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Torque

Community

What is WordPress Lacking? A Template Language

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August 21, 2013

31 Comments

Django, Ruby on Rails, Node.js, Laravel, Drupal—what do these platforms have that WordPress lacks? A template language. This is where the “boo”s usually start. I’ve talked to many top people in the WordPress community who believe that the current PHP-based templating system is fine. Hard to disagree with them when WordPress powers nearly 20% of the web. But I’ve talked to just as many WordPress people who believe that there’s a major opportunity here. Theme code quickly turns to spaghetti because the PHP-based templating doesn’t have the guardrails to enforce structure or patterns. This makes it hard for most themes […]

Finely Tuned Consultant: Carrie Dils

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August 21, 2013

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Howdy, I make websites for people using WordPress and the Genesis Framework. When I’m not working, you can find me sniffing books, swimming in the neighbor’s pool, or watching crime dramas. My husband, Dave, and I are parents to two rescue labrador retrievers, one black and one yellow. We embrace diversity. Meet Carrie Dils, one of the top-notch developers coming right out of the Lone Star State. She specializes in Genesis sites, and has been building things with WordPress for several years, and working with computers since as long as she can remember. Her dad was a computer scientist who […]

Background Caching with the Transients API

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August 20, 2013

10 Comments

The Transients API provides a great tool for caching data that needs to be refreshed regularly. In most cases it makes it easy for developers to improve the performance of their themes/plugins, yet there are situations which display weaknesses in the Transients API. When your transient is storing external data, like news from the BBC News API, the HTTP request required to refresh the data can significantly delay the page rendering. We are going to go through an example of how we can get around this weakness and refresh our transient without delaying the page rendering. Does it really matter? […]

Framing The Perfect Support Policy For Your Theme Business

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August 20, 2013

2 Comments

When it comes to marketing and selling your own premium WordPress themes, there are several tutorials out there which explain almost everything that you need to know — from design and HTML/CSS to PHP coding and debugging. However, a theme shop, just like any other business, is assessed not just by your ability to release quality products but also by your capability to back them up and offer support to your customers and clients. In this article, I shall be taking a closer look at some of the top support options and considerations when it comes to running a WordPress […]

Introducing: Torque Book Club

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August 19, 2013

7 Comments

The first rule of Book Club is: You do not talk about Book Club. Seriously though… Anyone and everyone is welcome to join! It’s a very low maintenance book club in the sense that there are no deadlines and no meetings. Torque reader Vanessa Blaylock came up with the fun idea to set up a P2 WordPress site for discussion. Vanessa’s thoughts: With an asynchronous book club – asynchronous both temporally across the month, and also in that you could read 2 pages from the middle and go chime in about an idea that inspired you – I think it […]

Super Handy HTML Cheat Sheet: Take 2

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August 17, 2013

2 Comments

…An introduction to HTML for beginner Web Editors and Bloggers. QUICK NOTE FROM THE EDITOR: Welcome to Take 2 of “Super Handy HTML Cheat Sheet.” As an editor who is not fluent in HTML, I too have gathered most of my quick tips and tricks from simply Googling an issue. This works well for me, and it can work for you too. But as we all know, not everything on the internet is correct, recent, or even true. So take things you Google with a grain of salt and always consider your source, just as you would with anything else. […]

Editor of Torque on Matt Report

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Published

August 17, 2013

5 Comments

Matt Medieros, WordPress entrepreneur, podcaster, and co-founder of Slocum Studio, was kind enough to have me on his show, Matt Report, this past week. The interview gave me an opportunity to talk about my background, share details of how Torque came to be, and further explain my role as Editor at Torque. We also got to wax poetic about journalism, blogging and entertainment…and discuss our thoughts on the evolving WordPress community and the future of WordPress news. Matt is such a great host and I had a blast being a guest. I hope you enjoy!

Super Handy HTML Cheat Sheet

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Published

August 16, 2013

16 Comments

…An introduction to HTML for beginner Web Editors and Bloggers. EDITOR’S UPDATE: Although these tips may work, some of them are out of date and not considered to be best practice.  Please reference the Super Handy HTML Cheat Sheet: Take 2 for the most recent and correct informaiton. Thanks! If you’re going to be managing—or regularly contributing to—a WordPress blog, it’s helpful to know some basic HTML. I know it can seem a bit intimidating, but it’s just like anything else in life—it’s not as complicated as it looks. And it’s your friend! It can help you to do amazing […]

Do You Have a Business? What About a Business Model?

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Published

August 15, 2013

3 Comments

Almost every week I find myself in a conversation with someone where we’ve meandered towards the question of their business model. Sure, maybe it’s my tendency to want to understand the “system” behind how a company works, but you’d be surprised at how many decisions stem from the core of a company’s business model. What’s more surprising than the fact that I engage in these conversations often, is that when push comes to shove, a lot of the people I’m talking with start getting a bit sheepish about talking about their business model. It’s not because they don’t have one. […]

Make Your WooCommerce Store More Social

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Published

August 14, 2013

1 Comment

I am a huge fan of WordPress SEO by Yoast as I believe many WordPress users are. Why? Because it gets the job done easily, efficiently and has many advantages over the competition. I’m not going to get into all of that here but I do want to share Joost’s new WooCommerce SEO add-on for the free plugin. I was very excited to have the opportunity to review the plugin, as I have with the Video SEO and Local SEO add-ons. However, on my photography website and at Photocrati we do not use WooCommerce for anything. However, my brother runs […]

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