The Internet has made it possible to run a website for a truly global audience. This raises the interesting question, though: how do I best serve readers in different countries? For many webmasters, this isn’t a problem at all. For example, here at Torque our content is identical whether you’re based in the US, UK, France, or anywhere else in the world. As long as you can read English, our content will serve you well. Sometimes, however, a one-size-fits-all approach isn’t the best option. Consider an eCommerce store, for example. If the eCommerce store sells internationally, it may need to adjust its […]
How to build a portfolio website in WordPress
When we think of people who should build a portfolio website for themselves, we will often automatically think of creatives. Photographers, designers, web designers, and such folk are obvious choices to display their work online. However, the benefit of having an online portfolio is not merely limited to this group. In fact, maybe everyone should have one. Why? Well, think of portfolios like a resume, only better. They let you showcase the entirety of your professional life and work. Why are online portfolios better than resumes? Well, can your resume play videos, dynamically display photos, and be mobile optimized? No? […]
Torque Spotlight: Professional WordPress
See details at the bottom of this post for a chance to win a copy of Professional WordPress! At the 2014 State of the Word, Matt Mullenweg, founder of the WordPress project, pointed out that 7,539, or 25%, of 33k survey respondents indicated that they make their living off of WordPress. There’s an obvious need for educational resources within the WordPress ecosystem — there are currently blogs, books, videos, and entire business models focused solely on WordPress education. This week we decided to spotlight the book Professional WordPress, along with an interview with one of the authors, Brad Williams. In 2010, Hal Stern, […]
DradCast Episode 072: Fall off the ledge
[y=DUOhnh1fgg4 height=400] Show notes: Jake Goldman is the President and Founder of 10up, a full service digital agency that has worked with TechCrunch, ESPN, and Consumer Reports. He is a core contributor to WordPress, and works on some of the most highly-rated WordPress plugins. Jake also co-organizes the Sacramento WordPress Meetup. You can find Jake on Twitter @jakegold! Sippin’ on Brad – Johnnie Walker Red Label Dre – Diet Ginger Ale Jake – Green Tea Latte Pressing topics How Important is Jetpack? Matt Mullenweg commenting that WordPress wouldn’t be as popular if Jetpack wasn’t around. Bar tricks Brad – Poststat.us Membership Club Dre – Weekly Blog Challenge, a […]
Using Grunt to automate redundant tasks in WordPress development
Grunt is a NodeJS-powered, automated JavaScript task runner that can be used to take a lot of the repetitive work out of web development. In this article, I will give an introduction to Grunt and the technologies it works with, as well as go over some of the ways it can be used to improve WordPress development. I will also recommend some tools to get you up and running with Grunt for plugin and theme development, and generating full WordPress sites. In a future article, I will cover how to automate the process of preparing a plugin for release on WordPress.org […]
5 free courses to learn web development
Want to learn web development? As one of the top careers in the US, web development is a very sought after career. But even if you don’t aspire to make it a career, learning web development can help you with your own business or even make you more employable. Luckily, you can learn everything you need just by going online. . . and for free. So, whether you want to become a professional developer, improve your skills, or just want a fun weekend project, you’ll find everything you need online. I’ve assembled the 5 best free online web development courses. They […]
How to create a review website: Tips on earning affiliate commission with WordPress
Many people have seen the potential of the Internet for making a living online — some of whom have even make huge sums of money. However, knowing where to start is one of the biggest road blocks faced by aspiring online entrepreneurs. There are so many options, not to mention conflicting advice, that many would-be webmasters simply never take action. Now, because of its theme and plugin infrastructure, WordPress is the CMS of choice for most people — we’ve even written a guide to making money with WordPress. It’s also highly user friendly, requires minimal coding ability, and has an abundance […]
Deadline approaching for Community Hub poll
There’s only one day left to vote for the features you’d like to see included in the WordPress Community Hub. The poll will close at 00:00 UTC January 29, 2015. In early December, Jenny Wong gave the green light for the Community Hub project — a project that will make it easier to find WordPress user groups all over the world. The announcement also pointed to this as an opportunity to make the hub into so much more: “. . .The community hub can be the WordCamp.org of local user groups/ meet ups. This would mean that user groups who want a localized […]
Mastering WordPress: 48 resources to go from newbie to pro
Mastery is a fascinating topic. Anyone taking pride in what they do are constantly striving to improve. To improve their skill set just a little more — to get a little better, faster, or more precise. Yet, mastery of any discipline comes down to one thing: practice. Whether you play the violin or are just trying to get really good at FlappyBird, you will need to put in the time it takes to get there. Mastering WordPress is no different. Increasing your skill set to an exceptional level is hard work. However, there are good reasons to do so: WordPress has […]
Why you need to start using a staging environment
Have you ever made a change to a client’s WordPress site and it crashed? Maybe you were updating a plugin or customizing code in the theme, and the site just goes down. Panic sets in as you try desperately to bring the site back online. You realize visitors are seeing that the site is down, and are probably going to call your client soon. Not long after that, you’ll get a call from a very irritated client. As professional developers, we obviously want to avoid situations like this. So how can we? Well, instead of making code changes or updates to a live […]

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