Sarah Gooding is a partner at Untame, a boutique digital marketing firm specializing in open source content management systems and social networking architecture. She enjoys staying on top of the latest WordPress and BuddyPress news. Get in touch with Sarah on Twitter @pollyplummer

Follow
Sarah:
Facebook Twitter Google +

Sarah's website

Replace BuddyPress Friends Functionality With Followers

Every BuddyPress site has different requirements for how users should be able to connect. The built-in friendship functionality of BuddyPress is not appropriate for every social network. This is especially true for professional networks. In many instances you may want to replace the friendship component with followers instead. Luckily, there’s a plugin that does that for you.

followers-banner

Read more »

WordPress 3.6 Beta 1 Hits The Shelves

WordPress 3.6 Beta 1 has just arrived and is ready for testing. This exciting news means that we can expect the official WordPress 3.6 release very soon. If you are a WordPress plugin or theme developer, there’s no time to wait. Now is the time to make sure that your extensions are compatible with the upcoming 3.6 release.

What’s New and Exciting in WordPress 3.6?

The WordPress News blog announced the beta today with a summary of all the finalized features. Nothing else major will be added at this point.

Video and Status Post Formats in action, using Twenty Thirteen on WP 3.6

Read more »

How To Put Jetpack Into Development Mode for Local WordPress Installs

Jetpack doesn’t work unless it’s connected to WordPress.com. You may have run into this a time or two when attempting to work with Jetpack in a development environment. The latest 2.2.1 spring cleaning release of the plugin includes a massive number of bug fixes. It also introduces a very useful new feature: Development Mode.

Jetpack’s Development Mode allows you to use features that don’t require a connection to WordPress.com so that you can use them in testing. Activate it by adding this define to your wp-config.php file:

1
define( 'JETPACK_DEV_DEBUG', true);
banner-772x250

Read more »

How To Remove The URL Field From WordPress Comments

Cut the URL field out of the WordPress comment form

There are some WordPress sites where you may not want to include the URL field in the comment form. It’s not always necessary and spammers tend to use it to link to their spammy websites, which will be posted in your comments if you have auto approval turned on. Just to be safe, you may want to remove that URL field altogether.

Read more »

WordPress.org vs WordPress.com: A Definitive Guide For 2013

Today we’re going to tackle the age old question: WordPress.com or WordPress.org? If you’re new to the world of WordPress, you’ll need some information in order to get started with your own blog or website. Here’s what we’ll be covering in this comparison post:

Differentiate between WordPress.org and WordPress.com
Compare Differences in:
Cost
Freedoms and Limitations
Maintenance and Development

How to decide between WordPress.com and WordPress.org

What is WordPress.org?

wpcomvwporg

Read more »

CISPA is Back: Protect Internet Freedom and Join the Protest on Your WordPress Blog

We defeated CISPA once before but it’s back and internet freedom is under attack again. The Internet Defense League is an online activist group that has organized to help defend internet freedoms and make people aware of bills that threaten your right to privacy. They’ve put together a “Cat Signal“, which coordinates a large number of websites to simultaneously display a notice to their users. This is done by embedding a bit of javascript on your site. When the Cat Signal goes out, your site is ready to join in the protest.

Get the Cat Signal

Read more »