe Lopez

Noe Lopez was quick to enter the WordPress fold. In 2011 as a Web Design and Interactive Media student at the Art Institute of Tennessee here in Nashville, Noe was tasked to create a website requiring audio functionality.

Here, a musician is usually a stone’s throw away, and his neighbor just happened to need a WordPress site for his band. Noe completed his assignment and was on his new career path – a big change from being a supply manager in the Marine Corps.

Noe, then and now, loves WordPress for its ease-of-use. Clients used to have to contact him directly to make even the smallest of changes – now they can make those changes on their own, leaving Noe free to take a client’s big idea and “bring it to life using code.”

To new developers, he suggests two things:

  1. Learn PHP
  2. Don’t be afraid to break a website (as long as you back up the site beforehand!)

Noe graduated this past December and now works for AhSo Designs where he was previously an intern. WordPress was more than a career change for Noe; it was a life change. Actively involved in the Nashville WordPress community, he is very passionate about what he does and loves sharing his experience with others. You can see his WordCamp 2013 talk “My First 3 Months Working with WordPress” on WordPress.tv.

FACES OF WORDPRESS: Mitch Canter

Mitch Canter

Mitch Canter’s career in WordPress began by fiddling around on some old-school platforms (remember Xanga and LiveJournal?) and not accepting their limitations. He actually “discovered” WordPress right here in Nashville, and it was love at first…code.

“WordPress is simple enough that anyone can jump in and use it, but powerful enough to be able to handle what you can throw at it,” he says. “I’ve found very few things in my development career that WordPress couldn’t handle, and most could be done without having to ‘code outside the box.’”

To say you could trust Mitch on this is an understatement. He started out solely as a WordPress designer. Since then, he’s developed WordPress sites, spoken about WordPress at conferences, edited WordPress books… And now?

Mitch manages some extremely high traffic sites (150K+ a month), including a 4,000+ product WooCommerce-based site, and to “stay frosty” and keep his “edge,” he occasionally takes on freelance projects.

Are you a budding developer? Want to change the world? Think you’re too old to give it a shot?

Mitch has some advice just for you:

It’s never too late to start. WordPress has a fantastic track record, and by joining the community you join a long list of users and developers who have changed the world by taking publishing into their own hands. If you’re a developer, don’t just learn PHP and be done with it – make sure you understand the basics: HTML, PHP, CSS, and jQuery. If you can at least read (and later write) those four languages, you can handle most of what the WordPress-driven web can throw at you.

Still not convinced to love WordPress? Read more on Mitch’s website, Studio NashVegas.

As part of the build-up to WordCamp Nashville 2014 Faces of WordPress will highlight members of Middle Tennessee’s great – and growing – WordPress community. We will feature WP users at all levels, newbies to advanced developers. And mark your calendar. This year’s Big Event is May 3, 2014.

As part of the build-up to WordCamp Nashville 2014 Faces of WordPress will highlight members of Middle Tennessee’s great – and growing – WordPress community. We will feature WP users at all levels, newbies to advanced developers. And mark your calendar. This year’s Big Event is May 3, 2014.