April 7, 2019 — For those who have never used the REST API but know basic PHP, this talk will cover how to make a basic endpoint, how to use it on the frontend, and how to convert AJAX calls.

Presentation Slides »

April 7, 2019 — The Verbal Remedy website has WordPress at its heart. With up to 50 blog post submissions per month on everything from feminism to sexual health, we need a theme that gives our words the impact they deserve and a dashboard that means we can create posts effectively as a remote editorial team.

As Verbal Remedy’s founder I’ve watched the platform grow over the past four years from a tiny Tumblr site to a fully integrated WordPress creation with a strong presence in the North East of England. I’d love to be able to share what I’ve learnt along the way.

I’ll talk about:
– Why we chose WordPress for our website
– How starting a blog can create social change
– How to handle tough issues when blogging
– How your blog can create a buzz offline, too

April 7, 2019 — I’ll talk about some well-known WordPress plugins and show the accessibility issues that arise when using them. Then I’ll discuss what can be done to make their front-end output more accessible. That might involve:
– asking the developer to make the next plugin version more accessible
– adding another plugin to remedy the problems
– modifying the plugin code yourself
– finding or building a more accessible plugin

Some of the plugins I’ll talk about are:
– Contact Form 7
– Gravity Forms
– Simple Share Buttons Adder
– Revolution Slider

April 4, 2019 — So we have all been to the scary WordPress security talk where Tim or someone else frightens you to death, but it’s not too dire: in those talks there is a theme beyond despair and that’s every little helps.

So this talk is low on scary tales and high on simple practical tips to improve your site’s security. On their own they might not be the silver bullet, but they all add up.

Tim will guide you through steps that anyone of any ability level can implement to improve their site security.

April 4, 2019 — Whilst Twitter and Instagram are services mainly known for sharing respectively short messages and photos, people today seem to be quite inclined to use them for long-form content as well, oftentimes opting for Twitter threads and Instagram long captions instead of blog posts.

In this talk I’m going to analyse the how’s, why’s and wherefores of this phenomenon, and I’ll share insights on how blogs and social media can complement each other.

This session is aimed at content creators—marketers, journalists, authors, editors—as well as any individual who’s passionate about social media, quality content and storytelling.

April 4, 2019 — On September 4th 2010 my life changed forever with the start of the Canterbury earthquake sequence. I started blogging as a way to deal with anxiety and the stress of aftershocks. Blogging was my therapy. This is my story.

Indended audience types: Designers, Developers, Business, Community

April 3, 2019 — Many people assume incorrectly that any font or image they buy can be used on their WordPress site. However this assumption could end up costing you a lot of money. Learn the ins and outs of what you can and cannot do and how to protect yourself.

April 3, 2019 — Your content is clear, your images are responsive, your code is clean, and your layout flows beautifully on all the most popular devices. You think you’re ready to launch, but you might have overlooked a crucial aspect of your website’s development. If it’s not easy for a person to access your content regardless of the way in which they use the internet, there’s still work to be done. Developing for accessibility should be part of the standard workflow, but it’s often given very little attention. This session will cover some of the low-hanging fruit that you can start picking today and take a deep dive into a few tools to help you build accessibility into your projects from the beginning.

April 3, 2019 — How to add ReactJS to your WordPress theme or plugin.

April 3, 2019 — I’d like to showcase some easy ways to organize theme development and set developers up to start thinking of things in components for React/Vue/Js.framework of the week or getting set up for Guttenberg’s latest/greatest.