October 27th, 2011

SEO Advice

I have had a number of clients ask me for advice on improving their SEO. I have never proclaimed myself to be an SEO expert and I am very upfront about this – but I do have some thoughts on the matter. Things I’ve seen that help. As well, I’ve tried to educate myself on some basic knowledge so that I can help get people pointed in the right direction. So I’ve recently put together an article on my geek-blog Scriptygoddess that outlines some of these common-sense techniques. Go have a read:

SEO Advice (from a Non-Expert!)

July 9th, 2011

Evo’11 Update

I recently completed two sessions at Evo’11 – one about Beginning WordPress and another about Intermediate WordPress (both included some discussion on html and css) If you were in attendance, thank you so much for coming! I know everyone was asking for copies of the slides, and I have them here. (Scroll down to the bottom). I also have all the links referenced in the slides, as well as links to code snippets used in the slides.

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me. You can also find me here: scriptygoddess.com and @theworkingmom

One quick update- someone had asked about fixing which thumbnail is used when you share something from your blog on Facebook: here is a forum thread on this issue and here is the link to the plugin mentioned there that will help. (give it 24 hours or so for Facebook to correct itself)

May 11th, 2011

evo’11 Conference

So the cat is officially out of the bag as of today – I will be speaking/doing a few workshops at evo conference this year. If you didn’t attend evo’s debut last year, you should definitely try to attend this year. I went last year and there was a ton of information that I walked out with and literally used the very next day. The conference is put together really well and I made a number of contacts that have had a significant impact on my business this past year. If you do anything online: blogging, web design or development, twitter or facebook – You should definitely attend! You won’t regret it.

February 24th, 2011

WordPress 3.1 is out!

If you are already using WordPress, then you’ve probably seen the little banner pop up above your admin screen: WordPress 3.1 is out! So far, the upgrades I’ve done have gone through without a hitch. I’ve been watching the responses from other users, and most issues seem to be plugin related. I try to avoid really out-dated or rarely-updated plugins to begin with – the exception being small plugins that probably don’t require that much updating anyway.

My favorite features of immediate use are the admin bar (you can turn this on or off in your profile), and the ability to include internal links when making a post. Other features (like more post-formats, and better custom-post-type support) are ones that will be handy in future site developments. All features are listed here.

Remember to backup your files and database, but let the upgrading begin.

December 30th, 2010

WordPress Security Update

As you may or may not know – WordPress released a critical security update yesterday. It’s important to run this upgrade as soon as possible. If you’re not sure what you need to do to upgrade, the best way to do it (and this goes for anytime you upgrade your WordPress install) is to first download a backup of your files (theme files, plugins, etc.), make a backup of your database (I personally like using the “wp-db-backup” plugin which allows you to do this right from within the WordPress admin) – then use the “one-click” upgrade WordPress offers.

If you’re worried about doing this yourself, get in touch with me.

December 22nd, 2010

Freebie Plugin Released: Download Post Comments

I’ve recently released a very simple WordPress plugin that will allow you to download all comments on a particular post as a CSV. The purpose of this plugin was to help bloggers who run contests on their blogs and use the comments section to collect entries into the contest. If you get a large number of comments/entries, and you’re using something like “random.org” to pick the winning comment “number” – it can be hard to determine which comment that number represents. By downloading all the comments as a CSV, you can then open it with Microsoft Excel, and see very clearly (via row number) which comment is the winner. The plugin is being hosted on the WordPress.org plugin repository, and if you’d like to use it on your site, you can download it here: Download Post Comments.

December 15th, 2010

Happy Holidays

We’ve been “between homes” for nearly two months now and we’re finally on the home stretch. Literally. One more week and we get our new home, and I will finally have a permanent address to give out. That will be a wonderful holiday gift for my whole family! We’re even hosting a New Years Eve party with my extended family that live nearby. (They all understand, thankfully, that the house will still not be unpacked. Maybe I should include “unpacking boxes” as one of the “party activities.”) 😉

There’s been a few projects I’ve done recently that have been really enjoyable for me, and I can’t wait until they finally launch. What I’ve most appreciated with one in particular, is the fact that we were able to use some of WordPress’ newer features in really unique ways. I’m using custom post types, with some home-grown custom plugins to manage membership and paypal interaction. It’s going to be a great site.

Have a wonderful holiday! See you in 2011!

October 10th, 2010

California Here We Come!

So much has happened in the last month and a half, it literally makes me dizzy. My family and I have decided to move to California to be closer to family. We were expecting a long wait to sell our house, but instead, we ended up selling it in two days. As well, our buyers need to move in ASAP, so we are packing like crazy to get out of town.

I do have a temporary address for where we’ll be staying if you need to snail-mail me anything. Please contact me using the form on this website if you need it. If you already have my email address, that will not be changing, of course. As well, we’re doing everything on the “off hours” so business will still continue as usual.

We’re all very excited about this and looking forward to our move! See you on the sunny side!

August 28th, 2010

WordCamp Utah 2010 Presentation

Just finished up my presentation at WordCamp Utah about an hour ago, and as promised here are the slides from my presentation. (I apologize for the size – 11MB – shrinking it down really hurt the resolution of my screenshots so I’m leaving it as is) If you attended, please fill out the contact form. I’d love your feedback (good and bad!) and I’d love for you to introduce yourself as well.

Updated to add: Looks like you can view the slides via Google Docs here.

July 30th, 2010

WordCamp Utah 2010

I’m proud to announce that I’ll be speaking at WordCamp Utah 2010. My session will be about using WordPress as a CMS – I’ll be referencing various projects where I have done so and explain how and what I did. Registration is now open, so I hope you’ll be attending too. I’m still putting my presentation together and would love to know what questions you have on this topic that you hope would be answered.