Brad Williams Blog» Personal

New WordPress Podcast: WP Late Night Starts Tonight!

Brad — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 20:52:26 +0000

There’s a new WordPress Podcast in town: WP Late Night. Hosted by yours truly, along with Dre Armeda (Sucuri.net) and Ryan Imel (WPCandy.com), WP Late Night will be a bi-weekly live streaming video podcast all about WordPress!

I’ve been itching to get involved with another WordPress podcast for some time now. I had such a great time on the WordPress Weekly show with Jeffro that I knew it was only a matter of time until it happened. The show will be live streaming tonight (Wednesday) at 8pm EST. You can watch the show live on the WPCandy Stream page.

For more information on the show, and ways to participate, make sure you check out the WPCandy.com announcement post.

End of an Era – My Final SitePoint Podcast Episode

Brad — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 15:00:36 +0000

If you haven’t heard by now, I have officially stepped down from the SitePoint Podcast. My final episode was released on November 11th, 2011. This episode was released exactly 3 years and 1 day after the first episode of the SitePoint podcast, which was released on November 10th, 2008. I still can’t believe it’s been three years since the launch of the show.

The initial talks about starting a SitePoint podcast actually began over a year before the first episode was released. It took a full year to organize, plan, prepare, and record the first show.

I’ve had an amazing time recording the show over the years. We recorded a live show at BlogWorld Expo in Las Vegas 2010. I did some really fun interviews with Matt Mullenweg (of WordPress), Andy Peatling (of BuddyPress), Roy Rubin (of Magento), and multiple SitePoint book authors. We even won the Podcast of the Year award in 2010 by .Net Magazine!

Aside from the great shows we’ve recorded over the years, what I’ll miss most is chatting with my friends every few weeks. I’ve developed a strong friendship with Patrick and Stephan over the past few years that, as Patrick put it, extends far beyond the show. It’s been fun watching all of us grow, personally and professionally, since the start of the show.

It’s going to be strange not being on the show, but as they say all good things must come to an end. I’m confident this isn’t the end of podcasting for me, just the end of this chapter of my podcasting career. Until the next chapter!

I Survived WordCamp Philly 2011!

Brad — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 15:10:31 +0000

Last weekend was WordCamp Philly 2011, the second WordCamp to be held in the City of Brotherly Love!

I had the pleasure of organizing the event this year with Doug Stewart, Reed Gustow, and Anthony Bubel. The event was a huge success!

Saturday we had an amazing lineup of speakers covering four tracks and a classroom with all sorts of awesome WordPress related topics. Saturday ended with an epic after party at National Mechanics. Sunday we held a Developer Day with more hands on hacking, which is always a fun time!

Overall it was an awesome event and one I am extremely proud to have been a part of. The Philly WordPress Community really stepped up and helped put on an amazing event.

I gave a classroom style presentation titled “Creating Your First WordPress Plugin”. The slides are embedded below:

Be sure to check out the other great presentations on the official WordCamp Philly 2011 SlideShare group.

Happy Halloween!

Brad — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 01:21:48 +0000

Happy Halloween 2011! Boo!

Where Did July Go?

Brad — Sat, 30 Jul 2011 23:33:05 +0000

July was a crazy month for me. Expect more frequent posting soon!

Summer WordCamps 2011

Brad — Thu, 30 Jun 2011 23:47:48 +0000

It’s summer and that means time for summer WordCamps! I’ll be hitting two WordCamps this summer: WordCamp Boston and WordCamp San Francisco.

WordCamp Boston will be held on July 23rd-24th in Boston, MA. This year’s event looks to be jam packed with great speakers and sessions. The event will feature three tracks each day. On Saturday the speaker tracks will range from Development to Education and How-To. On Sunday the tracks will range from Advanced Development to Strategy and even some Design sessions.

WordCamp San Francisco will be held on August 12th-14th in San Francisco, CA. WordCamp SF really is the essential WordCamp of the year. The original WordCamp was held in SF in 2006 and has grown ever since. I had a blast last year and can’t wait to see all of my community friends again this year. I can only hope a dance off breaks out again at the after party!

I actually won’t be speaking at either event, which will be a change for me. I’m going to hang up my speaker hat until WordCamp Philly 2011 later this year. I do, however, plan on helping out at the Happiness Bar at both events.

If you plan on attending either event make sure you track me down and say hi! :)

New House and More!

Brad — Fri, 22 Apr 2011 14:30:49 +0000

Its been a crazy month, and I’m a little late writing this post, but I’m excited to say I am once again a homeowner! April and I bought a house in Glenside, Pennsylvania and are absolutely in love with it!

Buying this house brought back a lot of memories of my old house in Indiana. I loved being a homeowner and couldn’t wait to buy another house.

Glenside is a great little town just north of Philadelphia. It has a small town feel, but is only 30 minutes from downtown Philly. The new house has an amazing kitchen, all new appliances, plenty of room for the entire zoo, and a monstrous backyard.

We closed on the new house on April 1st. Shortly after arriving at our new home that same day I got down on one knee and proposed to April (and she said yes)! She is the love of my life and I wanted the house to be ours from day one.

Its been a wild month and we can’t wait to finish moving into our new place!

330 Days Later and my House is Sold!

Professional WordPress Plugin Development Has Hit The Shelves!

Brad — Thu, 03 Mar 2011 15:43:37 +0000

My latest book, Professional WordPress Plugin Development, has left the warehouse and is in stock and ready to order! The book is also available in DRM-Free PDF and Kindle formats. I co-authored this book with two amazing developers, Ozh Richard and Justin Tadlock.

I am really happy with how the book turned out and know it will be a valuable resource for anyone wanting to learn, or expand, their knowledge on WordPress plugin development. The book includes 80+ fully functional plugin examples and tutorials for download. I find myself consulting the book on a daily basis for code snippets and examples.

Professional WordPress Plugin Development covers a wide range of plugin dev topics including plugin foundation, creating widgets and shortcodes, custom post types and taxonomies, users and roles, coding standard and styles, and action and filter hooks. The book also dives into some more advanced topics like the HTTP API, JavaScript and Ajaz, Cron event scheduling, the Rewrite API, and even an entire chapter dedicated to Multisite plugin development! For more information check out the post Ozh wrote that details everything the book covers.

Want to win a FREE copy of the book? I’m giving away three free copies to three random fans of the Professional WordPress Plugin Development Facebook page. Simply like the page and you’re entered to win! I’ll pick the winners on Monday.

SitePoint Podcast Wins Podcast of the Year Award!

Brad — Thu, 09 Dec 2010 16:00:40 +0000

The SitePoint Podcast, which I’ve been a co-host on since the beginning, won the Podcast of the Year award from .NET Magazine!
I’ve been doing the SitePoint Podcast with Kevin Yank, Patrick O’Keefe, and Stephan Segraves since the first episode back on November 10th, 2008. It’s amazing to think we’ve been doing the show over 2 years now. I couldn’t be happier with how the podcast show has grown over the years.

A big THANK YOU to everyone who voted for the SitePoint Podcast, our loyal listeners, our editors, and everyone involved in the podcast since the start!

Here’s a shot of the SitePoint Podcast hosts at Blog World Expo 2010.

BlogWorld Expo 2010 Recap! What Happens in Vegas…

Brad — Tue, 26 Oct 2010 15:18:56 +0000

Last week I attended BlogWorld Expo 2010 in beautiful (and warm!) Las Vegas with April, Brian, and Robin! This was my first visit to Las Vegas so I was very excited for the trip. My Company (WDS) redesigned the BlogWorld.com website and also sponsored the event.

I was lucky enough to record LIVE episodes of the SitePoint podcast at the event! Kevin Yank flew all the way from Sydney, Australia, along with Shayne Tilley and Luke Cuthbertson, to represent the launch of the new SitePoint venture Learnable! Patrick and Stephan, the other two hosts, were also there so we recorded a bunch of one-on-one interviews with attendees and also did a live recording with all four hosts! It was awesome hanging with sitepoint and podcast crew.

We also hung out with some great WordPress friends! Josh and Sally from Page.ly attended (and had a killer house party!). John Hawkins of 9seeds was the resident “local” giving us tips on places to check out and eat. Syed Balkhi of WPBeginner.com was also there and did a great interview with me. We also hung out with Andrew Powers and Adam Munns of PageLines.com

We had a WordPress dinner Saturday night with Lisa Sabin-Wilson and her husband Chris, Grant Griffiths and Clay from Headway Themes, Cory Miller and Matt Danner from iThemes, and I even met Brian Layman (who mentioned WDS in his presentation!), and Tracy Childers of Wishlist Member.

I was also invited to a few hotel suite parties by Darren Rowse of Problogger.com and SitePoint/Learnable. There is nothing quite like a Vegas hotel party!

Overall I had an amazing time! Can’t wait to attend next year! A photo gallery from the adventure is below: