Wp Builds

This is the 9th episode of our "Thinking the Unthinkable" series and today's unpalatable thought is… WordPress is too expensive? We can dismiss this as insane ramblings straightway? It’s free! But, it can be expensive to do anything out of the ordinary, although Site Editing is changing that! Is WordPress a trap for the naive DIYer? Cheap start, but a longer term hidden costs in hosting and maintenance? Or is it still possible to build something decent but at a low cost? What about the freedoms that the GPL provides, and (dare I say it?) the websites that sell premium plugins for knock down prices? It's an interesting chat and we hope that you enjoy it!

Today on the podcast we have Arnas Donauskas, who is a Product Owner at Hostinger. He's on the show to talk about something that I'm sure that we've all felt before… that feeling of not being sure that WordPress is the project that it once was, that the future is not what you'd like, and how you can move on and work on the web with something else. This is a tough subject for a podcast called WP Builds! The name implies that we're here come what may! I guess that the title is a little bit of clickbait, and perhaps a better title would be more like 'how do you get your WordPress mojo back?' WordPress site building and growth can be challenging, and quite often people lose their motivation to continue, and this is what we address… getting back your inspiration and desire to use WordPress and be a part of the community that surrounds it. Having said all of that, we cover a lot of ground about this topic and a whole bunch of other topics too.

The WordPress news from the last week which commenced Monday 15th May 2023

On this 8th episode of "Thinking the Unthinkable" we are asking “is ‘open source’ a liability? This was prompted by a 2021 incident. A zero-day attack called Log4Shell that affected major players like Microsoft and Cloudflare. It's a chat about risk assessment really. Lots of levels with WordPress’ LAMP stack (Linux, Apache, PHP and MySQL). It seems quite remarkable that WordPress has worked so well for 20 years. So how do we 'sell' free, open source solutions to our clients, when most of them are from a world in which you need to pay for all-the-things?

The WordPress news from the last week which commenced Monday 8th May 2023.

On the podcast today we have James Giroux and he's here to talk about a new project that he's set up called TeamWP. It's all about workplace culture, team dynamics and leadership in WordPress companies. We open up the conversation with a lengthy chat about the rich history that James has in the WordPress space. He's worked for lots of different companies in a multitude of different roles, some big, some small. He's had mixed experiences in these companies, feeling empowered and enabled in many roles, but also working in dysfunctional workplaces where he feels that his talents were not exploited to their fullest potential. Normally, the podcast guest's background would not be all that significant, but given the nature of the conversation today, it truly is. You see, the itch that James is trying to scratch with TeamWP is trying to figure out what a 'good' WordPress workplace looks like; what represents a 'good' company. Now James is not suggesting that he's got the answers to all these questions just yet. It's

The WordPress news from the last week which commenced Monday 1st May 2023.

It's the 7th in our “Thinking the Unthinkable” series where we attempt to rationalise controversial views on WordPress and web design? Today’s topic is… Designing in the browser is for amateurs. David thought this topic was about whether to use design software rather than jump in with a page builder or start amending a template. Nathan thought it was about how design tools are increasingly online and work in the browser leaving us not having to install software for our computer operating systems. We will cover both because more recently graphical tools that work in the browser are also capable of spitting out HTML code too. Please feel free to leave us a comment at the bottom of the post!

On the podcast today we have Fränk Klein, and he's here to discuss the important topic of making a career from using WordPress. Like any other career, in technology, there's really no replacement for knowledge. The more you know, the more likely you are to adapt to situations that arise. Some of those might be repetitive, but there's also the curve balls that life throws at you, and your knowledge can empower you when strange things happen. Fränk is all about acquiring new skills. Learning new things so that you can make yourself indispensable to the organisation that you work for. Fränk's premise is pretty simple… being better educated will give you a chance to earn more. We talk about how Fränk became a WordPress developer. What his framework is for moving through the software industry, what his current job market is like in the wider WordPress ecosystem. Essentially, the message from this podcast boils down to staying curious and keep learning as a priority.

The WordPress news from the last week which commenced Monday 17th April 2023.

Welcome to the 6th episode of our "Thinking the Unthinkable" series where we attempt to rationalise controversial views on WordPress and web design. Today’s topic is, "If you use more than 10 plugins on a site, you are a cad and a scoundrel!" This is WP Builds humour for a chat about plugin strategy! We are sure most listeners will know plugins are only a method to deliver additional functionality to WordPress. They can be as complex as WooCommerce or as simple as the Hello Dolly plugin. As silly as it is to count the numbers, most of us are fascinated by what others use and are always reviewing the situation. So is there a sweet spot in the number of plugins you should use, and do you try to reduce plugin usage where possible? Find out what we think on the podcast...

The WordPress news from the last week which commenced Monday 3rd April 2023.

Accessibility is a topic which is getting much more attention these days, and rightly so. It's important for websites because it ensures that everyone, including people with disabilities and impairments in areas such as sight, hearing, motor difficulties, or cognitive limitations, can effectively use and engage with the website content. By making your WordPress websites more accessible, you're creating a more inclusive and welcoming online experience for all users, regardless of their abilities or disabilities. But how might you do that, and what are you looking for to improve the accessibility of the site that you're working on now? Nic Steenhout is an expert in this area and he's here to go through some things that need your attention right now.

Welcome to the 5th episode of our "Thinking the Unthinkable" series, where we attempt to rationalise controversial views on WordPress and web design. Today’s topic is… Website Clients are Impossible! This could have been called "Web Designers are Impossible", as it’s about the sometimes tense relationship between those who commission websites and those who build them. Do we correctly set the expectations for our clients, or are we opening ourselves up to criticism because they're not at all clear on how our process works? Are we working with "the client always knows best" model, and does this really give them what they need? Should we rather explain to them we're the expert and they should jolly well listen every time we speak? It's a fun conversation and no doubt there's going to be a lot of food for thought!

The WordPress news from the last week which commenced Monday 27th March 2023.

Today, it's all about WordPress security and what you can do with the WP Vulnerability API / project. In the podcast you're going to meet the wonderful Javier, and I thought that I'd let him take over the show notes, as he wrote such wonderful notes prior to our chat. So… over to Javier… Hello, I'm Javier, and I'm around the Internet since 1994. In 1997, I created my first website, and in 2005, I created my first WordPress (with WordPress 1.5). Today we are talking about WPVulnerability.com, a project focused on democratizing WordPress security information. This project is a 100% open and free API, for access by any WordPress user, with the sole purpose of improving the security of a site, thanks to this information. Although is an API, with some colleagues, we created the WPVulnerability plugin, that checks your site looking for vulnerabilities and showing them in the Site Health section. Find out more by checking out the podcast.

The WordPress news from the last week which commenced Monday 20th March 2023.

This seems a little odd, 'Do we even need WordPress', given that we're a WordPress podcast. But, there's actually quite a lot to be said here. Both David and I have been using WordPress for years (David, quite a bit longer), and perhaps it's time to think about whether WordPress is always the right choice for our website building projects. If the site is a simple brochure site that's really never going to get updates, is WordPress really the right option? After all, you'll be needing to maintain the website, patch for security, update themes and plugins, when all that you really needed were a few lines of HTML, CSS as perhaps some JavaScript. David's been exploring taking his sites more in the 'static' direction lately, and whilst you can do this with WordPress and some plugins, David's finding the joys of writing his own HTML and getting back into what the w3c have to say. It's a fun chat and something that you might not have looked at closely, so go and have a listen and leave us a comment.

The WordPress news from the last week which commenced Monday 13th March 2023.

Deal Alert: Get 10% off MasterWP Workshops using the coupon code 'wpbuilds10' - it's valid until 15th April 2023. On the podcast today, we have Rob Howard. No, not the film director, but the one from MasterWP. If you've not heard of MasterWP before, then you're missing out as they're on a mission to create a heap of WordPress related content. They've got workshops, tutorials, a fast-growing blog and a podcast! The podcast today is in (more or less) two halves. First up, we chat about the community that Rob and his team are trying to build up in the WordPress space. Then we talk about the MasterWP workshops, and how they're creating workshops and courses on a very regular basis. It's an interesting chat with Rob, and I hope you enjoy it!