Free Services for Website Building & Optimization
Last Updated November 24, 2018. There are a number of free online services useful for site builders. The four listed below are helpful for checking if DNS changes have been…
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.
Best Web Hosting for Site Builders
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…
Creating an Off-Canvas Menu for Astra
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…
The Not So Skinny on Custom Templates: Toolset, and Beaver Builder
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…
Thrive Comments: Walkthrough and Review
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…
Best WAMP Server for Local WordPress – Laragon is Easy
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…
Website Backup Plugins – Three Options
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…
WordPress Hosting – General Overview
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…
WordPress and Drupal Comparison – Deep Dive
WordPress and Drupal are two very popular content management systems that are often compared. The common conclusion to most comparisons is that WordPress is good for blogs or small sites…
WordPress Themes and Plugins with a Lifetime License – The Ultimate List
Last Updated February 15, 2019. Over the past year, several major plugins have stopped offering a lifetime license. I've kicked myself for waiting on a few that I could have…
Understanding Theme Categories
Last updated February 26, 2018 I’ve tried out hundreds of themes, and my experience is “don’t fight the theme.” If you find you are struggling with a theme then it…
I Have Seen the Future of WordPress and It Is Not What you Think
I spent the weekend testing out page builders, to find one that meets my needs. In the course of testing, I remembered a few things that I had forgotten and…
Taking PHP Seriously
Taking PHP Seriously is a very interesting post that talks about why some large companies are using PHP, some of the shortcoming of the language, and how to use 3rd party…
Four Four Three – Moving a Website to SSL
In my mind, PHP 7 and free Let's Encrypt SSL certificates are game changers. PHP 7 is significantly faster and Let's Encrypt SSL certificates lower the bar for small and…
Show Category and Tags for Wiki Pages using Divi
Someone recently asked about showing the wiki category in the post meta. Showing the category and tags for wiki pages is something you do in your theme, not the plugin,…