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Playing Nice With Others
Below is the video of my WordCamp Phoenix 2012 presentation. Please, be nice 🙂 [wpvideo FvBt5PpI w=600 h=380]
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Once Upon a Time
When I was 6, I wanted to be an architect. I loved drawing, enjoyed visiting cool buildings, and had the odd drive to be a part of something bigger. I checked books out from the library, talked up the idea with adults, and even took a crack at drawing up blueprints for the first house I’d build. Needless to say, that didn’t quite work out. As I grew up, my interests changed. I tried my hand at CAD in middle school, but couldn’t figure out the complex interfaces. Since everyone told me using a CAD system was essential for architecture,…
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Free and Open
I write software for a living. Not something I ever expected to do for a career, but it happened and I’m fairly good at it. I also write software as a hobby. Different languages and platforms – working with a diverse set of tools makes me a better developer. I also give away most of the software I write in my free time. Why? Releasing software helps me find bugs, contribute to a growing community of developers, and raise my own name recognition in the market. Increased name recognition means more consulting contracts. It’s a win-win. When I do give my…
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I’m Building a Cathedral!
Last month I read a fantastic business book, Start with Why, by Simon Sinek. It’s a great piece that works you through discovering and illustrating the purposes behind your business. Not what you do or how you do it, but why you do what you do. The best illustration in the book exposes a juxtaposition between two different work ethics: Consider the story of two stonemasons. You walk up to the first stonemason and ask, “Do you like your job?” He looks up at you and replies, “I’ve been building this wall for as long as I can remember. The work is monotonous. I…
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Data versus Meaning
At a conference last week, I was subjected to all kinds of talks on data, data integrity, data storage, data in the cloud, and data-centered design patterns. One speaker summed things up perfectly: If you make the center of your world data, then everything else becomes easy. This got me thinking. From a computer-centric viewpoint it all makes sense. Our machines are built specifically to store data, crunch data, and present that data to the user. But I don’t just work with computers. I also read a lot. And I write a lot. And I publish books. And even in the computer world…
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Live to Work
When I interviewed for my current job, my boss was very clear that the company culture was one of “working to live” rather than “living to work.” On the surface that made sense and, consequently, was exactly the type of work culture I was looking for. But for all the wrong reasons. Some of my earliest jobs were horrific. Long hours, low pay, uncomfortable working situations. I worked in a mall during the holidays (more than once pulling a 12+ hour shift). I worked for a company that demanded overtime yet refused to pay more than $1000 per month in…
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Welcome Back!
A few weeks ago, I had the opportunity to be shadowed in my day job by a computer science student. He was interested in web development and eCommerce, so I thought I’d show off a few of my sites. He was pretty impressed. Well, until we got to this site. The old Jumping Duck Media website was somewhat stale. WordPress plugin listings were out of date. The news feed was over a year old. And the online store was just broken. So I blushed, apologized, and quickly moved on to another, more up-to-date site. When I got home, I immediately pulled…
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Post Supplements – A Concept
A few months ago, WordPress UX Lead Jane Wells posted a request to WordPress’ Trac ticketing system. The idea was to find a better way to insert “stuff” below WordPress posts: Inserting the sharing and like rows at the bottom of the post text before the byline/classification metadata seems wrong. It should go below that, so it is closely related to commenting, not part of the content itself. The plugin-generated widget is not “by” the post author, after all. I haven’t used very many social media plugins for exactly this reason. Nor have I ever used a “related posts” plugin.…
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My Prayer
Last weekend I had the chance to see a truly amazing concert. But what made the night even better was the remarkable woman with whom I attended the concert. Frankly, one of my best Saturday nights all year. Great music, great messages, great company, and great conversation. But that conversation was actually quite convicting. On the way back to town, we started talking about common interests. Music, television shows, etc. Somehow we got on the topic of ministry and missions work. She told me about a trip to Costa Rica and explained how she’d like to do the same kind…
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WordPress Portland
As promised, here is the code for my demo of adding feature pointers to WordPress in version 3.3 And again, please do not use these in distributed plugins/themes. They’re only slated for Core at the moment, but if you feel that they’ll help in your custom theme/plugin development with clients, feel free! [cc lang=”php” width=”580″] /* Plugin Name: WordPress Portland Meetup Pointer Demo Plugin URI: Description: Demonstrate feature pointers in WP 3.3 Author: Eric Mann Version: 1.0 Author URI: http://eamann.com */ add_action( ‘admin_enqueue_scripts’, ‘pdxwp_pointers_header’ ); function pdxwp_pointers_header() { $enqueue = false; $dismissed = explode( ‘,’, (string) get_user_meta( get_current_user_id(), ‘dismissed_wp_pointers’, true…