Month: December 2021

  • Favorites of 2021

    I’ve been doing this post for 8 years now, and this year I was finally smart enough to keep a running list right from the beginning of the year. And I’m glad I did, because for some of my picks, I forgot they came out this year!

    As a refresher, at the end of the year, I like to list my favorite technology pics (gadget, app, and thing I learned), as well as media pics (book, movie, music, TV show, and podcast). This year was especially good!

  • How Will You Use WordPress in 2022?

    As we reflect on 2021 and prepare for 2022, I want to pose a question to you: What will you use WordPress for in 2022? The mission of this show in 2022 is helping small business owners in the WordPress space grow beyond the WordPress space.  And as much as we should serve our WordPress community, WordPress needs to serve us. So I’m posing the question again: what will you use WordPress for in 2022? Plus, my picks of the year.

    Links

    Theme: Kadence / Kadence Blocks

    Plugin: Automator

    Service: RSS (Feedbin , specifically)

    App (as related to WordPress): Ulysses

    Newsletter: Post Status

    Podcast: WP Builds

    Original Source

  • On Generosity: My Favorite Christmas Story

    I knew from a young age I wanted to play the drums.

    I got my first small kit when I was 5, and when my friends and I started a “band” I played buckets. When I was 15 years old, I knew I needed a real kit.

    So 24 years ago to the day (December 20th), my dad took me to Alto Music — the local music store in my home town. We looked around at the sets, but they were all too expensive.

    My dad didn’t say it explicitly, but we’d be hard-pressed to get a drum set within our budget.

    It was apparently obvious, because a kind man named Alan came over to us. Alan was probably around the same age I am now…maybe a little younger. He told us that he was in the store looking for an electric kit.

    See, Alan and his wife just became new parents to a baby girl, and he couldn’t play his acoustic set any more. He wouldn’t be able to for a number years.

    He said he saw the look on my dad’s face as we were looking at the prices and made a decision: that he would sell his set to us, cheap. How cheap?

    It was a black, 5-piece Yamaha that would have easily sold for $800. But that wasn’t all. He also had 5 Zildjian A Custom cymbals: high hats (natch), a crash, ride, crash-ride, and splash. That Ride was at least $300 alone. All-in, it was probably a $1500 set.

    He sold it to us for $3001. I couldn’t believe my own dumb luck. But my dad, who was much smarter than I was, couldn’t believe this man’s honest to God generosity.

    He gave us his address2. We picked it up 3 days later, and I was the proud owner of my first real drum set. The first song I actually learned was probably Hanging by a Moment, by Lifehouse, which I can still play today.

  • I Talked About the Golden Rule on The Chirp Podcast

    I had the pleasure of going on The Chirp, a podcast about money and relationships by Pigeon Loans. I got to talk religion, philosophy, and my personal journey. It was a lot of fun.

    Life and all of its ups and downs are full of many mysteries, but one thing is clear to us all, we’re all human and we should all be treated as such. This week we got a reminder of exactly that – a motto & sentiment Joe Casabona lives by. A web developer, author, teacher, content creator, and podcaster, Joe takes us through the journey of his life and teaches us how important it is to give back and invest in those around you along the way.

  • Using Custom Meta Boxes in WordPress

    My 10th (!!) LinkedIn Learning course is officially in the library. It’s all about using CMB2 with WordPress. I wanted to have a course like this alongside my ACF course because I think there a lot of benefits to CMB2…particularly the ability to bundle it with your own plugin without creating an external dependency. I hope you like it!

  • The way to learn WordPress is not by contributing

    Yesterday, Matt Mullenweg gave his annual State of the Word speech, where he covered everything that has happened in WordPress this year, and what we can expect moving forward.

    He mentioned the incredible growth of WordPress over other platforms, and even mentioned learn.wordpress.org and the learning resource it’s budding into.

    As always, he extolled the virtues of open source and the importance of contributing. He spent several minutes on Five for the Future, a program encouraging companies who make money with WordPress to give 5% of their time to the open source project.

    He also talked about how creators could now contribute by adding their work to the Openverse.

    As I’ve stated many times, if you find value in something, you should absolutely ensure it continues to exist, either by paying for it, or in this case, contributing. WordPress has provided me immeasurable value over the years, and I’ve tried to contribute where I could.

    But when he was asked by Allie Nimmons and Michelle Frechette what new/young people can do to learn WordPress, he said that it’s easier than ever to contribute. Matt was basically saying if you want to learn WordPress, contribute to WordPress. While I encourage people to contribute, I don’t think the best way to learn WordPress is by contributing.

  • Faceoff: Should Speakers be Paid for Virtual Events with Nathan Wrigley

    Back in October, I wrote a blog post called, “We Need to Talk About Speakers and Virtual Events.” I outlined how I believe speakers should be treated when it comes to virtual events; See I feel like too many virtual event organizers treat speakers as their marketing arm too. Shortly after, my friend Nathan Wrigley reached out. See, he is a virtual event organizer. In fact, I’ve spoken at his events! We wanted to have a debate of sorts, so we recorded it. It was a truly fantastic conversation. I certainly learned a lot, and I think you will too!

    Top Takeaways:

    Be communicative with your speakers and manage expectations. Doing the affiliate program wellcannet a lot of money for you without a TON of effort. It all depends on where you are in your speaker journey, and what your ultimate goal for speaking it. One peice of advice: choose events wisely.

    Show Notes:

    Nathan Wrigley Nathan on Facebook Build Something Club

    Original Source