Category: Articles (Page 213 of 255)

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

WordPress Fame: The All-Singing, All-Dancing Crap of the World?

November 5, 2013 / Tom / 0 Comments

Ask anyone who’s involved in the WordPress community – and who has been for sometime – and you’re likely to hear that it’s a great experience not only because of the projects that are being built on and around WordPress, but because of all the people involved in the economy and in the community.

And it’s true: Being a part of the larger WordPress economy and community is exciting.

But, like with anything else, it’s challenging at times. I think that anyone who has stuck around long enough knows that as much we we all want the best for WordPress – I mean, we even enjoy hanging out with our competitors.

On the flip-side, we also get stuck in the typical Internet flame war arguing over what technology should be used for what all the while forgetting some of the larger problems at hand.

We’re only human, so it’s bound to happen, right?

It’s a weird thing, for sure, but it’s the nature of the community – at least for now (and probably for longer, if you’re a cynic) – but that doesn’t mean that you – or anyone else – should be dissuaded or discouraged from becoming a part of it.

But there is something that I’ve noticed in the community, or around the fringes if that’s what you’d like to call it, and sometimes I think people’s desire to be known – or wanting to achieve some type of WordPress fame or notability – outweighs the work, the contributions, and their input into the economy.

And though one could argue there are many problems with that, one of the largest is that the focus is being misplaced for the sake of the individual rather than improving the core product or products around WordPress.

The Pressware Shop is Now Open!

November 1, 2013 / Tom

When I set out to rebrand my company and focus specifically on WordPress, one of the things that I wanted to do was also to offer actual, physical stuff for purchase.

You know, what I mean – it’s the typical stuff most companies offer: t-shirts, mugs, stickers, and so on.

As much as I’d love to eventually get to sharing more stuff, I figured it was best to start at the ground-level: Today, I’m proud to announce that The Pressware Shop is now officially open.

Three Lessons From Open Source (Or “Working on The WordPress Plugin Boilerplate”)

October 31, 2013 / Tom / 0 Comments

As I’m getting ready to tag and release version 2.6.0 of the WordPress Plugin Boilerplate, I’ve been thinking about the some of the lesson from open source that I’ve learned over the time of managing the project

So, I’ll be the first to admit that the boilerplate is by no means a large project; however, it’s the first project that I’ve had that’s received a number of contributions from people who have made the project better, who have taken part in good discussion around how things should be organized, and who are extremely forward thinking as it relates to future functionality.

What went from a couple of commits from myself over a couple of months and turned into:

236 commits
2 branches
9 releases
26 contributors

It’s not large by any means, but it’s definitely fun to see something that went from a couple of commits from myself to something in which a number of others have gotten involved.

Should We Turn Off Comments By Default?

October 24, 2013 / Tom / 0 Comments

Over the past few years, we’ve seen the rise of a number of different publishing platforms.

What once originated with Xanga and LiveJournal gave way to Blogger (or The Artist Formerly Known as BlogSpot), WordPress, and which has now opened the doors for platforms such as Medium, Svbtle, Ghost, and so on.

To say that we – as a culture – are exploring the various forms of digital publishing in as understatement. But one thing that I’ve begun to notice about some of the newer platforms is the way that they handle comments.

On top of that, I’ve also begun to notice that people appear to be commenting less on blogs – at least in longer forms – and taking the discussions more to places such as Twitter, Google+, or even just into email.

Some of this I’m speaking based on observation, some of it I’m speaking based on experience. But I do think it raises the question as to if we should consider how we handle comments on our blog.

What Are Your Thoughts on a Weekly Digest?

October 24, 2013 / Tom / 0 Comments

For the most part, I’m convinced that the last thing that anyone wants or needs is more email; however, I’ve also noticed that there appear to be now, more than ever, various newsletters and emails being sent out monthly, biweekly, or weekly covering a variety of topics:

And the difference that these newsletters and/or emails have is that they are 100% opt-in. That is, they ask permission (that is, the opportunity for you to opt-in) to send you email, whereas other services as for forgiveness (with the opportunity to unsubscribe) for sending you email.

So one thing I’m considering is introducing a weekly digest of sorts for the articles covered on this blog, but I genuinely want some feedback on this idea before pursuing it.