To quote from the WordCamp LA web site:

WordCamp is a conference type of event that focuses squarely on everything WordPress. Everyone from casual end users all the way up to core developers show up to these events. These events are usually highlighted by speeches or keynotes by various people.

For those of you in the WordPress community who’ve never been, I highly recommend you check one of these out, as they are jam-packed with great people and super-informative presentations.

And a super-special kudos to Austin Passy and all of the amazing volunteers who made sure that the event ran as awesomely as it did.

Although there was a ton of actionable information given, here are just a few great tidbits from the event that I think would be worth sharing.

Practical exploits of jQuery with WordPress

Presenter: Bill Heaton

• Displaying photos, videos, static HTML content, “forward to a friend” boxes, and really anything else inside of an overlay window, the jQuery plugin called Pretty Photo is a rock solid option. For those less comfortable with JavaScript code, there’s a WordPress plugin you can use to get those overlay windows going.
  • jQuery plugin (JavaScript files and code that you implement yourself): http://www.no-margin-for-errors.com/projects/prettyphoto-jquery-lightbox-clone
  • WordPress plugin (for easier implementation): http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-prettyphoto
• Use the jQuery.noConflict() function to avoid conflicts with other libraries.

Optimizing the performance WordPress

Presenter: Josh Highland

• Only load server modules that you need.
• Things to cache include:
  • database queries
  • PHP code
  • page requests
  • assets (images, javascript, css)
• W3 Total Cache is becoming known as the best WordPress performance optimization plugin.
• Not all WordPress themes are created equal when it comes to site performance. Things to be aware of when choosing a theme:
  • Number of CSS/JS/Images being loaded
  • Is the CSS/JS minified out of the box?
  • Are the images optimized?
  • Is the code optimized (too many database calls)?

• Images:
  • How many are you loading?
  • look into LazyLoad juery plugin
  • Use CSS sprites (create theme automatically at http://spriteme.org)
  • Are the images optimized?
  • Dont resize the image in using the image size percentage in WordPress’ image upload/gallery tool
• Watch out for the “Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.” It queries every single blog post every time the user lands on any blog post.

Advanced Use of Custom Fields

Presenter: Thom Meredith

• Magic Fields is a much more user/client friendly alternative to Custom Post types. It allows you to set up post types that are not necessarily standard WordPress pages or posts, but special entries made specifically for your site. For example, if you have a site that lists movies, you don’t necessary want to create a blog post or a static page for each movie. Perhaps all you need for each movie listing is the name of the movie and the URL. Magic Fields allows you to create the equivalent of a custom post type that adds a simple form to the bottom of the post or page edit screen with text fields where a non-technical client can easily enter the name and the URL for the movie.
• The Pods CMS plugin does the same thing as Magic Fields, but is a bit more flexible, but also a bit more complex to set up.

Introduction to posting on the go

Presenter: Austin Passy

• The Postie plugin is a great option for those who want to update their blog via email. It allows simple uploading of photos and blog content, and is also great for clients who don’t want to mess with the WordPress admin.

Photographic Highlight

Now THAT'S dedication! Notice the killer WordPress tattoo on John Hawkins of 9seeds and vegasgeek.com!

While working on a client site which used both the W3 Total Cache plugin as well as the Facebook Share plugin, I came across a bug where the Facebook Share icon that was to be placed at the top and bottom of each blog post was disappearing, only to be replaced by a “Share” link that linked to nowhere.

After playing around with the Facebook Share settings for quite some time, I started deactivating plugins one by one to see if there was a conflict causing this. I noticed that the culprit was the W3 Total Cache plugin, which was crucial to the stability of this highly trafficked web site and could not be deactivated nor replaced, as it really is the best plugin for WordPress caching.

Solution #1:

I was able to fix the issue by changing a single W3 Total Cache setting. By going in my admin to Performance > Minify, I scrolled down to the JavaScript settings, unchecked the “Enable” checkbox and clicked “Save changes.” I was also able to leave the global Minify setting for the plugin (found by navigation to Performance > General Settings) enabled for CSS minification.

Voila! My Facebook Share icon was now appearing on the site again and functioning properly.

It is my feeling that the Facebook Share plugin is not the only plugin out there being impacted by W3 Total Cache’s minify settings. I would venture to guess that there a good number of other JavaScript-based plugins that could be broken by JS  magnification, so keep this in mind for future plugin bugs and conflicts.

Solution #2:

On my own site, I am running W3 Total Cache with Minify enabled globally (to reduce the memory imprint of both CSS and JS code) while also running a Facebook Like button plugin with no problems.

The W3 Total Cache-compatible Facebook plugin that I’m running is simply titled “Like” and can be found at http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/like.

Here’s a special quick post this week to solve a problem I’ve been seeing around the web, but with no solution.

I was recently working on a high-traffic site that that uses using the W3 Total Cache plugin in conjunction with an Akamai CDN. This is a great way to optimize site performance and stability, but I did run into the unfortunate side effect of the NextGen Gallery plugin’s slideshow ceasing to work as soon as the CDN was integrated.

Thanks to my favorite WordPress hosting guru Willie Jackson, there is now a solution.

Following Willie’s lead, and as seen in the screencap above, here’s how you fix this issue:

1. In the settings box for the W3 Total Cache plugin, labeled ’Performance,’  go into the CDN screen.
2. At the bottom of the page, there is a box for rejected files.
3. In that box, add the path to the image rotator .swf file (will be “wp-content/uploads/imagerotator.swf” in most cases)

And voila, your slideshow and CDN live together happily ever after!

Thanks to my marketing compadre Phyllis Zimbler Miller at Miller Mosaic Power Marketing, I was recently made aware of a setting on my LinkedIn profile that’s pretty darn important, super-quick and easy to fix, but which has nonetheless eluded my consciousness over the last few years that I’ve been using LinkedIn.

Click image to for a larger view.

The Ever Important “Websites” Setting

If you go to any LinkedIn profile, at the upper-left-hand side of the page, directly beneath where it says “Connections,” you’ll see the section labeled ”Websites” where you can list up to three links to any URL you choose.  Most people end up simply entering the URL and leaving LinkedIn and its default settings to the task of labeling that URL. The result is often a listing of websites that reads something along the example we see in the image above. As you can see, “My Company”, “My Blog”, and “My Company” is redundant and vague, and most importantly, a missed opportunity to attract folks to your more important online properties.

Adjusting the “Websites” Setting

1. Once you’re logged into your LinkedIn account, go to Profile > Edit Profile
2. In the “Websites” section (circled in red in the screenshot above), click on the “Edit” link near any one of your links
3. From there, you’ll be taken to a page with the settings for up to 3 links at the top of the page. Each link has a drop-down menu, and from that drop-down menu, choose the last option, “Other.”
4. A new input field should appear. Type in the what you’d like your link to be labeled.
5. Repeat this for up to 2 more links, hit the “Save Changes” button, and you’re done!

Since I’m always looking to network with interactive agencies (who are usually a strong match for my particular services), before I meet someone at a particular agency either in person or over the phone, I take a quick glance at that person’s LinkedIn profile and see how I’m connected to that person.

In case you’re not familiar with the part of the LinkedIn profile that I’m referring to, see the screenshot below to see precisely where it is.

Click image for a larger view

Embarking on this 10-second research project before your meeting so that you can bring up your shared connections can build a great bridge.

If nothing else, it’s interesting trivia just to see how you’re connected. Of course, the person I’m meeting may have no idea who the folks who connected to us are, since LinkedIn has a way of hooking us up with pretty random folks at times, but it’s definitely a good start.

So who knows, maybe this is pretty obvious “well…DUH” type of information, but it just now occurred to me, so I figured I’d share.

The Dreaded Bug

1. You just installed WordPress on your GoDaddy hosting account
2. You go to change WordPress’ goofy default page and post URLs to the “pretty” Permalink style so that your page URLs can look like www.yoursite.com/about-us instead of www.yoursite.com/?p=2
3. As soon as you make the change, chaos ensues as you now see a “Page Not Found” error where your lovely WordPress interior pages used to be (although fortunately the homepage should still be OK at this point)

While I’ve seen lots of fixes that involve things like simply waiting around for an hour (which is reputed to work as well) or even hacking into your .htaccess file, I’ve found a solution that time and time again seems to do the trick immediately. (And by the way, unless you’re a real geek you’re not even going to want to know what your .htaccess file is.)

The Solution:

1. You’ve probably already done this by now, but in case you haven’t, go to Settings > Permalinks and set your custom “pretty” Permalink structure (ie: /%postname%/ or /%category%/%postname%/)
2. Click the blue ‘Save Changes’ button
3. Now go set your Permalinks back to the ‘Default’ Permalink setting (ie: ?p=123)
4. Click the blue ‘Save Changes’ button
5. Now, once again, set your custom pretty Permalink structure (ie: /%postname%/ or /%category%/%postname%/)
6. Click the blue ‘Save Changes’ button and now go check the interior pages on your website

Et VOILA! Your website has been saved from GoDaddy purgatory!

Oh yeah, I forgot, one final step…

• Call GoDaddy, ask for your money back, and switch your hosting to Bluehost

Even if you’ve been living in a cave,

However, one group that doesn’t seem to be suffering from this shortage of jobs is the workforce of web developers, and really, computer programmers in general.

Is this because we’re just so smart and have everything figured out? As much as some developers would like to think so, the answer is a highly recursive NO.

The way I see it is that our field is just plain less competitive than that of our non-programmer colleagues. The demand for folks who know how to muckety-muck with code is way greater than the number of deranged souls who actually enjoy sitting in a dark room all day (and night) fiddling with functions and hashes and overflow:hiddens and….are we asleep yet?

So because of this lopsided ratio of demand for code vs willing code-monkeys, many of us developers find ourselves receiving numerous emails and phone calls on a weekly and even daily basis from recruiters and technology companies eager for resources. As a happily self-employed web developer with no plans of re-joining the ranks of the full-time employed anytime in the foreseeable future, I have been on the receiving end of many of these inquiries myself – almost to the point where my ungrateful ass started getting annoyed. But I’ve figured out a way to make the best of these seemingly useless inquiries that come via email.

Using my cherished Gmail along with the Canned Responses add-on, I crafted and saved a simple email response that not only politely lets the interested parties know that I’m not currently available, but that I have a few super-talented non-developer tech-industry colleagues who are currently on the market who they might want to contact.

Of course, it’s a bit of a numbers game, but I believe that it can definitely work in getting our friends and former colleagues hired, as these recruiters and hiring managers are extremely eager to place people (not to mention picking up that commission check).

Here’s the letter I use, feel free to customize for your own purposes:

Hello [RECRUITER NAME],

Unfortunately, I am not seeking a position at this time. I also don’t have anyone I can recommend with the skills you require who’s seeking a job. However I do know of 2 other *great* colleagues who are currently seeking new positions:

Mary Johnson (Widget Maker)
http://www.linkedin.com/in/[LinkedIn ID]

John Smith (Widget Analyst)
http://www.linkedin.com/in/[LinkedIn ID]

Of course, I’m not sure if you’re looking for folks with John or Mary’s skill set, but perhaps this helps.

Either way, thanks so much for your interest!

On more than one occasion, I’ve actually had the recruiter say that they checked out my friend’s LinkedIn profile and were interested in speaking to them right away.

The jury is still out as to whether this method is actually successful in placing our job seeking comrades, but I know for 100% sure that it succeeds in making me feel a lot better than simply writing back “sorry…” or deleting the inquiry email altogether.

Of course, if someone were to get placed, then I stand to end up with some commission money and there would be no complaints with that either.

In other words, 20 seconds of my time, all upside, no downside.

Now go start canning some responses!