Eric Mann's Blog

  • Customer-Centric Development: Lesson 2

    It’s easy to forget who we build our products for. Often it’s not you. Often it’s not even your client. Take some time to define the end customer and your client will thank you.

  • Customer-Centric Development: Lesson 1

    Lesson 1 in customer-centric development is all about storytelling. If you can tell your story, your product’s story, and your customer’s story, then you’re on solid ground. If you can’t articulate any or all of these stories, though, you might be in trouble.

  • WordPress Core Proposal: Shortcode Tracking

    At the moment, there is no way to query posts in WordPress based on the condition of having or not having a shortcode. Such an ability would be hugely useful to both themes and plugins – should we add it to core?

  • Tower of Babel

    On Sunday, I had the opportunity to visit once again with my friends and Jacob’s Well in Arizona. I was in town for WordCamp Phoenix, and this is the second year I’ve been able to join the congregation for worship and teaching on the weekend.

  • Dogfooding: Fighting the Post-Conference High

    I wanted to take my own advice on fighting the post-conference high. I have 5 cool ideas I want to investigate over the next few months. Your job is to let me know whether or not they’re worth it and, if so, hold me accountable to reporting back later.

  • Post-Conference High

    Most conference attendees experience some kind of high when they walk out the doors. They’ve just had their brains filled with hours or new knowledge and new ideas. On Monday, though, this high begins to fade. What can you do to prevent this from happening?

  • Web Requests and Data Leakage

    Even if your site is browsed over HTTPS, it can be insecure if any assets (images, scripts, styles) are transferred over an HTTP connection. This will trigger a “mixed content” warning in the browser that many will brush off as unimportant. The warning can be a major issue for some sites, though, and I want to explain why.

  • Why Speak at WordCamp?

    Today kicks off WordCamp Phoenix. Tomorrow (and Sunday) I’ll be speaking there. This is the third year I’ve presented at WordCamp Phoenix. Why do I keep coming back?

  • jQuery Portland – Unit Testing

    Last year, I had the opportunity to present at jQuery Portland about unit testing. It was my first non-WordPress speaking event, and it was incredible!

  • WordPress Core Proposal: Aribitrary File Upload

    I’m proposing a new feature for WordPress that would enable editors to drag-and-drop new media anywhere within the admin interface and have those uploads added to the media gallery. It would streamline several of my workflows. Would it help yours?