Once per year, each individual team at Automattic has a meetup; a time that the whole team is in the same physical space. My team – Sirius – is entirely based in Europe and Africa, so we went for our meetup in the same time zone and settled on Mallorca. We stayed at the stunning […]
Author archives: Job
Ethical Consumption in South Africa: Clothing
About two years ago I wrote an article on ethical consumption of chocolate and coffee. Those are some of the easiest products to source ethically. I remember – while still being in Belgium – that for clothing it’s a different story. I went up to my friend Niels, who was working for an organisation combatting […]
Cheryn & Justin
It had been a while since I did second shooting at a wedding, so when our friend Kez of Hello Pictures asked me last year if I was keen, I didn’t think twice. Here are some of my favourite pics that I took that day.
Translating WordPress, and why it matters
Today, I spoke at CMS Africa in Kigali, Rwanda. This was my fourth consecutive attendance. CMS Africa is my favourite conference each year because it brings together a lot of things I like and love; it’s in Africa, it focuses on open source, and it transcends the boundaries of individual CMSs. This year, I chose […]
WordPress troubleshooting plugins
I’ve been working in WordPress customer support for over three years now. Very often the problems we encounter are similar. While developers might be able to do troubleshooting without any help, I wanted to make a list of the plugins I regularly use for different types of issues. None of these should mess up your […]
My 2017 in movies and series
I’ve watched fewer movies and series in 2017 than the previous year, but I still watched plenty. Here’s a shortlist of my recommendations. Absolute highlights Early in 2017, I attended a theology day organised by The Warehouse, and we watched and discussed Son of Man, a South African adaptation of the Gospel. Set in a […]
WooCommerce 3.3 and my 50th commit 🎉
WooCommerce 3.3 launched yesterday. Since June 2015, I’ve been listed as a contributor for every major and minor release. I’m not going to lie; it’s a pretty sweet feeling to know that something you wrote a few lines of, is being used on over 2 million webshops. GitHub is (not that) scary When I joined […]
My 2017 in books
In 2017, I watched a lot less series and movies than the year(s) before, and by consequence, I started reading a lot more again. Next to reading a lot online for both work and pleasure, I finished 29 books and read just below 10,000 pages. What were the highlights and why did I read those […]
Steve Biko Quote
In my view the truth lies in my ability to incorporate my vertical relationship with God into the horizontal relationships with my fellow men; in my ability to pursue my ultimate purpose on earth which is to do good. – Steve Biko
Amsterdam
I’m not going to lie, when it was first announced that team leads at Automattic were expected to attend leadership training at some point, I was a bit hesitant. I had been already travelled to five countries for work last year and with travel times being at least twelve hours in any direction from Cape […]
A Designer’s (mini) Guide to Basic Developing
My colleague and friend Gareth wrote a pretty cool intro on software to use for frontend (WordPress) design. Even if you’re not a designer but someone who just gets involved with tweaking other people’s designs, this is a good read.
The new Lightroom, and why I’m weary
A few weeks ago, Adobe introduced us to an update within their cheapest Creative Cloud subscription; next to Photoshop and Lightroom, a new app called Lightroom CC was added. The old Lightroom app was rebranded to Lightroom Classic CC. Beautiful UI There are many good reviews out in the wild comparing all the features and […]
Karoo National Park
A few weeks ago, we went to the Karoo National Park. I’ve seen a lot of South Africa, but I’d never been further than Worcester on the N1, the biggest road in our country. With visiting the Karoo National Park, I at least went a bit higher up. The Karoo The Karoo is South Africa’s […]
Introduction to Sass
In a previous post, I’ve introduced using Sass through the WordPress Customiser and Jetpack. In this post, I want to quickly explain what exactly Sass is and where to get started. Sass stands for “Syntactically awesome style sheets”, and is basically CSS with superpowers — or “CSS on crystal meth” as I described it in one […]
Whistler
Just like last year, we had our annual company meetup in Whistler, Canada. I wanted to travel light, so I only took my 50mm lens, but I luckily was able to borrow a wide-angle lens from one of my colleagues for the night photography. And this year again, I saw a black bear. Unfortunately, this year’s […]
Even Racists Got the Blues
I love justice, and I think “poetic” justice is one of my favourite kinds.
Will the real Sodomites please stand up?
When the word “Sodomites” is used, in most cases it’s by some Christians addressing what they perceive as perverted sexual activity. In a lot of cases, the word is used for LGBTQ people in the sense that these Christians believe homosexuality is a sin and that “Sodomite” is an appropriate label for LGBTQ people. In […]
Belgium, France and England
One of the big advantages of both Kim and me working remotely is that we aren’t tied to a single location. A few months ago, that meant that we were able to spend almost seven weeks in Europe without taking much leave. Itinerary I love living in South Africa, but at the same time, I do […]
Four principles for successfully handing over a store to your customers
Sometimes we’re under the impression that finishing a WooCommerce development project is the end of the road, but that’s really just the beginning. When you hand over a site it’s the start of that store’s life cycle and, as a developer, you likely will not be the most important person on the store anymore. The […]
WooCommerce in Botswana
WooCommerce is used by store owners from all over the world – store owners such as Tshegofatso Tlhong. Tshego is a young woman from Botswana with a strong entrepreneurial spirit, and is also the managing director and founder of Ziigie.com. We sat down with Tshego to find out more about how WooCommerce is helping her to […]