Speaker Spotlight: Nur Ahmad Furlong

Nur Ahmad Furlong develops Communications which are “Human Centric”, in other words, facilitating the new ways in which people are starting to interact and communicate by helping companies speak to people in their own language.
Nur have been involved with Graphic/Web Design, XHTML Development, CSS coding, Brand Development, Conceptual & Strategic Development, Animation, Illustration & Information Architecture.

Tell us a bit about yourself

I do biz at the-colab.com, blog at nomad-one.com, WordPress Designer, Developer and Trainer.

Why WordPress?

The first blog I enjoyed reading was running on WordPress, so I gave it a try in 2006 and never looked back. Why, it’s so darn easy to do what you need done.

What are your thoughts on the WordPress community as a whole? And the South African WP community?

We have a really great community both locally and internationally. I think we need to get together, meetup and collaborate more regularly. Super excited to rub shoulders with the WP geeks of Cape Town again, never a dull moment.

Why did you decide to speak at WordCamp Cape Town?

Err, well, I was kinda forced into it, but having said that I speak WordPress whenever I get the chance I jumped at the opportunity. It’s kinda my thing, WordPress has been my daily focus for at least 5 years now.

What is your talk going to be about?

I was asked to speak about WordPress “as” a CMS, but have Chosen to reword it a little and call it WordPress “IS” a CMS, because I believe the argument of whether it is or not needs to be laid to rest. It’s the CMS of choice!

What are you most looking forward to at WordCamp Cape Town?

Meeting the WP geeks, connecting and reconnecting with those I’ve only interacted with via the interwebs.

What is the one thing you want people to walk away with from your talk?

The feeling that, 98% of what they want done can be done with WordPress, and that there are a ton of tools available to get it done super quick without any code.

What is your favourite WordPress theme and/or plugin, and why?

Favourite plugin has to be Backup Buddy, it’s saved by butt a ton of times. I move WordPress installs around all the time, and also need to restore hacked or broken sites. Backup Buddy is the bomb! A Close second would be Advanced Code Editor Plus. Makes live coding just that much easier.

Share one WP tip

Backup, backup, backup! Did I forget to say regularly backup your WordPress site?

Who in the WordPress community inspires you? Who do you follow?

Wow, there’s a ton of people who inspire me with regard to WordPress, one person who’s contributions are always beneficial is Jeff Star – http://perishablepress.com and Co-Author of Digging into WordPress. Sometimes you just need that extra geeky level of advice and Jeff’s the man.

What is the most exciting improvement to WordPress that you have noticed in the last year?

I’m really impressed with Twenty Eleven Theme, really giving the developer community something meaty to dig into. The team at Automattic are leading by example with regards to theme releases lately.

Where do you see WordPress 2 years from now?

That’s always a tricky question. I’d have to say it would probably be a much more mature CMS, possibly with significant improvements to document management and security, and alot more built in features like backups, theme options, post types and write panel wysiwyg. At least that’s what I hope for 🙂

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One Response to “Speaker Spotlight: Nur Ahmad Furlong

  1. nomad-one says:

    My presso at – http://www.the-colab.com/wordpress-cms

    Didn’t manage to finish, but all the slides are up at the address above and you can check out the slides you might have missed. Thanks to those who engaged with me and asked questions and hope the rest have benefitted.

    If you have questions about anything covered leme know!