Tag Archives: Developer

Speaker Spotlight: Brian Bookwalter

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Brian BookwalterA long time supporter of WordPress Kansas City, Brian will be joining us to talk about bit about page builders. We know you’ve got questions, so we learned a little more about him below!

Q: How did you get started in your current field?
A: I worked as a print graphic designer as my first job in Manhattan, Kansas for an educational publishing company. Those seven years went very quickly and then I attended Graduate School at Kansas State. There, I started digging into code a little to learn more about the web. I set up my first WordPress site in 2005 (or so) and fell in love with it. Since then, I’ve been designing sites, some web-development, and using and reviewing premium products related to WordPress.

Q: Describe your ‘ah ha’ moment about WordPress?
A: My ah ha moment would have to be the first time I changed my theme but kept the database intact. After doing that, I just had a little resorting with the menu and post types order and the entire site was changed in a few hours.

At that time, “static” websites were all I knew, where your content was hard coded into each page… and changing a website design required starting over. WordPress changed the game.

Q: If you could go back to when you were getting started and give yourself one piece of advice, what would it be?
A: Don’t be too overwhelmed by the immense selection of plug-ins and themes available, both paid and free. Start simple with the basics instead of jumping into really complex backend UI products. Most websites are designed to do two things: get data and display data. Knowing what problem you are solving with a website will help you design everything around that premise. And of course, making it look good is easier than ever with really great theme options. I could keep going and going about the topic of “I wish I knew then what I know now”!

Q: Describe your talk in three sentences or less.
A: We will review, compare, and contrast several different page builders and compare them with popular theme builders to help all attendees decide for themselves which option best suits their design needs.

Q: Who should attend your talk (beginner developer, intermediate content provider, advanced designer, etc)?
A: Intermediate designer/ developers looking for ways to improve their front-end content development workflow.

This post is part of a multi-day series featuring speakers from WordCamp Kansas City 2015. Subscribe to have them delivered to your mailbox, or feel free to check back every day!

Speaker Spotlight: Kim Beasley

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Kim BeasleyOur own Kim Beasley will be joining the Kansas City WordCamp speaker list for the first time. She’ll be brining some knowledge for beginning to intermediate site creators, so we wanted to know a little more about her!

Q: How did you get started in your current field?
A: I’ve been developing websites since 1996 when I started developing intranet sites. Around 2003, I started developing and customizing WordPress websites for corporate and entrepreneurial clients. Around 2010, I started consulting with a company as a technical consultant who coached new entrepreneurs to create a WordPress website and monetize it in a 5-day workshop. In 2011, I started speaking about WordPress via webinars, stage and interviews.

Q: Describe your ‘ah ha’ moment about WordPress?
A: My ah ha moment came when one of my peers introduced WordPress to me in 2003. I had been developing websites from scratch using Dreamweaver. Once I was introduced to it, I saw the power behind WordPress and realized that developing website was much easier and smoother using WordPress.

Q: If you could go back to when you were getting started and give yourself one piece of advice, what would it be?
A: For newbies, I would say that learning the basics of HTML/CSS was something that helped me be able to customize on the fly.

Q: Describe your talk in three sentences or less.
A: Developing WordPress websites using Google App Engine is a great way to create in the cloud and have better control of your cloud environment. You will learn the basics of setting up the website and how to prepare for it. Also will share specific plugins that would be great to include with your installation.

Q: Who should attend your talk (beginner developer, intermediate content provider, advanced designer, etc)?
A: This workshop is good for different levels of developers: beginners, intermediate, content providers and many more.

This post is part of a multi-day series featuring speakers from WordCamp Kansas City 2015. Subscribe to have them delivered to your mailbox, or feel free to check back every day!

Speaker Spotlight: Andy Brudtkuhl

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Andy BrudtkuhlAndy is a web developer from Des Moines, Iowa who came to WordPress after a lot of other work. He gave us a little insight into his work so that you could get to know him better!

Q: How did you get started in your current field?
A: I started my career as a Software Engineer building web applications in ASP.Net for a few startups and then as an independent contractor for enterprises doing backend and front end development. I dabbled in WordPress for about 8 years before doing it full time as a freelancer and now as an employee managing dozens of sites.

Q: Describe your ‘ah ha’ moment about WordPress?
A: When I discovered plugins can do anything.

Q: If you could go back to when you were getting started and give yourself one piece of advice, what would it be?
A: Plugins are where it’s at.

Q: Describe your talk in three sentences or less.
A: Learn how to use tools and processes to improve your workflow to become a better and more efficient WordPress developer.

Q: Who should attend your talk (beginner developer, intermediate content provider, advanced designer, etc)?
A: Beginning developers.

This post is part of a multi-day series featuring speakers from WordCamp Kansas City 2015. Subscribe to have them delivered to your mailbox, or feel free to check back every day!

Speaker Spotlight: Kristin Falkner

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Kristin FalknerLike many of us, Kristin is a self-taught developer using WordPress. She was previously a WordCampKC organizer, so we are happy to welcome her back to our stage. Read on to learn more about her!

Q: How did you get started in your current field?
A: I started teaching myself web development when I was a teenager. I would find sites that I liked and look at the code and try to piece together what was making what happen on the page. It was just something I pursued on the side for a long time before it became my main focus about seven years ago. WordPress has been my primary focus the past five years.

Q: Describe your ‘ah ha’ moment about WordPress?
A: There is not a “one size fits all” approach to WordPress development that is going to work for everyone. I did regular web development before WordPress theming so I found building my own starter theme initially made it click a bit more for me than trying to decode some of the frameworks that felt heavily laced with their own hooks and seemed so much less familiar to the HTML/CSS that I already knew. So one approach to custom theming can make you go “ah ha!” while another can just make you go “ahhhhhh!” Seek out what starts to make it click for you and just build from there.

Q: If you could go back to when you were getting started and give yourself one piece of advice, what would it be?
A: I think in the beginning I relied pretty heavily on the bad habit of copying and pasting solutions to whatever issue I was troubleshooting without always making an attempt to understand what the code was doing. I’m not saying it’s bad to research issues or use code already written that solves an issue. We’ve all thrown up a prayer to the Google gods as we’ve sought help on a frustrating issue. No one learns via copy and paste, though, so my advice to Beginner Me would be to always make a solid effort to understand the solution.

Q: Describe your talk in three sentences or less.
A: Custom fields are a key component to many custom themes. If you can utilize them effectively, you can be an unstoppable theming machine. Advanced Custom Fields is an incredibly powerful tool to help you do just that so let me introduce you to it, if you don’t already know its magic!

Q: Who should attend your talk (beginner developer, intermediate content provider, advanced designer, etc)?
A: Developers

This post is part of a multi-day series featuring speakers from WordCamp Kansas City 2015. Subscribe to have them delivered to your mailbox, or feel free to check back every day!