php[world] 2014

I’ll be giving two talks at the inaugural php[world] conference, organized by the php[architect] team this fall in Washington, D.C. I’m humbled to be speaking alongside a bunch of great developers, including WordPress Lead Developer Andrew Nacin and Taylor Otwell, the creator of Laravel.

Keeping WordPress Under [Version] Control with Git

As seen at WordCamp North Canton, learn how to keep your WordPress sites under version control using a git workflow refined over dozens of sites. We’ll cover repository organization, what belongs (and, perhaps more importantly, what doesn’t belong), and how to make deploying updates and working with multiple environments as painless as possible.

Please note that this presentation is not an introduction to Git nor version control. While Git experience is not mandatory it’s recommended that you have some understanding of version control going into the talk.

WordPress Security Basics

This talk serves as a basic security primer for WordPress developers and site owners. Rather than focus on one of the black-box security plugins available, attendees will walk away with easy-to-implement, actionable steps to protect themselves from being exploited.

Major points to be covered:

• Password guidelines
• Keeping WordPress up-to-date
  • How safe is it to upgrade core?
  • Risks posed by third-party extensions
• Utilizing the WordPress permission system
  • Understanding roles and capabilities
• Hardening your WordPress installation
  • wp-config.php settings
  • File permissions