Browsing Category wordpress

Over the last week we have been pushing some code out that we use to efficiently run a WordPress consulting company.

WordPress Skeletor

Skeletor is a WordPress “skeleton” theme that we have been using as a starting point for any new custom theme development. It’s got all kinds of bells and whistles we’ve added since our initial fork of Kenneth Reitz’s WordPress Theme Skeleton project. Basically it has all the “stuff” you need to start a new WordPress theme from scratch.

We’ll be adding features as we need and will let you know about them so you can use it for your WordPress theme development needs.

WordPress Multi-Site

A by-product of doing WordPress consulting is WordPress hosting. For the last few years we have recommended hosting services and used various ones for our own projects. Not anymore. We are now developing a scalable WordPress hosting platform we can offer to our clients (and anybody serious about WordPress hosting for their business).

The base of that platform is a combination of WordPress Multi-Site and Domain Mapping. We’ve packaged up the platform we are currently developing on so you can do the same (well, you’ll have to configure your own server).

Oh – and if you don’t want to try to run this yourself – we can handle that for you

WordPress Multi-Author Widget Plugin

Coming soon – our WordPress Multi-Author Widget plugin. This was another by-product of WordPress consulting. In one of our latest projects for Des Moines ad agency Lessing-Flynn we needed to replicate functionality that WordPress.com offers in one of their widgets.

After we couldn’t find anything – we built a plugin. It’s running on their site now and will soon be added to the WordPress plugin repository as well as GitHub.

Questions? Comments? Let us know!

Category : Blog &projects &wordpress

We just wrapped up the finishing touches on AdMavericks.com – the blog written by Des Moines advertising agency Lessing-Flynn. We had a few goals for this project but mainly we wanted to clean up the site to focus on readability and migrate from WordPress.com to WordPress.org (self-hosted version).

The new site runs on a customized version of the Thesis WordPress theme.

WordPress Project Goals

1. Migrate from WordPress.com to the self-hosted WordPress.org
2. Clean up the layout, reduce clutter, and increase readability
3. Add social sharing tools to help spread content
4. Social Media widgetry
5. Updated Header
6. More Lessing-Flynn Branding / Linkage
7. Brand new Multi-Authors Widget Plugin
8. Make it fast

Questions?

If you have any questions about this project, how to migrate from WordPress.com to WordPress.org, Thesis, or anything WordPress email us andy@48webconsulting.com , @48web on Twitter, or give us a call at 515-966-4848.

Category : Blog &clients &wordpress

While redesigning the AdMavericks.com blog for Des Moines Ad Agency Lessing-Flynn we came across a requirement to port the Authors Widget from WordPress.com to WordPress.org. Unfortunately we couldn’t find anything like it…

So we built the Multi-Author Widget, releasing soon!

Here’s what it looks like in action

You can see it live on AdMavericks.com

Category : Blog &projects &wordpress

Over the last few weeks we had the fantastic opportunity to work with the crew over at Palisade Systems – a data loss prevention company here in Des Moines, IA – on a blog for their new product called ComplianceSafe.

ComplianceSafe is an innovative product for small businesses to protect information and data leaks via email.

We had a few goals for their WordPress blog …

1. Launch Quick
2. Skin WordPress like their product site
3. Simple, Clean, and Neat

Category : Blog &clients &wordpress

It’s been a couple years since we refreshed the dmTweetup.org site. We built it in the same style as the DsmStartupDrinks.com and CentralIowaBloggers.com WordPress sites.

Questions? Let us know in the comments!

Want one? Get in touch!

Category : Blog &projects &wordpress

This is our latest WordPress development for CollectorMentor.com. We went for a magazine style layout and heavily customized the Hello theme from Templatic. We used our standard plugin library for SEO, Analytics, and more. Also – due to it’s heavy use of images and potential traffic load we went with the WP-Super Cache plugin (see last screenshot below) which dramatically increased our page load time.

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Do you have any questions about this site? Let us know in the comments!

Want one for yourself? Get in touch!

Category : Blog &clients &projects &wordpress

Our colleague from up north Josh Braaten asked me to collaborate on a blog post for a Content Management System showdown: WordPress vs. Squarespace.

Topics covered include…

• Cost
• Search Engine Friendliness (SEO)
• Security
• Features
• Customization
• Ease Of Use
• Hosting
• Support and Maintenance

Conclusion?

Ultimately, both Squarespace and WordPress are great web publishing tools and can most likely meet the needs of your blog or website. Andy and I hope this post has given you the perspective you need to make your choice based on your own personal goals, skills and resources.

Read our comparison. What do you think?

Category : Blog &wordpress

A couple weeks ago Kenny Younger and I got the chance to preach all things WordPress at Iowa Code Camp.

Here is the live stream I recorded along with the slides from the presentation!

Video

Slides

Category : Blog &events &wordpress

Here are some slides from the WordPress Development session that Kenny Younger and I are doing at Iowa Code Camp tomorrrow, May 1.

Category : Blog &wordpress