Tag Archives: WordPress

New York Times Columnist David Carr Talks Media

What do you tell recent journalism graduates or people trying to start a career in media?

I tell them that they should make stuff. The tools of production are at hand for everyone. I used to hire a lot of young people when I was the editor of Washington City Paper, and you used to have them show you the clips and see where else you worked. Show me what you’ve made with your own bare little hands. That, I think, is super important. People say, “You should’ve been here for the good old days.” I think that’s crazy. Yeah, it’s a little harder, but you have so many more tools at your disposal to story-tell. It’s cool to be in a business where you still learn. You don’t have to be able to code yourself, but you have to know what coding is. You should be able to work in Final Cut Pro. WordPress should be second-nature. I think, in generational terms, being able to produce and consume content at the same time.

Sounds a bit like my resume… 😉

via New York Times columnist David Carr talks media | TPMDC.

Use wp_trim_words to limit words in WordPress

Using wp_trim_words allows us to limit the title and excerpt, and anything else really, to a particular number of words. How practical a name. You can define the number of words to limit them to, and also define what you’d like the “more” text to be.

via Use wp_trim_words to limit words in WordPress.

The CMS

One of my favorite things about WordPress is its extensibility. We’re on the same platform today as yesterday, but have built new tools for writers and editors. Featured and pinned articles get expiration dates, so editors don’t have to go back and manually un-feature things. Selecting a post layout is as simple as clicking a button. Automated resizing of images means faster load times and fewer distorted photos. And choosing which articles go on the home page is a single-click affair.

Really loving the new design of TechCrunch. It is getting a lot of heat, but I like the change. Looks nice. Would love to steer Make in a similar direction.

via: Redesigning TechCrunch: We Picked This Logo Just to Piss You Off

WordCamp Vegoose

Just a little wrap up from WordCamp Vegas that was this last weekend. I had a great time, I am always impressed with the WordPress community. Open, caring, and would literally give you warm cookies just for driving down to Vegas.

This trip was a lot of fun. The conference was great, lots of really good, relevant talks. Highlights included Brandon Dove of PixalJar.net gave a great presentation about Child Themes vs. Theme Framworks. Having built a bunch of custom themes and child themes, personally I have stayed away from frameworks, but after hearing him, I kind of want to dig into Thematic and see what else there is to learn. Also really like when we looked into a site and he said, “This filter applies to all the single ladies.” Kind of a WordPress joke…

I had the opportunity to present myself, and was really happy when John Hawkins invited me to come down at WordCamp Utah. I spoke on the Loop, on how to build custom queries, template tags, and working with custom post types. My slides, similar to the WordCamp Utah ones below:

I also enjoyed hearing the flamboyant Eric Marden and hearing him speak on DevCraft: Best Practices for WordPress Teams. I never worked professionally as part of a dev shop, so his comments were interesting on a lot of levels. Taking a lot of his critique and commentary to heart, hoping to become a better developer as a result.

I guess this brings me to the crux. No one is a perfect developer.  For all of the WordCamps that I have been to, (been to eight now in the last two years) there is always something to learn. For the $20-$30 that they normally cost, there is no better way to spend a Saturday learning from everyone around you on how to be a better developer, better blogger, or better designer.

Hope to see you at the next one!

WordCamp Utah 2010

WordCamp Utah 2010 will be held August 28th at University of Utah, in the Skaggs Biology Building. This is a great opportunity to spend a day with local WordPress developers, users, and fans of all kinds! Presentations will cover a range of topics, with two tracks running throughout the day.

Just getting started or looking for a little help with your WordPress questions? We’ll have a Genius Bar where you get some help. Already a WordPress whiz? Come volunteer at Genius Bar! Contact us and we’ll put you on the list.

And finally, at WordCamp Utah 2010 we’ll get an answer to that question you’ve always wondered about, Will WordPress Blend?

If you are interested in sponsoring, presenting, or helping make everything run smoothly please let us know –  we are still looking for help with video recording in both rooms so if you know someone who can help in that area we’d really like to hear from you.

The vital details: