Custom WordPress Programming in Miami, FL
I upgraded this site along with lots of others tonight as I watch the NBA Finals. GO HEAT!
A word of warning, if you are using the DB Cache Reloaded Fix plugin. Upgrade the plugin first before upgrading to WP 3.4.
Of course, you may also want to follow the official directions regarding upgrading WP by disabling ALL plugins first. I usually don’t do that but I do recommend backup up your site files and db before upgrading. Best choice for doing that is BackupBuddy!
For the past few months I’ve been part of a team redesigning Sherlock Tech’s new website. SherlockTech Staffing is a boutique IT staffing and consulting agency for technical talent in Florida and other parts of the country.
I got involved with the project after running into a David Silverlight at the local WordPress meetup. I had worked with David many years ago and knew he was an excellent .Net and Silverlight developer so I was surprised to see him at a WordPress meetup. It turns out that David is working with WordPress now and was scouting out some plugin ideas for some of his sites. David introduced me to Alex Funkhouser Sherlock Tech’s President and I teamed up with Media In Sync and Steve Earle to work on the site.
In addition to re-platforming from a custom .NET/SQL CMS to WordPress, Sherlock had the following requirements:
Marsha Belinson, an Account Director with Sherlock served as the creative director/project manager for the redesign. Mobile support was a priority for Marsha and I recommended using a responsive design. I have been using the Genesis Theme framework from StudioPress for years and they had recently launched several new themes that were responsive. We selected the Genesis Streamline child theme and customized it to give Sherlock Tech their own unique branding.
Sherlock Tech uses a recruiting app called Sendouts to publish their open positions and track applicants. Sherlock wanted to use the Sendouts API to import open positions and add them as content on their new WordPress site. I created a custom post type to handle jobs and wrote a custom WordPress plugin to run each hour using the WP cron. The service pulls open jobs from Sendouts and synchronizes them with the existing custom posts on the WordPress site. Jobs are searchable on the Sherlock site and applicants then apply through the Sendouts app.
This was definitely one of the more challenging projects I have worked on in recent months. In my experience the key to a successful project is having good project leadership. Alex and Marsha provided clear direction on what they wanted and we launched on time and within budget.
Over the past year I have seen a need to get all the talented people in the WordPress community connected with employers who are looking to hire. Last week I finally put in some sweat equity to launch WPWorkforce.
Job seekers can create a free profile and resume that employers can use to view their skills. Employers can post jobs for positions requiring WordPress experience.
Right now job posting is FREE on WPWorkforce.com so get to it!
I’ll be presenting at WordCamp Miami 2012 on February 17 & 18. WordCamp will be a a two-day event this year. Friday will include introductory workshops for beginners and Saturday will include more advanced topics for bloggers, designers, power users and developers.
This year I was able to help out with the volunteer team and did the CSS styling work and content admin for the WordCamp Miami website. It presented a unique challenge since I did not have access to the php code in the theme. All I was able to modify was the site CSS. If you want to see how powerful CSS is, take a look at some of the other recent WordCamp sites like San Fransisco, Orlando, Portland, Phoenix and Atlanta. Everyone one of these sites, including Miami use the same WordPress theme but have their own unique style by modifying the CSS.
Here is my presentation from the Refresh South Florida + WordPress meetup on September 8, 2011. It’s an overview of Custom Content in WordPress and meant as a general over. Resources links can be found below as well.
Check this site out on a mobile device like an iPhone, iPad or Android phone. The site features a responsive design which means that the same content is viewable on different devices but is reorganized and resized for the optimal viewing experience. I used the Genesis Theme framework from StudioPress, specifically the eleven40 child theme for the responsive design.
Rick Tuttle is a South Florida application developer specializing in WordPress and Microsoft Technologies (.NET, SQL Server). More...