WordPress Reviews

Plugins, themes, books, services—we review them all.

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Review: WordCamp Nashville 2012

By 24 days agoApril 28, 2012

5

Last weekend I had the pleasure of attending the first-ever WordCamp in Nashville, Tennessee. Nick Weaver and I took a quick seven hour road trip down to Nashville and, if I can speak for us both, had a great time. 1

The event was organized by John Housholder and members of his development shop Ah So Designs. They did a great job, pulling off a solid WordCamp in just nine weeks with what sounded like a budget on the lighter side. There were two tracks (one for beginners and intermediate users, another for developers) and eleven sessions. I stuck to the developer track sessions, though I missed out on Mitch Canter’s presentation in the morning (that’s what I get for relying on only one alarm) and was briefly distracted by an epic 34-level game of Jenga outside one of the rooms.

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Notes:

  1. Nick, who you really should know from The Weekly Theme Show by now — shame on you if you don’t. ↩

Review: Feel the effects of Launch Effect theme (plus video)

By 218 days agoOctober 18, 2011

6

Are you ready for the Launch Effect?

Anyone in the field marketing will know half the battle with launching a new website is creating a buzz about it. “Coming soon” pages are well and good, but what about a truly viral WordPress theme?

In steps Launch Effect, a WordPress theme by the guys over at Barrell a NYC based creative digital agency. In Launch Effect they have created a WordPress theme specifically for that purpose. It’s their answer to the question: “how do I attract my potential audience and get them to spread the word, all before launching a site?”

Launch Effect review gallery

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WooCommerce Review: A new e-commerce plugin to watch

By 236 days agoSeptember 30, 2011

44

I have used a range of platforms during my last five years in the e-commerce industry. From initial setup and product selection to writing product specs and content for the web, I’ve nearly done it all. And in my time I’ve always been a big believer in using e-commerce platforms for e-commerce and blogging platforms for blogging.

Of course WordPress is an incredibly powerful platform in its own right, with even more on the way with WordPress 3.3 on the horizon. E-commerce is still a growing field within the WordPress community, though, and the question remains: is WordPress really a smart way to manage online shops?

WooThemes think it is, and earlier this week officially released WooCommerce, their free e-commerce plugin for WordPress. WooCommerce is a fork of Jigoshop, which has caused a bit of controversy in the community.

Irrespective of that issue, right now let’s just focus on what WooCommerce has to offer.

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Book review: WordPress Bible 2nd Edition

By 308 days agoJuly 20, 2011

7

Sometimes the line between hobbyist and professional can be a blurry one. And regardless of your chosen niche, whether it be cooking, knitting or coding, there are the essential readings, books, magazines and, nowadays, websites that everyone reads. The WordPress Bible, 2nd Edition is just that book for WordPress.

While reading it I was constantly reminded of the Haynes Manuals for car enthusiasts.

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Book review: WordPress For Dummies, 3rd Edition

By 426 days agoMarch 24, 2011

6

It has been my experience that even experts in a field sometimes need a refresher in the basics. Either the fundamentals have changed since they were students or there are minor details that they never need to know before. Sometimes you just need to go back to school.

Just as important are the subjects it doesn’t cover.

WordPress For Dummies, by Lisa Sabin-Wilson is the perfect primer for WordPress. Between the iconic yellow covers are the integral basics everyone should know but maybe didn’t learn. I have never had the need to really dig in and learn about WordPress.com, setting up a MU network or importing a site from Blogger, but it’s all in there. And I know I’m not the only one who has had a client ask a basic question that just stumped them. This is the perfect go-to resource for those situations.

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Book Review: WordPress & Ajax

By 490 days agoJanuary 19, 2011

1

You might remember Ronald Huereca as our WordCamp Austin ticket “winner”. I had the pleasure of talking with him at the event and quickly realized he knows his stuff, so much so that he was a presenter at WordCamp Philly last year. It is a good thing then that he has put some of his knowledge down on virtual paper.

“WordPress & Ajax” is not a book for the casual WordPress user. It is an informative read on using the power of Ajax to make websites more dynamic and user friendly so a working knowledge of PHP and jQuery is needed to follow along. The book would probably most benefit WordPress developers who have an idea what Ajax can do, but not how to implement it in their own work.

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Book review: WordPress Top Plugins

By 504 days agoJanuary 5, 2011

1

I have spent the last several days reviewing WordPress Top Plugins by Brandon Corbin and all I can say is WOW – why didn’t I know this was available!

This valuable book provides an overview of some of the best WP plugins you could ever use including WP-DBManager, BuddyPress, WPTouch, NextGen Gallery, and more.  Brandon methodically lays out a road map on understanding how to install plugins, how they work, and managing them.

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Review: Opaline theme by Viva Themes

By 520 days agoDecember 20, 2010

0

Opaline Theme

Opaline is a new hotel and business focused theme by Viva Themes. WPCandy gave away a copy of Opaline in our post about its release last week. Before we gave it away, I took it for a test drive on my local install of WordPress.  I wanted to see just how Opaline works behind the scenes, and whether I think it’s worth the $47 price tag.

I’ll share with you what I found.

Opaline theme review gallery

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Review: Bloggie from Themify

By 541 days agoNovember 29, 2010

1

Themify is a new theme shop brought to you by Nick La of webdesignerwall.com and Darcy Clarke. Themify has seven themes for sale and one for free at the time of this writing. They’re all very attractive themes, and include an advanced options panel: the Themify framework.

Themify’s description of the Bloggie theme:

“Bloggie features a beautiful slideshow on the homepage that makes your site stand out from the crowd. It has multiple widget areas for displaying banner ads. It is a clean theme that works well with any background images and content.”

So what stands out?

Bloggie theme review gallery

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Review: Shelf Theme from The Theme Foundry

By 547 days agoNovember 23, 2010

6

The Theme Foundry’s latest tumblog theme, Shelf, was designed by Jon Hicks and sports a photo-real, 3D design. Attempted by the wrong people, the words “photo-real” and “3D” used together when describing a website design could lead to disaster. In this case, the end result is very pleasant and just works.

But a quality theme is more than just looks. It’s about how it functions, how easy it is to use, and what purpose it can have for the blogger. In other words: is Shelf worth taking off the shelf and putting to use?

Let’s dig in and find out.

Shelf Theme review gallery

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