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Ah, the day had come for WordCamp, and my head is still pleasantly buzzing with excitement with all I took in today at the Michigan Union on the campus of U of M, Ann Arbor. I spent the day with my dear friend Kim, attending session after session on everything WordPress, from security to SEO to plugins to themes. I’m always re-motivated after WordCamp and I couldn’t wait to get home and organize my notes.

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It was a very early, rainy Saturday, but I knew that if I came away learning just one new thing, it would be worth it. I learned several pages of new things. As we got started, tweets were flying with the hashtag #wca2, and because of this, every attendee following the hashtag could tune in to the sessions being held concurrently.  Pretty cool.

I was busy today. These are just a few.

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Over lunch we walked over to the Red Hawk and then strolled through Ann Arbor before returning for the afternoon session. The rain had subsided and the wind picked up, blowing yellow and red leaves through the streets as students and visitors made their way around.

U of M

One thing I especially loved about today is the demographics of the group.  There were more than a few significantly older people in attendance, more than I’ve ever seen, typing away on their laptops as our speakers delivered their content. It made my heart smile to see them embrace technology and it served as a reminder that just because you grew up in a time where this technology didn’t exist, it doesn’t have to escape you.

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What I always find the most valuable are the opinions and recommendations from the speakers – best practices and recommended tools and plugins from the professional developers and designers.

A few takeaways:

  • Ghost buttons – not exactly new, but now I know what they’re called.
  • When searching themes and plugins, stick to the WordPress sites, don’t google “free wordpress themes/plugins”, they’ll likely contain malware.
  • WordPress.tv is a great resource!
  • Less plugins means a faster site – less than 15 is optimal.
  • Cardboarding – use index cards when organizing your site structure (Trello may work well for this also)
  • Remove deactivated themes and plugins – they are security holes.

Tools:

  • Wireshark – security
  • CloudFlare – analysis
  • Sucuri – security
  • Server Press Desktop Server – testing

New plugins to try out:

  • Updraft Plus – backup
  • Wordfence – security
  • Sucuri WordPress Security
  • iThemes Security
  • JetPack Publicize – social media sharing
  • W3 Total Cache – performance optimization

 

Blogger friends, if you’re on WordPress, check for a WordCamp near you. It’s a day well spent!

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