Ben Stewart

Website Launch: GenesisRoanoke.com

February 4th, 2010 | Comments Off

If you live in the Roanoke Valley and you are looking a community of people who want to serve each other and the people around them then you should check out Genesis Community Church. GCC is a new church plant started by my good friend Craig Tackett along with a talented group of young people who genuinely want to serve the Lord by serving their community. I am thankful to be a part of their journey by setting up this online presence for the church. Check out GenesisRoanoke.com.

Tags: portfolio, webdesign | Posted in Uncategorized, portfolio

Website Launch: JeremyRochford.com

January 24th, 2010 | Comments Off

Friend and self-published author Jeremy Rochford needed a simple website where he could blog his ideas and tell his amazing story of weight-loss and personal/spiritual discovery. I responded with JeremyRochford.com. Enjoy!

Tags: portfolio, webdesign | Posted in portfolio

Website Launch: MichaelNeale.com

October 2nd, 2009 | Comments Off

I would like to welcome Michael Neale to the world of blogging. We just launched his new website which I designed and developed. Michael is a worship leader in Franklin, TN, blogging about church leadership, music, life, etc.

Check out his new site and let us know what you think in the comments!

Tags: portfolio, webdesign | Posted in portfolio

Website Launch: ShaunGroves.com

September 11th, 2009 | Comments Off

We just launched the brand new blog/website of Shaun Groves. The site was designed by Brad Ruggles with some awesome additional artwork by Barton Damer. I handled all-things-WordPress and all of the fun details involved in getting his old content moved over to the new platform.

So, go check it out right now at http://ShaunGroves.com. I’m sure you will love it but I would still love to hear your feedback.

Tags: portfolio, shaungroves, webdesign | Posted in portfolio

My Wordpress development setup

June 14th, 2009 | 3 Comments

The other day a friend of mine asked me how I develop Wordpress themes on my computer because he wants to switch his blog over to WP from Blogger. After going through some of the basics in 140-character chunks, I thought it might be easier just to explain my WP development setup here on the blog. This is not meant to be an in-depth tutorial or comparison of the best development solutions. I will not go over all of the alternatives to the solutions I have chosen in this post. However, if you follow along you should end up with a solid development environment for Wordpress sites.

First of all you need to create a web server environment to be able to host a local copy of Wordpress. To do that you will need the following:

• Computer (I prefer a Mac)
• Web server (Apache)
• Database (MySQL)
• Scripting engine (PHP)

For the computer I prefer to use a Mac. Specifically I use a Macbook Pro, but really any modern Apple computer will do just fine. The most intensive part of developing a website is working with large Photoshop files, but a good external USB hard drive used as a scratch disk will go a long way at speeding up that work. You could just as easily use a Windows-based PC to develop websites. I used to do that myself, but since moving to Mac world I am a much happier man. There are a few advantages to using a Mac, but nothing that a resourceful, Microsoft-loving developer couldn’t overcome.

Now for the other three parts… one advantage of using a Mac is that it already has Apache and PHP pre-installed. All you have to do to enable them is visit System Preferences > Sharing then turn on Web Sharing. I used to use this pre-installed web server for development, but have since learned that keeping my development environment separate from my core operating system has its advantages.

So, for ease of use, flexibility, and portability I have switched over to using the wonderful (and free) MAMP. MAMP stands for Mac, Apache, MySQL, PHP and it is a software solution that runs a standalone version of Apache web server with PHP and MySQL on your Mac. This setup is perfect for Wordpress development.

To make my setup a little easier for me to use I have changed a few default settings within MAMP. First stop all MAMP servers. In my MAMP settings I changed the default Apache port to 80 so I can use http://localhost/ as my default domain name for development. (Make sure you do not have Web Sharing enabled in System Preferences if you do this. Also note that you’ll have to enter your admin password every time you start and stop MAMP if the port is set to 80.)

In MAMP I also set Apache’s Document Root to /Users/username/Sites (substituting your home folder name for “username”). This allows me to create a folder inside my standard Sites folder for each new site I create. Each site folder is then accessed by visiting http://localhost/ in my browser of choice.

Now that the server environment is setup the next thing I need is a database management tool. MAMP comes with phpMyAdmin, a great web-based tool to manage databases and the tool most web hosts provide for free. You can access it from the “MAMP Start Page.” On my machine I prefer something a little nicer and more Mac-like. My tool of choice in this arena is Sequel Pro. Sequel Pro lets me easily create, modify, and delete databases for use in websites… and it is free.

I prefer to not use MAMP’s default “root” user for MySQL. This is probably from my old non-MAMP days when I felt like it would be more secure to have a non-root user set. So you can create a separate user account for your database using MAMP’s phpMyAdmin tool or you can use the default root account. I will assume you use the default root account because that is probably what most sane people would do.

To connect to MAMP’s MySQL databases within Sequel Pro, first make sure MAMP is running with the settings I listed above. Then open up Sequel Pro and create a new “favorite” with the following settings:

• Name: WP Development
• Host: localhost
• User: root
• Password: root
• Database:
• Socket: /Applications/MAMP/tmp/mysql/mysql.sock
• Port: 8889

(Note that the Database field is empty.) Sequel Pro also allows you to set this “favorite” as its default and connect to it automatically at startup. Just visit Sequel Pro > Preferences and click the appropriate box.

The next tool you will need in your development arsenal is a good code editor (text editor). My personal favorite is TextMate. However, there is a free alternative that is pretty good called TextWrangler and several other excellent options such as BBEdit, Coda, and Espresso.

The final tool you will need in order to launch your finished website (when that time comes) is a good FTP application. I prefer Transmit, although Cyberduck is a great free option and there are other pay options such as Fetch, Forklift, and even Coda. For now you can keep this app on the back-burner because it doesn’t come into play until launch time. Let’s get an actual working copy of Wordpress installed locally!

Installing Wordpress

First, visit the Wordpress Download Page and get a copy of the latest version of Wordpress. Once unzipped you should have a folder called “wordpress” that you should move to your Sites folder.

Now we need to create an empty database for Wordpress to use. Go ahead and start up MAMP if it isn’t already running then fire up Sequel Pro. In Sequel Pro click on Choose Database… and then Add Database… and give your new database a name like wptest.

Now open your code editor and open the sample configuration file included in the wordpress folder (which should now be inside your Sites folder). It should be called wp-config-sample.php. You will need to fill in the details for the database you just created in Sequel Pro. Scroll down in the file until you see the following lines of code (change the italicized values to match yours):

• define(‘DB_NAME’, ‘wptest‘);
• define(‘DB_USER’, ‘root‘);
• define(‘DB_PASSWORD’, ‘root‘);

Before you go live you should also scroll down the the next section in that file (Authentication Unique Keys) and change those lines of code to whatever WP’s automatic secret key generator gives you. Just click that link then copy/paste the results into the file in place of the current lines:

• define(‘AUTH_KEY’, ‘put your unique phrase here’);
• define(‘SECURE_AUTH_KEY’, ‘put your unique phrase here’);
• define(‘LOGGED_IN_KEY’, ‘put your unique phrase here’);
• define(‘NONCE_KEY’, ‘put your unique phrase here’);

After making all of those changes save that file as wp-config.php (remove the “-sample” from the name).

Now you should be able to visit http://localhost/wordpress/ and be greeted by WP’s installation wizard. It will ask you for a title for your new blog and an email address for the “admin” account. For development you should leave the “Allow my blog to appear in search engines like Google and Technorati” checkbox unchecked. You can change that setting later once you go live. Submit the form and you will receive an automatically generated password for your new admin account in Wordpress. Immediately copy this password to the clipboard! Now click the “Log In” button and enter your new admin info to login.

The very first thing you should do is visit your admin user profile and change that password to something you will remember. Next you should go through the “Settings” sections and make any changes you might want. I definitely prefer to change the Permalink structure to “Month and Name” instead of the default “dirty” URL structure.

You will also want to create a new project in your code editor and put the entire “wordpress” folder in it. All theme files can be found in the “wp-content/themes” folder inside your root “wordpress” folder. Each theme gets its own subfolder. All plugins go in the “wp-content/plugins” folder. You can download and install new themes and plugins from within Wordpress under the “Appearance” and “Plugins” sections respectively. Or you can download the themes/plugins and manually put them in these folders.

Hopefully that helped you get a start on your Wordpress development. You will want to check out some great plugins for your new website like these or these. You may even want to download a few free themes and peek at the code they use to make things work. Also, you’ll probably be getting really familiar with the Wordpress Codex.

Happy coding!

Tags: geek, webdesign, wordpress | Posted in Uncategorized

Must-have Wordpress plugins – part 2

May 27th, 2009 | Comments Off

Back in part 1 I listed five of the plugins I install every time I setup a Wordpress blog for a friend or client. Here are five more plugins for Wordpress that are sure help you get the most out of your blogging experience.

1. Cimy Swift SMTP. I often use a Gmail account as the primary e-mail account for a blog or website. However, what about emails that are sent automatically by Wordpress like user registrations, comment notifications, etc.? Many web hosts will automatically try to send those from their own mail servers instead of Gmail’s servers. With the Cimy Swift SMTP plugin all of your website’s emails will run through whatever servers you assign.
2. Dagon Design Form Mailer or CFormsII. These plugins are both excellent ways to setup a contact form (or any other type of form) on your website. I started off using the Dagon plugin but have recently moved over to CForms. I think it’s a bit easier to manage.
3. Lightbox 2 (2.8.2) and Add Lightbox. These plugins add the “lightbox” effect to any images you link to in your posts (like the Wordpress logo linked at the top of this post). The first plugin adds the necessary javascript to your theme and the second plugin automatically adds the necessary HTML to each linked image.
4. Events. Need a simple plugin that lists upcoming events in the sidebar and/or an Events page? This is one of the easiest I have found that still allows adequate control over the structure and style of the events listings.
5. Wordpress.com Stats, Google Analytics for Wordpress, µMint Plugin. None of these plugins actually track stats themselves, but all of them integrate whatever stat tracking service you prefer into your Wordpress site. Wordpress.com Stats even adds a nice graph and some fun info. about popular posts to your Wordpress dashboard. I generally install Wordpress.com Stats and another tracking system (either Google Analygics which is free or Mint Stats which is pretty) so I can compare results. Just like Askimet, Wordpress.com Stats requires you to sign up for a free Wordpress.com account. You don’t have to start a blog there, you just need an account. For real-time tracking of people viewing your site you can also check out Wassup.

That wraps up this round of excellent Wordpress plugins. Are there plugins you just can’t live without? Post a link in the comments and be sure to stick around for part 3.

Tags: free, links, tips, webdesign, wordpress | Posted in Uncategorized

Must-have Wordpress plugins – part 1

May 20th, 2009 | Comments Off

I really like Wordpress. If you are looking for a blog/news-based website then there is probably no better option than to use Wordpress. One of the things that puts Wordpress at the top of my list is the thriving community of developers that use it. If you need your new website to do something then there is a good chance that someone else has already developed a plugin to accomplish that task… and it’s probably free. The only problem with such a vast community is that there are so many plugins to search through that it is sometimes hard to find the best plugins to meet your needs. No fear, I have compiled a list of some of my favorite plugins for Wordpress to accomplish several common tasks in website development.

1. Akismet. Use this! There is no better way to eliminate a large percentage of comment spam. While it isn’t a 100% solution, it makes a huge difference and it comes pre-packaged with Wordpress. All you have to do is activate the plugin and then sign up for a free Wordpress.com account–you don’t have to start a blog there, just an account. After signing up for your account just go to your new profile page and copy/paste the “API Key” that you will find at the top of the page into the Akismet settings page on your blog.
2. Viper’s Video Quicktags. This plugin adds a row of buttons on the Wordpress “write” screen so you can easily embed videos from many common video services like YouTube, Vimeo, Flickr, Google Video, etc. You can even choose which services to show or hide and set standard sizes for your embeded videos.
3. All in One SEO Pack. Every website is better with good search engine optimization (SEO). This plugin helps to automate that process by automatically changing your website’s title, description, keywords, and more to values that help search engines catalog your website accurately based on its content. This is a “set it and forget it” kind of plugin worth the download.
4. WP Super Cache. Wordpress, like most blogging engines and content management systems, generates dynamic pages. That means that every time someone goes to a page of your site, Wordpress finds the content for that page in its database and creates the right HTML page on the fly. It’s pretty much magic. But, it can also be slow if you get a lot of people viewing your site at the same time, if you are on a shared hosting package, or if your theme has a lot of extra database calls. Don’t fret, there are things you can do to help speed up your blog and one of those is caching. Basically, this plugin saves those HTML files and instead of asking Wordpress to generate new ones every time someone visits a page, it pulls out the already-generated file and displays it instead. This will not only make your visitors happy, but your web hosting service will thank you.
5. Feedburner Feedsmith or FD Feedburner Plugin. Either one is good, but the most important thing is to use Feedburner to manage your feeds! Why? First of all, if you change the location of your website or the platform you are using to run your website your original RSS feed address will more than likely change. This means that anyone who is subscribed to your feed using that address will now get nothing. The only solution at that point is to post a link to your new feed and hope that most of your readers will subscribe to your new feed. However, if you are using Feedburner then all of those readers are subscribed to a feed at Feedburner’s address which doesn’t change. All you have to do is tell Feedburner to start getting its contents from the new location and you don’t loose a single reader. As if that weren’t enough, Feedburner will also help clean up any improperly formed feeds which can be especially useful for podcasters.

That’s a pretty good first five to get you started. I’ve got Part 2 just around the corner so stay tuned. But until then, what plugins do you use that you want to tell the world about?

Tags: links, tips, webdesign, wordpress | Posted in Uncategorized