Chris is the developer of iThemes Security (formerly Better WP Security) and has been working on WordPress security for over 5 years. Previously a captain for a small airline Chris’ interest in security began on his first day as an employed pilot, 9/11 and gradually evolved over the years to helping individuals and smaller organizations protect their websites from many of the common methods attackers use to compromise their victims.

When not coding Chris loves to teach and has taught computer security for St. Edward’s University as well as other courses ranging from computers to aviation.

WCSD 2015 Session – Vetting A Plugin

This session is for less-experienced WordPress users and will cover the ins and outs of selecting the right plugins for your site with particular emphasis on the following:

• An overview of the WordPress plugin repository and its function
• How plugins are approved or denied in the plugin repository
• An overview of other plugin sources and why some plugins are not in the WordPress.org repository
• How to choose what plugin(s) to use on your site
• The security implications of plugin choices
• How to keep your plugins up to date

Michele is a full time blogger, designer, and all around awesome person. She works for WP Security Lock as their WordPress Security and Plugin Specialist and Speaker/Trainer. Michele started her love for WordPress in 2010 and has never looked back.  She is the Lead Organizer for the Southern Illinois WordPress Meetup.  When not in front of a screen, Michele enjoys life with her family standing behind the camera.

WCSD 2015 Session – Your Site Has Been Hacked, Now What?

One morning you look at your website and it does not look like it should. You have been hacked. Now what do you do? You never thought to update anything because all of the reviews says that the themes and plugins are awesome when you uploaded them 2 years ago. There is this myth that websites are make it and forget it. That is one of the biggest ways the hacker attackers get in. This session will take you through some of the steps to get your site clean and ways to keep it that way. No one wants to be the next hacked site.

William Bay is the Chief Flauntreprener at Flaunt Your Site. He’s studied all kinds of SEO goodness, and what makes great web site design. On a typical day, he’ll be immersed in code, or dissecting rankings, or sneaking in a quick yoga session between client calls. When he’s not photographing, SEO’ing, or designing, he’s dreaming about surfing the perfect peeling reef breaks in the Mentawai Islands.

Flaunt Your Site was born out of William’s passion for both photography, website design and SEO. After a few years of doing it solely for his own wedding photography business in San Diego, he began having other photographers request custom sites and SEO done for them. The demand was such that William formed Flaunt Your Site.

While photographers still make up a large portion of Flaunt Your Site’s clientele, Flaunt also works with other small to medium businesses for custom websites and local SEO.

WCSD 2015 Session – What You Need to Know About Local SEO

If you’re a local business, or work with local businesses, you know how critical it is to rise above the noise of other businesses.

Local businesses aren’t just competing with each other, local search in general has become one of the most popular forms to find solutions for needs… dining, entertainment, and other services. People no longer have to ask humans for recommendations, when they have an all-knowing device in their pocket. If your business isn’t showing up on that “all-knowing device” you got to get cracking.

A recent study by comScore, Neustar Localeze and 15 Miles suggested that up to 78% of mobile searches lead to some form of offline purchase. So people are discovering your business online, then coming to your store to purchase, or eat.

In William Bay’s WordCamp San Diego panel, we’ll be looking at the factors Google uses to rank local your sites in the “7-Pack”, we’ll also discuss what you need to know in regards to the changes made with Google Local Pages, and finally how you should set up your websites for mobile to gain an additional advantage over the non-optimized crowd.

After covering these areas and along with some resources William will share, you should have a solid grasp on what you need to do with yours or your client’s sites to get them moving in the direction of better local rankings.

Mika Ariela Epstein is better known as Ipstenu, the Half-Elf Support Rogue. Working for DreamHost as a WordPress Support Specialist and Manager (aka ‘WordPress Guru’), she solves any WordPress problem that comes up, trains everyone from support to marketing in why WordPress makes your life better, and still finds time to slash unanswered WordPress.org forum threads by night and wrangle plugins by day. A self-taught guru on Multisite and .htaccess, she has a passion for writing and technology and blogs about them whenever possible.

The rumor that she has dice in her purse and tinfoil in her hats is in a constant state of Schrödinger proofs.

WCSD 2015 Panelist – HELP ME! How to Help Others Help You

This panel-style discussion will cover the following topics and is an open forum through which we encourage our attendees to ask questions.

We will cover:

• The basics of letting people know what info they need to provide in order to get the best support possible – whether in the WP.org forums or from their designer/developer.
• How to get your “Helper” the details they need related to your hosting environment, WordPress version, browser, etc.
• Tips on what to try on your own, before even asking for help.

Shaimoom Newaz is an art, code and bass enthusiast.

As a kid, copying Frank Miller and Jae Lee figures, he discovered an ability to transcribe what his creative core was yearning to express. After years of ink and acrylic renderings of his imagination, he reluctantly embraced the digital landscape. However, he thrived with his fellow creatives at the UCLA Design | Media Arts Program. With time, learning, practice and mentorship, he found myself loving the new possibilities with the digital world.

Shaimoom embraced code like the new girlfriend of his best friend: knowing he should be nice and get to know her, but reluctant to understand her for fear of her disturbing a familiar relationship. It turned out that front-end development was another exciting medium for his creativity. As his aesthetic was changing to more minimalist, color-heavy design, learning CSS and JavaSctipt allowed him to make magic with lines and grids in browsers. Today, he is a designer/developer evangelist who trains young unicorns how to fly.

Bass (as in music, not fish) has been a part of Shaimoom since the teen years. He has DJed for almost 2 decades, so music has always been a part of the equation. Even though he loves songs across the music genre spectrum, bass music affects his core and allows him to find energy when he needs it most, harmony when he’s feeling disjointed and a smile on his face in traffic while everyone else is road raging.

Shaimoom will be hosting the Design Track Panel titled, “What’s Your Workflow?”

The panel will be a Q and A style session with questions coming from both Shaimoom and the audience. Some topics will likely cover:

• Inspiration: In web design, where does it come from? Where do the experts look ti find it?
• Creation: What do we use to create? For both the designer and developer, there are new tools constantly coming out…what are people using?
• Materialization: I have created. Now what? Take your creation and give it value: there are plenty of tools to help facilitate materialization of our creative ideas all the way to bank!
• Contribution: Giving back. Contribution takes many forms: Forums, bug fixes, hacker challenges, meetups, WordCamps, etc. Where can you contribute?