Simplicity in design, photography & code.

Liberty BridgeThe get away99 Forint Hagyományos Magyar PalacsintakPhotos from the TopSightseeing in BudapestNice PortraitSunshine and shadesNow... look... not seriousView from the Beach HouseStopping to pose, right?Ozumo Sushi

Little Known Facts About Publishing with WordPress—WCSF 2012

WordCamp San Francisco is a classy affair—from live Jazz at lunch to world-class presentations, it never disappoints. You can even attend via live stream, which is not a bad way to see the talks if you can’t travel for whatever reason. Following are the credits, links and videos from my presentation, “Little Known Facts About Publishing with WordPress.”

Slides

Most of the content is done in short video walkthroughs, so I’ve posted those separately below.

Videos

Zen Mode

Kitchen Sink

Keyboard Shortcuts

Comment Keyboard Shortcuts

Auto Embeds

Screen Options

Press This

Pagination

Old Slug Redirects

Future Posts

Internal Linking

Header Images

Customizer / Live Previews

Revisions

Easter Egg

Credits

I really love how using COLOURlovers patterns spiced up my title slides!

brave-folliage
Vector Patterns by COLOURlovers

Vector Patterns by COLOURlovers
beach_towel
Vector Patterns by COLOURlovers
?StainedGlassGarden
Vector Patterns by COLOURlovers
Marry_me...
Vector Patterns by COLOURlovers
Rewind_The_Radio
Vector Patterns by COLOURlovers
le_cygne_du_chocolat
Vector Patterns by COLOURlovers
Youre_the_Only_One
Vector Patterns by COLOURlovers
waves_of_sorrow
Vector Patterns by COLOURlovers
C-shirt
Vector Patterns by COLOURlovers
black_chevron
Vector Patterns by COLOURlovers
Sparkling_abstracted
Vector Patterns by COLOURlovers
On_the_Dot
Vector Patterns by COLOURlovers
Sunny_poppies
Vector Patterns by COLOURlovers
Fancy
Vector Patterns by COLOURlovers
Owl_Eggs
Vector Patterns by COLOURlovers
Bring_That_Back!
Vector Patterns by COLOURlovers
Where_Dragons_Play
Vector Patterns by COLOURlovers
Bright_dance
Vector Patterns by COLOURlovers
m_e_l_t_i_n_g_*
Vector Patterns by COLOURlovers
?
Vector Patterns by COLOURlovers


Thank You

Cheers, WordPress community. I love talking to you, meeting you, and hearing about your projects!

Future Insights Live 2012

Future Insights Live in Las Vegas May 2012 was a blast! I met and hung around with some crazy amazing people, learned a few CSS tools, found out where to look for cutting edge design examples, picked up some tips for choosing the perfect font for your project, listened to recounts of typical and best-practice design process, got interested how people pick conference sessions, and paid attention to what stuff captivated audiences the most.

Conversations about life and work, CSS, projects, and new adventures really stood out for me at this conference. Meeting thoughtful, passionate, inspiring people who are leaders in their field are what really makes conferences like this worthwhile to me. Continue reading

Lovely Astoria

Astoria is beautiful: last stop on the N, quietly and indistinctly New York, friendly squirrels abound, park views from silhouetted tree lines to Triborough to the Manhattan skyline, Hellgate, corner delis under bridges, Greek frappes, crowded little clubs, and wine bars with Jazz sets.

A lot for one evening, and worth it.

Tell me that black squirrel didn’t steal your heart. :)

Theme Team Adventures in NYC

Sightseeing atop the Empire State Building, glimpses of the Chrysler Building, standing on the steps of the birthplace of web standards, looking “boss” at Grand Central Station, cute souvenirs, ice skating at Rockefeller Center, people watching at Times Square, toasting White Russians to Joen, team brainstorming into the night, and beer with the legoman at the Mad Hatter. What a lovely theme team “theam” excursion to the city that never sleeps.

A truly fantastic and talented group of fine people.

Birmingham Y’all

Birmingham was filled with a new speaking adventure, Southern WordCamp charm y’all, gorgeous coffee art, chess… and dinner parties, Bottetree quiche, good memories hanging out across from the fountain across from the square at the fountain, parks with cute fonts and flourishes, Southern BBQ, beer and co-working, good friends, good food, good coffee, media plugin ideas!, early morning sketch sessions, and art shows complete with stories of bunnies, monkeys, lasers, and robot escapes.

Plus, I just can’t help but love that everyday conversations are sprinkled with “babydoll” and “lovebug.”

Best catchphrase from this trip: “Yo, mama bear me!”

Crackerjack CSS: Basics & Best Practices

CSS is a pretty completely awesome tool, and I love it. I had the chance to talk about CSS at WordCamp Birmingham on Saturday, and here are the things I covered:

  • the very basic things you need to know to get started with CSS,
  • browsers and browser developer tools,
  • adventures in color palettes,
  • how to add CSS to WordPress themes,
  • and showcase examples of what I like to think of as the Cracker Jack surprise inside every website.


Links from the slides are posted below.

Winter Hikes at Saratoga National Historical Park

Saratoga National Historical Park has trails upon trails with long views and historical battlegrounds. Hiking along it’s winding pathways in the Winter makes me feel contemplative.

Skiing at Deer Valley

I consider a good ski day one where I tried something crazy or new, fell at least once, saw some sunshine on the slopes, there’s at least a little fresh snow, and breakfast on the mountain is not out of the question.

Ski + breakfast + ski + chess + ski = a good day!

Autostart MySQL, PHP-FPM, and nginx on OS X Lion

In my last post, I wrote about my adventure setting up a local WordPress OS X nginx MySQL PHP web server on a Mac. You can use launchd to automatically start MySQL, PHP-FPM, and nginx on OS X. Create and install plist files in ~/Library/LaunchAgents to run programs at startup on a per-user basis or /System/Library/LaunchDaemons to start a daemon as root.

Use vi ~/Library/LaunchAgents/org.mysql.mysqld.plist to save a MySQL plist file:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
  <dict>
    <key>Label</key><string>mysql</string>
    <key>Program</key><string>/usr/local/mysql/bin/mysqld_safe</string>
    <key>KeepAlive</key><true/>
  </dict>
</plist>

Use vi ~/Library/LaunchAgents/org.php.php-fpm.plist to save a PHP-FPM plist file:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
  <dict>
    <key>Label</key><string>php-fpm</string>
    <key>Program</key><string>/usr/local/sbin/php-fpm</string>
    <key>KeepAlive</key><true/>
  </dict>
</plist>

Use sudo vi /Library/LaunchDaemons/org.nginx.nginx.plist to save an nginx plist file:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
  <dict>
    <key>Label</key><string>nginx</string>
    <key>Program</key><string>/usr/local/sbin/nginx</string>
    <key>KeepAlive</key><true/>
  </dict>
</plist>

Run the following commands to load the services for the first time:

launchctl load -w ~/Library/LaunchAgents/org.mysql.mysqld.plist
launchctl load -w ~/Library/LaunchAgents/org.php.php-fpm.plist
sudo launchctl load -w /Library/LaunchDaemons/org.nginx.nginx.plist

Run the following to check to see if the services are all running:

ps aux | grep mysql
ps aux | grep fpm
ps aux | grep nginx

Run the following to unload the services so they don’t keep autostarting again:

launchctl unload -w ~/Library/LaunchAgents/org.mysql.mysqld.plist
launchctl unload -w ~/Library/LaunchAgents/org.php.php-fpm.plist
sudo launchctl unload -w /Library/LaunchDaemons/org.nginx.nginx.plist

Run the following to stop the services:

msyql stop
sudo kill -SIGQUIT $( cat /usr/local/var/run/php-fpm.pid )
sudo kill -QUIT $( cat /usr/local/nginx/logs/nginx.pid )

Refer to man launchd.plist for more launchd parameters.