Landing a WordPress Job

by Paul Kaiser August 30^th, 2012 2 Responses

Employers increasingly consider “WordPress” its own skill set in today’s job market. It’s no longer enough to simply say “I know WordPress.” How do you prepare for WordPress-heavy job interviews? Learn some key bases to cover for the four main types of WordPress positions.

Four Types of WordPress Jobs
What kind of WordPress job are you looking for? I’ll divide this article into the 4 types I see the most.
1. Writing / Editing / Managing a WordPress site
These jobs use WordPress tools to create and manage website content.
2. Theme Development

Plugins

WPMU Recommends: Best WordPress Weather Widget

by Paul Kaiser August 17^th, 2012 Leave a comment

When you search the WordPress Plugin Directory for a weather widget plugin, you’ll be overwhelmed by the results. Start installing them, though, and you’ll see many are garbage, some are almost perfect–but you may not find one that does everything you need.

I have good news: WPMU found a weather widget for you.
The Best Weather Widget: wp-forecast

Let me get straight to the point: install the wp-forecast weather plugin, and you’ll never have to decide which weather features to compromise on again.

WordPress Weather Widget-Sky full of lightning

Plugins

Forest for the Trees: Visual Site Manager Plugin

by Paul Kaiser August 15^th, 2012 Leave a comment

Do you need to organize site menus several levels deep, with a large number of menu items? WordPress Menu Management is fantastic for most sites, but needs a little help if you plan to build out huge menu systems. The Visual Site Manager plugin is a good supplement to the core menu system in these cases.
The Problem

WordPress Menu Tree Management-Photo of wildly-branching tree representing a complex menu setup

Plugins

Add a Global Call To Action with Simple Side Tab Plugin

by Paul Kaiser August 14^th, 2012 Leave a comment

Do you need an effective call-to-action on your website, that’s easy to set up and doesn’t bog down your pages? The new Simple Side Tab plugin will do this for you.
What Simple Side Tab does
Simple Side Tab helps you put linked text running vertically in a tab on the side of your web visitor’s browser window. As your visitor scrolls down the page, the tab stays in place, always visible and ready for action.
Easy to use
Simple Side Tab is easy to set up. From one simple settings screen, you can:

Set the text for your tab
Choose fonts and styling

Opinion, Themes

A Beautiful Theme You Should Never Use

by Paul Kaiser August 10^th, 2012 21 Responses

When you launch a new website, you want something that looks great, is easy to set up, and doesn’t cost too much. While some free WordPress themes fit the bill, I usually recommend finding a reputable, supported premium theme. Caution: You should think twice before choosing some of the most alluring, beautiful, feature-packed themes out there. Let me show you what I mean.
Beautiful demos

Plugins

Publish Better Images Using the WordPress Aviary Editor Plugin

by Paul Kaiser August 9^th, 2012 Leave a comment

Ever had the perfect photo for your web post–except for the little kid with red eyes? Did you want to make a photo look older with a duotone effect, but didn’t know how? Do image editing programs scare you?

The Aviary Editor plugin for WordPress lets you edit photos with a powerful web-based image editor–right from your Media Library.
Introducing Aviary
Aviary is a free web-based photo editor you can use from any modern web browser. For most image touch-ups bloggers need, the tool works fine. You can upload photos from your machine, edit them, and download the changes–ready to post.
Simplify Everything

Image Editor-Screenshot of Aviary image editing interface in action

Plugins

WPMU Recommends: Best Free Page Management Plugin

by Paul Kaiser August 8^th, 2012 5 Responses

Welcome to the family
The “Page” content type, with its parent / child hierarchy, helps WordPress function as a content management system (CMS.) Built-in tools for managing this parent / child relationship are difficult to use when sites have more than 30 pages or so. The right page order management plugin will help you save time and keep your site organized the way you want. WPMU has a recommendation for you!

Who’s your daddy?
Viewing the family tree

Page Order Management-Photo of librarian examining books

Tutorials

How to Use “Press This” to Improve Blogging

by Paul Kaiser August 7^th, 2012 4 Responses

“Press This” helps you reblog quotes, images, and more
WordPress includes a bookmarklet called “Press This” to speed up your work when including text, photos, and more from other sites on the internet. Check out how it’s done, below.
Fixing “Press This” 404 errors
Note: Many folks get 404 errors when trying this great little tool, and then give up. Below the article I’ve included information to fix these errors and get you back on track.

Easily install “Press This”

Press This-Photo of "Reblog" graffiti wall

Community, development

Stay Informed with WordPress.org Notifications

by Paul Kaiser August 6^th, 2012 Leave a comment

Do you develop or contribute to WordPress? Participate in support forums? As you probably know, a group of official blogs exists for people like you. The “Make WordPress.org” group is home to P2-themed microblogs for the following development areas:

Core
Support
Plugins
UI
Accessibility
Themes
Polyglots
Systems

Keeping your ear to the ground
Some of these blogs can go awhile without seeing any traffic, but you can subscribe to individual “Make” blogs by email and RSS–hopefully ringing your bell when new topics of interest come around.

Just yesterday, August 4th, the team added a new way to keep your ear to the ground. Dubbed “WordPress.org Notifications,” it notifies you:

WordPress Notifications-Girl listening to playground ear trumpet

Tutorials

Beginner’s Guide to WordPress Menus

by Paul Kaiser August 3^rd, 2012 5 Responses

WordPress offers an excellent way to manage your site’s menus, but it may not be apparent when you first install your site. In fact, a fresh installation doesn’t use the easy menu system at all–you have to hook that up yourself. Follow along as I show you the menu system basics and how to start using it on your new site.
Watch and learn

Working with the original WordPress menus