Ben Rothman
My blog is dedicated to sharing my expertise, recommendations, and tutorials on WordPress. If you're interested in developing with WordPress, my blog is a valuable resource that you won't want to miss.
I have been working with this cool client for a few months, Genewiz, who does work with genetics and genetic testing. It sounds like my work was with that interesting laboratory science work but I am just doing some web work for them.
Everyone here is very nice and this is an interesting company but I am only here temporarily for freelance work.
I just went to WordCamp Atlanta and it was awesome. This was a relatively small WordCamp, but there were plenty of interesting talks and people to meet. There was more of a focus on the Genesis framework than I usually see. My brother came with me on this adventure so we also went to the Coke Museum afterwards. I know that last bit about the museum is not really relevant to WordPress persay, but I just had a lot of fun so I am bringing it up.
Version 4.6 of WordPress, named “Pepper” in honor of jazz baritone saxophonist Park Frederick “Pepper” Adams III, is available for download or update in your WordPress dashboard. New features in 4.6 help you to focus on the important things while feeling more at home.
I recently attended a conference in NYC called Generate2016. It was interesting and very different from a WordCamp. The attendance was big and the tickets were expensive, but the conference itself was interesting.
They talked about technology in general, not just WordPress websites like I was used to. There were interesting talks about robotics as well as websites and even some about the expanding the limitations of technology.
Realistically there are probably hundreds of good hosts for WordPress sites or any kind of site for that matter. The following is a list of hosts that I have used in the past to host one or more WordPress websites. If you know of a great host and do not see it on the following list then it probably is still a great host, its just not one that I have a whole lot of experience with.
This host is great for WordPress sites and even has staff that help customers with their sites. This is an expensive host but I think it is work the money if you are looking for a great host with minimal downtime, a ton of features for backing up and development and just a lot of assistance with your site. You are paying more but you are also getting more. WPEngine also has a built in cdn too (for anyone interested)
2. Godaddy
Godaddy is almost the default WordPress host. I have worked with more sites on GoDaddy than any other hosts so the answer to the question “which host do most people use?” is GoDaddy. They offer other services like dns management and SSL configuration but many people go outside for those anyway. If you are looking for a one stop website than Godaddy may be the host for you and they DO offer support agents.
3. Bluehost
Bluehost is a great host for WordPress sites with minimal downtime and the cost is reasonable. As with most hosting providers, they offer hosting for any type of site but they do offer a quick configuration for WordPress sites which comes in handy if you are just trying to spin up a quick site. I hosted my personal site there for years so I can recommend it from experience.
4. Hostgator
I have not worked with this host as much as I have with some of the other ones but from what I have seen they are pretty similar to bluehost using a cpanel system for site administration and have a reasonable cost. This is not exactly relevant to the technical specs of HostGator, but I like their logo a lot.
5. Digital Ocean
DigitalOcean is a great host for any kind of web site or web app but it the company does not offer any assistance with your server or website, you or the developer has to do everything. I don’t mean everything as in everything on your site I mean everything as in also server software updates and firewalls. If you are comfortable doing all of the host maintenance for your site then DigitalOcean is the host for you. Due to the fact that they do not offer the maintenance services this host is able to charge very little for the actuall hosting, so with this host if you put in the work you can pay less.
I recommend adding a reCaptcha plugin to your site to prevent robots, programs and other scripts from hacking or spamming your site.
To configure one of the many recaptcha plugins, install it to your site and then using Google’s interface (since most of these are Google products) get a key for your domain, bring it back to your site and enter the key from Google in the settings. You can usually choose to enable the protection on just the login page, or also on comment forms, either of these will prevent most scripts from accessing your site.
On April 13th, WordPress released Version 4.5 and this one pays homage to the legendary tenor saxophonist Coleman Hawkins.
Born in 1904, Colman Hawkins was the first noted musician to take the sax and make it a jazz instrument. He also nudged jazz out of Swing and into Be-Bop. You might call him the King of Jazz Saxophone.
Ok, maybe this blogpost should not have the category “Travel” because this event was right near my home, but it was fun. The event started with a contributor’s day which I like. That is the day when all us users of WordPress give back to the great platform and create new features, answer forum questions, translate plugins or contribute in any way we can. I answered questions on the “Developing with WordPress” support forums, my usual contribution.
Then there were just two solid days of good talks from everything from designing your WordPress site to creating RESTful APIs with your WordPress site.
Not only were there cool talks, but there was a street fair happening right outside during the event. If you know me at all, you know I am not going to pass up a street fair so I was able to get lunch outside at the fair as well as buy some of the cool stuff the street vendors were offering.
UPDATE:
I have been to four WordCamp NYCs and in 2018 I was an organizer.
I designed the mascot page for the NJ Devils! The Devils use some other strange CMS that I do not like as much as WordPress but it was fun to work around the rink where the team plays and concerts for various famous artists are held.
In JQuery, there is included the “tap” event, which reacts with less of a delay to touches on smartphones. Behind the scenes, it’s bound to touchstart or mousedown. Using the aforementioned event is good for apps that are either solely meant for smartphones or ones that are meant to be used on either smartphones or desktop computers (such as websites).
The onClick event still works in all of the same situations, the developers of JQuery have just added this new event to watch in order to make coding more intuitively worded and to cut down on some of the delay times.