Category Archives: Speakers

Karthik Magapu on GPL – What is this license ? Myths around it!

I am Co-Founder and Chief Explorer of Hummingbird Web Solutions, which builds and supports products for web developers and web designers. WordPress is a big part of what I do – WPeka

Open Source has changed the way software gets created in the world over the last few decades. No longer is creating great software that millions will use only the privilege of the few lucky programmers working at Microsoft, Infosys or IBM! If you have internet access and can write code in a simple editor, you could influence the world with your software.

My talk will be around the GNU General Public License (GPL) – one of the world’s most popular and adopted license for open source projects.

My Session will cover

  • Introduction to GPL, history of GPL and the way ahead.
  • How does GPL foster faster innovation?
  • What about security and privacy concerns in GPL software such as WP?
  • GPL and WordPress – what does it mean for WP Theme and WP Plugin developers?
  • GPL and the content you create – how does GPL affect bloggers?
  • Common Myths about GPL
  • Question & Answer Session

Conclusion

You will come away from my talk with a good understanding of GPL and be able to debate and share your opinion on some the the myths around GPL!

You can read the full GPL text here… or read a simpler version here…

GPL is not as complicated as it sounds or looks. Once you understand the basic philosophy behind Open Source and more specifically the GPL, the text will be as clear as day to you.

Do let me know if you have specific questions or doubts about GPL that you are expecting me to cover, I will try to weave them into my talk.

Looking forward to seeing you on the 15th and 16th March at Mumbai!

Siddharth Ashok on “Customizing the WordPress Dashboard/Login for Clients”

Hey this is Siddharth Ashok, I work with a Swedish Web agency Webbdesigner.se, aka Next Big Thing as a Front End and WordPress Developer.

Entrepreneur by heart, am also part of Companies like App La Carte Indy & Mungozone.

Have been working with WordPress for more then 8 years now. Mostly as a freelance WordPress Consultant and theme developer, and now at my agency where we use WordPress as CMS for most of our clients.

Love Open Source and try to contribute as much as I can back to the community.

What My Session would cover:

  • Discuss on the the way we deal with different contents when making CMS for clients on WordPress
  • Develop easy interface to manage the contents, with plugins as “Advanced Custom Fields” and “Custom Post Type UI”.
  • Branding the whole admin interface with custom logo’s, custom login pages, restrict access or hide the tabs which client doesn’t need to see in his login. Doing this with plugins as “white-label-cms” & “adminimize”.
  • I plan to give a demo. I would take WordCamp Mumbai 2014 site as test scenario and would explain my points in this context. Would code and demonstrate wherever necessary.

This talk would help the attendees the way they approach to use WordPress as CMS. Also making the Content Management Interface more branded, structural and clutter free for clients or end users.

Feel free to get in touch at  @siddharthashok

Amit Singh on WordPress as Rapid Prototyping Tool

I am partner at WPoets, a WordPress based website design and development company. I am working with WordPress since 2007 and created few plugins over time. I also help organize various tech events in Pune, including WordCamp Pune.

I would be talking about how we can use WordPress as prototyping tool and why it is much better option then using tools like powerpoint, balasmiq and other wireframing software’s people use.

What I will be covering in this session

WordPress is powerful enough CMS that is used in multiple ways, and developers are already creating web application with it. One aspect of WordPress has got less attention then it deserves, when few plugins and themes are combined it becomes a very powerful wire framing and prototyping tool.

  • What is prototyping, why prototyping is done
  • How it is usually done, talking about tools like powerpoint, pencil, balasmiq
  • Introducing WordPress as an Alternative
  • Showing how can we create wireframes using following plugins
    • Page builder by site origins
    • Aqua page builder
    • WYSIWYG 3D Visual HTML Editor & Drag And Drop Web Page Editor
    • ACF
    • Custom post type ui
    • Easy form builder
    • S2Member
    • Profile Builder
    • Ultimate shortcodes
    • WordPress canvas shortcodes
    • An example of using these tools to create a quick prototype

    This session would be useful to early startup founders, designers or any one who considers themselves as ideas person and need others to help create it. After this session they should be able to bring their ideas to a prototype stage and get early feedback’s.

Bigul Malayi on Setting up and running WordPress Multi-lingual sites

My name is Bigul Malayi. I come from Kozhikode, Kerala. For the last eight years I have been a open source enthusiast, specially in PHP & WordPress field. Earlier I worked for a few small startup companies. Since 2011 I have been working for OnTheGoSystems (the makers of WPML, Views, Types and CRED plugins) as a Quality Assurance Analyst.

In my daily work I’m up to date with various multilingual issues WordPress developers and users deal with. I would like to share my experiences about WordPress Multilingual here.

My topic will be Setting up and running WordPress Multilingual site. During my session I will share with you overview global practices, advantages and easy methods to create and running WordPress Multilingual Sites.

What I will be covering in the session

  • Part 1. Multilingual website – why it is worth investing

    • Languages on the Internet – statistics

    • The benefits of having a multilingual site

    • For the site owner

    • – For the WP developer

  • Part 2. Understanding the bases – what is a multilingual site and what it is not

    • Examples of multilingual sites done not right

    • Examples of multilingual sites done not right

    • How to do it right and why

  • Part 3. Making your WP site a multilingual site

    • Choosing the solution (different possibilities and plugins)

    • Installation and configuration – what to handle

    • Language switcher – good practices

    • Translating the contents (various WP elements to translate)

    • Keeping updated (different user roles, different needs)

  • Part 4. Tips and hints

    • Why making it comfortable for non-technical users is important

    • What can you do to simplify their lives

    • Themes and plugins compatibility

    • The importance of good technical support

    • eCommerce support and compatibility

Conclusion

Being a part of Multilingual plugin makers team I know the mistakes users usually make, can understand user needs, and know good practices to do it right. Moreover I think it would be a good opportunity to share my knowledge with others because our great nation is a land of many languages too.

Puneet Sahalot on “WordPress Troubleshooting for Beginners”

I am a WordPress theme developer and coach. I run a WP design and development agency and apart from that I conduct 1-on-1 and group sessions for WP training.

While offering my development and training services, I often come across some common questions and WP errors that trouble the users. Many times, they get horrified seeing some PHP error message.

So, you must be wondering how I am going to help you solve these problems? 

Fixing common WP errors:

  1. Help Yourself:
    I will be talking about fixing these common errors and how WP users can maintain their sites with ease. I relate it to a real life example of riding a scooter or bike. Whatever we own, we should know  the basic troubleshooting as you won’t always find a mechanic come to our rescue at the earliest.
  2. Patience and Google are your friends: 
    The key to fixing or troubleshooting a WP site is “patience”. Instead of being horrified or worried about  losing your site and data, it’s time to keep calm and look for the solution. A lot of common errors and their solutions can be found online on WP.org support forums and popular WP websites like WP Beginner, ManageWP Blog, Tutsplus etc.
  3. Breaking the myth, “I am not a developer, I can’t fix it”
    Most WP users think that they need to be a developer to fix common issues or make minor changes to their site’s styling. But, that’s wrong. Most PHP errors are presented in plain english, clearly mentioning the cause of error, the filename and line number which needs to be fixed. A close look at the error will guide you in the right direction and you will be able to fix it. It’s no rocket science! Trust me.
  4. Get control of your site’s styling – Understanding CSS
    A site’s styling is controlled by CSS and if you understand English, it’s quite easy to understand CSS. Most CSS properties relate with basic technical terms of website design.
  5. Some productivity tips:
    There are times when you have tried to add a nice looking “About me” section to your site’s sidebar and you wondered you can’t do that because you don’t know how to write HTML? I have got a trick, you can use WP post editor. The post editor will write the HTML and CSS for you and you can simply copy-paste the code instead of looking for a plugin or some tutorial online.

I will be presenting a demo for editing CSS, understanding and fixing PHP errors. This session will be helpful for beginner and intermediate WP users. If you are attending WordCamp Mumbai and have any requests for topics that I should cover during my session then please feel free to drop a comment. Please make sure that your questions are related to my session and I will try my best to answer them.

Rahul Bansal on EasyEngine – Easily Manage WordPress Sites on Nginx

I am Rahul Bansal, blogging & developing on WordPress from 2007.  I am working as Founder & CEO at rtCamp, a WordPress products & services company.

I will be speaking on EasyEngine at WordCamp Mumbai 2014. EasyEngine is a command-line tool developed in bash (shell) scripting language.

EasyEngineEasyEngine was developed by me and my colleague, Mitesh Shah, to manage large number of WordPress sites on nginx server easily.

It was started as internal project to automate larger part of our managed wordpress-nginx hosting service.

After using it for a while, it felt like a nice tool which anybody can use . So we released it in open-source, with GPL license, on GitHub. 🙂

In my session, I will explain how EasyEngine makes it easy to manage WordPress sites on Nginx.

My goal is to save your hosting bill so that you will be happy to buy me a beer after WordCamp! 😉

Agenda for Session

I plan to cover following points in my session. As time progresses, there might be slight changes to the following list.

  1. Introduction: This will cover what is EasyEngine. This is important for folks who are not familiar with command-line tools.
  2. Motivation: Why we started this project. This is a long story but I will try to keep it as short as possible.
  3. Installation: The famous quick install which delivers most of easiness. It is so quick and small that it can be summed up in a tweet as well.
  4. Features: Apart from setup, EasyEngine bundles way too lengthy tasks in one-line commands. I will try to explain few important features here.
  5. Inside EasyEngine: For curious minds, I will explain how EasyEngine operates under the hood.
  6. Roadmap: Future of EasyEngine and some details about upcoming  releases.
  7. Getting Involved: How you can contribute to the project to make things easier for all.
  8. Credits: EasyEngine would not have been possible without many libraries and folks.
  9. Live Demo: As they say actions speaks louder than words, I would like to show you a live demo of how quick and easy it is to start using EasyEngine.
  10. Q&A/Discussion: The last part of session where I will attempt to answer your questions and discuss how we can make EasyEngine easier going ahead.

If you would like to add/remove anything to above list, feel free to suggest.

You can send suggestions via comment-form below or tweet @easyengine.

Giving EasyEngine a try!

To try EasyEngine, you will need a Ubuntu 12.04 or Debian 6/7 setup. You can try this in a virtual machine, on a dedicated server or inside Raspberry Pi.

A quick way to get going is to start a new 512MB droplet on DigitalOcean or micro instance on Amazon AWS .

You will be done with testing in less than one hour, which will cost you only $0.007 (i.e. less than 50 paisa in INR) on DigitalOcean.

Quick Install

Once you log into shell, just run following commands:

curl -sL rt.cx/ee | sudo bash           
ee system install                       
ee site create example.com --wp

Please make sure you change example.com with your domain/IP/hostname which is pointing to your server.

By the end of Step-3, you will have a working WordPress site at example.com.

You can explore more about EasyEnigne through its documentation or following cheatsheet.

Cheatsheet

You can also refer to following cheat-sheet to create 12-different types of sites:

Single Site Multisite w/ Subdir Multisite w/ Subdom
NO Cache --wp --wpsubdir --wpsubdom
WP Super Cache --wpsc --wpsc --wpsubdir --wpsc --wpsubdom
W3 Total Cache --w3tc --w3tc --wpsubdir --w3tc --wpsubdom
Nginx cache --wpfc --wpfc --wpsubdir --wpfc --wpsubdom

Summary

If you are running self-hosted sites, for yourself, for friends and/or for clients, EasyEngine is definitely worth checking out.

Sometimes EasyEngine is compared to great projects like docker and vagrants. We have some features on mind to make development and deployment easy on roadmap. But main goal of EasyEngine project is to give superadmin powers in the hand of end-users.

Many EasyEngine users never logged into SSH terminal before. Some of them are still using shell login to run EasyEngine commands mostly. But they are easily managing hubderds of WordPress sites on nginx.

It can reduce your hosting bill and improve performance. And everybody, including Google, loves sites which loads faster! 🙂

Links: EasyEngine Home | Documentation | Github Repo | Support Forum

Jatin Hariani on “Git for WordPress Development”

Over the years, we have seen various approaches in handling code versions. From saving multiple copies of files to taking back ups on multiple machines, people have tried (and failed with) almost everything that was deemed possible. All this changed towards the end of last decade.

The Linux community gave the world Git, a distributed version control system which has since become the de-facto standard in modern workflows.

The session will start with a basic introduction and will run through basic git commands. I will then touch upon how Git can be used in WordPress development to dramatically improve your workflow. This will be followed by how to create and use a Github account.

It will conclude with a section on how to use Git from within your favorite code editor. The session will include demos for most topics covered.

Summary of the topics included in the talk

  • Introduction to Git.
  • Installing Git on your development machine.
  • Basic features and commands.
  • Setting up a WordPress theme with Git
  • Setting up a Github account and hosting your work on Github
  • WordPress and Github

Experienced developers may also be able to pick up something new. Either way, the session will provide you with insights to the importance of Git in modern WordPress development workflow.

Prasath Nadarajah on “How to become a plugin developer

My name is Prasath Nadarajah. I am a code wrangler at Automattic, makers of WordPress.com and other services around WordPress. I live in Colombo, Sri Lanka. I started contributing to WordPress back in 2011. I participated in Google summer of code 2011 with WordPress where I wrote an extension to XMLRPC API. In my spare time I like to travel, read and hike.

I have been contributing to WordPress for around 3 years now and wrote a few plugins. I would love to introduce WordPress users on “How to become a plugin developer?”. In this session I am looking forward to cover basics of plugin development, useful tools, debugging techniques, useful resources and best practices in plugin development followed by a QA session.

What I will be covering in this session

WordPress is one of the popular content managements system out there now. It now powers around 21% of the entire web. The plugin directory has almost 30,000 plugins to cater specific needs for your website. Often times you may need develop your own plugin to get some functionality in your website. This session is useful for WordPress users who want to start plugin development.

  • Introduction to plugins
  • Technologies used in WordPress
  • creating your first plugin
  • Choosing your IDE
  • Master your IDE
  • Browser extensions
  • WordPress plugins for development
  • Tips & tricks in plugin development
  • Useful resources
  • Questions?

In conclusion this session helps general WordPress users to have a glimpse of what it is like to develop a plugin. If you want to dive in a learn more then WordPress codex is the best place to start with.

Last Call for Speaker Applications for WordCamp Mumbai 2014

Note: Speaker applications are now closed.

We are really happy to see a nice response for speakers sessions at WordCamp Mumbai 2014. With just over a month left for the event, it is the business end of preparations for the event.

We will shut-down our Speaker Registrations for WordCamp Mumbai 2013 on 15th February. That just 5 days from now. So if you think you or a friend of yours should speak, hurry up! 😀

Remember to read the guidelines before applying on our “Call for Speakers page”

Our Speaker line-up at the moment is looking pretty good and we hope to be adding some good ones over the next few days.

Our entire list of speakers confirmed can be viewed here and you can purchase a ticket (Min Rs. 300) here.

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