I’ve been building websites since 1994 and really enjoy it. In posts tagged as “Site builder,” I provide tutorials and information to help people creating sites with WordPress or Drupal.
Video Here is a video overview of the Kava Theme that comes bundled with the Crocoblock suite for Elementor. The theme is shown in more detail in the video, as there is a walk-through, while the article below summarizes the pros and cons, with screenshots. Introduction This post is part of a mini-series looking at …
Video Here is a video overview of the Crocoblock suite for Elementor and a walk-through using JetEngine and JetThemeCore for working with dynamic data. The process is shown in more detail in the video while in the article there are some screenshots taken at important points. Introduction This post is part of a mini-series looking …
Crocoblock Suite for Elementor: Dynamic Data – JetEngine & JetThemeCore Read More
Video Here is a video overview of the Crocoblock suite for Elementor and a walk-through of the different installation options. The screens are shown in more detail in the video while in the article there are just screenshots taken at important points in the process. There is some information in the article that is not …
Crocoblock Suite for Elementor – Overview & Installation Read More
A major feature of Elementor 2.1 is the ability to work with Custom Post Types (CPT) to make templates for displaying the data from CPT fields. To review the lay of the land, WordPress has long had support for custom fields and custom post types, but a WTF is that displaying this data was not …
Who Is This Article For? In this article I review Jetpack Premium, one of the paid Jetpack plans. The review is for people with a single site who have a small annual budget and who need to have support available. Now, if you have a high traffic site, an ecommerce store, or a membership component, …
Cost-Effective Security and Backup Option – Review of Jetpack Premium Read More
When we share our blog posts to social media we want them to look attractive. We spend some time on a nice featured image that lets people know what the post is about and then tweet our creation to share it. For a long time I did this by logging into Twitter, uploading an image …
Introduction I’ve been using Laragon for a while now for local WordPress development. Recently someone asked for help because they had forgotten their WordPress username or password. I made a short video walkthrough that shows how to change the password using the HeidiSQL program that comes with Laragon. Below the video are the written out …
Changing Your WordPress Password – Laragon and HeidiSQL Read More
Introduction Code snippets are small bits of PHP code that you can use to customize your WordPress website. The Code Snippets plugin is a great convenience for adding snippets. The plugin is available for free from the WordPress plugin directory. It is regularly updated, is widely used, and has good reviews. I’ve been using it for …
Last Updated December 14, 2019. There are a number of free online services useful for site builders. The seven listed below are helpful for checking if DNS changes have been picked up, troubleshooting SSL errors, finding the cause of a site slowdown for speed optimization, finding the best headline for your posts, and for using …
Introduction If you need a Virtual Private Server (VPS) or a physical machine in a server facility then this article isn’t for you. For a high-level view of hosting considerations, see my previous article. In this article I look at two options for WordPress site hosting: SiteGround and Cloudways. These two options cover most small and medium …
Introduction As you may know, Astra is a relatively new WordPress theme created by Brainstorm Force. They are the company behind the Ultimate Addon for Beaver Builder as well as a number of other plugins. Upon acceptance, the Astra theme quickly shot up into the most popular theme category on WordPress.org and has become the …
The WPBuilds Facebook group is a friendly and interesting bunch of site builders. Periodically there is a discussion about plugins for creating the “display template” for Custom Post Types. This is a decision, or hurdle, that everyone using Custom Post Types has to deal with. Fair warning, if you are reading this then I assume …
The Not So Skinny on Custom Templates: Toolset, and Beaver Builder Read More
A few weeks ago I was thinking to myself that WordPress comments were really a black hole. So I was surprised and intrigued when I received an email from Thrive Themes telling me about their new Thrive Comments plugin. I went over to their website to check it out. In this post I want to …
Everyone doing web development or training up in web technologies needs a local test server. You know that testing on a live site is risky. Building websites or evaluating themes and plugins? Yes, you need one too. Are you interested in WordPress, Drupal, Joomla, or PHP? If so, and you are running Windows, then you need …
Best WAMP Server for Local WordPress – Laragon is Easy Read More
Introduction Having a good backup option for your WordPress site is essential. It helps you recover in the event there is a problem with an update, a user error, or a site hack. I think that we should have backup options built into WordPress core, but for now, we need to use a plugin. This …
I have been involved in website hosting since 1995. I’ve worked for organizations and companies who hosted their own sites. I’ve had clients with Virtual Private Servers (VPS) for site hosting. I’ve used shared hosting for personal websites, the websites of family members, and for a small non-profit. From that experience, here are a few …