RESOURCES AND SLIDES FROM WCJHB18

Posted on by Anchen le Roux

Please find the resources and slides gathered from the different speakers below: ( I will update this post If I do receive any more)

Setting up an online store with WooCommerce-Karel

Setting up an online store with WooCommerce – Diana

Simple tips and tricks for great SEO 

Turning your WordPress plugin into a SaaS

Look up in the cloud, It’s an API, It’s a plugin – it’s WordPress(The never before seen slides!)

New ways of working with clients

Don’t Panic a developer’s guide to freelancing (Also never before seen slides!)

WordPress Internationalization Workflows – Slides

WordPress Internationalization Workflows – Blog Post

How to offer your award winning customer service through your online tore 

Using WordPress to test and validate ideas 

Take the friction out of generating business leads 

Preparing for the Workshops at WordCamp Jhb

Posted on by Anchen le Roux

To make the most of the Workshops at WordCamp it is always good to come prepared. Being prepared for the workshops, save valuable time and resources.  You can just jump onto the training without worrying too much about what’s needed. It’s also much more fun knowing what you’re getting into.

Internet is also never guaranteed, so having everything downloaded and ready is the safer option.  Do not bargain to work on an online environment unless you have your own 3G access.

Here is a list of what’s need for most and specific workshops.

Needed for most workshops

  • Pen and paper, or a note taking app
  • Laptop
  • Local installation of WordPress – Here are some options, please choose one in line with your technical level. You will only need one of the simple ones for the User Track
    • Varying Vagrant Vagrants – an open source Vagrant configuration focused on WordPress development. It has everything you need to run WordPress locally (and submit patches to WordPress core if you like), but does require some technical know-how to use effectively.
    • DesktopServer – simple desktop app for running local WordPress sites. Easy enough to use. Only available on Windows and Mac.
    • Chassis – GUI for running a local WordPress install. Easy to use, but would also benefit from some technical knowledge.
    • Local by Flywheel – simple and good-looking GUI for running WordPress locally. Integrates with FlyWheel’s managed WordPress hosting service, so it’s useful if you end up hosting with them. Available on Windows & Mac.
    • XAMPP – classic PHP development environment, which needs no introduction I’m sure.
    • MAMP – similar XAMPP, but not available on Linux. The free version is somewhat limited compared to MAMP PRO.There are other options available, but this should be enough to cover everyone. Any environment that has PHP and MySQL will work, so if you already have something like that running, then you can just download and install WordPress directly.

Needed for specific workshops

Space Pilot Track

The WordPress ABC for beginners.

Find all detail in the DropBox folder

How Facebook’s Ad Manager can save your WordPress/WooCommerce website

  • WordPress installed and running on a local or online server.
  • Woocommerce
  • Facebook for Woocommerce (With Pixel installed if possible)
  • Facebook Account (preferably business account)

Simple tips and tricks for great SEO

Setting up an online store with WooCommerce

Space Engineer Track

WOOP: OOP-ifying WordPress

All the details you need can be found in this repo: https://github.com/mtdalton/wordcamp-jhb-woop

Building a Single-Page Application with VueJS and the WordPress Rest API

The base code and the details to get up and running can be found here: https://github.com/seagyn/wordpress-vue

Turning your WordPress plugin into a SaaS

Find the preparation post over here: https://jonathanbossenger.com/wordcamp-johannesburg-2018-workshop-prep/

 

 

WordCamp JHB After Party

Posted on by Trisha Cornelius

WordCamps literally feel like family reunions  – Andrew Lima

The WordPress community of Joburg is a welcoming bunch to everyone – regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation, programming ability etc, and the afterparty gives us the time and space to kick back and relax, catch up with old friends and make some new ones.  It allows us to continue the chats that were started over the course of the two days, or to start some new ones.

The WordCamp JHB after-party will take place at the Focus Rooms (the same place where we are having our conference) on Friday night. There will be a limited quantity of finger foods and drinks available free of charge as we continue to build the relationships that make the WordPress community such a fantastic group to be a part of.

The after-party will start at 6 pm on Friday and continue until 9 pm. Admission to the after-party is included in your ticket to WordCamp JHB.

We hope to see you there,
The WordCamp JHB

Why Hetzner loves WordCamp (and WordPress, of course)

Posted on by Anchen le Roux

Hetzner has been a proud sponsor of WordCamp for a few years, but we can’t talk about this event without talking about the WordPress community. For us, WordPress, the monthly Meet-Ups and WordCamp are extensions of each other － and extensions of the vibrant South African WordPress community. WordPress is the go-to platform for website design and development in South Africa, and a relationship between Hetzner and WordPress is a natural fit.  

 

Here are the top FIVE reasons we love supporting the WordPress community:

 

  1. Hetzner hosts more than 45 000 WordPress websites currently.
  2. We love being able to meet our customers face-to-face at the annual WordCamp. We also love listening － and learning －as they talk, engage and debate about all things WordPress and the changing landscape of website design and development.
  3. WordPress affords everyone the opportunity to give functionality, style and navigation to their dreams. It offers entrepreneurs a space to showcase their enterprises; and inspires creative expression for budding and seasoned designers and developers. These are all qualities that resonate with us here at Hetzner.
  4. We are proudly South African and love that WooCommerce is the leading shopping cart plugin for WordPress.
  5. Our fifth (unofficial) reason is that WordCamp affords members of our team the opportunity to head out of the office for two days, and into a creative, stimulating space where we are surrounded by similarly-minded people.

 

We understand that people pour their passions, vision, creativity and business goals into their websites. We offer a safe, secure space where a dream today is often a successful venture tomorrow. People, not technology, are at the centre of our business. Our solutions are designed around the needs of our customers – we believe that WordPress shares that vision.  

Thank you! to all our generous sponsors

Posted on by Trisha Cornelius

One of the many cool things about WordCamp is that it is one of the most affordable technology conferences. It’s not unusual for conferences to charge over R1,000. With WordCamp, we keep our ticket prices to be less than 20USD per day. The reason that we can do this is because of our amazing sponsors who step up and help us.

Without their continued support, there is no way that we would be able to make WordCamp as affordable and accessible as it is. There financial support means that we are able to deliver   for two days, including all meals.

So, without any further ado, please join me in thanking:

WooCommerce – built on WordPress, WooCommerce is a fully customizable, open-source eCommerce solution

JetPack – powered by WordPress.com JetPack connects your site to the global services, community and support provided by WordPress.com so that you can focus on the stuff that matters.

GoDaddy Pro – Offering a robust suite of products for designers and developers to save time and improve the management of all their clients. The GoDaddy Pro’s time-saving tools let you update WordPress core, plugins and themes with one click, as well as automate WordPress backups, cloning and migrations

bluehost – a WordPress partner since 2005 that powers over 1 million WordPress websites worldwide. Bluehost helps their customers (novice or pro) to create a thriving online presence at an affordable price.

uAfrica.com – offers eCommerce tools to help businesses streamline their fulfillment and shipping processes.

Hetzner –  focuses on delivering web hosting service that is reliable and consistent, focusing on infrastructure stability, performance value and good service deliver in order to live up to its brand promise: “Trusted in Hosting”

PayFast – the go-to South African payment gateway that allows you to start selling online with the least amount of effort possible. PayFast offers a wide range of payment methods through a single integration.

Trisha Cornelius – is a freelance WordPress developer who helps people get their business, cause or personal site online with a minimum amount of stress and fuss on time and on budget.

Paid Memberships Pro – is a 100% GPL compliant WordPress membership plugin with over 60,000 active installs and 6 top payment integration. It’s flexible enough to fit the needs of almost all membership-based companies and organizations and includes extensive hooks, filters, and recipes allowing developers to tailor it to your specific needs.

Servebolt provides high performance managed hosting for WordPress and WooCommerce, applying its speed to both the front-end, the backend and the databases . Servebolt opened a South African data center in October 2018.

Flicker Leap is a web development, marketing and problem-solving agency.  They provide digital solutions (development, marketing, eCommerce and server/email infrastructure) to companies with a focus on achieving growth through partnership, actionable metrics and quick iterations (hey agile!)

Thank you again to all our generous sponsors. We wouldn’t be able to do this without you 🙂

Announcing the WordCamp Johannesburg 2018 Schedule

Posted on by Anchen le Roux

Only 10 more days before WordCamp Johannesburg 2018. The team has already announced speakers and today we are very excited to announce our schedule for this year:

https://2018.johannesburg.wordcamp.org/schedule/

The schedule boasts more focused topics, and a great diversity of speakers.

Our Space Pilot track (For WordPress Users) will include workshops for those brand new to creating a basic website, creating an eCommerce store in WordPress as well as sessions on marketing your site.

The Space Engineer Track for developers and implementers will feature in-depth topics on development as well as running your business.

If you are a freelancer, want to become one, or want to be better at business you’ll be very excited about our Space People track on the second day. We have lightning talks as well as an Ask the expert Panel on Freelancing and Running your agency. Not to mention all the other full 30 minute talks on a variety of WordPress topics.

We are also planning an epic After Party for the last day so make sure to join us!

Tickets are running out scary quickly and at this point we’re unsure if we’d be able to release more.

Get Your Ticket Now!

https://2018.johannesburg.wordcamp.org/tickets/

Practical Information about our Venue

Posted on by Trisha Cornelius

WordCamp Joburg is 2 weeks away, and we are getting super excited. Our venue, the Focus Rooms, is amazing. Here’s some things that you need to know:

Where to find the Focus Rooms

The Focus Rooms is at the Core Shopping Centre, on the corner of Leeukop and Kikuyu Roads in Sunninghill, Fourways, Johannesburg. If you are coming by car there is free open-air parking. If you want to use the underground parking it will be R25 per day.

If you are coming via the Gautrain take the train to the Midrand Station. After that take the Midrand-Sunninghill bus route to the Square Centre bus stop and walk approximately 500 metres to the Core Shopping Centre and The Focus Rooms. Alternatively you can get off at the Eskom bus stop.You can download a PDF with directions here.

If you are taking the Metrobus use the Gandhi Square to Sunninghill route and get off at the corner of Rivonia and Witkoppen Roads (stop 5D). From there you can easily walk to the Core Shopping center.

What you need to bring

Day one is Workshop day and you will get the most value if you bring a laptop and work along with the presentations. Cabling is provided but please remember to bring chargers and adapters.

Day two consists of a variety of talks and panels. You are welcome to bring your laptop again and we recommend something to take notes.

Special requirements

If you have any specific requirements regarding accessibility, please let us know so we can do our best to work out how to accommodate your needs.

We will be sending out an email to attendees next week asking about special dietary requests.

We are looking forward to seeing you in two weeks at WordCamp Joburg.

 

Announcing the Day 2 Speakers

Posted on by Anchen le Roux

Today we bring you the second round of speakers selected for WordCamp Johannesburg 2018

These speakers will be presenting  the talks on the second day of this year’s WordCamp

Read more about this exciting lineup and discover details on our Day 2  Talk track, which will conclude WordCamp Johannesburg 2018

Arvind Singh

A WordPress lover who is on the path to explore this CMS at its best. He has a keen interest in exploring the WordPress community. With an urge to learn more, Arvind is an ardent individual who never refrains himself from exploring the new technology. He’s an experienced WordPress developer and technical writer with a keen interest in web hosting.

Iwan Pieterse

I run a WordPress support agency called We Manage Your Site. I live in Pretoria. I like dinosaurs. And I love offering WordPress support services.

We use Paid Memberships Pro as a way to get our customers to use our site for WordPress support while paying us a small monthly fee.

Daine Mawer

A Front-end Engineer at 10up, Daine has been a committed (no Git pun intended) and passionate open source follower for over 6 years now. Completely self-taught from the ground up, Daine has managed to grab the attention of many award-winning agencies and media houses in South Africa, not to mention international brands such as Women’s Health, Men’s Health and award-winning author, Ken Follett.

Daine’s roots truly began in education. Having trained some of South Africa’s biggest corporates in digital technologies, he found himself contributing not only to the business sector but to tertiary education as well. Daine has planned, developed, lectured and implemented web courses for students, professionals and newcomers; covering everything from UX, HTML5, CSS3, Javascript and WordPress Development. He is also an Envato Tuts+ Author and contributes regularly to the site.
He’s currently focusing his attention on delving deeper into Javascript, specifically React and NodeJS.

Daine gravitated to WordPress early on in his career, learning the ins and outs of theme and plugin development. He regularly contributes to the WordPress.org support forums, speaks at WordPress South Africa MeetUps and WordCamp Cape Town

When the laptop closes, Daine fills his time travelling, running and spending most of his disposable income on coffee in and around Cape Town’s hip food and restaurant culture. The laptop tends to open again to mess around with electronic music production and synthesis.

Languteka Machebe

A WordPress Plugin Tweaker, Self proclaimed coffee lover, A longboard commuter, Aspiring sit down comedian (Tells his jokes whilst sitting down), Pours his milk first then cereal… Any Questions?

Shane Rielly

I am a family man and I have an amazing wife and two great kids. I love surfing and the ocean, making people laugh and helping people to learn and understand things.

I am pretty much a serial entrepreneur. In the last 20 years, I have started and run a clothing manufacturing business and been a professional videographer, photographer and graphic and web designer. I have been designing and building websites for nearly 12 years.

I run a small digital agency called Lonely Viking where we specialise in developing beautiful looking websites that form an integral part of driving leads, conversions and sales for small and medium-sized businesses. Our clients understand the value of a well-orchestrated online presence and having a solid team like Lonely Viking behind them.

Godwin Ojebiyi

I’m a tech enthusiast and a natural problem solver, who has proven himself by successfully completing projects for IT consultancies, software houses, web design agencies, and individual clients. A top rated Freelancer(Upwork) Currently building business solutions based on WordPress and PHP for FTR (Canada), Industrial Matrix (Canada), and BPD Accessories(Trinidad and Tobaggo).

Hein van Vlastuin

I run a small development company in Jhb. Currently we have 6 developers. 3 of them work on WordPress projects, 3 of them work on .NET project.
We work mainly for international/Dutch clients.

I am keen to participate in a workshop about “Workshops for running a WordPress business (remote work, managing an agency, scaling your business etc)”, although I am not sure if I should be a sole speaker in such a workshop. I get most of my clients through my own personal network back at home. I myself am a Dutch citizen. But it might be interesting if I can run a workshop with someone who does similar work.

Besides that:
– I teach some people with limited coding experience how to start developing in WordPress using html/css/php/jquery/custom fields/custom post types etc

Andrew Lima

Customer Support & Developer for Paid Memberships Pro. I have previously worked with popular WordPress plugins such as Caldera Forms, Seriously Simple Podcasting and more. I also build my own WordPress plugins and WordPress themes and work on the odd WordPress project here and there.

Han shot first.

Ebrahim-Khalil Hassen

Ebrahim-Khalil Hassen is the founder of Zapreneur and Think Workers. Each of these websites are aimed at answering this question – Can the Internet help South African small business?

Ebrahim-Khalil started his career at the Gauteng Provincial Government, where he was the manager of the Vusani Amadolobha Grant Fund, which was South Africa’s first public-private partnership fund for urban renewal. The theme of public service reform saw him join the National Labour and Economic Development Institute (NALEDI), a research non-governmental organisation established by the Congress of South African Trade Unions. During his seven years at NALEDI, he managed the public sector transformation programme, with a focus on constructing alternatives. He lead the secretariat of the People’s Budget Campaign – a coalition between trade unions, churches and civil society that provided alternatives on fiscal policy.

From 2007 to 2009, he worked part-time at the Centre for Poverty, Employment and Growth at the Human Sciences Research Council building proposals for employment creation in the public service. In 2011, Zapreneur was launched. As an independent public policy analyst, his clients have included TIPS, NALEDI and the Department of Economic Development. He currently serves on the board of the South African Labour Bulletin, and is a member of the COSATU Economics Panel. He previously served on the board of the Community Agency for Social Enquiry (CASE). He has been featured in the inaugural edition of the Little Black Book, received a commendation for contributions to public service from his alma mater, University of Witwatersrand. While still a student he served as Vice-President of the Student Representative Council and won an Academic Merit Award.

Warrick Kernes

Serial entrepreneur with 11 years eCommerce experience in South Africa and Europe. Winner of London’s 2009 Young Businessman of the Year Award. Founder of the SA award winning online store Action Gear (founded 2010, exited 2018). Guest lecturer on eCommerce at WITS Business School to MBA students and he has also talked on eCommerce for JP Morgan (S&P 500). Warrick sits on the Education Committee for the eCommerce Forum Africa and is also a regular contributing writer for the SA Entrepreneur Magazine.

In 2017 Warrick founded the Insaka eCommerce Academy and is now dedicated to growing SA’s eCommerce industry through these online learning courses and the Insaka Community.

Pascal Birchler

Pascal is a software engineer and WordPress core developer based in Zurich, Switzerland. He’s been working with WordPress for half of his life and is an avid member of the community. Living in a multilingual country, Pascal is passionate about internationalisation and improving this area in WordPress to make the web a better place.

Anchen le Roux

Anchen le Roux is the CEO and lead developer of Simply Digital Design a boutique studio in Pretoria Here she specialises in delivering solutions to photographers or creatives and the experience around creating a website.

She has a passion for everything WordPress and loves being part and contributing to the WP community.

Anchen is passionate about green, simple and nomadic living and occasionally find time to play the bass guitar.

Where’s WordCamp JHB – The Focus Rooms

Posted on by Trisha Cornelius

What can you expect from our hosts, the Focus Rooms, this year?

  • We have organized 100mbs Wi-Fi*
  • There will be “brain-juice smoothies” available on request – freshly made, just for you
  • You can sneak in a 5-minute mini massage (I had one, and it was delightful)
  • Bottomless tea, coffee and snacks
  • Some mid-afternoon popcorn
  • A goodie bag (over and above the WordCamp Joburg swag) with fun little surprises
  • There is free open-air parking (and reasonably priced underground parking as well)

If you are one of the people who like to plan in advance, you can look for accommodation around Sunninghill. A few of the folks from Cape Town have already booked their Airbnb.

If you want to take a bus the Gautrain bus has a nearby stop on its Midrand-Sunninghill route at the nearby “The Square” shopping centre (stop M3-17). The Johannesburg Metrobus also has a convenient stop at the corner of Witkoppen and Rivonia Roads (stop 5D).

We look forward to seeing you at WordCamp Joburg!

*(but please remember that you are sharing it with the other 119 delegates) and it is subject to the technical goblins who sometimes interfere with the lines not making mischief.