WordPress meetup dinner Cedar Rapids, Iowa

WordPress meetup group in Cedar Rapids, Iowa | Creative Corridor

wordpress logoTuesday night at the Creative Corridor Meetup. I love these meetups! You get such a unique mashup of professionals and amateurs who all have the same common root of learning WordPress even better. At a glanceWordPress is pitched as “blogging software” but the advanced users know the extreme power that can be released! I was personally able to help out Clayton Gill a self-proclaimed “rookie” who uses WordPress for blogging and for a nonprofit website. He was having an “odd thing happen” each time he tried to back up his site to do an upgrade to the most recent version of WordPress. It would progress to about 60% each time on GoDaddy’s cPanel hosted servers then fail. It looks like Big Ten Web Design has had the most clients that still like GoDaddy’s legacy hosting and who haven’t made the switch to managed WordPress (2018 update: GoDaddy is still using slow PHP 5.6 for managed WP hosting, and is not recommended overall, most of our clients websites now use PHP 7.1 or better). I run into this very same problem myself years ago and also from time to time if I forget to increase the max_input_vars in the .user.ini file.  See references on linked pages:

We also discussed alternatives to GoDaddy hosting and it is the overwhelming decision that there are a bunch of better hosting companies out there.
digitalocean.com, siteground.com, kinsta.com (Runs on Google Cloud Platform)

Alternative DNS options:

Learn more about Premium DNS and why it’s so important to have one to mitigate distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks.

Then somehow I hijacked the entire meeting with a long discussion about the best methods of moving multiple websites to a new hosting company. I’ve been eyeing a migration over to Digital Ocean with its strong community of support.

Entrance to Linn Area Community Credit Union - Business Center

Entrance to Linn Area Community Credit Union – Business Center

WordPress geeks around the table at Linn Area Community Credit Union - Business Center

WordPress geeks around the table at Linn Area Community Credit Union – Business Center

WordPress meetup dinner Cedar Rapids, Iowa

WordPress meetup dinner Cedar Rapids, Iowa

Wordpress geeks having dinner after Linn Area Community Credit Union - Business Center

WordPress geeks having dinner after Linn Area Community Credit Union – Business Center

February TechBrew in Cedar Rapids, Iowa at the NewBo Ale House

TechBrew Cedar Rapids, Iowa at the NewBo Ale House

Tech Brew logoWent to the Cedar Rapids TechBrew event at the NewBo Ale House tonight. I was able to mingle with a diverse group of people who are in the technology community. Doug Savey & Dan from Enseva, an amazing company that specializes in custom cloud-based solutions with their amazing servers and maybe the highest speed internet in all of Iowa! Mingled with Jeri Frank from Asset Rover. Asset Rover is currently in Beta and offered as a free tool to analyze your real estate investments, so you can LIVE! Plus had dinner with the owner of Evil Twin Software, Mr. Eric Chrisman. He creates custom built apps for businesses.

From left to right: Mike Irvine, Don White, Nate Houstman, Aaron Van Noy and Andrew Miller

Cedar Rapids WordPress Continuing Education meetup group

wordpress logoFantastic evening of sharing, learning and hanging out with fellow friends at the January 20th 2015 WordPress Meetup at Creative Corridor in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

Tracking billable hours:

https://toggl.com

~50 pages worth of plugin recommendations:
http://cdn2.hubspot.net/hubfs/298401/Documents_for_download/Ultimate_guide_to_plugins_07.pdf

Great web firewall service: Sucuri.net

Concatenate JS and files:
https://wordpress.org/plugins/autoptimize/

SEO blueprint that I use:
https://bigtenwebdesign.com/our-program/seo-process/

Scrum boards:
https://trello.com
https://www.atlassian.com/software/jira
https://www.17hats.com
Video Blog at:
http://www.wpwatercooler.com
http://wordpress.tv

All in one events calendar:
https://wordpress.org/plugins/all-in-one-event-calendar/
Here’s a list of some theme creators that have good support. These themes are built on the Genesis Framework. You would need the base Genesis Framework from StudioPress to use these themes. ($60)
http://www.studiopress.com/
https://www.web-savvy-marketing.com/
https://prettydarncute.com/

Our favorite forms:
http://www.gravityforms.com

Business directory form:
https://wordpress.org/plugins/geodirectory/
https://wordpress.org/plugins/business-directory-plugin/

eCommerce:
https://www.woothemes.com/woocommerce/

Themes:
http://my.studiopress.com/themes/genesis/
http://themeforest.net/item/avada-responsive-multipurpose-theme/2833226

 

From left to right: Mike Irvine, Don White, Nate Houstman, Aaron Van Noy and Andrew Miller

From left to right: Mike Irvine, Don White, Nate Houstman, Aaron Van Noy and Andrew Miller