Speed optimization is important for your website. It is very easy to build a bloated site, and that’s obviously bad — but why an optimized site? Several reasons: You use less server resources (thus your site is more scalable in the face of lots of traffic). Your site loads faster, meaning: Human visitors are less likely to click away from your site (people give about 2-3 seconds for your site to start showing content before leaving). Search engines give preference to faster sites in search engine rankings (NB: albeit very slight, and as one factor in many). Both of the […]
Ye Olde Web Design
So here are a couple of websites I did circa 2002 to 2005. I think it’s fun looking at old stuff like this — I mean, these are whole screen screenshots, and they take up a fourth of my screen now. One of them is even from before I used Firefox?! Enjoy the time trip and have a laugh!
Releasing Functions and Shortcodes mu-plugin for WordPress Developers
So I am releasing a plugin for WordPress. It’s pretty simple and contains helpers, functions, and shortcodes I typically use in WordPress installations. Some useful stuff like phone numbers (which can change, and are a total pain in the butt when they do change). It’s honestly just been very helpful for me to be able to quickly clone this into my WordPress installs, so I figured if it helps someone else… why not. Download Plugin Why mu-plugin I figure a downloadable mu-plugin is probably better than something I put in the WordPress plugin repository itself — at least until I […]
Basic On-Page Search Engine Optimization for Web Developers
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is another discipline of the web — albeit one not exactly relevant to design or development. More broadly, SEO is “web marketing.” More narrowly, however, for your purposes as a web developer — SEO is simply the process of making your website more understandable to search engines. Even if you do not plan to be a web marketer, when you build a site you should usually adhere to basic SEO standards. This information is primarily relevant to on-page SEO. There’s such a thing as off-page SEO, too, where you focus on gaining links to your website […]
2015 Workstation Revisited
Upgraded my computer! Actually since my last hardware post I’ve pretty much replaced most of my computer… ASUS CM1740 MicroATX Case AMD A4-3400 APU (2.7 GHz) + EVGA 500B 500W 80PLUS Bronze Certified ATX12V/EPS12V 500W Power Supply Western Digital Caviar SE 160 GB — Dead after 58448 hours and change powered on. Was starting to run way hot. It was at 58 degrees for absolutely no reason when I noticed and decided it had to go. :( 6 GB DDR3 RAM — Mismatched sticks, a 4 GB and a 2 GB. Western Digital Caviar Blue 500 GB Windows 7 Home […]
Looking for a New Job
So! It looks like my job is moving to Wayne, New Jersey. We’re currently in Kenilworth. The thing is — they can’t take me with them! Only a few employees are moving on to Wayne. So it looks like I’m looking for a job again after only ten months — not where I wanted to be! It makes me sad because I really like my coworkers (wrote two of them recommendations on LinkedIn!), everyone I work with is awesome. I also really liked doing what I did, of course… but that’s just the nature of contract work, too. Here’s to […]
My Start Hosting on Linode
So I’ve been hosting most of my sites forever on JustHost. I’ve basically never had a problem except when a bunch of sites aside from mine were down for a couple days. It’s cheap shared hosting and I’ve been here since 2009 without issue — so why move? Well. I wanted to learn more things about running a VPS, and setting up an actual server.
Basic Server Administration
The separation between server administration and web development is hazy to most beginners and non-technical folks alike. They are related and there is crossover (especially with the advent of servers specifically designed to run applications built on a certain technology). But rest assured — administering and maintaining a web server is generally a different skill-set altogether from web development. For a related analogy: the person who builds the fancy safety systems in a new car might not know the first thing about building the car’s frame. Nonetheless: as a web developer, you will benefit from knowledge of basic server administration […]
WordPress Content Syndication with FeedWordPress
I was looking for a way to easily move posts from one WordPress installation (hub) to another (spoke), without migrating or moving sites. The export, hub, or sending site is a private “author’s hub” where all posts are written. Import, spoke, or receiving sites are the actual blogs where the content goes public. The hub site needed to retain a copy of the post. Note: There are no SEO concerns here regarding duplicate content, because the sending site is private.
FOLAS Gets a New Website
Happy to announce that one of my local animal shelters has a new website! FOLAS has a complete site redesign live as of today. I created a new custom WordPress website for them after their old site was hacked. Read more in my portfolio!
