Last week two very popular plugins, WooCommerce and WordPress SEO, identified, fixed, and disclosed security issues. The details of these vulnerabilities are now publicly available, which allows other developers to learn from their mistakes. In a previous article for Torque, I discussed the importance of responsibly disclosing security issues. To get a better understanding of this in relation to the recent vulnerabilities I reached out to James Golovich, a WordPress developer who recently discovered security issues in WP All Import, Easy Digital Downloads, and IgnitionDeck as well as several other plugins and themes, which he details on his highly informative blog. […]
5 Coding Bootcamps for Developers to Consider
Coding skills are in high demand at the moment. If you’re considering a career in development, now is the perfect time to jump in. Unfortunately, some assume that without a university degree, becoming a WordPress professional isn’t an option. On the contrary, a coding bootcamp can help put you on the fast-track to a rewarding career as a web developer. Between lower tuition costs and expedited curriculums, there are many benefits to learning programming skills through these types of training courses. In this post, we’ll explain what coding bootcamps are and how they work. Then we’ll look at five quality […]
How to Use Chatbots to Free Up Your Clients’ Customer Support Time
Automated website features are a hot topic, and that includes chatbots. One of your clients’ biggest concerns will be how to balance their customer support requirements against the need to develop their businesses and product lines. When it comes to solving this dilemma, automation is an ideal solution. While there are plenty of other uses, chatbots are perfect for automating customer support channels. In fact, we’d say this is a primary desire for many clients. That means you’ll need to get up to speed with how to create and maintain chatbots on the websites you build. In this post, we’ll […]
Evaluating Plugin Weight and Performance
I was recently asked how I judge the performance and relative “weight” of plugins when I am testing them for Tidy Repo. I wish I had a one stop solution for determining this, but it’s a little more complex than that—so I thought I might detail my process here. General Testing Setup For my local dev environment I use Vagrant, and 10up’s wonderful Varying Vagrant Vagrants box. This works for most plugins, but some need to be on a live install for one reason or another, so I have a site set up on my server as well. These are […]
4 Times It’s Okay to Tell Your Client “No”
Whether you work for an agency or as a freelance developer, telling a client “no” can be awkward or even risky. However, the old adage that “the customer is always right” isn’t true in every case. In fact, sometimes saying “no” is a necessity. Fortunately, if you turn clients down respectfully and explain your reasoning, these potentially difficult interactions can end up strengthening rather than harming your relationships. In this post, we’ll discuss four times when it’s best for you to tell a client “no”. Then we’ll give you some pointers to help you handle those conversations effectively. Let’s get […]
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