I’m Speaking at WordCamp San Francisco 2011 This Weekend!


This weekend I’m attending, and speaking at, WordCamp San Francisco 2011!

I’ll be a part of the Security Showdown panel with Mark Jaquith and Jon Cave. We’ll be performing live plugin security audits on submitted plugins and discussing best practices for securing your plugins and themes.

WordCamp SF is the biggest WordCamp of the year. It’s literally a who’s who of the WordPress Community and I can’t wait to be back this year!

If you plan on attending make sure you track me down and say hi, I might even have a couple items to give away! :)

Where Did July Go?


July was a crazy month for me. Expect more frequent posting soon!

Summer WordCamps 2011


It’s summer and that means time for summer WordCamps! I’ll be hitting two WordCamps this summer: WordCamp Boston and WordCamp San Francisco.

WordCamp Boston will be held on July 23rd-24th in Boston, MA. This year’s event looks to be jam packed with great speakers and sessions. The event will feature three tracks each day. On Saturday the speaker tracks will range from Development to Education and How-To. On Sunday the tracks will range from Advanced Development to Strategy and even some Design sessions.

WordCamp San Francisco will be held on August 12th-14th in San Francisco, CA. WordCamp SF really is the essential WordCamp of the year. The original WordCamp was held in SF in 2006 and has grown ever since. I had a blast last year and can’t wait to see all of my community friends again this year. I can only hope a dance off breaks out again at the after party!

I actually won’t be speaking at either event, which will be a change for me. I’m going to hang up my speaker hat until WordCamp Philly 2011 later this year. I do, however, plan on helping out at the Happiness Bar at both events.

If you plan on attending either event make sure you track me down and say hi! :)

How To: Add A Link to the WordPress Multisite Network Admin Sites List


The other day I was working on a plugin for a client when I needed to add a link to the WordPress Multisite Network Admin Sites list. This is the list of sites in your WordPress Multisite network. The links I am referring to are the action links that appear when you hover over a site in the list as shown below.

WordPress Multisite Network Sites ListTo add a link, or modify any of the existing action links, we’re going to use the manage_sites_action_links action filter in WordPress. This filter will allow us to modify the action links before they are displayed on the screen. This means you can add, or remove, any links you want.

Let’s look at the code:

add_filter( 'manage_sites_action_links', 'my_plugin_network_list_action', null, 2 );

function my_plugin_network_list_action( $actions, $blog_id ) {

    $actions = array_merge( $actions, array(
	'custom_link' => '<a href="'. network_admin_url( 'sites.php' ).'">My Custom Link</a>'
    ));

    return $actions;

}

First we call the manage_sites_action_links filter hook which executes our custom function my_plugin_network_list_action(). Our function accepts two parameters: The $actions array which contains all action links and the $blog_id which stores the site ID of the site we are hovering in the list.

To add a link we are going to use the PHP function array_merge() to merge our link into the array of existing links. In this example I added a link named “My Custom Link” which links to the Network Admin sites list. The final step is to return the $actions variable. Simple as that!

For more awesome WordPress plugin goodies check out my new book: Professional WordPress Plugin Development

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.

My Professional WordPress Plugin Development Video Interview


Last October I attended BlogWorld & New Media Expo in Las Vegas. During the event I did an interview with Wiley/WROX to talk about my new upcoming book Professional WordPress Plugin Development. The video interview is now featured on the Amazon page for the book! Check out the video below (ignore my derp face):

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:

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: