A new chapter

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WebDevStudiosIt’s 2013 and another chapter has started for me – I am now part of WebDevStudios!

I am excited to announce that I am the new Technical Project Manager at WebDevStudios and I’m joining an incredible team of WordPress professionals. There have been a lot of changes at WDS lately and I’m proud to be part of it – we are doing some amazing things with WordPress to say the least!

With one change comes another

You may also be wondering about my new service, Maintainn and what’s to become it. Not to worry – I’m still going to be very much involved with Maintainn but normal day-to-day operations are now going to be handled by my wife and wonderful partner Abbie Sanderson. I’m excited for her to get more involved and eventually move over to the more technical side of things as well.

So yeah – things are good around here and I couldn’t be happier to be part of the team at WebDevStudios!

Managed WordPress Support & Maintenance

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Today I’d like to introduce you to my new service – Maintainn. I’ve been involved with WordPress since 2006 and while I’ve done development/design work I’ve always been involved in the support area. I like support as it gives me a chance to solve problems while also teaching others and I’m good at it so that helps. Over the last year I’ve had this idea floating around about providing a different type of support to WordPress users/site owners, etc and today it’s live. Maintainn is my new WordPress support and maintenance service.

The goal is to provide excellent support to anyone with a WordPress site – on any host. There are millions of sites online powered by WordPress and it’s probably safe to say there are millions of folks needing help. Of course you can get support from your host but mostly this is hosting support only which doesn’t include theme or plugin support and not to mention just help in general with your site or development. This is where Maintainn is different. Think of Maintainn as a one-stop shop for everything related to WordPress support & maintenance. While I know I’m not breaking new ground by offering support and maintenance I do hope to provide it in a new way. There are plenty of sites out there that offer similar services but most you’ve never heard of so having this available from a known and trusted source (as well as having trusted WordPress developers on hand) is something that I hope will be a welcome change.

Maintainn offers security monitoring by Sucuri, daily off-site backups of your WordPress database and file system, automatic updates to WordPress core as well as themes and plugins and custom development. Development time can be used in a few different ways, so you can choose to use your development hours by live chat, a “bat phone” to talk to a trusted WordPress developer or actual development time on your site. Maintainn already has a handful of trusted WordPress developers on board and will be adding more in the coming weeks/months so you know your site will be in good hands.

There is also the question of “My host already provides most of the services you offer” – and for that there are some “development/consulting” packages available that focus strictly on development/consulting time and don’t offer things like backups, security, etc. No matter the need there is a plan for you.

Whether you’re a developer/development shop that needs a trusted source to send your clients after your project is done or you’re a site owner and just need to be in good hands, Maintainn provides that service and makes it dead simple. There is also an affiliate program currently being built for those of you who would like to promote this service – just contact me/Maintainn for details if you’re interested. I hope you’ll give it a try and see how it feels to have your site handled by trusted professionals that know WordPress.

Go spread the word – introductory pricing is in place until the New Year!

Iphone5 – My Review

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So, the iPhone5…

I have to admit I might have used some link bait on the title but I really think this needs to be read. So yeah, I have not received my iPhone5 yet and this is not a “review” as you may have thought – so you can go ahead and browse away now if you’d like.

I woke up around 5am and ordered my iPhone5 for my wife and I on the morning of Sept. 14th. So let’s get this out of the way – I went out of my way to get a pre-order of the phone I’ve been waiting to get for some time. The issue (and reason for this post) is the ungodly amount of people complaining about the ordering process, etc.

I’m following a thread on MacRumors about the AT&T ordering/shipping process. It’s up to over 180 pages of comments currently. Almost every comment is the same story: “I woke up at 1:57am on the 14th and ordered my phone and the website still says ‘processing’, etc”. Same story, different people – and there’s over 180 pages of this, and that’s only the AT&T thread. Granted, some of the posters are folks like myself that get a kick out of it and keep the blood pressure up for the group to keep it going.

We live in a world where the iPhone5 (or any smartphone for that matter) should be considered a privilege to have, not just some “new toy” that seems cool. Think of all of the people/countries that would just like to have some food or water and we’re arguing on who can spend the most the fastest and then gripe because it’s not here quick enough. The problem is that we (myself included) just expect these things and if we don’t get it the minute we think we should we take to the internet to bitch and moan.

I’m sad for society and really sad that I’m part of it as well.