WPwatercooler - Weekly WordPress Talk Show

This week on WPwatercooler we went back in time and talked about ActionScript, Shockwave, Director, Server Side Includes and all the technologies that we learned leading up to WordPress.

Panel: Ross Gile, Leo Postovoit, Manny Costa, Steve Zehngut and Jason Tucker

Whittier CA representing on the show today

More information on WordCamp Long Beach coming soon!

WordCamp Las Vegas is later in the year.

Jason mentions this week’s WPblab EP126 – Marketing Yourself as a WordPress Developer

Steve talked ActionScript, Shockwave, JavaScript, and jQuery.

Manny wrote some e-commerce stuff in ActionScript

Leo talked about how he learned about AMP from WPwatercooler and got his job at XWP from that knowledge.

Ross was the first web developer in Whittier back in 1997 at DigiCal.

Steve talks about the times he was mentioned in old articles like Ross was in. Steve’s dad did picture framing and he has a bunch of places where he was mentioned online. Heaven’s Gate was mentioned in the same page of the article that Ross was mentioned in.

SHTML and Server Side Includes

Steve talks about this being a circular business.

Jason asked if Steve was featured in Webmonkey and he said that the Shockwave Site of the Day was where most of his stuff showed up. Steve won a SXSW Award for Big Pussies Poker Heaven.

Leo missed the Flash days but has been building and working with making simpler tools to build things much like Flash was back in the day.

Steve was a film major and ended up doing web development.

Leo has had to take about 6 months to learn web pack and is “looking forward tomorrows problems but at the same time celebrates yesterdays victories.”

Manny asked the question if everyone works from home making the point that going to WordCamps and WordPress meetups are important. He spoke about Prestige Conf and meeting Pippin of Pippin’s Plugins.

Ross talks about taking home “golden nuggets” from meetups and events he goes to.

Jason “ruins” Ross’ workflow when showing him things like Beaver Builder as a way of changing his workflow of building a website.

Leo talks about how open source works and how documentation is important. Technologies change quickly.

Manny talks on using Canvas and how they had to change to something new.

Steve was “all in” on Director and Shockwave and overnight that technology disappeared. The same can happen to WordPress, don’t put all your eggs in one technology basket.

Steve is observing that you don’t need to use WordPress for everything and WordPress isn’t made for everything.

Manny interjects that backward compatibility and is it important?

Leo talks about Drupal and their backward compatibility issues.

Steve mentions Shopify and working with scaling issues with it. Not every tool is the same.

Jason compares this to Windows and Apple and how they ditch their backward compatibility issues.

Join us on this episode of WPwatercooler by visiting our Participant guidelines page.

WPwatercooler network is sponsored by ServerPress makers of DesktopServer. Be sure to check them out at https://www.serverpress.com

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On this episode Sé Reed, Jonathan Wold & Steve Zehngut discussed many pressing WordPress topics such as beverage selection with LaCroix and autonomy with working as a solopreneur and having things fall through the cracks.

Jokingly Sé asked if Jonathan is a Virgo, he's a Gemini.

They discussed expectations and if Jonathan felt he was meeting them. Jonathan "says yes to the idea" but he finds that he can't keep up anymore. The three of them uncover prioritization, focus, and workflows. Sé goes back to this being an issue with Jonathan being a Gemini and wanting to do everything. Sé asked about "what system" Jonathan is using. He has paper, a journal and a to-do tracker. They worked through accountability, meeting client expectations and such. They talked about Trello, Basecamp, Asana and other tools that are used to manage their todos. Virtual Assistant came up but Sé seems to think it's more about a Virtual Manager but they found that being a personal manager is what really needs to happen. Jonathan is conflicted because he doesn't really want a manager. Sé puts on her counseling hat and talks about the 2 personas that Jonathan needs: Jonathan the person that produces and Jonathan the person that manages. Sé discusses habits and how to apply them as a manager and as a producer and discussing imposture syndrome when feeling you can't do all of this. Sé shares her shortcomings and how she over 16 years has found that she can't do everything (including paying herself) and found she needed to delegate these tasks to other people or systems to make sure they get done. Sé uses a "hype button" to call to attention when you are fibbing or not providing an accurate estimate of your effort to yourself or to your business partners. Pomodoro style came up in how Jonathan approaches various projects he does.

Steve steps in and talks about how he ran Zeek as a coder and as a manager. He realized that biz dev is where he should be and hired others to take care of the tasks that needed to be done that he shouldn't be doing himself. Steve mentioned joining a Mastermind group and making sure that accountability is something you are applying to your business. The group circles back to Email and how much of a pain it is. Inbox Zero, Slack, text and other methods of communication are discussed. Sé introduces a "Management Day" and how she uses Asana to check boxes, move tasks around as needed.

Join us on this episode of WPwatercooler by visiting our Participant guidelines page.

WPwatercooler network is sponsored by ServerPress makers of DesktopServer. Be sure to check them out at https://www.serverpress.com

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Steve Zehngut, Mark Benzakein, Sé Reed and Jason Cosper discussed WordCamp Orange County 2019 its organizing crew and how well the event went. The theme this year was The Life Aquatic. They gave out Krochet Kids red beanies depicted in the movie. Sé mentioned WordCamp Long Beach #WCLBC and her involvement with that camp. The discussion changed to the Business Track that Steve ran on Saturday including 1.5 hours of content per session.

Steve shared their method of speaker selection and how they do the blind speaker selection method. He also mentioned how they invite people to talk at their event and how they fill in speakers for topics they want to have discussed. If you are wanting to speak you should submit early and submit a few. When many people submit the same topic sometimes they will form a panel to make it easier to get all of them involved in it. The popular topic this go around was project management second was SEO people trying to sell things.

The panel talked about the afterparty at Durty Nellies and how a fight broke out no WordCampers were involved but Steve did get hit.

Sunday had three tracks where the event ends with Plugin-a-palooza. Jason Cosper was one of the judges and spoke about the ways in which they judged these plugins. Here are the top three:

1. Assistant – Every Day Productivity Apps
2. WP Debugging
3. Usher - Keyboard Shortcuts

WPwatercooler was at the event and held a session just before Plugin-a-palooza you can watch it here: EP319 – WPwatercooler Live at WordCamp OC 2019 #WCOC

Join us on this episode of WPwatercooler by visiting our Participant guidelines page.

WPwatercooler network is sponsored by ServerPress makers of DesktopServer. Be sure to check them out at https://www.serverpress.com

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This week on WPwatercooler we streamed live from WordCamp Orange County 2019. The majority of our regulars on WPwatercooler are local to Southern California and many of us attended WordCamp OC. The WordCamp organizers were gracious in giving us a time slot just before their legendary Plugin-a-palooza event they do each year. As with most WPwatercooler episodes we didn’t have a topic planned and asked the audience what we should talk about. Here is the result!

Panelists: Sé Reed, Leo Postovoit, Steve Zehngut, Jason Tucker, and Jason Cosper

Join us on this episode of WPwatercooler by visiting our Participant guidelines page.

WPwatercooler network is sponsored by ServerPress makers of DesktopServer. Be sure to check them out at https://www.serverpress.com

See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

This week on WPwatercooler we discuss WordCamps – how many there are in SoCal, what you can do to get more out of a WordCamp and what we’d like to see less from WordCamps if we choose.

• Jason mentioned the number of WordCamps in Southern California is staggering and is wanting to talk about the excessiveness of WordCamps.
• Manny mentions that beginners and first timers get a lot from WordCamps
• HallwayTrack and Hallway Chats are big for veterans in the WordPress community
• Jason Cosper brings up the Watch Later button in YouTube and watching or not watching the missed talks at the camps you attend.
• Se brings up that getting out of the office is important, having an expensive write-off for travel and giving an excuse for meeting people IRL.
• Cosper talks about getting out of the house, getting dressed and interacting with other humans in person.
• Jason Cosper lists the following WordCamps: Orange County, Los Angeles, Long Beach, Riverside, San Diego, Phoenix, Sacramento, Denver, Santa Clarita, Portland, Seattle.
• Sé compares this to the Grateful Dead… WordPress Heads.
• Jason Cosper talks about taking a few WordCamps off and feeling overwhelmed.
• Cemal talks about WordPress.tv and choosing sessions and dealing with duplicates or repeated content from other camps. Speakers speaking over and over about the same thing at many camps.
• More than 1/3 of the people going to WordCamp OC are new WordCampers.
• Cosper will be attending 5-6 camps this year.
• Jason Cosper speaks about WordPress swag, shirts, and other things and he’s looking to see if there is a way of opting out of them and maybe that money can be spent on something like closed captioning. WordCamp OC won’t have closed captioning this year due to budget constraints. He wants a dropdown to not have a shirt or other things.
• Quilts can be made out of WordCamp shirts if you are into that thing.
• Leo speaks about doing workshops, something between the WordPress meetup and the WordCamps.
• Manny talks about the workshops he’s done for WooCommerce in Las Vegas, much like a happiness bar but just for WooCommerce.
• Manny asks about on-site vs off-site afterparties
• Jason Cosper talks about Sacramento and their on-site afterparty.
• Is alcohol a need at a WordCamp Afterparty?
• Cemal talks about the “Sunday Social” they are doing at OC WordCamp
• Leo talks about the weird in-between of interacting with people older than him and younger than him “the human story”
• Talking to people and learning their story is valuable at a WordCamp
• Leo talks about non-sustainable products and that socks are a great replacement to t-shirts
• Jason Tucker mentions not handing out plants
• Sé shows a bulb flower that she got from Yoast

Join us on this episode of WPwatercooler by visiting our Participant guidelines page.

WPwatercooler network is sponsored by ServerPress makers of DesktopServer. Be sure to check them out at https://www.serverpress.com

See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Join us around the WPwatercooler to discuss WordPress communities and their subcommunities

• Beecaster
• Home-Genesis Community
• WooCommerce
• Child Themes, Plugins, and Tutorials for Divi by Elegant Themes
• Divi — The Ultimate WordPress Theme & Visual Page Builder
• divi.space
• Divi Chat Podcast|A Podcast For Divi & WordPress Enthusiasts
• SEO conference • Yoast
• wpcampus.org
• PressNomics:The Economics of WordPress Conference
• Why the WordCamp San Diego Business Track Matters
• WPwatercooler on Twitch

Join us on this episode of WPwatercooler by visiting our Participant guidelines page.

WPwatercooler network is sponsored by ServerPress makers of DesktopServer. Be sure to check them out at https://www.serverpress.com

See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

WordPress community, we had a tough week, let's dive in.

• On Health, WordPress and a Tough Decision
• Jetpack 7.2.1: Maintenance Release
• Improve plugin search results with already active plugins
• WordPress Etiquette
• What is the WordPress Governance Project?

Join us on this episode of WPwatercooler by visiting our Participant guidelines page.

WPwatercooler network is sponsored by ServerPress makers of DesktopServer. Be sure to check them out at https://www.serverpress.com

See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Join us around the WPwatercooler and talk about April Fools pranks!

• ThinkGeek|Join In. Geek Out.
• Microsoft leads the way in banning April Fools’ Day pranks – theverge.com
• Drupalwatercooler
• “A WordPress April Fools! Thank you @photomatt for the ha ha chucklesmile. http://t.co/OWzq0p4”
• Sonic Meeting Disrupter
• ThinkGeek Annoy-a-tron Prankster Pack 3.0
• The Greatest Pranks Jim Ever Played on Dwight on The Office

Livestream sponsored by ServerPress and DesktopServer

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This week on WPwatercooler we explore the fact that WordPress, it's plugins and themes are someone else's code and how to explain this to your clients. WordPress is made up of code from many contributors and plugins are as well. When support is no longer available what should you do?

• WordPress Coding Standards – Make WordPress Core
• WordPress-Coding-Standards/WordPress-Coding-Standards:PHP_CodeSniffer rules (sniffs) to enforce WordPress coding conventions

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This week on WPwatercooler we discuss code inheritance and navigating code someone else wrote in a project you are working on.

• Introducing GitHub Actions for WordPress (Plugins) | 10up
• WordPress-Coding-Standards/WordPress-Coding-Standards:PHP_CodeSniffer rules (sniffs) to enforce WordPress coding conventions
• Query Monitor – WordPress plugin | WordPress.org
• Pingdom Tools
• PageSpeed Insights
• GTmetrix|Website Speed and Performance Optimization
• WebPageTest-Website Performance and Optimization Test
• Auditing, performance metrics, and best practices for Progressive Web Apps for mobile insights
• Lighthouse | Tools for Web Developers | Google Developers

Thank you ServerPress makers of DesktopServer for sponsoring this episode

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