Category: Articles (Page 142 of 258)

Personal opinions and how-to’s that I’ve written both here and as contributions to other blogs.

Improved Ajax in WordPress: Procedural Programming

November 12, 2015 / Tom

Years ago, I wrote a series of posts for Envato walking readers through how to use Ajax in WordPress.

Then, not long ago, I provided an updated walkthrough of how to do so with better practices (thanks to @gmazzap for the code review on that one).

One purpose of this blog is to provide articles for others who are getting started in WordPress development. That is, I want to share the things I’ve learned to help shortcut others’ learning.

Sometimes, this requires updating old content. Or it requires providing new ways of doing things already discussed.

Case in point: Using Ajax in WordPress.

The Spectrum of Open Source Philosophy

November 10, 2015 / Tom / 0 Comments

To me, one of the most interesting aspects of open source culture is the variations in open source philosophy we all have.

By that, I mean though many of us appreciate what open source has done, we have varying degrees on how much we use it. For example, some people use only open source software. On the other side of the spectrum, some people never use open source software.

Then, as expected, there are a lot of things that sit between these two points. You know: The proverbial gray area.

As of last week, an interest article has been making the rounds about Slack and FOSS projects. I’ll talk about it more in a moment.

But first, since I’ve never written about my own perspective on open source, I thought I might as well try it.

WordPress Options and Theme Modifications

November 2, 2015 / Tom / 0 Comments

When The Customizer (once called The Theme Customizer) became part of WordPress, we saw a resurgence in the Theme Modification API.

The Theme Customizer

At one point in WordPress history, the get_theme_mod and set_theme_mod was how we handled theme modifications (hence the function names). Then, we began to use the options table as a way to manage the various settings for our plugins.

And then we began to use the options table as an easy to way to store settings for our themes. It was like we moved the Theme Modification API to the backseat and pushed forward with options.

Should we have done that (or does it even matter)? And what’s the difference in these APIs, anyway? Why do we still have both of them, which is best to use and when?

Acquisitions

October 30, 2015 / Tom / 0 Comments

For the past few weeks (years, even), it’s so easy to find articles that read something like this:

Today, I am incredibly proud and excited to share that VMware has announced plans to acquire Boxer. The Boxer team will be joining the industry leader in
enterprise mobility as a part of the AirWatch® team within the VMware End-User Computing business unit.

Case in point: This is an excerpt of an article that I read just recently. And when I read that, it stirs a mix of emotions.

Andy Adams and Pressware

October 29, 2015 / Tom

Periodically, I talked about Pressware – what’s going on with the business, how I run it, and plans that I have for it.

For those who have been reading for some time, you know that I’ve teetered on the line of offering both products and services.

When establish your own business and work to make it, ahem, work, there’s a period in which undergo what it is that you love doing.

And I don’t mean what you enjoy doing. Nor do I mean what you can do to earn money. I mean what you love doing.

Sure, businesses need to earn money to be sustainable. But that doesn’t mean that you can’t do so while trying to maximize the work that you enjoy doing above all else.

If you stay on this route, and you’re able to be successful, it becomes challenging to handle all involved tasks.

Remember: Businesses are more than creating things and getting paid for it.

There’s insurance to take care of
There’s benefits to take care of
There are budget to follow
There’s forecasting to handle
There are relationships to form
…and many more and so on.

Sure, I could go on and on about this aspect of the business, but why would I do that? It can be enlightening for some. Today, though, I’m happy to share that Pressware has grown by one.