Author: conradhallauthor

Conrad Hall is a retired Master Carpenter and Field Engineer who has also authored eight books, performed at The Second City, and learned how to iron his own shirts. He is the founder of CERIOHS (go ahead - ask him), a WPToronto Co-organiser and the Lead Organiser for WordCamp Toronto 2017 (#WCTO). He has developed a partnership with the City of Toronto doing economic development using WordPress as a foundation. This partnership also reaches out to youth to encourage entrepreneurship, development of coding skills, and the pursuit of careers related to WordPress and website design. He coaches business owners on how to break free from the slavery their business has become to enjoy the freedom they have always desired. His coaching motto is Cranium Ex Rectum. He also enjoys the Toronto Islands, live theatre, cycling, and doing laundry. He's also a wee bit of a cheeky monkey.
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City Stops Traffic Around WordCamp Toronto!

Has #WCTO become so big the City has to stop traffic around the venue?

No joke. Saturday, 30 Sep, Bay St. is closed between Dundas St. W.  and Richmond St. W. starting at 8:00 am.

Queen’s Park Crescent (around the parliament buildings) is closed starting at 3:30 pm.

And Queen St. W. is closed from Yonge to University starting at 6:30 pm.

They’re shutting down the streets around us! But is it for us? And what does this mean for parking at the event?

There are a couple of things happening at the same time as WordCamp Toronto.

Invictus Games

The closing ceremonies of the Invictus Games happen Friday, 30 September at the Air Canada Centre (ACC). The ceremony starts at 7:30 pm.

Traffic in and out of downtown is going to be slow. Bruce Springsteen, Bryan Adams and Kelly Clarkson are just three of the entertainers at the Invictus Games closing. And you can bet the TTC is going to be crowded, too.

Prince Harry is also here for the Invictus Games. Expect road closures and extra security around the ACC.

The #WCTO Welcome Dinner starts at 6:30 pm. We’re at Yueh Tung restaurant at Dundas St. W. and Elizabeth St. – very much downtown. Be sure to give yourself extra time to get there.

The Welcome Dinner is for speakers, sponsors, and volunteers. It’s the final opportunity for people to meet each other before #WCTO. You’re welcome to bring a date. Just pick up a +1 ticket.

Nuit Blanche

Road closures for Nuit Blanche start Saturday morning.

Since Bay St. is closed beside the venue, you can access the Green P parking under City Hall via Chestnut St. Go two blocks west on Dundas St. W. from Bay and turn south. Chestnut St. runs directly into an entrance to the Green P parking.

There is also parking at the Eaton Centre. The entrance is off Yonge St. at the corner of Yonge and Shuter. It’s on the east side of the Eaton Centre between Queen St. and Dundas St.

Scavenger Hunt

You have closed streets to walk along at the start of the scavenger hunt. There may also be crowds.

Two of your first stops are City Hall and Old City Hall. There is likely to be a crowd at City Hall getting ready for Nuit Blanche. Of course, the real crowd starts after sunset.

Nuit Blanche runs from sunset Saturday to sunrise Sunday. And it happens all around the #WCTO After Party.

#WCTO After Party

The after party happens at the Duke of Devon, 66 Wellington St. W. Nuit Blanche happens on Front St. to the south, Queen St. and Bay St. to the north, and Queen’s Park Crescent even farther north.

The scavenger hunt takes you from #WCTO to the after party. Then you go from the after party to Nuit Blanche in a few steps.

Of course, remember that #WCTO starts at 10am Sunday. You might want an hour or two of sleep before starting Sunday.

WordCamp Toronto is two days of all things WordPress. Join us for an intense weekend of networking, fun, and discovery.

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Jeremy Josey – Featured Speaker

Jeremy is coming to us from Bedford, Nova Scotia. He is speaking Saturday afternoon at 4:00 pm in Room 149. His topic is on adding Sass to your work.

Let’s get to know Jeremy…

I’m a Full-Stack Web Developer  who has been developing websites for over 17 years. I have been developing WordPress sites and plugins for 4 years now.  Currently i work for a company called Newcap Radio , a broadcast company that has over 100 broadcast licences across the country. I love coding , making my daughter laugh and in my spare time ( I’m a single dad i have no spare time…lol)

Add Some Sass to your Next Project ! An introduction to Syntactically Awesome Style Sheets

if you work on the front end of websites , find yourself changing css and you currently don’t use Sass you owe it to yourself to come to this talk…….it will change your life and make css so much easier.

https://github.com/mandozza/sass-examples-and-presentation”

Come to my presentation if you have never used Sass before…..it will change your workflow forever. Sass is amazing!  Using  it along with Browsersync will  make you love developing in the browser.

Love coming to Wordcamp Toronto due to the quality of talks, the great WordPress Community Toronto has and how well organized the camp is.

Connect with Jeremy through his speaker profile.

Make sure you have your ticket to #WCTO before they sell out!

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John Gamboa – Featured Speaker

John comes to us from Austin, TX.  He is speaking Sunday afternoon at 2:30 pm in Room 149. His topic is on how to navigate a censored internet.

One of my hobbies is collecting hobbies; knowing just enough to be confused as an expert by others. Primarily, though, travel is the most important as it feeds my other hobbies. Whether it’s a short road trip to go camping in the Texas Hill Country, or flying halfway across the world, travel is always my first choice. It allows me to take photos, write, hike, drink (and sometimes bring home) unique beer and build my collection of antique maps.

Navigating the Censored Web

Most of us enjoy the fruits of an open Internet: unfettered access to the web to share ideas, discuss changing landscapes and feed their passions. But not all are so lucky. With the experience I earned developing sites behind the “Great Firewall” of China, I will try to explain how WordPress and the Internet is censored in different corners of the world. You will learn how website owners and developers can best reach users and community behind restricted national networks.

I’ll be visiting Toronto for the first time for this WordCamp! I guess that means I need a selfie in front of CN Tower? I enjoy WordCamps because it shows the diversity of ideas and thoughts in the ever-growing WordPress communities. Talks and panels range in wide variety and help me look at WordPress in ways I never even imagined. I’m excited to see what Toronto will provide.

Connect with John through his speaker profile.

Make sure you have your ticket to #WCTO before they sell out!

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Sponsor Spotlight – GreenGeeks

GreenGeeks logo

GreenGeeks is the leading provider of green energy web hosting offering cutting-edge hosting services for WordPress such as 1-click installer, auto updates, real-time security scanning, WP-CLI and more.

In addition to this, we’re the environmentally friendly. Not many people know this, but the Internet is a huge polluter of the environment. For every amp we pull off the grid, we replace 3 times back in in the form of renewable energy credits. This means that when you host with GreenGeeks, your website is actually carbon-reducing.”

WordPress makes it easy for just about anyone to start a website or blog and grow it to become successful. There’s a huge following and that’s what makes it one of the best open-source projects ever. It’s intuitive, it’s well thought out and it just works!

The mass adoption of WordPress has made web hosting providers think about how to properly handle and service WordPress-based websites. So yes, WordPress has definitely impacted the web hosting industry and continues to do so simply because of the sheer amount of users who are using WordPress.

Don’t be shy. Stop on by our table and say hello. We look forward to meeting everyone — and most importantly, enjoy the camp!

Visit GreenGeeks

Make sure you have your ticket to #WCTO before they sell out!

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Tamara MacDuff – Featured Speaker

Tamara is joining us from Rochester, NY, just south of the border. She is speaking Saturday afternoon at 4pm in the auditorium. Her topic is about making a name for yourself. Let’s get to know her…

I’m a little bit country and a little bit of rock and roll. I prefer the real talk about your online presence instead of encouraging you to follow the next shiny object or a “”best practice”” that is only best practice because someone with more followers than you said it was. I think those are the wrong questions to be asking when looking for a process for your online presence. The right question is how will this new thing bring value to my followers and does it feel right for me? A strong online presence isn’t about how many followers or likes you get – that’s for the popular kids. How many popular kids are now experts in their field? Not as many as you think. Be YOU. WordPress allows you to do just that with your website and blog theme. I show you how to put it all together so you can strategically rule your online real estate.

When I’m not doing online strategy, you can find me watching Football and participating in my Fantasy Football league. I love great conversations, online and off with a great cup of coffee or glass of wine and awesome people. Let’s meet up at WordCamp Toronto and I’ll help you breakthrough some of your blocks to being known in the social sphere.”

Let’s face it, unless people know who you are and what you do, nobody is going to know you are awesome, right? To do this means you have to have both online and offline strategies to become known in your community. My presentation will outline a process for you to follow and how to implement that process so that it aligns with YOU as a human being.

I have the solution to the problem business owners have about becoming Known in their industry or niche. To get the business, people have to not just know what you do, they have to know WHO you are. While there are a million ways to do this, having a strategy and following a process is where you will succeed. The most important question to answer though, is WHY? Why do you want to do what you do? Why do you bring value to your community. My presentation will help you find your space and place on the internet so you can focus – and grow yourself and your business. My presentation is for all levels, though someone with some content already created will have a head start. Never fear, though – that’s what I’m here for – hit me up before or after my presentation and maybe I can help you create some content we can then help you promote.

I’m visiting from Rochester NY. This is my second WordCamp Toronto and I loved the first one. I love TO because it is always evolving; it never seems to be the same city twice. Likewise, I find WordCamps always evolving too; and even going to the same city twice, I don’t attend the same WordCamp twice. I’m looking forward to this year’s #WCTO and am honored to be speaking again.

Connect with Tamara through her speaker profile.

Make sure you have your ticket to #WCTO before they sell out!

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Alan Lok – Featured Speaker

Alan is one of our local speakers. He is speaking Sunday afternoon at 3:30pm in Rm 129. His topic is in the Dev Track and address WordPress in containers. Let’s get to know Alan…

Tech is what I do during the day, but music is my passion. At day I lead the Cloud DevOps PS practice at Scalar Decisions, and at night I run a music school. It gets me to switch between being super analytical and highly creative. The cool part is that there is an intersection – ask me what I am piano piece I am practicing at my talk (and it will show my inner geek!) 🙂

Containers are hot, and it’s not just the cool kids talking about it now. From your local computer to the public cloud, you can deploy containers easily and make idempotent deployments for a start-up or a bank. How does WordPress fit into this ecosystem and what are some of the considerations on deploying for mobility and high availability?

There’s something for developers of all levels in this talk. I hope by the end of the talk that everyone starts thinking about when it is the right time to use containers in your WordPress development.

I love Toronto for all that it has to offer – people, places and food!

Connect with Alan through his speaker profile.

Make sure you have your ticket to #WCTO before they sell out!

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Michelle Ames – Featured Speaker

Michelle is joining us from just south of the border. She is speaking Saturday afternoon at 3pm in Rm 149. Her topic is on tweaks and changes you can make to WordPress that increase productivity. Let’s get to know her…

I’m an avid photographer. I do photoshoots for families, seniors, newborns, and pets. I love event photography. But, most of all I love photographing nature…especially birds and insects.

My presentation is about ways to make your website incrementally better – and a much better experience for your site visitors. My experience as a marketer has provided me with opportunities to help others hone their sites.

A good website isn’t just about technical strength – it’s about the nuances that make your visitors feel better about spending time with your site. This talk will share those things with you.

WordCamp Toronto is always amazing – great people, great topics, and the hallway track is always great, too!

Connect with Michelle through her speaker profile.

Make sure you have your ticket to #WCTO before they sell out!

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Guy Gentil – Featured Speaker

Guy (pronounced “ghee”) is joining us from Paris. He is speaking Sunday afternoon at 3:30pm in Rm 147. His topic is about outsourcing your site development to get the best results at the lowest investment. Let’s get to know him…

WordPress user since 2012, I’ve been project manager for various WordPress websites and freelance since 2014.

Curious about technologie in general, sciences, social, travelling, knowledge & education…

I am also interested in all form of “competition” : E-sports, speed-running, sports, competitive eating…

All time racket sports player, I host table tennis Meetup every week at Trinity Bellwood Community Center.”

“Can a professional website be created by the low cost freelancers on marketplace sites ? What will you get ? at what price ?

Let’s find out !” “Why did I choose to do this presentation? I was simply curious; curious to discover this way of working; to discover the talent of those freelancers and to discover how much it would cost.

This presentation won’t be only about the cheapest possible price you can get for a WordPress website, but it will also be an introduction to more complex questions such as the upside/downside of globalization, the competition that it creates for the local market etc…”

The thing I like most about Toronto is its multiculturalism : traveling from Greece to Korea with a stop in Italy within the same city !

Connect with Guy through his speaker profile.

Make sure you have your ticket to #WCTO before they sell out!

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Shanta Nathwani – Featured Speaker

Shanta is one of our local speakers. She is speaking Saturday morning at 10:05am in Rm 129. Her topic is on her experiences while exploring options for learning code. Let’s get to know her…

My profile on #WCTO is not everything I am, though this will be my 5th time speaking at WordCamp Toronto!

In my spare time, I practice martial arts. Namely, Tai Chi, Karate and Ancient Weaponry. I’ve been studying the arts for 15 years. I’ve been a teacher for most of my life, starting at the age of 12 when I taught my Grade 6 class about India. My teacher never lifted a finger.

I’m also a Meetup junkie. I sometimes attend upwards of 5 or 6 meetups a week, sometimes multiple ones on the same day. Some of my favourites are DevTO, HackerNest, and, of course, WordPress Toronto!

One of the largest trends these days is learning code, regardless of the language. The number of programs out there, whether teaching children or adults is immense! Where do you start? Is coding for you? What is the best method for me? What should I be learning? The best question that will help to answer that is: What is your goal? I hope to help guide you through Continue reading “Shanta Nathwani – Featured Speaker”

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Brian Rotsztein – Featured Speaker

Brian is travelling to us from Montreal. He is speaking Saturday morning at 10:05am in the auditorium. His topic is how WordPress is changing lives. Let’s get to know him…

I love fishing! There are few experiences in life like heading to a quiet lake or calm river in northern Quebec, in search of monster pike.

I’ll be talking about the power of the WordPress community.

You have never heard a talk like this, I guarantee it.

I enjoy socializing with my Toronto WordPress community friends.

Connect with Brian through his speaker profile.

Make sure you have your ticket to #WCTO before they sell out!

WordCamp Toronto 2017 is over. Check out the next edition!