In October, I am flying to Las Vegas for the annual Blog World & New Media Expo, and am pretty excited about it. Aside from the fact that I love Vegas (read: I adore Blackjack) – I get the opportunity to catch up with some old friends, make new ones and spend some quality time with my husband, who does not always get to accompany me to my travels across the country!Â
I am attending and presenting at WordCamp Savannah this weekend and am really looking forward to it. From what I understand, Savannah has a young WordPress community full of true beginners and people just getting started with WordPress. Jane Wells is doing a bang up job in organizing a local WordPress community there, and this is just the beginning. I’m thrilled to help!
Continuing along with my line of WordPress-themed books, I am currently working on adding a new title to my WordPress arsenal: WordPress Web Design For Dummies (published by Wiley Publishing: For Dummies division). WordPress Web Design For Dummies will focus completely on designing web sites with WordPress. The book assumes you already have knowledge of how to use WordPress (ie: you have already read my other book, WordPress For Dummies) – and you want to learn more about designing web sites with WordPress.
From WordCamp Boulder (Boulder, CO) in July 2010.
Earlier this year, I was interviewed by Smashing Magazine for their “Women in Web Design: Group Interview” article. They asked some really interesting questions, and present all of our answers together in one huge mash up of female web design wisdom and goodness. I’m super honored to be listed among that group of fine ladies — and have to say, a little tickled pink to have been asked since I’ve been a raving fan of Smashing Magazine for quite some time!
I have finally re-designed my site after 2 long years of my old black and pink one! Not that I didn’t like the old design . . . but it was time for something new, springy, fun, light – before summertime ran out! This time around, I tried something different and used a theme framework called Builder from my good friends over at iThemes. I’ve been wanting to dig into frameworks for some time now, and figured the best place to do that is on my own personal site where I can dig in, get my hands dirty and see what all the fuss was about! Welcome to my redesign – – don’t forget to notice the pink!
A few months back, I was having a talk with my editor at Wiley Publishing, Amy Fandrei – mostly talking about what it would take for me to finish up writing the 3rd Edition of WordPress For Dummies and what was happening with the 3.0 development of WordPress, etc. That lead us into a talk about some more advanced topics surrounding WordPress – – more advanced than what my Dummies book covers. Let’s face it – a For Dummies book is meant to be for beginners and intermediate users, right? But what about a book that covers the WHOLE gammut?
This edition of the book was, almost, completely re-written and covers all the basics about the WordPress platform – including all the great new features that version 3.0 brings to its users, including how to set up and use the new Multisite features, how to use the custom menu feature to build and create your own custom navigation menus, a comprehensive look at the NEW default WordPress theme called Twenty Ten, and more.
I’m excited to announce that I am doing a free webinar presentation for my good friends at WebDesign.com on June 23rd at 1pm CST (Central Standard Time). The webinar is on the topic of using BuddyPress to create an online community on your WordPress powered site.
