The Anatomy of Bit51 v2.0 – Tools and Services for Your Website (part 1)

June 8th, 2013 Leave a Comment

The Anatomy of Bit51 v2There’s no doubt in my mind that redesigning Bit51 was one of the most challenging projects I’ve taken on in a long time. This isn’t because it’s too technically complex, rather it was one of those projects where every single detail could take a week of worry and testing to make sure it wasn’t just right but that it was perfect. Plugins changed, the theme changed, content changed, and just about everything that could be seen by either a user or developer was put under a microscope in an effort to make sure it wasn’t just done, but that it was done right and would provide as much value to my users as I possibly could.

Throughout the project the biggest change was, without a doubt, the tools and services that make up Bit51 including everything from the subscription services to plugin choices. I’ve learned a lot along the way and hopefully my rationale can help some of you shopping for your own site. That said, here is what I’ve used to put Bit51 together and to keep it growing. [Continue Reading...]

What If Your WordPress Gets Hacked? [Infographic]

June 5th, 2013 7 Comments

The folks over at startbloggingonline.com have put together an interesting infographic on “What if your WordPress Gets Hacked?” As I’m not a visual person myself I thought it might come in handy for some of you as another viewpoint on the WordPress security arena. Admittedly I haven’t read all their sources (which are at the bottom of the graphic) however from experience it looks pretty accurate. [Continue Reading...]

Website Security Is More Than Just Prevention

June 3rd, 2013 1 Comment

Real security is more than just detectionThere’s a myth among website owners that real security involves preventing problems and nothing more. While of course you want to do your best to make sure no one gets into your site, if you stop at prevention you’re going to get in trouble. Instead, real security depends on two other areas at least as and, in some cases, more important than prevention. Take away any of the three and you’re asking for the kind of trouble that can cost you far more than a headache. You’re asking for the kind of trouble that can cost you your customers. [Continue Reading...]

Bye Bye MAMP Pro, Hello AMPPS

May 31st, 2013 8 Comments

AMPPS LogoIronically, only 2 days after writing about how MAMP Pro would be the next app I would dump I find myself with a new development stack for my local machines. MAMP Pro was just getting outdated and, combined with their inability to offer any kind of support, it was time to move on.

As of today AMPPS is my new development stack. [Continue Reading...]

Excluding a Category from your WordPress Homepage

May 29th, 2013 Leave a Comment

WordPress LogoSometimes it isn’t always appropriate to have every category in your blog show up on your blog’s homepage. An example of this is the “Software Updates” you see in the sidebar on this site. While I write the updates as regular posts I’ve found (through trial and error) that not everyone wants to read them so I pull them from the list of posts on my homepage and use a plugin to put them in my sidebar. I do this with a bit of my own code to remove them from the homepage and then use a plugin to display what I want in the sidebar using a widget? Why not do both with my own code? Frankly, when I get time I’m going to remove the plugin entirely and do both through my own code but time hasn’t been on my side for such a change yet. In the meantime, I use my own code to remove the updates from the homepage simply because my solution is simpler and lost costly in terms of performance than any plugin I’ve seen try to do the same thing.

Fortunately WordPress makes it really easy to write this code yourself and include it within your theme’s functions.php file. Here’s what you need to do: [Continue Reading...]