Over a series of 8 videos, watch and learn as Ryan builds an entire ExpressionEngine website from beginning to end. Get started now.
Below is the keynote from Leslie Camacho, given at EECI 2009. Enjoy, and many thanks to the conference for posting this great video!
EECI2009 | Keynote Leslie Camacho from EECI2009 on Vimeo.
Posted on Oct 26, 2009 by Kenny Meyers
Upon arriving in Leiden by train from the Amsterdam airport, I made the short walk from the train station to the hotel. Before I even stepped inside the hotel, I got my first introduction of the conference. Through the window of the lobby, there was none other than Leevi Graham, typing away on his laptop, most likely writing another new add-on.
That began the amazing experience of meeting familiar names but new faces in the community and hearing them speak about their experiences using ExpressionEngine to develop websites.
I have to acknowledge the conference organizers, Whoooz! Webmedia. Robert, Adriaan and their team put together an amazingly well-produced conference. The venue—an old factory building in the heart of Leiden—was unlike any other conference venue I’ve been to, equipped with a sound system, stage lighting and, most importantly, a bar. I’ve been to quite a few conferences, some done well, others not so much and I was really impressed with how they put it all together. If this is any indication of the future EECI conferences, you will want to attend one.
As is always the case with conferences, the real value is with the people attending; I had a lot of interesting conversations with other attendees and speakers. It was great to get to know people that I had only previously communicated with online.
The sessions were also excellent. Leslie Camacho opened it up with a look at the history and future of ExpressionEngine. We got to hear Simon Collison talk about Erskine’s use of ExpressionEngine, EllisLab Technology Architect Derek Allard explained how the development team works, as well as his experience and process while building the new File Manager in EE 2.0.
The talented Veerle Pieters walked the audience through her design process for the EE 2.0 control panel, starting with the creative brief, wireframes and then several design iterations. We learned how to sell add-ons from Brandon Kelly and how to build add-ons from Leevi Graham. Mike Boyink showed us his project planning process, including his project wall (which he recreated on stage). I really enjoy seeing how other people work on and plan EE websites.
The second day was filled with workshops on ExpressionEngine (and CodeIgniter). I started my day learning the ins and outs of add-on development from former EllisLab CTO Paul Burdick (not Lead Developer at Solspace). But there were also several other excellent workshops on Day 2.
It was a pleasure to meet so many EE users. I met people from South Africa, Greece, Germany, Switzerland and the UK; our community is thriving across the globe. I look forward to seeing everyone again next year!
After a long trip back to the States, I’m home again and ready to kick off our week-long look at EE 2.0. Stay tuned!
Posted on Oct 25, 2009 by Ryan Irelan
Despite having my Nikon D90 with me, I didn’t take a lot of photos and I certainly didn’t take any as nice as what Matthew Pennell did on Flickr. Click through for shots of speakers, attendees and more.
Posted on Oct 25, 2009 by Ryan Irelan
EllisLab El Presidento Leslie Camacho opened the conference on Thursday morning with a keynote on ExpressionEngine’s history, community and future. He also included—via a video by CTO Derek Jones— some important announcements about EE 2.0 (more on that in a moment).
Leslie talked about the foundation they’ve built for EE 2.0: It’s a proven CMS in the market and has 102,000 registered members (presumably on their forums) and the base for EE 2.0 (CodeIgniter) is a “highly praised framework.” The creator of PHP described CodeIgniter as “faster, light and the least like a framework.”
ExpressionEngine 2.0 contains 50+ new features and improvements, as well as brand new UI (you’ll hear more about this next week in our exclusive coverage on EE Insider), a File Manager and Image Editor. EllisLab has made a concerted effort on allowing more control when developing websites with ExpressionEngine. The control will be in templates, installation and the publishing process.
During the short video presentation by Derek Jones (which, surprisingly, featured a “cameo” appearance by yours truly) he announced the release date of December 1, 2009 and that it will have some very cool new features like a fieldtype API (they are building FieldFrame into ExpressionEngine!).
The conference attendees left the session energized, abuzz by the announcement of the release date for ExpressionEngine and ready for the conference sessions.
Posted on Oct 23, 2009 by Ryan Irelan
El presidente, Leslie Camacho, has been interviewed for the excellent site First & 20. The interview, which goes into what Leslie has on his iPhone, shows how Leslie keeps it real. Workplace real.
The one thing I don’t do with my iPhone is game. I’m an avid gamer but the iPhone is strictly a work, communication, and thinking device. I do my best to keep my app collection focused on things that will engage me with people, not provide isolation. That’s what the Macbook Pro is for!
Oh, Mr. Camacho… if only you knew what you were missing.
Posted on Oct 22, 2009 by Kenny Meyers
Every week we list the latest addons added to Devot:ee, the premier EE addon site.
Thanks to Ryan Masuga for putting this together.
Posted on Oct 22, 2009 by Kenny Meyers
Prolific add-on developer Leevi Graham had a surprise for the audience at the end of his presentation at EECI 2009: free add-ons. Everyone in attendance gets a free copy of every one of Leevi’s commercial add-ons.
What does this include? PublishPlus, Better Meta and LG Polls.
Posted on Oct 22, 2009 by Ryan Irelan
At EECI 2009, EllisLab annoucned that ExpressionEngine 2.0 will be released on December 1, 2009.
Posted on Oct 21, 2009 by Ryan Irelan
Today at the opening keynote of the EECI 2009 conference in Leiden, The Netherlands, EllisLab President Leslie Camacho reveals the pricing for EE 2.0:
Also: Each 2.0 license purchase includes a download to the current 1.6.x version.
Posted on Oct 21, 2009 by Ryan Irelan
Ryan Irelan and Dan Benjamin have released episode 4 of The EE Podcast. Topics covered this week are:
- EECI 2009 this Thursday and Friday in Leiden, The Netherlands. Ryan will be speaking on Thursday at 17:35 on “10 Ways to Supercharge Your EE Development.” Ryan will also be covering the conference at EE Insider and here at the EE Podcast.
- Second wave of EE 2.0 Beta Phase 2 invites have been sent out. If you’re in, you’re in. If you’re not, oh noes!
- Getting to No by Greg Hoy talks about what to consider when picking new clients. “I’ve learned that the hardest part isn’t closing the deal, but figuring out which deals are actually worth closing.”
- Hop Inject lets you insert something (ads, text) between paragraphs of your entry.
- Modulo Operator plugin let’s you calculate the modulo value. A common operation in PHP, this plugin makes it easy with just EE template tags.
- Restricted Area A module that allows you to wall off parts of your site to certain member groups.
Posted on Oct 21, 2009 by Kenny Meyers
Havoc Inspired has posted an interview with Rick Ellis. In the interview, he talks about EllisLab, what he does and the formation of the company. It’s a great 20 minute interview, well worth your time.
The first thing you should know about Rick Ellis though, is that Rick Ellis doesn’t do push-ups. Rick Ellis pushes the earth down.
Posted on Oct 19, 2009 by Kenny Meyers
SmoothFunction have released Boomerang 1.1. Changes include the following:
FEATURE: Email Templates can now utilize ALL ExpressionEngine template code (weblog entries, custom fields, conditionals, addons, etc.). Now you can utilize ALL your site’s content to fuel your email marketing.
FEATURE: Server time offset setting for localization
ENHANCEMENT: New and improved Reports View
ENHANCEMENT: Printer-friendly Report Views (flash charts write to images)
TECH NOTE: Improved cron functionality
We reviewed the module recently, and found it to be a solid module: working as advertised.
Posted on Oct 19, 2009 by Kenny Meyers
In last week’s EE Podcast, Dan and I made a call for questions that we could use in our “Stump Ryan” segment of the podcast. The idea is that you, the listeners, send EE questions that you don’t think I can answer.
The questions should have one obvious answer and be related to ExpressionEngine. Dan will sort through the questions and ask me on future podcasts.
I think this will be a lot of fun to do and you’ll most likely hear me miss some easy stuff. But! This isn’t possible without your help. Submit your questions to Dan (don’t send them to me!).
Bring it on!
Posted on Oct 19, 2009 by Ryan Irelan
Each week, a strange chemical reaction occurs causing EE Insider and Devot:ee to join forces for your weekly Devot:ee.
Now with an AMAZING banner!
Posted on Oct 15, 2009 by Kenny Meyers
Deeploy Helper, a tool to help you migrate installs to other servers, has been updated. The new version includes:
- Support for FieldFrame (1.1.3 and above).
- Support for Gallery.
- A super cool quick replace tool at the top.
Deeploy Helper is a great tool for quickly changing configuration settings on migration. I use it on most local to production environment switches.
Posted on Oct 14, 2009 by Kenny Meyers
On Monday, Solspace announced that they are dropping support of PHP 4 for their add-ons. We covered this here at EE Insider and also in the EE Podcast with an interview of add-on developer Brandon Kelly.
We’ve heard from the add-on developers and now we want to hear from you:
Does the lack of support for PHP 4 in add-ons matter to you? Do you or your host still run PHP 4 with ExpressionEngine?
Posted on Oct 14, 2009 by Ryan Irelan
A fresh, new episode of the EE Podcast is out and this time we talk about poor old PHP 4 and how it’s being dropped like a hot rock. Our friend and supporter of the podcast, Brandon Kelly, joined us for a brief conversation about how PHP 4 support affects add-on developers and what his approach has been.
The show runs just about 20 minutes and also includes the latest EE news with commentary from co-hosts Dan Benjamin and me.
Listen and subscribe: The ExpressionEngine Podcast
Posted on Oct 13, 2009 by Ryan Irelan
Solspace has said goodbye to PHP 3 & 4. This can only be seen as a good move as PHP 4 is the equivalent of an ancient sumerian language on the web. PHP 5 has been out for 5 years! Here’s more:
Over the previous six months, Solspace has released new versions of its popular Add-Ons with many of these new versions requiring a minimum of PHP 4.3.2 and MySQL 4.1. This is because there are new features and abilities available in the more recent versions of PHP and MySQL that Solspace wishes to take advantage of.
The transition to PHP 5 has a similar justification, but it is also taking into account the fact that official support of PHP 4 has been over for quite a while now and nearly all of our long term clients and partners have finally made the switch to PHP 5 on their servers. We feel we can finally start updating our code without negatively impacting our clients and users.
Congratulations to Solspace on this awesome transition. Also, if you have been using their extensions, check out their complete listing of extension hooks. Very cool, lads.
Posted on Oct 13, 2009 by Kenny Meyers
Leevi Graham has introduced LG Better Meta 1.8.1. The updates include the following:
- Re-introduced PHP4 support
- Removed short_tag_open dependency
- Added example front end templates
I use this extension on every install and find it indispensable. If this were ebay I would give Leevi an “A++++++++++” rating for it.
Posted on Oct 13, 2009 by Kenny Meyers
Ellislab has posted the survey/quiz contest winners. The lucky few are:
ExpressionEngine Mug and EE 2.0 Upgrade Winner
David Millsaps (Visionpoint Marketing, Raleigh News)
EE 2.0 Upgrade + Field Notebook Winners
- Milo Maneo (Milus.it)
- Lincoln Gbenga Olagbaju (Lincoln Pixel)
- Stephen Swift (Back Beat Media)
- Russ Lipton
- Marty Stake
Field Notebook Winners
- Kurt Deutscher (NetRaising)
- Brian Klepper (Brian Klepper Photography)
- Sean Smith (Create Sean)
- Brad Hopkins (Firebrand Media)
- Santiago Melluso (Creative Media Farm)
- Christopher McNabb (Key Creative)
Congratulations to you all.
Posted on Oct 12, 2009 by Kenny Meyers
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