I have been using WordPress for many years and have built all sorts of things. From WordPress themes, to plugins, and even started a newsletter and podcast.
In 2007 Darren and I started one of the first WordPress Premium theme stores – Pro Theme Design. In that time the WordPress ecosystem has changed considerably.Over the years Pro Theme Design has done well for us as a part...
So a few people have been writing about my estimated reading time function recently. In particular – it got mentioned on WPTavern in a post all about adding an Estimated Reading Time to your theme.Then I got this tweet: Hey...
Last week there was a second exploit found in TimThumb. Thankfully it was no-where near as bad as the first one – but it raised an interesting question of whether TimThumb is even needed anymore.TimThumb was made to be useful...
It’s been reported today that there is a new TimThumb exploit found. Unfortunately nobody told me about this before the exploit was announced – in fact I found out about the bug through wptavern.com so I haven’t been able to...
I was asked recently how to get into WordPress themeing and so I thought I would answer publicly. Perhaps my thoughts can help others.When I first started using WordPress things were much simpler. The default theme was an index.php and...
WordPress has a built in function, called human_time_diff, for creating messages that say how long ago a post was published – however I think it is confusing when you have posts from a long time ago that read “posted 15...
At WordCamp London last week I made my first contribution to WordPress – a bug fix for the Twenty Fourteen theme that’s being released with WordPress 3.8. Part of doing this involved created a patch.Now I know this is pretty...
I have a theme coming out soon that displays the ‘estimated reading time’ for each blog post on the homepage.The theme is inspired by the new blogging service Medium – but I first saw the idea mentioned on Brian Crays...
I’ve made quite a few WordPress themes in my time, and so I thought I would write a few blog posts sharing some of the code snippets that I find myself using repeatedly.First off is some numeric pagination using native...
Last weekend I went to WordCamp EU – Europe’s first WordCamp – and my first WordCamp.I’ve always fancied going to a WordCamp conference but never known what to expect – or even what I would get out of it. I’ve...
Recently I saw a tweet conversation between @Norcross and @JPeterson about decaching css files when developing with WordPress. The solution is simple and something that WordPress even has built-in – however it’s also something that is easy to forget to...
WordPress theme frameworks are on their way out. They’re dying a slow death. At least that’s what I think.Nathan Rice recently wrote an article with his thoughts about theme frameworks – in defense of them – however he clearly has...
WordPress is now 10 years old. I started using wordpress 9 years ago – which means I joined the WordPress community early on. The reason I chose WordPress is simply because of the fabled 5 minute install process – I...
WordPress blogs have become an important tool for promoting businesses. There can be a bit of work involved in maintaining this online presence, and your boss may expect you to get involved – this person may even decide to hand...
Ghost is a project born from frustration with WordPress. Ironically it seems to be mostly WordPress power users who want to use it. The Ghost team – led by John O’Nolan – put Ghost on KickStarter last week and it...
So – I make WordPress themes – lots of them 🙂Something that’s bugged me for a while is that I can’t easily use the WP_Query to select posts with featured images. This isn’t functionality that’s needed that often – but...
My main websites (Binary Moon, and Pro Theme Design) are hosted with Liquidweb on a VPS, but I have many smaller sites and I like to run them on NearlyFreeSpeech.net. The service is great, and I like the ‘pay for...
I know that I am most productive in the winter months and tend to churn out a lot more of my personal projects than I do during the summer months. I suspect this is due to the fact that I...
Anyone who knows me knows that I like to automate everything. I’m sure it’s a common trait with programmers – in fact it’s the reason I started programming online. My first online application was a very simple cms – that...
I recently created a promotional video for Mimbo Pro 4 – showcasing the newest functionality from the theme.I’ve been really pleased with how Mimbo Pro has done on WordPress.com and a lot of the new functionality and developments have developed...
The festive season is upon us and your loyal readership is distracted by Christmas and all the associated fun and stress. Usually your blog posts are a welcome relief from the everyday slog that is the working week, but now...