WordPress has made it much easier to own and host your own website.
However, while choosing a great looking theme and adding a slider might have become easier than ever; knowing how to optimize your website still remains a complex issue.
WordPress Tutorials
WordPress Caching with WP Rocket
Could My WordPress Site be Hacked via TimThumb?
TimThumb is a wonderful idea.
TimThumb is a script that allows your site to grab an image and resize or reshape it automatically. TimThumb will cache that new version of the image so that it can quickly be served to new visitors.
This is such a useful idea that thousands of WordPress themes have included TimThumb.
One Simple Trick to Keep Your WordPress wpconfig.php File Safe
The single most important file in your entire WordPress Installation is wp-config.php.
Your WordPress website is made up of two elements: a WordPress database, and your WordPress files. Wp-config.php is the one element that links the database and files together.
If you're curious, we have a full guided tool of wp-config.php available.
5 Videos to Get Anyone Started with Easy Digitial Downloads
We're going to introduce you to the world's easiest way to sell digital downloads through WordPress for free - Easy Digital Downloads.
Easy Digital Downloads is easy to set up, has a ton of features that are free, and has just about any payment gateway you'd need.
The following 5 videos will help get anyone up and running with Easy Digitial Downloads:
These videos are taken from our complete Easy Digital Downloads class.
WordPress 4.1 and the New WP API
With the release of version 3.0, WordPress moved from being a blog platform to being a content management system.
WordPress 4.1 may officially announce the arrival of WordPress' next transition, this time from a content management system to an application framework.
This change is already underway with WordPress being used for lots of apps and and external software. OSTraining members can download a whole book on building applications with WordPress.
4.1 is likely to accelerate that change by providing an API directly from the WordPress core.
Understand WordPress Actions and Filters in 5 Minutes
Actions and filters are two of the most useful features of the WordPress Plugin API.
An action allows you to write a function that runs everytime a certain event happens in WordPress. For example, actions can allow you to make something happen every time a post is published. WordPress provides hundreds of actions that you can hook into, but you can also create your own actions.
WordPress Galleries and Sliders: 3 Options
WordPress is often accused of lacking features. But, it's amazing what you can do with the WordPress core and just one or two plugins.
Did you know you can make beautiful image galleries with a plain WordPress installation?
Have you seen what you can do with the JetPack and Soliloquy plugins?
Here are 3 videos to get you started with WordPress image galleries and sliders. These videos come from our class on building a WordPress portfolio site.
Display Post Shortcodes Helps Show WordPress Content
I love the Display Post Shortcodes plugin.
I'm not alone because Display Post Shortcodes has an almost perfect rating on WordPress.org and is an official WordPress.com plugin.
Why is this plugin so useful? Because it allows you to organize and display your WordPress content using a series of simple shortcodes.
Here are 5 examples of what Display Post Shortcodes can do.
Cropping Images in WordPress
WordPress is famous for being easy to use, but some features can still be confusing.
We find that cropping images is one thing that frequently confuses users.
Here's a quick guide to cropping photos in WordPress:
10 Minutes with WP Super Cache
Every time you load the frontend of your WordPress site makes many, many database calls. WordPress pulls together many different assets and compiles them into webpages.
This is really time consuming and can make your site run slowly.
WP Super Cache is a great way to make your site run more quickly.
Smart Slider 2 for WordPress
One of our students was having issues configuring a WordPress slider that was buggy. So we suggested he give Smart Slider 2 a try instead. After using Smart Slider 2 his review was:
"I just accomplished in less than 30 minutes what I have been trying to do since yesterday. Very intuitive ui and gives me exactly what I was looking for."
So we created this tutorial for Smart Slider 2 so that you can see what it's capable of. Let's get started.
Automatic Updates for WordPress Plugins and Themes
One thing I love about WordPress are the easy updates.
WordPress recently introduced automatic updates for minor releases of the WordPress core. The ultimate goal is for WordPress to always update automatically so users never even realize that WordPress has updated.
Well, did you know that not only the WordPress core, but also plugins and themes can update automatically? This tutorial will show you how to enable that feature.
WordPress Version Check - Browser Addon
WordPress is quickly moving to auto-updates, but until we reach complete automation, knowing the version of a site is important.
This tutorial will show you a quick way to spot an outdated WordPress blog using the WordPress Version Check addon for Chrome and Firefox.
Why is WordPress Easy? Can It Become Simpler?
A lot of people say that WordPress is easy to use.
I hear that claim all the time, but rarely see anyone show evidence that it is true.
I sat down to test WordPress.
Which tasks in WordPress are really easy? Which tasks could be made easier?
I used a system called WICS to find the answers. Here are the results ...
Your Video Introduction to WordPress 3.9
WordPress 3.9 is due to be released in mid-April.
Topher, our WordPress teacher, is here to give you your video introduction to 3.9.
In the content creation screen there's a new version of TinyMCE and also some gallery improvements. Topher also highlights some audio and video improvements.
How to Use Akeeba Backup for WordPress
The de facto standard for backing up a Joomla site is Akeeba Backup. The software is excellent, feature rich, and very reliable.
The developer of Akeeba Backup has now created Akeeba Backup for WordPress, which is now in Beta and available to subscribers for testing.
Why WordPress for Developers? Watch the Webinar
Last week, we launched a new video class called Why WordPress? The Developer Perspective.
We also held a webinar on the same topic. Our WordPress trainer, Topher DeRosia, guided us through the thought process behind why a site developer should choose WordPress to build a site.
Topher explained the features of WordPress that make it attractive for developers to use.
Watch the full webinar recording below:
Why WordPress? The Developer Perspective
This week our Monday class release is Why WordPress? The Developer Perspective.
In this course, our WordPress trainer, Topher DeRosia, guides us through the thought process behind why a site developer should choose the WordPress CMS to build a site.
Topher explains the features of WordPress that make it attractive for developers to use.
Topher's Testing: WP Smush.it Plugin for WordPress
Topher is our WordPress teacher, and he tests WordPress plugins for us.
This week Topher introduces us to the WP Smush.it plugin.
Smush.it is a Yahoo service that optimizes your website's images. Its a "lossless" tool, which means it optimizes the images without changing their look or visual quality. This plugin uses the Smush.it API to work within your WordPress site.
So, is the Smush.it plugin worth using? Let's ask Topher:
Why WordPress? The User Perspective
This week our Monday class release is Why WordPress? The User Perspective.
In this course, our WordPress trainer, Topher DeRosia, guides us through the thought process behind why a site developer should choose the WordPress CMS to build a site. This week he approaches the subject from the end-user perspective.
Topher's Testing: WP Remote Plugin for WordPress
This plugin review is part of a series we call "Topher's Testing".
Topher is our WordPress teacher, and he's testing some really useful new WordPress plugins.
This week Topher introduces us to the WP Remote plugin which can monitor and update all of your WordPress sites.
Topher's Testing: Block Bad Queries Plugin for WordPress
This plugin review is part of a series we call "Topher's Testing".
Topher is our WordPress teacher, and he's sitting down to test some really useful new WordPress plugins.
This week Topher introduces us to the Block Bad Queries plugin which is a security plugin that protects your website against malicious URL requests.
Block Bad Queries checks all incoming traffic and quietly blocks bad requests. This plugin is based on the 5G Blacklist which fixes many potential security problems.
Topher's Testing: WP Updates Notifier Plugin
This video review is part of a series we call "Topher's Testing".
Topher is our WordPress teacher, and he's sitting down to test some really useful new WordPress plugins.
This week Topher introduces us to the WP Updates Notifier plugin, which monitors your WordPress installation for core, plugin and theme updates and emails you when they are available.
This plugin is an option if you don't login to your WordPress admin regularly or you support client sites.
WordPress Deployment with Deploy, Git and Bitbucket
In recent years, developers have used WordPress for more powerful and complex sites.
As WordPress sites have become more complex, developers have required better tools. It's not common to version control and to have multiple deployment environments for production, staging or testing.
In this tutorial, we're going to show you one way to manage and deploy WordPress sites professionally. We're going to use Bitbucket, Deploy and Git to deploy a WordPress site.
Watch the WordPress Gravity Forms Webinar
Our new class and webinar schedule is up-and-running.
Every Monday, we release a new video class. Every Friday, we hold a webinar for our members on that same topic.
Last week's topic was Gravity Forms, the premium form builder for WordPress. Gravity Forms is extremely flexible and can create any kind of form you want to build on your WordPress site.
We recorded the webinar, and you can now watch a replay of it.
Topher's Testing: Account Lock Plugin for WordPress
This is the fifth video in a series we're calling "Topher's Testing".
Topher is our WordPress teacher, and he's sitting down to test some really useful new WordPress plugins.
This week Topher introduces us to the Account Lock plugin, which enables administrators to lock user accounts without deleting the users posts and contents.
Watch the WordPress 3.8 Beginner Webinar
Our Friday Webinar Series started last week.
Every Monday, we release a new video class. Every Friday, we hold a webinar for our members on that same topic.
Last week's webinar was on WordPress 3.8.
Rod Martin, our lead trainer, was joined by Topher Derosia, our long-time WordPress trainer. Topher works for X-Team who build some of the biggest and most famous WordPress sites in the world.
Topher's Testing: Broken Link Checker for WordPress
This is the fourth video in a series we're calling "Topher's Testing".
Topher is our WordPress teacher, and he's sitting down to test some really useful new WordPress plugins.
This week Topher introduces us to the Broken Link Checker plugin, which will check your posts, comments and other content for broken links and missing images, and notify you if any are found.
Topher's Testing: Page Management Plugin for WordPress
This is the third video in a new series we're calling "Topher's Testing".
Topher is our WordPress teacher, and he's sitting down to test some really useful new WordPress plugins.
When you watch the videos in this series, you'll learn about a great plugin. You'll also get to see how a professional WordPress developer evaluates and tests new plugins.
This week Topher introduces us to the Page Mangement plugin, which makes it easy to reorder pages and edit your page hierarchy using drag-and-drop.
WordPress Permalinks with Multiple Categories
Creating complex URLs has never a been a great strength of WordPress.
For example, for a long time, it was recommend that you shouldn't include categories in your URLs because of performance issues.
However, the WordPress team have been making improvements on this, and now it's possible to include not just one, but multiple categories inside a URL. In this tutorial, we'll show you how to make that happen.