WordPress
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4–6 minutes
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…
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1–2 minutes
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…
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1–2 minutes
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…
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1–2 minutes
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…
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2–4 minutes
WordPress: A 💖 Story
Below is a summary of my keynote at CMS Africa Summit 2017, a community summit in Africa. I love working with WordPress. I’m not a web developer, but I’ve tried a lot of different solutions for making websites. My first proper site was built with Flash, and though it was cool back then to have…
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1–2 minutes
Hi there, .blog!
One of the “Christmas gifts” that was awaiting me after being on leave for a few weeks, was my own .blog URL. As of now, you can visit my website on job.blog. Easy to remember, easy to search. No worries, jobthomas.com will still be available too. If you want to get your own .blog address,…
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1–2 minutes
WordCamp Harare
Last weekend, Jetpack and WooCommerce sponsored the first WordCamp in Zimbabwe ever. My colleague, Herman, and I attended as representatives of the company, and also took a speaking slot. Below are some of the pics I took on Saturday. It’s always great attending WordCamps and other open-source conferences in Africa. People are so friendly and…
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1–2 minutes
WooCommerce in Real “Live”
My slides for the very first WordCamp Harare are now available. I spoke about my experience of setting up my first live WooCommerce store after having worked with WooCommerce for 2 years in testing environments.
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4–6 minutes
Contributing to Code without Coding
I’ve been working at Woo for over almost two years now. During that time, I’ve learnt a lot. While working with the different plugins, themes and extensions we offer, it is normal to encounter bugs: small (or big) things in the software not working as they should. Using Software and Reporting Bugs Just using the software…
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1–2 minutes
WordPress Customisation for Dummies (Like Me): Workshop WordCamp Cape Town 2016
A lot of beginners encounter all sort of tutorials on how to add some custom code to the functions.php file or even more basic: change the layout beyond what the customizer allows. Aspects In this workshop, I introduce WordPress beginners to some good standards in terms of customisation. Choosing a plugin that allows custom CSS…
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1–2 minutes
Scaling Support by Educating Customers
At ScaleConf 2016 in Cape Town, I was invited to speak in front of a large audience of developers. I focused on one of the biggest passions of most developers (not): support. However, while devs might not get excited about support, they all understand the importance of it. With having WooCommerce active on 1+ million…
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1–2 minutes
Bruce Lunnis: The Age of the Digital Superhero
My favourite talk at WordCamp Cape Town 2015 was Bruce Lunnis‘. He shared some of the stories of the do_action-hackathons in Cape Town. On those events, WordPress professionals gather to make websites, set up eCommerce and design branding for NGOs from the Cape Town region. Bruce highlighted a few of the success stories of how…
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1–2 minutes
Purpose-Driven Website: What on Earth Is Your Website Here for?
Follow along with the workshop I gave at WordCamp Cape Town last September.
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1–2 minutes
Mouille Point, South Africa
At Automattic, we can work from wherever we want. My office today was at home. We’re hiring by the way.
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1–2 minutes
Hugh’s Intro Slides for WordCamp Cape Town 2015
The latest WordCamp Cape Town was my fourth WordCamp (next to three Cape Town ones I also was at the last Cologne one). Hugh gives a great invite to make the best out of these superb community events. Learn! Get involved! Have fun!
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1–2 minutes
Purpose-Driven Website: Workshop WordCamp Cape Town 2015
Today I went to my third WordCamp Cape Town. Two years ago I had never guessed that I would be working for WooThemes and Automattic as I am today and it was my absolute pleasure to share some of the basics of web design and structures to new and beginning users. In sum these are things…
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2–3 minutes
Why I Loved Doing Live-Chat at Automattic
Everyone who joins Automattic starts with a three-week support rotation on WordPress.com. Including everyone at WooThemes now that our company has joined the team. The past three weeks I was on rotation. I could talk a lot about why I think this initial rotation (that is repeated annually) is great, but in this post, I…
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1–2 minutes
From Reaction to Proaction
At CMS Africa (the Summit in Nairobi, Kenya), I spoke on taking back the initiative in customer support. Often companies tend to wait until the customer points out a bug, a challenge, or an issue. By proactively training and educating customers, and doing thorough testing you can have better educated and happier customers. Here are my…
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2–3 minutes
Smart Themes Settings & WP Customiser
As I’ve shared a few times before, I am not a developer. But that doesn’t mean that I do not enjoy building websites; it means that I am limited to the options that themes and plugins have built-in. I am not able to do a lot of customisations (play with the code). I’ve set up…
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1–2 minutes
Time for a New Website
I’ve always enjoyed writing, and since I started my first blog in 2007 I haven’t stopped with online publications. Next to my blog, I have written for Breeze, CULTUURSHOCK, and Blikoponeindig. Professionally I have been writing a little bit for Ichtus and CTBC. Lately I have also started a South African sister to our Dutch…