Daisy Olsen

Emerging from the Long Silence with Upcoming Appearances!

January 19, 2010 by Daisy

It’s been a busy few months since WordCamp NYC. One of the funny things about working on websites for other people is that your own site tends to fall by the wayside. So I thought I’d post an update on my conference schedule. I can’t say I’ve ever had a conference schedule before. I sort of like it. I might even consider making it a semi-regular sort of thing.

First, I’m going to be in Boston this weekend for the first ever WordCamp Boston! I’ll be speaking on the Parent/Child theme structure. It will be a great conference and I’m really looking forward to networking and all the great stuff that the event planning group has put together!

On January 28th the first Hudson Valley WordPress Meetup will convene. This will be an informal meeting to establish the group and get to know each other.

My next trip will be down to Nashville to attend and lead 2 workshops at the Blissdom Conference. I’ll be meeting so many people I’ve had the opportunity to work with over the last year and change, It’s very exciting!

Last, but not least, I’ll be speaking in the WordPress track at the CMS Expo in Chicago from May 3rd-5th. I’m honored to be asked to present and I’m looking forward to the chance to help spread the wonderful world of WordPress to a group that does not already use it. The fact that WordPress is being brought into Content Management circles more and more shows that the platform has matured beyond blogging. Something I’ve seen since I first started working with the system nearly 4 years ago.

That covers my planned schedule for the immediate future. It’s subject to change and expansion

Filed Under: From the Desk of WordPress Mama Tagged With: conference, schedule, speaking, WordCamp

Slides from WordCamp NYC 2009 Presentations

November 14, 2009 by Daisy

Thanks to everyone that attended my WordCamp NYC 2009 Presentations. Below you will find the slides from each session.

Choosing the Right theme for Your blog

Choosing Themes

View more presentations from DaisyOlsen.

Introduction to WordPress Theming

Creating Themes

View more presentations from DaisyOlsen.

The sample theme that was discussed briefly in the Intro to Creating Themes Session can be downloaded

Filed Under: From the Desk of WordPress Mama

Shortcodes in the Sidebar

October 30, 2009 by Daisy

Shortcodes are used to insert complicated or customized content into a page or post with minimal fuss. They usually look something like this:

[shortcodekeyword]
Sometimes they will have other information along with them like this:

[shortcodekeyword value='somevalue']

Since WordPress 2.5 the process of outputting shortcode has been simplified. Unfortunately it’s not posssible, out of the box, to use shortcodes in the sidebar text widgets. Enabling this feature is simple, though. Simply add the following line to the functions.php file in your active theme:

add_filter('widget_text', 'do_shortcode');

Of course, if the thought of adding code to your theme gives you hives you can always use this plugin: Sidebar Shortcodes

Filed Under: Theme Cookbook Tagged With: shortcodes, sidebar, widget

WordPress Security Update Released: Version 2.8.5

October 20, 2009 by Daisy

A security release for WordPress has just been rolled out and it’s recommended that all WordPress sites upgrade as the release will prevent your site from being targeted from a newly discovered exploit.