Inspired by HeroPress, we thought, why not reach out to people in the WordPress community, who have an Inspiring/Interesting WordPress story which can help others.

As we continue to build the Nashik WordPress community, we want to highlight more members in our “Share your WordPress story” featured on the WordCamp Nashik website. From September we will publish one interesting story every week until WordCamp Nashik 2016 event day!

The requirements for being featured are simple:

1. Are you working with WordPress?
2. Do you have a interesting/inspiring story you think could help others?

Maybe you write plug-ins? Or perhaps you showcase your photography on your own WordPress website? Are you a teacher who uses your WordPress site to tutor students? Or maybe you design and code your themes from scratch?

If you answered yes to any of those questions, we want to feature you and your story of how WordPress makes your work awesome, Fill out the form below, we’d love to hear your story.

Your WordPress Story

Photo Courtesy: WordCamp Asheville

Are you a WordPress Ninja? Do you like helping others and contributing to the open source community? Well here’s your chance!

What is the Happiness Bar?

The WordCamp happiness bar is a gathering place where attendees can have their WordPress questions answered by the experts – speakers, volunteers, and organizers. They will be ready and waiting to help solve your queries related to WordPress. Not sure how to install a plugin? Wondering how to customize your navigation menu? Want to know where to start with security? The happiness bar is a great opportunity to get one-on-one help and advice from WordPress professionals. The bar will be open on the event day with breaks for lunch and the room location will be announced closer to the event date.

How much time do I have to commit to?

As a Happiness Bar volunteer you need to commit to two-three hours of the time on event day!

What are the benefits?

It’s a lot of fun and a great way to meet new people and show them how much you know (maybe they’ll hire you!). Happiness Bar volunteers will get free attendance because it’s a fun and rewarding activity on it’s own. It’s also a great way to give back to the open source community.

How can I get involved?

If you’re better at answering questions than asking please come to the bar and help out! You can sign up to be an official happiness bar volunteer on the volunteering page.

A Note: Not all problems can be solved quickly and easily. Although the Happiness Bar is a place to get you going in the right direction, you might need to continue the conversation after WordCamp. And, not to disappoint you, but that might cost money. Volunteers will do their best to help you as much as possible during the weekend, but sometimes, you just need a professional.

For newcomers, attending and meeting new people at WordCamps can be an intimidating experience, especially for introverts who are not used to start the conversation.

Whether you are a new comer or slightly shy WordPress user, we want to help you, make “your” event more interactive!

WordCamp is an excellent opportunity to meet new like-minded people. At the conference, everyone you will meet shares a common interest with you: WordPress.

Being a Introvert myself, I’m trying to become a socially confident person “Extrovert” especially at WordCamps, I came across few tips which I thought are worth sharing.

Here are some tips to help you feel comfortable at WordCamps:

• Plan your response to questions you will likely be asked, such as: “What do you do?,” “Why did you choose to come to WordCamp?” and other relevant questions. That way, you will not be at a loss for words when talking to someone you just met.
• Be familiar with the list of speakers. Decide which topics interest you the most. Then make it a point to introduce yourself to the speakers who will present those topics. Set a goal to meet at least three speakers. If you know about a speaker’s work and you admire what they are doing, tell them!
• If you already know a few people who are attending WordCamp, try not to limit your interaction with only them. Get out of your comfort zone and introduce yourself to someone that you notice is standing alone. Chances are, that person is also introverted and will appreciate meeting you!
• During lunch, sit with a few people that you don’t know. You can talk about the morning sessions and what you look forward to hearing in the afternoon.
• Remember to have fun! WordCamp is a casual event, so relax and enjoy meeting people that share your interests.

Source: WordCamp Fayetteville

I hope, above tips are useful 🙂 Eager to meet you all at WordCamp Nashik 2016!
Did you register at WordCamp Nashik yet?
Don’t delay!, Grab Your Tickets, Now!.

Photo Courtesy: Nasa

No doubt our beloved CMS “WordPress” is used by renowned Brands and Celebrities, Addition to this Government Agencies like NASA’s Glenn Research Center revealed the benefits of using WordPress.

“The following are the main benefits we’ve found in using our implementation of WordPress as a content management system for the NASA Glenn Research Center web sites we maintain.” – Richard Kurak – Nasa Official

Benefits

Only Basic HTML Experience Required: If you have a knowledge of how to use Microsoft Word, then you can add, update and manage your site’s web pages, as well as add photos and other media. And if you do have an advanced knowledge of HTML, you’ll appreciate how our implementation of WordPress greatly simplifies your regular site update and maintenance tasks.

No Additional Software Necessary: To update a site, a site curator only needs the latest version of their favorite browser (recommended: Chrome, Firefox or Safari/Webkit; Internet Explorer 11 or higher). (We do recommend the free Picasa from Google (Windows) or iPhoto (Macintosh) for more detailed photo editing; and a common HTML authoring tool (such as Dreamweaver) for converting complex data tables from Excel or Word into WordPress pages.)

Built-in Section 508 Compliant: Our NASA Affinity WordPress theme (the HTML/CSS design, structure and programming) is already Section 508 compliant, and new Section 508 issues are addressed as the overall theme is upgraded. Essentially, only the content (text, photos, videos) that a site curator adds will need to be verified for Section 508 compliance by the curator.

Search Engine Friendly: The basics of search engine optimization are built into using the system, including automatic generation of page Title and Description meta tags as well as the quick ability to enhance Description meta tags for any page without having to open up the HTML.

Search Engine Notification: When a site curator posts a news-related item, the major search engines (Google, Yahoo, Ask, MSN/Bing) are automatically notified to catalog the new content; additionally, the system automatically builds XML sitemaps to help search engines correctly catalog and prioritize your content in their databases.

Built-in Search Engine: Your site users can use the built-in search engine to search for content specific to your site (the “Search This Site” search form found under the left-hand navigation). This search function is distinct from the search box found at the top of any NASA page.

Content Separate from Design: As the overall look and feel of the NASA theme changes, your content (text, photos and documents) remains the same. There’s no need for wholesale, time-consuming revisions of your entire site if and when the design changes.

Automatic RSS Feeds: Updates to news-related postings create automatic RSS feeds, which can be used in other NASA sites to automatically notify their visitors of new activities on your site. Or you can easily add another site’s RSS feed to your site.

Low Cost, Lower Maintenance and Widely Supported: WordPress is a widely used and supported open-source system, and we’ve found it takes less time to maintain it and show users how to use it than other open-source content management systems.

Track Actual Site Usage: To track site visitor patterns on your site, we use the open source Piwik Analytics, which is currently an appropriate method of viewing how users actually browse your site (user data is not transmitted to a third party).

Other Automatic Features:

• A dynamic site map updates with every change you make to your site, making tracking content easier for both curators and site viewers.
• Automatic checking and easy repair of broken links.
• Automatic, dynamic identification of non-NASA.gov domain “external links.” Like this link to Google. No need for extra hand coding.
• Automatic image resizing of uploaded images for simple thumbnail creation, better photo presentation, and easier image archiving.
• News/announcement content is automatically archived by the categories and tags that you assign it.

Source: NASA Glenn Research Center