Kristin Currier

The book! Isn't she pretty?

So I still haven’t done anything too damned interesting with WordPress. Which makes me feel like I’ve let the nice guys over at Digging into WordPress down since I won their book-give-away contest.

Here’s the scoop: I have no time. Seriously. I work, I commute, I paint on weekends. I’m up at 4:30 on a working day with my Lynda.com and Jillian Michaels. I’m like the mechanic who has a dodgy car. I know there is so much to do to my present site. Believe me, I know. But it’s not happening right now. It will…after the paintings…and I’ll have all sorts of cool artsy graphics to add.

On the upside? My company finally got around to installing a WP blog structure onto our ecommerce site. We were told to do it from an outsourced SEO company so they could fill it w/ keywords. I’ve been wanting it for some time now because we are a content-heavy site with stuff everywhere and my company is based on literary philosophies – which is a nice way of saying we have extremely long posts written in elevated language strewn all over the place – and we all know how folks on the internet “don’t like to read“. I believe a WP blog will be easier to house our heavy content and provide a user-friendly interface for those customers of ours who DO enjoy our content. And, added benefit, keywords can fit nicely into the blog and still be searchable to robots. We can add photos and videos. We can implement widgets and plug-ins to access and track social media and conduct polls. We can give certain editors user permissions to manage their own content. Did I say manage their own content?

So I AM using this book now. Let’s just say it’s at once easy-to-understand and over-my-head. This is development book for somewhat seasoned WP uses who know how to code and don’t go spineless at the mention of databases and PHP.

I suggested my company install the Genesis framework by StudioPress with Prose as a simple, cleanly coded, functional and editable child theme. I wanted a child theme so WP updates wouldn’t mess anything up. I also wanted a paid framework/theme because we need the customer service support, and free themes can be unpredictable. We have a small company with very limited resources and we are constantly called upon to make magic happen, so support is crucial. Cheap support even more so. We don’t have time and manpower to be frittering away valuable hours with new technology.

So it mystifies me to find out my IT dept. will not give me access to the online support forum. There are extensive tutorials but no live support for the main visual designer (me) who chose the theme to start with. Really?

So my new book will come in handy. There is not much we will do….we like the Prose theme simplicity just fine. But I get the feeling I will finally be doing something interesting with WP.

I barely have time to write in this blog or update the site. I’m not the type to do personal work at my job, and besides, I’m way too busy to do it if I wanted to! The commute is long, I have a life, etc. etc. excuses excuses. Well, now I’m going to be converting my entire site to work off the WordPress platform. Will be designing and coding it myself. Might set up a store for the art. I’m doing it to learn WP theme design and because I like a challenge. Silly me. I’m looking forward to it…

I haven’t posted anything in a long time. What’s been going on? Well, for one thing, I’ve been slogging through the Javascript Essential Training series of tutorials by Dori Smith on Lynda.com. It’s an excellent series, and I feel that I understand Javascript at its most fundamental level. Dori rocks and I like her sense of humor. I’m not sure I could write my own code straight from scratch, but I can at least implement existing code and tailor it to my needs. But it’s not my intention to be a Javascript programmer anyway, as my focus will be on aesthetic design and CSS. I’m an art girl, not a math girl, and Javascript is a bit math-y. But at least I can move foward with it a bit, and probably start learning some jQuery soon.

I am also reading DOM Scripting by Jeremy Keith in addition to the Lynda.com tuts. I take the book with me on the train and follow along on my laptop. It’s a solid book and I highly recommend it for the beginner who has knowledge of HTML and CSS already. I have to admit though – it’s taken me literally MONTHS to get through it. I’m not a programmer, and the Javascript language was very foreign to me. I had to keep reading and re-reading the same chapters, especially in the beginning, to get around a steep learning curve. It was an amazingly frustrating experience! But, in the end, it will be worth it.

Now, I’m going to go start learning WordPress theme building. I started dabbling a bit long ago, but decided I should learn more advanced coding skills first. With WordPress, I will also be learning PHP and more advanced CSS, as well as CMS stuff. I’ll be changing my website soon and moving all files into WordPress, instead of just having a static site with a WP blog attached to it. I built my site while learning semantic HTML and CSS a ways back, and it’s a very minimalist site, a little boring, but hey, it’s clean, valid and was a good start. Time to improve it.

So, what else is up? Got a promotion, yep. I am currently Senior Web Graphic Designer at my company. Not bad for someone who came from print design, took a break to start a painting business, got back into temping for design when the economy blew up, and studied studied and studied web technology through Lynda and other sources while doing Photoshop work for the web. It’s amazing how much stuff is out there on the web for anyone who wants to learn something. There’s just absolutely no excuse to be ignorant of anything anymore. And one doesn’t need to spend money to take a class somewhere. If you work online creating online content, why would you go anywhere else for your education?

Other stuff – wedding plans are still on and becoming more solid. We are watching the oil in the gulf with apprehension, but we aren’t freaking out yet. Islamorada is a bit far up the Keys chain and the oil might not make it there.

There is still so much to learn about WordPress.org, but this was a decent follow-up to a beginner’s knowledge. Self-Hosting a WordPress Site by Maria Langer will get you to a basic level of understanding of how WordPress.org can be installed into your existing site, and how to then use and tweak it.

Here’s my lovely certificate of completion: