web development

  • January 5, 2021

    If You’re Afraid of Automattic Making $5K Websites, You Need to Change Your Approach

    Recently, WordPress.com/Automattic “entered” the sub-$5,000 website market by announcing a new program, as reported by WordPress Tavern. Naturally, the reaction was mixed, but there seems to be a lot of anger that Automattic would do such a thing, which could potentially kill competition because it’s so big. Here’s the thing: If you think you’re competing with Automattic for sub-$5,000 websites, you need to change your approach.

  • November 30, 2018

    WordPress 5.0 Has Been Delayed – What Now?

    If you haven’t been following the dev chats in the WordPress Slack team, there’s a lot of confusion around exactly when WordPress 5.0 will ship. Release Candidate (RC) 1 is out now, and RC2, as I write this, is around the corner. These should signal that the answer is “soon” but there has been no commitment. The team is ignoring the fallback dates in January, and it seems “as soon as possible” is the current target. Many have already written thoughts on what that means for the community. I’m here to tell you what your plan should be.

    (more…)

  • August 9, 2018

    I Have a New Podcast: Creator Toolkit

    I’ve been mulling this idea in my head for about a month now. See, in the last 2 years running How I Built It, a podcast that has gained some shocking popularity, I’ve realized something. Podcasting is the most fun part of my day. I love interviewing people and publishing to such a great medium. I’m good at talking and have been since I was a kid. I want to keep podcasting, and I have other ideas. One is Creator Toolkit, a show I think would compliment How I Built It very nicely.

    (more…)

  • August 1, 2018

    Clients Always Mess Things Up

    Imagine you’re buying a new phone. You walk into the store and you overhear a conversation with 2 of the sales clerks. One says to the other, “Ugh. One of my customers put an ugly case on the beautiful iPhone I gave them. Customers are so stupid. They always mess things up.” You probably wouldn’t want them helping you buy a new phone. Why would you want that kind of ridicule? Wouldn’t you take your business elsewhere? But somehow, we think it’s OK to say this about clients pretty regularly.

    (more…)

  • August 24, 2017

    Answer Questions that are Being Asked

    Perhaps you’ve heard of the Socratic Method? At The University of Scranton, we loved good old Socrates, so we studied him and his methods a lot. The general idea, derived from how he would debate people, is to ask a series of questions until you get to the truth of the matter. He would often question people until they backed themselves into corners. Another, similar method is the “5 Whys.” You keep asking why until you get to the real root of the issue. The idea here is that you want to solve the right problem, so you need to know what the real problem is.

    (more…)

  • July 20, 2016

    Should we Charge Extra for IE Development?

    The exact question was worded this way: Has the time come to charge clients extra for getting their site to work in any version of IE? It’s an interesting question to say the least, and one that comes up every so often when a developer is frustrated with something that works fine in Chrome/Firefox/Safari but not IE. There’s not really an easy answer to this because it all depends on why this question gets asked so often. There is a difference between charging more because of a project’s complexity and charging more because you don’t want to deal with something.

    (more…)

  • November 3, 2014

    Why Pro Bono Work Hurts Everyone

    It’s something that has happened to everyone who’s a freelancer, or perhaps just everyone who runs a business. People will ask for things for free; I want to make it super clear now that I’m not saying never do pro bono work. I’ve done it. It just needs to be the right circumstances; asking a person you don’t know for free work is not only bad for the freelancer, it’s bad for your project in general.

    (more…)

  • June 3, 2014

    How Do I Learn Web Development?

    A couple of years ago, I was on the How to Hold a Pencil podcast (episode here) and we discussed a number of things, including the steps I took to learn web development (over 14 years ago…whoa). I’m often asked, as I was on the show, what I recommend for people starting today. Here’s my answer for 2018.

    (more…)

  • December 26, 2010

    Links Round Up for 12/26/10

    That’s all I have for today because I was pretty much checked out all week! I’ll hopefully have a post this week on something tech (Wrap up of 2010 or Predictions for 2011). Otherwise, have a great New Years and thanks for a great 2010!