Eric Mann

  • Crowdfunding a New Year’s Goal

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    After watching a few sessions of WordSesh – particularly the podcasting roundtable – I’ve decided to take another stab at podcasting. This time around I want to cover a broad range of topics, and throw in some video. I’m asking for the community’s help getting this show off the ground, and I won’t be able…

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  • To Test or Not To Test: Unit Testing and Privacy

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    Determining which methods in your application needed testing used to be easy – test everything exposed by the public API. But once you invite other developers to contribute, you are exposing a whole other set of internal APIs to the team. The behavioral consistency of these methods is just as important as that of the…

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  • Linux-flavored Windows

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    I use both Mac and Windows for development because I’ve managed to set up a Linux-style command environment on both. Here are some simple steps you too can follow to have the power of Linux-style commands right from the Windows command prompt.

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  • Three Decades Down

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    Today is my birthday, and also marks the completion date for my previous “to do before I reach a certain birthday” list. I’m asking for your help in building my list for the next however many years.

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  • WordPress: Falling Behind or Still Leading?

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    When Tumblr first appeared, everyone wanted WordPress to begin emulating its features. Then came Medium and the same cry. Then Ghost launched and again the retort sounded that “WordPress is falling behind!” But is WordPress really lagging behind the pack? I would argue otherwise.

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  • Hi jQuery, Meet Vagrant

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    I use Vagrant for local development on WordPress. It made perfect sense to use it for local jQuery development, too. This weekend I put the finishing touches on a patch to add Vagrant support to the jQuery project – now you can leverage the power of this awesome tool as well!

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  • Limited Liability

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    Every once in a while, I get an unsolicited sales email from a random company. It usually has some laughable “limited liability” statement attached that claims to protect the sender from any legal claims that their message damaged my machine. Honestly, such a statement is laughable and guarantees I will never respond to the email.

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  • SEO: Gaming the System

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    When anyone asks me how they can focus on SEO for their website, I usually point out that they’re asking the wrong question. Optimizing for search engines is a waste of time. Instead, focus on optimizing your site for real people.

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  • WordPress, meet seoslides

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    Back in 2011, I was talking at WordCamp Portland with a few people about how we could use WordPress to replace our presentations. Fast forward to 2013, and I get to make that dream a reality. We just launched seoslides, and it’s already making a huge impact on my content!

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