Author: Tom (Page 169 of 428)

Setting up PHP and Composer in MAMP

April 5, 2016 / Tom / 0 Comments

Lately, I’ve been trying to write shorter, more focused on articles on particular topics, but there are times in which a longer article is warranted: Case in point: Using PHP and Composer in MAMP.

Before you get started reading this article, I’m assuming you have a couple of things:

MAMP installed on your machine (it’s compatible with Windows now!)
Time to read all that’s below
Willingness to use the Terminal
Coffee (or another drink, but seriously coffee) to read through all that’s below

It’s not that any of this is intimidating. I mean, if you’re completely inexperienced, there may be a bit of a learning curve, but I’m going to do what I can to break this down for you regardless of the level of experience you have.

Ultimately, the goal is to make it easier for you to write more modular code using third-party dependencies and with keeping things well-organized on your system and in your projects.

Syncing Atom Settings Between Computers

April 4, 2016 / Tom / 0 Comments

Syncing Atom settings between multiple machines is useful in that you’re able to maintain all of your packages, settings, and so on regardless of the machine you’re on.

And yes, I’ve been talking about Atom a bit more as of late. I’m clearly a fan. But that’s evident, right?

If you maintain more than one machine, then it’s usually nice to have the same development environment configured between the two of them.

Here’s a method for syncing Atom’s settings between though it does assume you use Dropbox. If not, any service you use for sharing files can be used, but your actual steps will vary.

WordPress Autocomplete for Atom

April 1, 2016 / Tom / 0 Comments

One piece of functionality that’s useful that isn’t natively built-in to Atom: WordPress autocomplete.

To clarify, earlier this month I talked about how I’d made the switch to Atom as my IDE of choice. I’d also shared a package and a few steps necessary to get PHP CodeSniffer working with Atom. And though that’s nice, there’s something to be said for having other features available (more of which I’ll share in the future).

This isn’t to say that I think we should be using autocomplete as any crutch but if it comes down to having the various hooks and functions appear while typing versus opening up a Codex reference, I’d much prefer the former.
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One Strategy For Preparing Presentations

March 31, 2016 / Tom / 0 Comments

If you were to ask me about preparing presentations several years ago, my advice would’ve been very different than it is today. I would have said something like this:

Come up with an idea about which you want to speak
Create an outline for the topic with each point having two or three bullet points under each of those points
Write out a script
Review it enough times until you have the gist of it committed to memory
Create slides based on your outline
Rehearse until comfortable

This may work for many people, and if it does, I’m not knocking it. I’m saying this how I used to prepare for them.

In recent talks I’ve given, I’ve taken a different approach, and think they’ve been some of the better presentations I’ve given. To be clear, I’m not trying to sound arrogant: I don’t mean my presentations are great, nor do I mean that I’m a great presenter. But I mean the way in which I prepare for presentations has become easier and has yielded presentations that are more “me.” That is, there’s less rehearsed script, me talking about the subject matter as if I

But I mean the way in which I prepare for presentations has become easier and has resulted in talks that are more “me.”

That is, there’s less rehearsed script, a more of me talking about the subject matter as if I was sitting across a table at a coffee shop with me talking about it.

Getting Started with Learning WordPress

March 30, 2016 / Tom

Learning WordPress is one of those things that many of us are doing almost every single day. However, once we reach a certain point, I think we stop thinking of it as “learning WordPress” and we start thinking of it as “how to do [any given task] with WordPress.”

When it comes to helping other people with WordPress, it’s easy to forget what it’s like to be at the beginning stages and getting acquainted with all of the nuances required to get things set up on our computer and how it relates to releasing projects on the web.

To that end, I just wrapped up a series for Envato geared specifically towards beginners who want to get started with WordPress but aren’t sure where to start.