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How to Stay Sane While Working Online

5 September 2012 by Andrea Rennick

You know those days. The ones where everything on your computer is blinking at you, your inbox causes you to sigh and close it, the phone will not stop and it’s possible that funky smell may be coming from your person. On top of that, every little thing that crosses your path is causing irrational feelings of anger. On the rare occasions you do leave your desk, the people you live or work with shrink back or get out of your way.

Does this sound familiar?

You aren’t alone. It happens to all of us. It’s also a sign that you need a break.

Yes, I said it. This is your WordPress Mom talking and she’s being.. well, your mom. It really is for your own good. [Read more…] about How to Stay Sane While Working Online

Making the Transition from HTML to WordPress. Where do you Begin?

30 August 2012 by Christine Rondeau

A few weeks ago at our local WordPress Meetup, we were having a round table discussion and someone asked

“How do I start? I currently have an HTML site and would like to convert it to WordPress, but I don’t know where to begin.”

That question took me a few years back when I was first dipped my toe into WordPress theming.

I had been designing websites for years, had just learned CSS and ditched my tables, I had a blog, but I was looking at my other pages and thought how do I integrate this other content with my WordPress site?

Thinking of Content Differently

When learning web design, you first learn that CSS allows you to separate presentation from content. WordPress takes that concept even further by separating the HTML from the content and storing all content in the database.

Once you’ve grasped that concept, you also need to know the difference between the various WordPress content types.

Posts – are displayed on your blog and appear in reverse chronological order, i.e. the latest posts are at the top. Your blog posts can be categorized in a series of ways and thus can be used for news, press releases, events, reviews, articles, whatever you wish.
Pages – on the other hand are for your static content. Contact information, about page, services, etc…
Comments – these can be turned on or off and are also stored in your database and associated with your blog posts.
Media – any document, file or photo that you upload in your WordPress site is uploaded in the uploads directory and it’s information is also stored in the database.
Links – Should you wish to use your blogroll, this other WordPress content type is there for you.

When you plan your WordPress site, the first thing you’ll want to do is simply upload your content. Create your pages, decide if you want a blog or not and make sure you’ve got everything in place.

[Read more…]

Introducing the WP Realm Technical Writing Team

28 August 2012 by Siobhan McKeown

As a site about WordPress, you’d expect us to have just a little bit of technical content. After all, I heard a rumour that there are these things called PHP and MySQL that have something to do with WordPress, although I’m not sure what – something mystical and magical no doubt. To help out with writing regular content I’ve gathered a team of experts who’ll be writing regular posts about the technical aspects of WordPress; writing code, plugins and themes, contributing to core, getting the PHP right, playing with your database, and all that good stuff that technical folks who use WordPress like to do. Let’s meet them. [Read more…] about Introducing the WP Realm Technical Writing Team

Building a Better Support Team

22 August 2012 by Mason James

One of the more interesting tasks I’ve had this year is building a support team for WPMU DEV. At the beginning of 2011 we hired two support reps to work alongside myself, handling the various support inquiries that came through. We were growing and I needed the help!

DEV has always functioned from a place of the independent freelancer; you can work on your own time, at your own place, and to a large degree all by yourself. So we hired two incredibly gifted people, showed them the support forums and off we went.

Flash forward to the beginning of 2012 and we had lost both of them. While there are many reasons why a person would leave a company or be let go, I took a big part of the responsibility on myself: I now had an exactly 0% success rate in hiring. These guys were hand-picked by myself and James (CEO at WPMU DEV) and now we were back at square one. On starting again, I knew things had to be different.

In December of last year we hired one new rep, then in January another. This was followed by four others in March. Here’s a few of the things we did wrong the first time around and how we’ve changed things this time.

What Makes a Great WordPress Support Specialist?

15 August 2012 by Scott Basgaard

I thought it would be great to change gears a little and talk about us support specialists instead of our users. Here’s a little background about myself and what I think makes a great support specialist in the WordPress community.

Before I started working at WooThemes as a Support Ninja, I worked at WebDevStudios and joined the team as a lead developer for around three to four years. And just to be honest, I’m definitely no “Nacin” or “Jaquith” and would not consider myself to be an amazing developer at all. But, I was lucky enough to be a “Brad Williams“, CEO and Co-founder of WebDevStudios, Padawan/Jedi-apprentice who taught me everything about proper WordPress coding standards and, most importantly, how valuable it was to be involved with the WordPress Community.

Writing a Better Support Forum Request

8 August 2012 by Andrea Rennick

Greeting from the not so cold or snowy Great White North. It is I, your intrepid reporter coming to you live from the support forum trenches. I’m Andrea Rennick, co-author of WordPress All-In-One for Dummies, and part of the excellent support team at StudioPress.

When I was first asked to contribute, one of the very first things that came to mind was covering the myriad of ways in which your users can provide information that we, the support team, can use to help them get the best help available. Send your users here and I’ll set them right.

When Does Support Turn into Customization?

1 August 2012 by Mason James

It starts so simply:

@BFF says: I <3 your WordPress product so much! It’s saved my career and brought meaning to my life. But I wish the text in this widget was red – not black. Help!

“Oh, I’m happy to help”, you think. Providing prompt, effective support is a big deal and here’s the perfect opportunity to make someone happy. They seem like a great customer already and happy customer are great for business.

It’s only 3 lines of code anyway, so what’s the harm? [Read more…] about When Does Support Turn into Customization?