WordCamp Minneapolis 2013 Slides

Posted by in Events > WordCamp

This weekend, I presented The Power of Custom Types a reworked version of a talk with a similar name that I gave at WordCamp NYC 2012. Similar to the situation at WordCamp NYC 2012, I gave a encore presentation later in the day for those who missed it due to interest in other sessions in the same time slot. Those looking for the slides have two options, either a PDF export of the slides or the original PPT (ends up being more portable than other formats).

Grab the PDF version.

Grab the PPT version.

-John Havlik

[end of transmission, stay tuned]

Benchmarking WordPress (Investigating the Optimal Server)

Posted by in WordPress

With WordPress powering an estimated 16.7% of all websites1, having tools to evaluate server performance for running WordPress is becoming necessary. At the time of writing this article, there are no known published investigations into determining the optimal server configuration for WordPress. Yet, hosting providers will make bold claims, such as “My blog is 4x faster than your blog”. While these claims make for entertaining t-shirts, without a defined methodology there is no way to verify them.

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Notes:

  1. Mullenweg, Matthew. “State of the Word 2012.” WordCamp San Francisco 2012. San Francisco . ↩

WP Lynx 0.6.0

Posted by in WordPress > Plugins

Say hello to a new, better organized, settings page. Settings are now organized by context, with many of the advanced, infrequently used settings sitting under the advanced tab. In the process of updating the settings page, the underlying plugin core was updated to the latest mtekk_adminKit, which already ships with Breadcrumb NavXT.

Additionally, WP Lynx now supports capturing a screenshot of a website and using that as the thumbnail image. This is provided though Snapito!, you’ll need to grab an API key for it to work. Note that the site screenshot will always be the second image in a thumbnail set, unless no other thumbnails were found. Also note that the initial loading of a screenshot may take several seconds. Please wait for the screenshot to load in the window before inserting the lynx print to ensure WP Lynx can cache the image properly.

Lastly, a few tweaks were made to the scraping engine to fix the causes of PHP notices in cases where something went wrong in retrieving a site.

Note that this release  is the first in a series of planned releases between now and 1.0. Each will add a minor number of features, tracked in the WP Lynx GitHub Repository.

-John Havlik

[end of transmission, stay tuned]

Weblogs.us Site Speed Tips

Posted by in Weblogs.us

Weblogs.us supports two resource loading optimizations that can give your site a slight bump in performance. While neither are enabled by default on individual sites, we will be rolling them out over the next three months. However, you can try them out before they are rolled out to your site.
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I’m Speaking at WordCamp Minneapolis

Posted by in Announcements > WordPress

My presentation titled “The Power of Custom Types” was accepted into the “Intermediate” track for WordCamp Minneapolis 2013. This is based off of the presentation I gave twice at WordCamp NYC last year. Based on some feedback from organizers this presentation will take a slightly different path than its predecessor.

Yes, it is still on Custom Post Types. However, custom taxonomies and post (custom) meta will also be covered. Inspiring members of the audience to use WordPress’ custom types in their next project is the aim of the presentation. In the presentation I will be covering the basics of CPTs, taxonomies, and post meta, presenting a few cool tips and tricks, discussing when a CPT, taxonomy, or post meta use is appropriate, and showcasing some cool plugins that use a combination of CPTs, taxonomies and post meta. As always, there will be plenty of time for Q&A so bring your questions.

Psst. If you haven’t registered yet, register for WordCamp Minneapolis while you still can.

-John Havlik

[end of transmission, stay tuned]