Ben Rothman - WordPress Developer Website Archives - Page 2 of 3 - ©2023 Ben Rothman, Web Developer

Blog

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.

Category: Website

Categories
Website WordPress

WordPress: How Should I backup My Site?

Backing up a site is an important and often overlooked step, the reason being that it does not add or remove anything visible on the site, BUT if your host ever has a problem, or your server has an issue, or your site gets hacked, etc… a backup is a great thing to have. The plugin, Updraft Plus, allows you to set an automated back-up schedule so that you will always have your site from last week or last month to go back to immediately in case there is a disaster.

Site backups with Updraft Plus are the epitome of “set it and forget it” as the backup process happens automatically on the schedule you configure and store the backups in google drive, dropbox, email or whatever you prefer. Updraft Plus is a great plugin to install for peace of mind especially when managing a web store that needs to be back online as quickly as possible after a problem.

Categories
Web Development Website WordPress

WordPress: Advanced Custom Fields or ACF

This powerful plugin is a great way to graphically add beautiful fields and data to every post of a certain type, extending the already-rich WordPress functionality in a great way that I personally love and use all the time.

ACF allows you to make logical rules about when certain fields are shown, which post types they are for, how they are accessed, conditional logic for given fields and a whole lot more. There are not enough good things for me to say about this plugin.

There are plenty of other ways to add fields to WordPress posts since it is such a useful functionality but this uses easy-to-create logic rules to add fields where they are needed instead of relying on code which many of the other solutions do which is limiting.

The ACF pro version also allows for the creation of custom blocks for the Gutenberg editor. I will not explain all of the nuances of block creation, but ACF is a great way to graphically achieve a lot of great things in a WordPress site without having to write much code! (although values given into ACF are accessible via code too!)

Categories
Web Development Website WordPress

WordPress: Better Search Replace

This next plugin is a great tool for anyone building or migrating a WordPress site. As we know, WordPress sites are all based on databases that are usually created just for them.

Better Search Replace (BSR) allows the user to search all or certain tables in their database for a word or words and either erase them or change them to something else. If a company with a WordPress website was just purchased by another company and the name was changed, no problem. This plugin can find all instances of the old name and replace each one with the new name.

Categories
Web Development Website

Awesome Client Genewiz

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.

Categories
Website WordPress

WordPress 4.6

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.

WordPress 4.6 “Pepper”
Categories
Website WordPress

WordPress: Recommended Webhosts

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.

  1. WPEngine

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.

Categories
Website WordPress

WordPress: Add login security with reCaptcha

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.

Categories
Website WordPress

WordPress 4.5

wordpress 4.5 coleman

WordPress 4.5 Named for Saxophone King Coleman Hawkins

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.

Categories
Web Development Website

NJ Devils

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.

Categories
Web Development Website WordPress

Hello World!

!Hello World! Welcome to my new website or if you are looking later on, my old website. I obviously used WordPress to make this showcase for my professional work, (resume and portfolio) as well as some of my adventures. I’ll post some of the cool places I go and adventures I go on here, so stay tuned!

Powered by WordPress