WordPress is truly a wonderful platform to use to build websites. It’s powerful and can handle almost any type of website. While playing with WordPress themes is fun, developing a few themes of your own can be even more gratifying. Getting started with WordPress theme development is a process. Learning how to develop a theme from scratch or use existing code to come up with a killer design takes time. That’s what WordPress 2.8 Themes Cookbook aims to teach you ...]]>

WordPress is truly a wonderful platform to use to build websites. It’s powerful and can handle almost any type of website. While playing with WordPress themes is fun, developing a few themes of your own can be even more gratifying. Getting started with WordPress theme development is a process. Learning how to develop a theme from scratch or use existing code to come up with a killer design takes time. That’s what WordPress 2.8 Themes Cookbook aims to teach you (which packt publishing was kind enough to provide us a copy with). It uses a practical approach to show you how to get things done when developing your own themes. Even if you are not planning to develop a theme of your own, this book shows you how to modify your existing themes. Without further ado, let’s dig in and see what this book is all about (for more information on this book and other exciting Packt Publishing books, visit packtpub.com).

Learning Theme Development

As long as you are interested in coding, writing a theme for WordPress from scratch is not that difficult. You’ll need some creativity and a solid foundation of WordPress platform to develop a high quality theme though. Those of you familiar with coding know the importance of getting the basics right before moving to more advanced topics. Those coders that don’t understand the basics really well are more likely to make fundamental mistakes when developing their own themes. WordPress 2.8 Themes Cookbook is written for those of you who want to go beyond theory and learn how to get things done. It covers a variety of techniques developers need to know and understand to gain control over their website’s design and create the best themes possible.

In order to develop a killer theme for WordPress, developers need to have a solid understanding of all aspects of theme development. There is more to a theme that the technologies you use to develop it or shiny features that you decide to add to it. Here are just a few items theme developers need to pay attention to:

• Theme navigation
• Templates
• Sidebars (single or multiple)
  
• Media integration (galleries, videos, …)
  
• Theme usability
• Comments section
• Theme back-end
• Site layout
• Search Engine Optimization

WordPress 2.8 Themes Cookbook takes a divide and conquer approach to theme development. Instead of throwing you in deep waters from the get go, the authors focus on each of the above-mentioned topics to help you become a more well-rounded theme developer. This book may not cover everything there is to know about WordPress, but it gets you on your way towards developing killer themes.

Credit: Amazon

The Good

WordPress 2.8 Themes Cookbook, as the name suggests, is written for those of you who respond better to a more practical approach. It has over 100 effective tips that you can take advantage of to design your own WordPress theme or take an existing one to the next level. The book reads like one of those “top 100 tips” lists, but it does provide enough details for you to keep up. The code snippets, demonstrations, and tips discussed in this work make the learning process even easier.

There is no better way to learn theme development than actually seeing things done in practice. That’s what this book offers. I was also impressed with the coverage of advanced topics and layouts in the last two chapters. While more advanced topics could have been covered, the chapters still have enough information to point developers to the right direction.

The Bad

WordPress 2.8 Themes Cookbook covers a lot of topics and does a good job doing that. Unfortunately, there is so much to learn about WordPress theme development that one can’t possibly fit it all in a book. It’d be great if even more advanced topics are discussed in this book (or maybe the sequel to it). I would like to see the authors go more into specific theme frameworks. Showing readers how to get things done using Thesis or other popular themes would be nice too. What can I say? I am very greedy when it comes to everything WordPress.

The Verdict

WordPress 2.8 Themes Cookbook is a very handy book for beginner and intermediate WordPress developers. It covers a whole lot of ground and has many simple but effective tips for developers from all levels. The approach behind this book is very pragmatic. The fact that you don’t have to be a coding genius with this book is a big plus too.  If you are planning to write your first WordPress theme, make your previous works more powerful, or just want to learn how to change things around on your current theme, this book is for you.

WordPress is a wonderful open source CMS that can handle almost any type of website one can come up with. It may be a powerful platform but not all WordPress users invest time and effort to get the most out of it. This platform can be used to develop highly dynamic websites. One of the most popular ways to do that is by adding Flash content to your website. That’s what WordPress and Flash 10x Cookbook aims to help you ...]]>

WordPress is a wonderful open source CMS that can handle almost any type of website one can come up with. It may be a powerful platform but not all WordPress users invest time and effort to get the most out of it. This platform can be used to develop highly dynamic websites. One of the most popular ways to do that is by adding Flash content to your website. That’s what WordPress and Flash 10x Cookbook aims to help you master. WordPress and Flash 10x Cookbook, which Packt Publishing was kind enough to provide us a copy with, discusses what every WordPress webmaster needs to know to get the most out of Flash on WordPress. Without further ado, let’s dig in and see what’s covered in this book (for more information on this book and other exciting Packt Publishing books, visit packtpub.com).

Let’s face it. WordPress is a tool,  given it’s a very powerful tool. One can use WordPress to develop an incredibly dull website.There are technologies that WordPress webmasters can take advantage of to add dynamic content to their websites. Flash is one of those technologies. Flash may look difficult on the surface, and it does take a lot of effort to master. But there are plenty of plugins, scripts, and other solutions available for WordPress. WordPress and Flash 10x Cookbook covers some of those solutions and teaches you how to leverage Flash to make your website more dynamic and take it to the next level.

As the name suggests, WordPress and Flash 10x Cookbook is written for WordPress site owners who are looking for practical tips on how to integrate Adobe Flash into their websites. You don’t have to be a Flash or WordPress expert to get started with this book. The authors do not throw you into deep waters right from the start. Building step by step is key for anyone who may not be too experienced in this area, and that’s exactly what you get here. Before you do anything on your website, you need to have a plan. You also need to know the basics about the platform you intend to implement Flash on. This book runs you through the basics of WordPress in the first couple of chapters (mostly second). You’ll learn how to modify files, add scripts, and work with plugins on WordPress. These concepts will come handy in later chapters (especially if you are a WordPress beginner). The book also covers:

• SEO Plugins for WordPress
• Google XML Sitemaps Plugin
• Breadcrumbs
• Website backup

The more advanced chapters delve deeper on ways you can add Flash content to your blog. What do I mean by Flash content? Animations, slide-shows, image galleries, and flash videos just to name a few. This book shows you how to handle your photos and content and present them in a more dynamic fashion on your blog. It also teaches you how to deal with audio and some flash applications (for instance, quote rotator). What makes this book so fun to read is that the instructions are very clear and easy to follow. You won’t have to spend hours on Google to figure out how to get things covered in the book to work (unlike some other books).

Chapter 6 is by far my favorite. It covers Flash applications that webmasters can install to improve their visitors’ experience on their websites. Whether you are looking to integrate Google maps to your blog or just want to rotate multiple ads in your sidebar, this chapter covers it.

The WordPress and Flash 10x Cookbook’s approach is very pragmatic. We are all tired of all those theory books that don’t teach anything practical. This book walks you through each task step by step. By the time you are done with it, you should be ready to tackle more complicated WordPress projects.

In summary, here are just a few cool things that you’ll learn to do after finishing up this book:

• multiple ways to add Flash detection to a WordPress site
• add watermarks using Flash
• add an image gallery to a blog
• ways to get started with your video blog
• add sound-effects to various elements
• create your own mp3 player
• ways to “Flashify” your WordPress site
• rotate various ads on your site
• take advantage of sIFR
• develop basic Flash animations
• implement Google Maps on your blog
  

What’s more, you do not have to be an expert in Flash or WordPress to get started with this book (you might aim for it after finishing it up). To sum things up, if you are ready to take your WordPress website to the next level by leveraging Flash, but do not know where to start, WordPress and Flash 10x Cookbook is a powerful book that gets you on your way. It’s very easy to follow and practical and can give you a very nice head-start.

I have been a big fan of Packt Publishing books for quite a while now. Packt Publishing is the first place I check to find out about the latest open source and web technology books. It does have a ton of books on WordPress and related technologies, so that always helps. WordPress 2.9 E-Commerce, which Packt Publishing was kind enough to provide us a copy with, is not your average WordPress book. It is written for those who want to ...]]>

I have been a big fan of Packt Publishing books for quite a while now. Packt Publishing is the first place I check to find out about the latest open source and web technology books. It does have a ton of books on WordPress and related technologies, so that always helps. WordPress 2.9 E-Commerce, which Packt Publishing was kind enough to provide us a copy with, is not your average WordPress book. It is written for those who want to start an e-commerce website using the WP platform. If you want to sell your physical or information products on the web and would like to use WordPress to get it done, this book is for you. So let’s dig in and see what’s covered in this book (for more information on this book and other exciting Packt Publishing books, visit packtpub.com).

Many WordPress users assume that you can only use WordPress to start and manage a blog. That can not be further from the truth. Those who have been around WordPress for quite some time have come to realize the true power of this platform. WordPress 2.9 E-Commerce is written for small business owners and anybody who’s interested in starting an online store by tapping into the power of WordPress. Startups and small businesses may not have the budget to hire developers and experts to build a fancy online shop. In reality, you do not need to be an expert in PHP or other web technologies to get your own shop online. WordPress 2.9 E-Commerce walks you through all the steps you need to take and shows you the plugins and the themes you need to take advantage of to take your store online.

This book covers a powerful set of plugins that you can use to enhance your e-commerce site. It walks you through the basic steps of adding new pages and even a business blog to your store. You also learn how to get the most out of your WordPress widgets. Of course, running an e-commerce website with WordPress is more than knowing which plugins to install or which widgets to add to your website. You are going to have to add products to your store, manage your customers and staff, and secure your store to give your buyers peace of mind. Those topics are all covered in WordPress 2.9 E-Commerce:

• Manage Your Product Catalog: you’ll learn how to add physical or information products to your store, categorize your products, and control your stock and prices.
• Manage User accounts and staff: your store wouldn’t be complete without you setting up proper user privileges. After reading this book, you should be able to easily create multiple user types for your store to handle your customers and staff members.
• Handle Checkout and Payment: handling payment is going to be one of the most important parts of running your own store. Accepting PayPal and Google Checkout payments are covered in this book. The information on each of these payment systems can come very handy for beginners.
• Handle Shipping, Taxes, and Processing Orders: if you are planning to sell a physical product, you are going to have to  handle shipping and tax per each order.
• Secure Your Store: the most important part of running an online store is to make sure your store is secure enough for your customers to use. You also want to secure your WordPress install against hack attacks. WordPress 2.9 E-Commerce covers those essential steps you need to take to keep your store protected.
• Theme Tweaks: you do not have to be a PHP guru to make changes to your online store and customize some aspects of it. This book gets you familiar with the basics of CSS and teaches you how to make basic changes to your store and customize its look and feel all by yourself.

What I like about this book is the fact that it’s very practical. It walks you through all the steps you need to take to bring your online store to life. It can also save you a lot of time with your research as the author has done the work for you and has included a list of top e-commerce and third-party plugins you can take advantage of to manage your store more effectively. Practical instructions are provided to enable you to set up your store and start implementing those plugins more easily.  I also liked the store promotion chapter, though I wish more tactics were covered. The coverage of Gold Cart Module and WAMP was a pleasant surprise.

WordPress 2.9 E-Commerce is not going to make you an expert in PHP nor does it intend to make an e-commerce developer out of you. It’s written for small business owners who want to start selling their products online without spending a fortune on e-commerce development. It teaches you how to manage your products and customers, process orders, secure your store, and even promote it. The screenshots and instructions provided in this work are very helpful as well.  If you have never owned an online store before or are just trying to switch from your platform to WordPress, WordPress 2.9 E-Commerce can be a lifesaver.

We at WPJedi are a bunch of WordPress junkies that live and breathe WordPress. Considering that WordPress is one of the best open source content management systems on the market, we have a good excuse for what we do. Mastering WordPress is not as easy as it sounds. The code is expanding and getting better each day. Besides, there are plenty of additional platforms you can take advantage of to create highly sophisticated solutions for WordPress. So you definitely have ...]]>

We at WPJedi are a bunch of WordPress junkies that live and breathe WordPress. Considering that WordPress is one of the best open source content management systems on the market, we have a good excuse for what we do. Mastering WordPress is not as easy as it sounds. The code is expanding and getting better each day. Besides, there are plenty of additional platforms you can take advantage of to create highly sophisticated solutions for WordPress. So you definitely have to pay your dues before calling yourself a WordPress guru. One way to do that is by making sure you know what it takes to develop solutions (e.g. themes for WordPress platform). That’s where How To Be a WordPress Rockstar comes in handy. It’s a powerful WordPress book that is written to help anyone interested in the art of designing WordPress themes get a fast start in this field. WordPress provides you with amazing opportunities to develop highly innovative solutions. As long as you are familiar with those advanced concepts, there is no reason you can’t go on to develop highly innovative solutions for WordPress.

How To Be a WordPress Rockstar is not your average WordPress book. There are plenty of them around that show you how to install WordPress and add some plugins to it. Haven’t we seen enough of those books? If you are anything like me, you want a book that digs deeper and shows you how to do cool things with WordPress. This books takes a good shot at that. While it starts with the basics, it runs you through what you need to know to develop powerful themes for WordPress. It even covers a few theme ideas to get you started in your journey in the theme development world.

The book starts with the very basics of WordPress. But before you know it, you are learning about the loop, dealing with your sidebar, and changing your footer. You also learn how to build a basic plugin and how to deal with advanced fields. You are also provided with a ton of examples to help you get it.

Here is a summary of what’s covered in this book:

• Blog Design: the basics of things you need to remember before developing your own theme. You certainly want your website to be usable and intuitive to your visitors. Why go through the trouble of designing a theme that your visitors are going to hate?
• Theme Design: this book covers the very basics of designing a theme from ground up. Those small questions that you have always wanted an answer to are addressed in the book as well. Of course, the book addresses more advanced topics and walks you through example code to make things easier on you.
• Advanced Theming: you are going to learn how to work with custom fields and develop solutions that are intuitive and make it easier for your readers to use your themes. You are walked through the process of writing a theme from scratch, which should give you plenty of information on how to develop your very own themes.
• WordPress Ideas: this was by far my favorite part of the book. Knowing how to develop themes for WordPress is only one part of equation. It’s always nice to have a few ideas on how others have re-purposed WordPress and developed brand new solutions with it. Plenty of ideas are discussed in this book.

All in all, if you are looking for a simple to follow book that teaches you what other WordPress books don’t, How To Be a WordPress Rockstar is a must read. It’s definitely not another one of those WordPress for newbies books.

A lot of bloggers assume that once they switch from Blogger or other platforms to WordPress, their site is going to show up higher on Google’s search engine result pages. There was a time when some experts actually gave WordPress a big edge over its competitors as far as SEO was concerned. But these days, if you want to show up at the top of the search engines, you’ve got to work at it. Choosing the right keyword and writing ...]]>

A lot of bloggers assume that once they switch from Blogger or other platforms to WordPress, their site is going to show up higher on Google’s search engine result pages. There was a time when some experts actually gave WordPress a big edge over its competitors as far as SEO was concerned. But these days, if you want to show up at the top of the search engines, you’ve got to work at it. Choosing the right keyword and writing magnetic content goes a long way towards helping you get better rankings on Google and other search engines but having a long-term SEO strategy always pay in the long run.

Search Engine Optimization for Dummies is a wonderful book by Bruce Clay, a SEO legend, that shows you how to optimize any website for search engines. The books starts from zero and shows you how to take your website to the next level by optimizing all aspects that are deemed to be important by search engines. The book starts with an overview of how search engines work, and what they deem to be important when ranking a website. So you won’t have to follow instructions that others give you without understanding why they are important.

The keyword research section is rich and a must read for everyone. A lot of people tend to go overboard with their keyword research and target too many keywords per page. Bruce discusses what you need to look out for when conducting your keyword research. The author doesn’t just show you how to research keywords. He also discusses how you can develop a real keyword strategy for your website. Your keyword research process never stops. You always have to be on the top of things and find new ways to get ranked high on Google. But having a long-term strategy, you can keep targeting popular terms and grab more traffic share in your niche.

The on page optimization chapters are a must read for anyone running a WordPress website. You are going to realize how to optimize your server settings and improve your code to get ranked higher on Google. You will also learn what you need to know about CSS, Javascript, and HTML to get more traffic to your website. Finally, Bruce discusses what on page elements you should improve upon to rank higher on major search engines.

I personally loved the international SEO chapter. If you have a global website, it always pays to know what it takes to get more traffic from other countries than the U.S. Whether you want to build your brand or just get more global traffic, the international SEO chapter has you covered.

Overall, Search Engine Optimization All in One for Dummies is a killer SEO book that goes beyond WordPress and shows you how to optimize any site for search engines. Whether you are interested in doing your SEO work yourself or know enough to be dangerous about this topic, this book is a must read. It’s easy to read and follow and helps you get the job done.

Rating: 9/10

I am a serial book reader. Every new book that comes to the market, I try to get and read as soon as possible. You can always catch up with the latest developments in your industry by following blogs. But design books are also a solid choice if you want to learn the latest techniques and find out about the latest developments in the design world. But a lot of people prefer listening, watching, and seeing things done than just ...]]>

I am a serial book reader. Every new book that comes to the market, I try to get and read as soon as possible. You can always catch up with the latest developments in your industry by following blogs. But design books are also a solid choice if you want to learn the latest techniques and find out about the latest developments in the design world. But a lot of people prefer listening, watching, and seeing things done than just reading about them. That’s exactly what you get with interactive video courses on the market. Video courses are particularly useful if you want someone to walk you through a new technology in the shortest time possible. I personally prefer learning the basics in video format before moving to more advanced topics in advanced books and blogs. But your taste maybe different.

Total Training (and Lynda.com) are the two video training services that I have used on a consistent basis in the past few years. I admit that I am not exactly a master in Adobe products, but I have picked up a lot of good stuff from these training videos. Total Training courses are especially impressive as they teach you how to do things and show them to you in a straightforward manner. So you never miss a step and won’t have to spend time trying to figure out how to do things you just watched a video on.

Total Training courses are designed for newbies and intermediate designers. They keep you up to date with the latest technologies such as Web Expression, Flex, CS4, and beyond. They also show you how to master Photoshop and Elements. These are technologies that you will need to know about if you want to make it as a designer. So if you are hoping to get started with a career in design, Total Training courses come in handy.

Total Training has 4 classes of membership for designers. Some designers prefer using Microsoft products only while others use a combination of Adobe and Microsoft products. Whatever the case, Total Training has you covered. Here is a summary of what’s offered:

• Elements:
  • Adobe Photoshop Elements 5 (6 Hours)
  • Adobe Photoshop Elements 7 (6 Hours)
  • Adobe Premiere Elements 7 (4 Hours)
• Microsoft:
  • Microsoft Access 2007: Essentials (6.6 Hours)
  • Microsoft ASP.NET 2.0: Building Web Applications (set 1) (10.2 Hours)
  • Microsoft ASP.NET 2.0: Building Web Applications (set 2) (10 Hours)
  • Microsoft ASP.NET AJAX (2.2 Hours)
  • Microsoft Excel 2007: Advanced (6 Hours)
  • Microsoft Excel 2007: Essentials (5 Hours)
  • Microsoft Expression Blend (8.2 Hours)
  • Microsoft Expression Blend 2: Essentials (6 Hours)
  • Microsoft Expression Media 2: Essentials (5.5 Hours)
  • Microsoft Expression Web 2: Essentials (10 Hours)
  • Microsoft Expression Web (10 Hours)
  • Microsoft Expression Web: From FrontPage to Expression Web (3 Hours)
  • Advanced Microsoft Expression Web (6 Hours)
  • Microsoft Office 2007: Getting Up to Speed (6 Hours)
  • Microsoft Office SharePoint Designer 2007 (9 Hours)
  • Microsoft PowerPoint 2007: Essentials (4 Hours)
  • Microsoft SQL Server Development (8 Hours)
  • Microsoft Visual Studio 2005: Productivity with .NET Framework 2.0 (7 Hours)
  • Microsoft Visual Studio 2008: Essentials – Featuring Windows Forms (6 Hours)
• Adobe:
  • Adobe InDesign CS3: From QuarkXPress to InDesign CS3 (5.8 Hours)
  • Adobe InDesign CS4: Advanced (7 Hours)
  • Adobe InDesign CS4: Essentials (6.5 Hours)
  • Adobe Photoshop CS2 (21.8 Hours)
  • Advanced Adobe Photoshop CS2 (8.1 Hours)
  • Adobe Photoshop CS3: Advanced (8.5 Hours)
  • Adobe Photoshop CS3: Channels and Masking (6.5 Hours)
  • Adobe Photoshop CS3: Enhancing Digital Photographs (6.5 Hours)
  • Adobe Photoshop CS3: Essentials (8 Hours)
  • Adobe Photoshop CS3: Maximizing Productivity (4.2 Hours)
  • Adobe Photoshop CS4 Extended: Essentials (8 Hours)
  • Adobe Photoshop Elements 5 (6 Hours)
  • Adobe Photoshop Elements 7 (6 Hours)
  • Adobe Photoshop Lightroom: Essentials (3 Hours)
• All Access:
  • Everything!

The above is just a summary of what’s available on Total Training. Essentially, most new and older technologies are covered so no matter which version you are using, you can always learn new things from these courses.

Here is how the subscription plans work:

So as you can see they are not that expensive either. I have personally used Total Training to learn new things in the past and continue to use them in the future. Your training doesn’t stop with these videos, but they do give you a good foundation so you can move to doing bigger, better things.