Speaker Spotlight: Syed Balkhi of WPBeginner.com

Posted on May 4, 2011 by Steve M

Syed Balkhi is the founder of WPBeginner. He is known for his aggressive marketing skills, creative designs, and expertise in SEO. Syed has been in the industry for over eight years, and he has worked with some of the top brands in the industry. He is known as “the WordPress Ninja” among our clients because he is a total WordPress Geek.

Syed will be presenting on the topic of Speeding up WordPress in the Power Users track. Here’s an extract from what you can expect to hear from Syed:

WordPress sites can get overloaded. In this presentation, I would like to share some of the tips and tricks that we use on all of our clients about speeding up WordPress.

So register today for WordCamp Raleigh 2011 and come meet Syed. Don’t forget to follow him on Twitter – @wpbeginner

Speaker Spotlight: Glenn Ansley of Full Throttle Development

Posted on May 3, 2011 by Steve M

Glenn is a local to Raleigh, NC. He has been developing WordPress plugins and contributing to the core project for several years with FullThrottle Development. He currently works at NC State University as a PHP / MySQL developer but continues to contribute to the community during his free time. While he enjoys many aspects of WordPress development, the community is what keeps him here.

Glenn will be presenting on the topic of WordPress Filters and Actions in the Developers track. Here’s an extract from what you can expect to hear from Glenn:

The hook API is what sets WordPress apart from so many other free and open source software projects. While there are multiple tutorials across the internet that teach you how to add an action or a filter, you’ll never experience the full potential of this powerful feature until you comprehend what’s taking place under the hood. WordPress Filters and Actions will take an in-depth look into the hook API. We’ll explore what it is, how it works, common pitfalls, and advanced techniques that will make you a more robust WordPress developer.

So register today for WordCamp Raleigh 2011 and come meet Glenn. Don’t forget to follow him on Twitter – @glennansley

Check out the great lineup of speakers for WordCamp Raleigh

Posted on April 20, 2011 by Steve M

If you haven’t checked out the Speakers page yet, go take a look now. You’ll find a dazzling lineup of local and national speakers including some well-known names in the WordPress community and on the WordCamp circuit.

If you haven’t registered yet head on over to the Registration page. And don’t forget to take advantage of the special room rate for accommodation at The Sheraton Raleigh hotel. This discounted rate only lasts until Friday 29th April so hurry!

Book your room at the Sheraton with the WordCamp Raleigh discount group rate.

Live SitePoint Podcast at WordCamp Raleigh

Posted on May 19, 2010 by Steve M

By now you will know that we are welcoming the SitePoint Podcast team to WordCamp Raleigh. They will be broadcasting live from WordCamp on Saturday 22nd May with a special two-hour podcast. I thought we’d whet your appetite with some information about this special podcast –

SitePoint Podcast hosts – Brad Williams, Kevin Yank, Patrick O’Keefe, and Stephan Seagraves will be interviewing 12 special guests including:

Aaron Brazell, Author of “WordPress Bible”

Lisa Sabin-Wilson, Author of “WordPress for Dummies” and BuddyPress for Dummies”

Jeff Chandler, Host of WordPress Weekly

Gregory Ng, Frozen Food Master at Freezer Burns

Nathan Rice, Lead Developer at StudioPress

Cory Miller, CEO of iThemes

And as if that’s not enough to get you excited, there will be prizes! Over $1,500 worth of giveaways including books, theme and plugin licenses.

So if you’re attending WordCamp Raleigh come along and participate as part of the audience to this unique event. And if you’re not attending WordCamp Raleigh then what are you waiting for? Get your ticket today before time runs out!

Register at wordcampraleigh.com/register/

The SitePoint Podcast will start at 1pm on Saturday 22nd and will last 2 hours. Hope to see you there.

Speaker Spotlight: Tony Zeoli

Posted on May 15, 2010 by Steve M

WordCamp Raleigh is happy to announce, what I believe is our final speaker addition … Anthony Zeoli is the founder of Digital Strategy Works, a web strategy & development company whose clients include the Associated Press, Cablevision Systems Corp, Lehman Brothers, and JP Morgan Chase.

He also owns and blogs about hip-hop at Netmix.com plus is the Director of Interactive Media at the National Museum of Hip-Hop.

Session:

“WordPress & Multimedia: Podcasting, Streaming Video & Photos”

WordPress is an incredibly powerful publishing engine, but it also has amazing capabilities for audio, video and photos.

In this session, we will cover many tricks, tips, options, and tools to power your audio podcasts, manage your videos and display your images.

Tools that we will cover include ways to power your audio podcasts using Podcasting and Blubrry plugins.

For video we’ll look at Kaltura, a freemium service for video, and WordTube, which uses the Open Source JW Player to run video content directly from your server. This session will also provide options for embedding video from YouTube, Vimeo, Google and more.

Finally we will learn about the popular NextGen Gallery plugin to display albums and galleries and the number of associated image viewer plug-ins that display your photos in a variety of ways, and a few tricks to make sure your php doesn’t exceed the upload memory limit.

Bio:

Tony is the founder of Digital Strategy Works, where he has been active developing media & entertainment-related websites utilizing best of class streaming and multimedia products since 1995 for a wide range of clients, including: the Associated Press, Cablevision Systems Corp, Zondervan, Lehman Brothers, and JP Morgan Chase.

He is also involved in start-ups, including his own Netmix.com, Entertainment Media Works, and the National Museum of Hip-Hop. Tony relaunched Netmix on WordPress in 2004 as a blog and a way to host his DJ podcasts using the Podcasting plugin.

Tony is also the host of the WordPress Westchester Meetup group, which is sponsored by The Journal News, to serve WordPress fanatics in the Westchester County, NY area.

When he’s not plotting digital strategy for clients, he loves to drive the lane on the b-ball court, put a few X’s in frames at the bowling alley, and spin deep and melodic tech-house music in his DJ sets.

Follow Tony: