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New House and More!

Its been a crazy month, and I’m a little late writing this post, but I’m excited to say I am once again a homeowner! April and I bought a house in Glenside, Pennsylvania and are absolutely in love with it!

Buying this house brought back a lot of memories of my old house in Indiana. I loved being a homeowner and couldn’t wait to buy another house.

Glenside is a great little town just north of Philadelphia. It has a small town feel, but is only 30 minutes from downtown Philly. The new house has an amazing kitchen, all new appliances, plenty of room for the entire zoo, and a monstrous backyard.

We closed on the new house on April 1st. Shortly after arriving at our new home that same day I got down on one knee and proposed to April (and she said yes)! She is the love of my life and I wanted the house to be ours from day one.

Its been a wild month and we can’t wait to finish moving into our new place!

Professional WordPress Plugin Development Has Hit The Shelves!

My latest book, Professional WordPress Plugin Development, has left the warehouse and is in stock and ready to order! The book is also available in DRM-Free PDF and Kindle formats. I co-authored this book with two amazing developers, Ozh Richard and Justin Tadlock.

Pro WP Plugin Dev BookI am really happy with how the book turned out and know it will be a valuable resource for anyone wanting to learn, or expand, their knowledge on WordPress plugin development. The book includes 80+ fully functional plugin examples and tutorials for download. I find myself consulting the book on a daily basis for code snippets and examples.

Professional WordPress Plugin Development covers a wide range of plugin dev topics including plugin foundation, creating widgets and shortcodes, custom post types and taxonomies, users and roles, coding standard and styles, and action and filter hooks. The book also dives into some more advanced topics like the HTTP API, JavaScript and Ajaz, Cron event scheduling, the Rewrite API, and even an entire chapter dedicated to Multisite plugin development! For more information check out the post Ozh wrote that details everything the book covers.

Want to win a FREE copy of the book? I’m giving away three free copies to three random fans of the Professional WordPress Plugin Development Facebook page. Simply like the page and you’re entered to win! I’ll pick the winners on Monday.

WordCamp Phoenix 2011 Recap

Last weekend I attended one of the best WordCamps I have ever been to, WordCamp Phoenix 2011! I was joined by April, Brian, and Scott of WebDevStudios. The event was hosted in the beautiful town of Chandler, AZ by some amazing organizers.

During our time in Phoenix I had the opportunity to check out Gangplank. I can’t speak highly enough about the amazing setup they have and was truly inspired. Gangplank is a collaborative coworking space with a major twist, there are no fees to work. Just show up, plug in and start working.

At the event I gave a presentation on WordPress End-User Security with Dre Armeda. Dre is the co-founder of Sucuri.net and truly passionate about security so it was great to collaborate with him on the presentation. Check out the slides from our presentation below:

WordPress End-User Security

I also had the pleasure of doing a video interview with Ryan Imel of WPCandy.com. We discussed WebDevStudios, working with WordPress, my new plugin development book, and more! Check out the interview below:

The event was a huge success and I couldn’t believe how many of my friends in the WordPress community attended. Attendees included Lisa Sabin-Wilson, Dre Armeda and Toni Perez of CubicTwo, Ptah Dunbar, Matt Danner and Cory Miller of iThemes, Amanda Blum, Michael Torbert, Steve Mortiboy, Josh and Sally Strebel of Page.ly, the 9seeds crew of John Hawkins, Shayne Sanderson, and Todd Huesh, Grant and Clay Griffiths of Headway, Boone Gorges, John James Jacoby, Ryan and Crystal Duff, Matt Martz, Mark Jaquith, Andrew Nacin, Pete Mall, Danielle Morrill, Jonathan Davis of the Shopp plugin, Ryan Imel of WPCandy.com, Stephanie Leary, Brandon Dove, Andrew Norcross, and many more I’m sure I forgot.

I had an amazing time at WordCamp Phoenix, hung out with some great WordPress addicts like myself, and enjoyed the sweet January Phoenix weather. This will certainly be an event I plan on attending again in the future!

And now for the chaos:

Professional WordPress Plugin Development Available for Presale on Amazon!

Pro WP Plugin Dev Book by Brad Williams

Pro WordPress Plugin Dev Book

My next book, Professional WordPress Plugin Development, is available for presale on Amazon.com!

Co-authored with Ozh Richard and Justin Tadlock, this book is the definitive guide for WordPress plugin development.

We cover a wide range of plugin dev topics including:

  • Plugin foundation
  • Creating widgets and shortcodes
  • Custom post types and taxonomies
  • WordPress coding standards and styles
  • Action and filter hooks
  • Best security practices

Pro WP Plugin Dev is the first of its kind with the many advanced topics covered. Most of these topics have never been in print!

Advanced plugin development topics include:

  • HTTP API including Google Map examples
  • JavaScript and Ajax
  • Cron event scheduling
  • Rewrite API and query handling
  • Multisite networks
  • Developer’s toolbox
  • and more!

This book is the next edition in the WROX programmer to programmer series. It was written by developers, for developers, and will teach you how to program WordPress in easy to understand tutorials and explanations. In fact this book comes packed with 80+ fully functional plugin examples and tutorials for download!

Make sure you reserve your copy today and don’t miss out on the WordPress plugin development goodness!

Tassimo Brewbot Review and Giveaway!

Last week I received a new Tassimo Brewbot to review! Not only do I have one to review, but I also have one to giveaway to one of you! Read on to find out how to win.

The Brewbot is an “advanced brewing machine programmed to make seven different varieties of beverages”. The unit is basically a single serve coffee machine with smarts. Simply enter a T-Disc into the Brewbot and hit the big button to start. In a short amount of time (usually 30 seconds or less) you’ll have a fresh cup of coffee (or one of the other 7 varieties) ready to go!

At first I honestly wasn’t sure if this is something that I would use on a daily basis. Well it didn’t take long for me to come to a conclusion. I’ve been using the Brewbot daily since it arrived. I find myself making a cup of coffee first thing in the morning. In fact I typically start the Brewbot, then make a regular pot of coffee, and my Brewbot cup is done before I can even get the regular pot started. I like it so much in fact that I’ve already gone out and purchased more T-discs to try them out!

Tassimo Brewbot T-Disc
Overall the Brewbot is a really great device and one that I’ll be using for a long time to come. If you want to win a Brewbot simply leave a comment below, it’s as easy as that! I’ll pick a random winner at the end of the week. The only requirement is you must have a US based mailing address.

I want to thank Tassimo and Lara Kulpa (@larakulpa) for giving me the opportunity to have this giveaway. Below is a video showing the Brewbot in action:

SitePoint Podcast Wins Podcast of the Year Award!

The SitePoint Podcast, which I’ve been a co-host on since the beginning, won the Podcast of the Year award from .NET Magazine!
I’ve been doing the SitePoint Podcast with Kevin Yank, Patrick O’Keefe, and Stephan Segraves since the first episode back on November 10th, 2008. It’s amazing to think we’ve been doing the show over 2 years now. I couldn’t be happier with how the podcast show has grown over the years.

A big THANK YOU to everyone who voted for the SitePoint Podcast, our loyal listeners, our editors, and everyone involved in the podcast since the start!

Here’s a shot of the SitePoint Podcast hosts at Blog World Expo 2010.

CollabPress v1.0 beta Has Been Released!

CollabPress Plugin LogoCollabPress v1.0 beta, the task management plugin for WordPress, has been released and is available for download! The plugin was rebuilt from the ground up by my company, WebDevStudios.com. We utilized custom post types to make the plugin fully optimized and compatible with the latest version of WordPress (including Multsite!). We also hardened the security and added more features!

Be sure to read all about the new version of CollabPress and download the beta.

WordCamp Philly 2010 Was A Huge Success!

WordCamp Philly 2010, the inaugural Philadelphia WordCamp, was last Saturday and was a huge success! I was lucky enough to be one of the organizers, along with Anthony Bubel and Marilyn Moran, and couldn’t be happier with how the event turned out.

We had an amazing lineup of speakers and topics for the event. We also had some awesome sponsors step up and help making this event a great success.

The event was held at Alter Hall in the Fox School of Business building. This building was absolutely amazing! The technology in each room was superb and made for a flawless day of presentations, slides, and even the official WordCamp Philly soundtrack!

The entire WebDevStudios crew almost attended (we were missing Scotty B), but the rest of the team was in attendence and myself, Brian Messenlehner, Chris Cochran, and Ronald Huereca all gave presentations.

There were also many of my WordPress friends in attendance including Ptah Dundar, Hal Stern, Michael Torbert, Steve Mortiboy, Jane Wells, Andrew Nacin, Doug Stewart, Jayvie Canono, Ryan Duff, Ted Mann, and many others I’m sure I am forgetting.

Check out pictures from the event below (photo credit to @tweetsfromchris):

WordCamp Philly is Tomorrow!

Tomorrow is the inaugural WordCamp Philly! I’m co-organizing the event and can’t wait to kick it off!

WordCamp Philly 2010We have an amazing lineup of speakers for the event including Ronald Huereca of WDS giving a presentation on WordPress and Ajax. I’m giving a presentation with Brian Messenlehner, the other co-founder of WDS, on Spooky WordPress: Disturbingly Brilliant Uses of WP.

We have four tracks (two beginner and two advanced) and an unconference room running ad hoc discussions and presentations. We’re giving away some amazing prizes and even have a costume contest (with prizes!) for the after party.

This is going to be an amazing WordCamp, and hopefully the start of an annual tradition in Philly. I’ll be sure to post a recap after the event with pictures.

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Brad Williams Blog

WordPress and the Web

Who is Brad?

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Brad Williams is a computer programmer and tech junkie who enjoys exploring technology and sharing his knowledge and experience with others.

 

CEO of WebDevStudios, Maintainn, and Pluginize. Co-author of Professional WordPress and Professional WordPress Plugin Development.

 

Brad resides in Philadelphia.

 

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