Wpwatercooler - Weekly Wordpress

Today we are talking about the latest plugins we are using in our day to day WordPress web development. What’s a Plugin? A plugin is architecture which allows users and developers to extend WordPress's abilities beyond the core installation. Each plugin offers custom functions and features enabling users to tailor their sites to their specific needs. These customizations range SEO (Search Engine Optimization) enhancers to content displaying features, such as the addition of widgets and navigation bars. Our new favorite plugins Codepress Admin Columns: Allows you to add extra columns to admin screens – aka backend. You can tweak every post type and how it displays from the admin screen. This is highly recommended customizing your backend and have access to data you wouldn’t normally see. It’s also really fantastic for photographers. WP Migrate DB Pro: You’re able to push and pull databases to and from your local environment and a staging or production server. It allows you to sync between a test site and live

Social media is here to stay, whether you like it or not. What is the best way to use it on your WordPress powered site and when not to do it. We'll be talking about how it affects performance and which plugins to use to get the job done. Keep in mind there is a difference between “Social Media” and a “Social Network” Defining Social Media: An outlet for social interaction Blogs (especially with comments) A WordPress site Major Social Networks: * Facebook * Twitter * Pinterest * LinkedIn * Tumblr * Google+ Do’s and Don’ts of Social Media: Do: Make it easy for people to share your post Have social share buttons on your posts (Jetpack) Easy to look at and share on a phone Choosing relevant titles for content you intend to share Target your audience – Make sure you know who your audience is so you get the most out of your SM push Don’t or Use your best judgement: Use affiliate links Use automatic publishing to push to Facebook Tools for Integrating Social Media into WordPress: * Lazy Social Buttons – Pl

On this episode of WPwatercooler we're going to be discussing meetups. We'll be discussing: how to find one,  how to run one, why would you do either and what are the motivations or running one or attending. What is a meetup? A great way to get like minded people together and share ideas. * Steve: OCWordPress began with the intent of finding local WordPress talent in order to outsource overflow work for his company. * Natalie: SoCal WordPress MeetUp Los Angeles started Feb 2009 after reading an article about MeetUp.com. She started the WordPress meetup after finding a void at meetup.com * Patrick: Greenbay WI – Someone set up a group on MeetUp but never actually did anything with it even though there were plenty of people that joined the online group. He decided to run the meeting. * Se: WP for Small Businesses – The organizer for the group left the group so she decided to take over the group. One of the hardest parts of organizing a meetup is finding the space. Here’s how some of the organizers handle tha

On this episode we are recapping the events that happened during WordCamp Los Angeles 2013. WordCamp LAX was really smooth and well managed. General thoughts are that it was hard to imagine this was a first time organizer group for a WordCamp. It was also representative of life and diversity in Southern California. Events Friday: The traditional Speaker/Sponsor dinner in Hollywood Saturday: All day sessions running in 2 rooms at Cal State LA followed by the after party at the Blue Cow Kitchen and Bar in Downtown LA. Sunday: Afternoon sessions at Cross Campus in Santa Monica Q: Why did the organizers decide to spread the weekend out over the Greater Los Angeles area instead of keeping it to one location for the weekend? A: Natalie has a really good relationship with Cross Campus and immediately thought it would be perfect for the smaller Sunday event since not as many people attend the Sunday event as they do the Saturday event.  The Saturday venue needed to be much larger, and they were having trouble finding

WPwatercooler streamed live with a panel from WordCamp Los Angeles 2013. We rounded up some of the brightest names in WordPress from the camp and got them on the show to talk shop and share their experiences. Due to low bandwidth issues at the event the video cut out at the beginning of the discussion. Many of regulars and past guests that have been on the show will be speaking at the event, here is our compiled list: * Cody Landefeld – Building your start-up with WordPress, Business Panel Discussion * Jeffrey Zinn – Business Panel Discussion * Mike Schroder – Command Line Workshop * Sarah Wefald – What is a child theme, and why/how should I use one? * Sé Reed – DIYWP: Making WordPress Work for Your Small Business * Steve Zehngut – Underscores – The only theme that matters * Suzette Franck – You’re Live! …Now What?: Post Launch Setup Process and Procedures * Wes Chyrchel – Setting Client Expectations in WordPress Web Development * Scott Bolinger – Lesser known but super hip responsive design tricks * Chris L

On this episode of WPwatercooler we celebrate about our first birthday and discuss the year in review. Live stream starts at 11am PST Mondays The one year anniversary of WP Watercooler Favorite Episodes: * Episode 28 – April Fools Day show – Drupal Watercooler * WordCamp Live shows * Orange County * Phoenix, Day two * Miami, Recap * Show and tell Favorite Guests: * Siobhan McKeown * Andrew Norcross * Carrie Dills * Jeff Zinn * Sarah Wefeld * Morton Rand-Hendriksen * Natalie MacLees Stats as of the September 16: * 54 Guests on the show * 2,982,983 episode views Other WP podcasts: * DradCast * Matt Report * This Week in WordPress Mentions: * github * jetpack * Media Temple * #blamelema [LISTATTENDEES event_identifier=”ep52-happy-1st-birthday-wordpress-year-in-review-wpwatercooler-sept-16-2013″ show_gravatar=”true”] See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

This week on WPwatercooler we will be discussing analytics for WordPress. Analytics is the way you go about tracking information about the people going to a website. It tells you how they’re arriving on your site, what pages they’re viewing, browser type, country of origin. There are 2 types of analytics.  Site based: Input code into the site and google will monitor the flow of traffic to/around/from your site. People Based: It answers “What are the people doing on the site?” You can follow a person’s movements through your site. What can you do with GA? * real time analysis * segmentation * integration of specific goals (such as tracking purchases and newsletter sign ups) * track pages they took to get to certain pages * Follow the dollars they spend What are resources to learn GA Beginners should look at WPBeginner Google offers its own training as well. sign up for free and go through their library of resources GA is constantly changing so you should look at those resources often Spend time using it

Today's topic is Learning resources – What's the best way to get started with WordPress? Chris’ best tip for any and every WordPress beginner question is to go to google and type in “WP Beginner” and then write your question. Sarah suggests getting offline and going to a local reputable WordPress meet up. Instead of just reading blog posts and tutorials, get in front of people that know WordPress. Have a conversation in person. Go to wordpress.com, set up a site and just start playing with it. About WPBeginner – 95% of articles come from users submitting questions. You’re always going to be a beginner of sorts because WP is always changing. You’ll always have to be learning. If you really do know WordPress, be a resource yourself! “Know enough to know what you don’t know.” If you don’t know something, don’t give out bad information. Resources for WordPress beginners: * WP Beginner (free) * Lynda.com (paid) * Suzette’s Speaker Deck from WC Vancouver * teamtreehouse.com * WordPress for Dummies by Lisa Sabin-

On this weeks episode we will be discussing ways to speed up your WordPress website.  This includes plugins that speed it up, explain caching and CDNs, and talk hosting providers that help. Caching – A way of taking the content and storing it into something more static to that gets pushed out to the internet. CDN – Content Delivery Network, the way you distribute all of the content be it Java, CSS or images out to a 3rd party that has fast servers. What are possible causes for a site running slow? * It’s possible that the issue is with your code and no matter where your site is hosted it will be slow. * Themes can also be an issue. * Often problems happen on the front end with a lot of or inefficient JavaScript, large image sizes. Image optimization is key. * Media in general takes up a lot of bandwidth. What are some possible solutions to slow running sites? * Hosting with a company that provides SSD (solid state drive) technology. SSD currently serves data at the fastest speed available. Compare hosts an

Today's topic is Working locally instead of cowboy coding where we will be discussing local web development utilizing tools such as XAMPP MAMP WAMP and other tools like DesktopServer, Vagrant or even Vagrantpress. Beginners For beginners Suzette suggests they use DesktopServer because it’s easy to install and you don’t have to ruin your server testing everything out and can test locally. Shooting from the hip Cowboy Coding: is when you make live changes to a website everyone can see. If you do anything that might break your site, you’re cowboy coding. You’re pulling the trigger and hoping something doesn’t break. Local Server So why use a local server? * It’s too easy to make 1 little mistake and break everything. Doing it locally prevents you from taking the site down live. This way you’re making changes and testing it out on a local server and if something breaks, it won’t take down the entire website. * You get good speed because you aren’t waiting for the internet to load. * You can work with no interne

On this episode we will be focusing on tools and techniques to backing up a WordPress installation and how to backup before a major upgrade. Backups are really important, and everyone should backup their sites. It doesn’t matter what platform you’re using, you need to be checking your restores every now and then to make sure that in the event of a site crash, your backups will work. Make sure your backup is going to a separate server and NOT on the same server your site is on. How often should you backup? * It really depends on the site and how your site changes. * It’s content dependent. If you have a site that puts out content all day, your would do well to back up several times a day. * Many sites back up nightly. * If you’re in e-commerce and having a lot of customer transactions in a day, you need to back up multiple times a day. * Back up every time you make any change whether it’s upgrading WordPress, a plugin, activating a plugin, updating a theme, anything. Ways to test your backup/restore: Restore

Today's topic is Future proofing your WordPress website. The topic was suggested to us by Julie Kuehl. How do you keep a website up to date? It’s a misconception that once the website is built it’s done. A website is not set it and forget it. It’s a relationship that you have to nurture and take care of it. You need to articulate to your customers that the expectation is they need to invest not only in their content, but consider a refresh in the future be it a month, a year or several years. With WP it isn’t just about content upgrades, but security updates. It’s like a car, you have to get the oil changed or even a new car. The 1st rule of future proofing a site is Don’t Touch Core! Se: It’s not possible to future proof a website. you can upgrade the website, you can add in new coding, you can revise some things, build a whole new theme… but it’s not possible to make a set it and forget it website that will withstand upgrades. If you make a themes, you’re going to have to revisit that code in a year or 2. J

On this episode of WPwatercooler we will be discussing WordCamp SF 2013, the State of the Word address and after parties. The Hallway Track There are many “Man” or “Woman on the Street” interviews that were conducted by Jason Tucker and Se Reed. Those can be found soon on the WordCamp San Francisco WordPress.TV page. State of the Word State of the Word address by Matt Mullenweg: * OCWP got a big shout out for their 10th anniversary party. * WordPress release cycle – updates and plugins will be updated the most * The release of 3.6 has been postponed * 3.7 and 3.8 release being so close together will create a lot of problems for people that use it in an enterprise setting * Matt said the releases will be small updates with less iterations Video can be found here: State of the Word 2013 Our favorite sessions Mike Schroeder – WP CLI (command line interface) talk was really excellent. His talk isn’t stagnant. He’s constantly fine tuning it so there is always good, new information. Helen Hou-Sandi – Customizing

Today's topic is “The responsibilities you have as a contractor” and it was suggested to us by Steve Zehngut We’re asking where their responsibilities end in a project and do you define it up front? Some clients are looking for a firm that will be a “one stop shop” meaning they want someone that will provide logo, social media, website, content. So as a contractor, what do you do? There is a benefit to being a one stop shop. Some clients don’t want to hire a lot of people to handle all of those aspects. If you are skilled enough to do it and willing, you will likely be hired and therefore have a job. This is a good way to start, but after a while, you might find your niche and start dropping some of the items you don’t enjoy. As a contractor, it us your responsibility to be completely up front about what is AND isn’t included in the project. Be very clear about your expectations. Communicate, communicate and communicate. Often potential clients will assume you will be handling an aspect that you have no inten

Today's topic is about Documentation. Documentation for a website, plugin or theme is an important component of a project. It allows the uninitiated to work with your code on either the web side of things or adding to your existing code. Documentation enables your customers to understand how to use what you have built for them. Commenting your code isn't enough, not everyone reads and interprets PHP and Javascript so taking the extra effort to explain how to use what you built will save people time, frustration and racking up support tickets for you to deal with. On this weeks topic of WPwatercooler we will be discussing documentation of all aspects. How does the customer expect the documentation to be and how a web developer can save money in spending the extra time writing, updating and cultivating good documentation for their customers. Why are some companies so bad at providing documentation? If you’re a developer and you’ve spent many hours writing code working with or creating API’s, and you want to bri

So what makes a good shared web host? Is it the support? Security? Caching? Clustering? Long execution times? On this episode we will uncover what our developer panelists look for in a shared host all without a trek to asking Deep Thought so don't panic, don't forget your towel and join us for this interesting topic. What is it and why do you want to start with it? * A shared webhost is where more than one website is stored on the same “webserver” owned by the webhost. The more sites hosted on a server the more resources are being used to do this. * It’s inexpensive * Most provide good basic support * Ability to ask to move servers if your site is having issues and they usually will do it About Support from the Hosting company Especially software support… where do we stop saying we’ll support and help? Installation? Plug-in set ups? The support departments aren’t filled with developers. Remember that. Once you get into code, a line has been crossed. Hosting companies are not there to look at your code. Abou

On this weeks episode we will be discussing our community of collaboration and how it isn't a competition. You're benefiting the community by collaborating and not being cutthroat. Instead you're able to share secrets and better the whole industry as a result. By collaborating with the community, you sharpen the industry as a whole. Carrie will be talking on collaboration at WCSF after having been burned by someone in the community that wasn't even technically her competition. This has lead to some very educational blog posts on her website. Check them out carriedils.com So why is the WordPress community so open to collaboration as opposed to the tech community in general? * It could be due to WordPress's open source nature. * It's a lot more common in open source communities to share things rather than hold on to it and not give it away. * WP is so popular there are loads of meet ups and so everyone is always out there helping each other. * Without the Foundation maintaining the hard line to ensure it remai

This weeks topic is “How to work effectively with designers”. We will be speaking with WordPress Developers and Designers to share some tips with working effectively with designers. We think that Designers and Developers will surely get something out of this discussion. Show starts Monday June 24 at 11:00am PST. Working with a designer can be a challenge for clients and engineers. You want an experience where customers are engaged on your site. How do non designers work with designers? Designer viewpoint:  * Having the developer ask questions. Communication is key for wireframing and design. How should they hand over files to the developers?  Do they want CSS callouts? Do they want the whole structure? * Plan that out ahead of time.  Developer Viewpoint:  * Plan and communicate. Wireframes are key but communication is more important. Explain WHO the market is for the site. Make sure you’re meeting the needs of the target audience. * Establish how you want your photoshop files delivered. Decide what you wan

Today's topic is Picking the right WordPress theme for non programmers. Scared of JQuery, PHP, CSS, LMNOP (I made that last one up) we have your back. We'll help you pick the right theme to start from for a non developer on this episode of WPwatercooler. Show starts at 11:00am PST on Mondays. [LISTATTENDEES event_identifier=”ep39-picking-the-right-wordpress-theme-for-non-programmers-wpwatercooler-ju” show_gravatar=”true”] See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

This weeks topic is Extending WordPress with mobile apps and custom web interfaces. [LISTATTENDEES event_identifier=”ep38-extending-wordpress-wpwatercooler-june-10-2013-5-51b4f8c601e02″ show_gravatar=”true”] See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.