WP Programming | Wordpress Jedi

Feed your WordPress Demons!

Get your WordPress 6 pack Abs with WordPress.com 2.5 Essential Training

September 16th in Wordpress Training by Wordpress Jedi .

I had a chance to review Lynda.com’s WordPress 2.5 training software a couple of weeks ago, and I must say, it took a lot out of me to get to the finish line. I got to say that I am a big fan of Lynda.com DVD training series. I have learned Flash and Illustrator from Lynda.com folks, and for that I’d be always grateful. But I was skeptic about this training DVD set when it came out. It is not a very expensive DVD set, but I was wondering how they would approach WordPress through video clips when it needs so much hands on practice.

I got to admit that a lot of stuff on the DVD set were not that advanced. The trainer starts off with the most basic things about WordPress and goes on to discuss more advanced topics such as Theme customization and WordPress enhancements through plugins. Here is pretty much what you will learn from this DVD set:

* Understanding the WordPress.com Dashboard interface
* Setting basic options and choosing a theme
* Composing posts and pages
* Including and managing images, videos, audio, and other media
* Working with categories and tags
* Building link lists
* Working with comments and dealing with spam
* Managing user accounts
* Customizing themes with widgets
* Promoting a blog

As you can guess from the table of contents, the WordPress 2.5 Essential Training is not for advanced WordPress users. You don’t learn how to write a theme from scratch or how to modify the code behind plugins. But you will learn basic to intermediate WordPress techniques that help you become a better blogger. I think for $49.95, this is a great set for people who have never worked with WordPress before (or haven’t blogged before for that matter). One thing is for sure though. DVD sets sure can make you lazy. You don’t even have to read books anymore as you can just listen and watch a trainer do things in front of you. Now if you are sharp enough and are not checking ESPN news at the same time you are going through these DVDs, there is a good chance you will pick up all you need to know to get started with WordPress. But best of all, you can get it all done in about 6 hours (counting 2 30 minute breaks). That surely beats going to a conference and paying a $1000 to learn the same stuff, doesn’t it?

{ 0 comments }

Design Your Own WordPress Theme with WordPress Theme Design

September 6th in Wordpress Books by Wordpress Jedi .

You may have seen this book already, but I just came about it when I was surfing through a list of books that Amazon was recommending I should take a look at. It’s amazing the gems that you can find using the Amazon’s recommendation system. Well. After finishing up this book, I can tell you that this book is indeed a gem.

You have probably seen all these books that claim to teach you something unique. But when you are done with them you feel cheated as they show you only the theory but nothing pragmatic. Well. WordPress Theme Design shows you how to build a custom design WordPress theme from scratch. That’s right. It’s like having someone walk you through the code, showing you how WordPress themes are designed. If you are familiar with PHP, but don’t know your way around WordPress, this book is a must read. In fact, it’s the shortest way to finding your way to WordPress mastery. And if you know programming but don’t know PHP, you can pick it up fast by reading this book. I do recommend you getting one of those PHP in 24 hours books to get you started, but you can certainly follow the code provided in this book and proper explanation is giving as well. Regardless of your level, after rading this book, you will understand the anatomy of a good WordPress theme.

After reading this book, there is no doubt in my mind that Packt Publishing is the best publisher for Open Source technologies out there. They are the best.

{ 0 comments }

Next Entries →