Be honest: Is your WordPress backend a clean and appealing working environment? Does it make you feel relaxed and focused, and taking care of your website a pleasant activity? Or is it a mess of update messages, unanswered comments, and other distractions? Where you have to scroll over dozens of unused plugins until you get to the one your are looking for? You know, kind of like this browser window: If so, it’s time to set aside time for a “declutter WordPress weekend,” and do some serious housecleaning. With spring around the corner, what better time to make a fresh […]

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? […]

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 […]

If you’ve ever installed WordPress, you know that every WordPress website consists of two parts: The core files and a MySQL database. Of the two, the database is the much more important component. Should your core files go kaput or be corrupted, you can easily replace them and wouldn’t lose too much. However, if your database vanishes and you don’t have a backup — best find a good therapist now. Therefore, it is important to know how to properly take care of this crucial part of your website. One of the most common tools used for doing so is phpMyAdmin […]

Why on earth would you want to build a customized 404 error page for WordPress? Isn’t that wasted time and effort? Shouldn’t you rather invest in making your site airtight so that nobody will ever be confronted with it in the first place? Fair point. On the Internet, 404 is probably among the most hated numbers in existence. Visitors curse it, webmasters try to eradicate it and overall nobody has good things to say about it. (On the other hand, one of the most desired digits online is Matt Mullenweg’s phone number. Just kidding, that link doesn’t go anywhere.) The […]

Happy New Year, everyone! Ah, what a glorious year 2014 was. Full of highlights for WordPressers, web designer, and developers everywhere: Several major releases, tons of new plugins and themes, as well as thousands of fresh WordPress websites. A good time to be alive, isn’t it? However, now we need to take off the party hat, brush the confetti from our shoulders, and turn our eyes forward. “Tempus fugit” as they say. So brew yourself a fresh cup of coffee, sit down at your laptop and get ready for. . .what exactly? Good question. How will websites look in 2015? […]