WordPress 101/201 (PodCamp Ohio)

The third and fourth sessions I attended were focused on WordPress, and presented by Mitch Canter, of www.studionashvegas.com. I was excited about attending these sessions, as I just made the jump to self-hosted WordPress a few months ago. I had previously been on Blogger, and it was quite a change.

The 101 session was aimed mainly toward people who had little to no experience with WordPress. Mitch discussed what WordPress was, and how its functionality could best be used. He stressed the point that WordPress is NOT just for blogs, but is rather a content management system (CMS). The core files were discussed and how they integrate to form WordPress. He spent extra time explaining index.php, which contains "The Loop" which is the heart of WordPress and is what displays posts in chronological order.

There was discussion on the options for hosting WordPress, through www.wordpress.com, and self-hosted. This can be a tough choice for some people, as WordPress.com gets you up and running quickly and for free, but you don't have as much control of the site as you do hosting it elsewhere. Another big point for some is that it is much easier to monetize self-hosted sites. Mitch walked attendees through the install process, "The 5 minute install" for self hosting step by step.

In WordPress 201 Mitch discussed how to actually use WordPress. He started by showing that WordPress could be used for a full website by showing a static HTML site, followed by a WordPress site. They looked essentially the same to the eye. He followed up by explaining home.php and index.php and how these can be used together as they are looked for sequentially.

Next, Mitch spoke about "multiple loops" which allow certain posts to be excluded or showcased, rather than displayed normally by the standard loop. Multiple loops can be used to feature certain categories or to use different formatting depending on the category. They can be used to show multiple authors on a single page, or even provide differentiated loops for podcasts and blogs.

WordPress plugins were next discussed, my favorite being iWphone, which allows the site to be automatically formatted for the screen of the iPhone. Despite how amazing normal sites look on my iPhone, I always am very happy when I come across a site that is really optimized for the iPhone. Now I can provide that to my readers. Great tip!

The presentation concluded with a discussion of hosting PodCasts with WordPress without any cost other than hosting. This involved the use of WordPress, Audacity, and the PodPress Plugin. That's all you need to get started.

These two presentations really had something for everyone. I thoroughly enjoyed attending them, and Mitch was extremely generous in assisting everyone who had questions during or after the conference. If you want to see the slide shows, or get other great information, check out Mitch's new site, www.thewordpressdoctor.com.

Comments

[Mitch Canter]

Thank you for the wonderful post and commentary. If one person learns something from a presentation I give, then I consider it a success. If you (or your readers) have any questions, feel free to let me know; I'll see what I can do!

Mitch Canter
http://www.studionashvegas.com" rel="nofollow">studionashvegas and http://www.thewordpressdoctor.com" rel="nofollow">The WordPress Doctor

[Rachel Buchanan]

Hey Jeff, My husband (David Buchanan of Coefficient Media) met you and got your business card at Podcamp. My radio station has been looking for a good 1/2 size business card to use for our contact information. Do you have the details of where you got them? They're pretty sweet. Thanks for any help you can offer.

[Jeff]

Hey Rachel, thanks for stopping by! I got my business cards from http://www.moo.com/ The company is a pleasure to work with. If you have any questions during the design process on their site, let me know!