Over a series of 8 videos, watch and learn as Ryan builds an entire ExpressionEngine website from beginning to end. Get started now.
This is a on-going series of entries where I highlight EE experiences.
We’re happy to be listed on @EllisLab’s Community page. We’re in good company with @eeinsider and @eeciconf. http://t.co/SePXHjQvx5 #eecms
— devot:ee (@devot_ee) July 30, 2013
Posted on Jul 30, 2013 by Ryan Irelan
Hey pros! Are you in the new Pro Network?
It soft relaunched today after being shuttered by EllisLab 8 months ago.
The new Pro Network currently features 93 ExpressionEngine professionals who have demonstrated they meet the minimum requirements. The Pro Network isn’t currently open for new members but you can review the rules and guidelines for inclusion in the network.
A Professional Network listing is available to those engaged in full-time web development who have a minimum of one year experience utilizing ExpressionEngine, or that have provided targeted products and services for ExpressionEngine for at least one year.
Unlike past years, you don’t have to prove that you have completed a specific number of websites in EE but only that the “majority of your work comes from ExpressionEngine.” That would be hard to measure and, for some larger companies, near impossible to meet (unless the goal is to keep the Pro Network filled with smaller shops).
There is now a cost to join the Pro Network: $40 for freelancers and $100 for organizations. Is that enough of a barrier of entry for only the most serious? If the Pro Network is successful at driving qualified leads then I think it could and should command 10x that price.
All in all, great to have the Pro Network back!
Posted on Jul 30, 2013 by Ryan Irelan
Aaron Gustafson snapped together a nice plugin to easily implement the jQuery Asynchronous Image Loader (JAIL) in your EE templates. JAIL is a “jQuery plugin that lazy load images making your page load faster.”
Aaron’s JAIL plugin (available for free on Github) is a simple tag pair that “will hunt for any image elements inside the tag pair and convert them to use the JAIL markup pattern.”
Add Your Comment
Share on Twitter{exp:easy_jail:prep}
{body}
{/exp:easy_jail:prep}
You might want to bookmark this. Very handy.
Read Aaron’s write-up about the plugin.
Posted on Jul 25, 2013 by Ryan Irelan
Someone recently asked me why I never wrote about the controversial blog post by EllisLab wherein they ill-advisedly call out a competitor for competing.
I decided not to write about it because I didn’t want to put the energy into something that ultimately didn’t help people use ExpressionEngine. I’ve done that before and it was a disservice to the readers. There’s plenty of punditry on Twitter.
Posted on Jul 25, 2013 by Ryan Irelan
Developers: new preview build sent out for #eecms 2.7.
— EllisLab (@EllisLab) July 22, 2013
It’s the second one, if I remember correctly, so that probably means we’re getting close to the public release.
I look forward to updating to the previous release.
Posted on Jul 25, 2013 by Ryan Irelan
A sizable update to the Pixel & Tonic’s WYSIWYG editor, Wygwam, is out and available. This released features an update to the CKEditor core (it’s what Wygwam is built on), additional third-party compatibility, and an updated UI.
From their blog post about the release:
With each major Wygwam update, we try to simplify the UI as much as possible so that authors can focus on their content without getting distracted by overly-attention-seeking UI chrome. This update is no different. We are extremely happy with how this one came out – it’s truly a joy to use. You and your clients will love it!
The update is free (as in you pay nothing) for all current Wygwam license holders. You can get the update at Devot:ee.
Posted on Jul 25, 2013 by Ryan Irelan
Managing ads, measuring activity and analyzing ad statistics can feel like a black art, especially when using advertising services that introduce a fair amount of complexity. But it doesn’t need to be that complicated! Carl Crawley joins this week’s EE Podcast to de-mystify ad management and measurement, and discuss why he chose a more simplified process for his AdMan add-on.
Carl details how AdMan manages ads in ExpressionEngine, the types of measurement it provides and how some of his clients are using it, including combining it with other analytics services like Google Analytics. Carl also shares his plans for future add-on development and his thoughts on EllisLab’s recent announcement about third-party add-on devs. Tune in now!
Thanks to Converge Florida for sponsoring!
Posted on Jul 25, 2013 by CTRL+CLICK CAST
Posted on Jul 25, 2013 by Ryan Masuga
This is a on-going series of entries where I highlight EE experiences.
Got beer money from the other side of the planet for finding a bug in Matrix and sharing the fix. #eecms peoples are the awesome / @ajweaver
— Iain Urquhart (@iain) July 17, 2013
Posted on Jul 19, 2013 by Ryan Irelan
I’ve been a lurking fan of this site for a while now. StevieSnacks is run by Anthony Stauffer and offers free and paid courses on blues guitar playing. It is, of course, named in honor of the late, great Stevie Ray Vaughan.
The site appeals to me for several reasons beyond the fact that it runs ExpressionEngine. I like seeing how people teach something I don’t know (I’m not a guitar player), I enjoy researching other paid training business models, and I like to see how those training courses are produced (Anthony has high production values for his videos).
According to this tweet, StevieSnacks runs on using Pixel & Tonic add-ons.
Want to learn blues guitar Texas style? Check out StevieSnacks.
Posted on Jul 19, 2013 by Ryan Irelan
Posted on Jul 18, 2013 by Ryan Masuga
EllisLab is hiring an additional Customer Advocate to help support their products. The job means helping EllisLab customers with their issues and questions with ExpressionEngine. You do need to have some ExpressionEngine experience (obviously), so experienced people only need apply.
You will be interacting with the best of web professionals on a daily basis, helping them troubleshoot and solve issues related to building, developing, and maintaining websites using ExpressionEngine. In addition to being experienced with ExpressionEngine, you are familiar with basic concepts behind CMS software and understand how websites are built.
Here are the perks:
EllisLab provides health benefits and 401k, work from home, flexible personal time, computer/software allowance, and absolutely no being micro-managed by cubicle super-villains.
This is only for people who are legally allowed to work in the United States.
Learn more about the position and how to apply.
Posted on Jul 18, 2013 by Ryan Irelan
The EE Podcast will record its 100th episode in the coming weeks and I’m excited to be the guest on the centennial edition of the show.
I started the EE Podcast with Dan Benjamin back in 2009 and handed over the reigns to Lea and Emily a couple years later. As I’ve mentioned before, they took the podcast and made it better. It’s been rewarding to see it grow.
The 100th episode will be out on August 8, 2013 and is currently titled “Episode 100 Celebration!” I need to remember to bring my party hat.
Tune in and listen!
Posted on Jul 18, 2013 by Ryan Irelan
Angie Herrera of 420 Creative joins us for Get to Know #eecms! We chat about her recent speaking stints at EngineSummit and Peers, discuss her designer-developer origin story, and talk about recent EllisLab announcements.
Posted on Jul 11, 2013 by CTRL+CLICK CAST
Posted on Jul 11, 2013 by Ryan Masuga
Posted on Jul 07, 2013 by Ryan Masuga
Eric Lamb is the developer of professional and enterprise grade ExpressionEngine add-ons. Founded in 2009 Eric’s company mithra62 aims to be a leader in ExpressionEngine add-on development and has a reputation for stability, usefulness, and being highly configurable. Check out Eric’s popular ExpressionEngine add-on Backup Pro.
I just got back from the first, of what I truly hope will be many, Peers Conference in Chicago a couple days ago and my head is still swimming with all the awesome I absorbed. While everything’s still fresh in my head I wanted to put together a breakdown of my trip, as not only a presenter, but also a huge fan of conferences in general (regardless of my role in them).
If you’re not familiar, Peers Conference isn’t a platform specific conference like the ExpressionEngine Conference or WordCamp; Peers Conference is much more diverse and comprehensive to the web developer at large. It’s put on by the extremely talented and charismatic Jessica D’Amico and it lived up to its name in every sense. Peers felt like the entire conference was full of people I either greatly respect and/or admire who were completely open to sharing their knowledge and experiences.
Peers Conference was held at the Chicago Cultural Center in downtown Chicago from June 26-28. This is one of the most beautiful venues I’ve ever attended a conference at much less visited as a presenter. Words really can’t do it justice; I strongly urge everyone who’s unfamiliar to spend a couple minutes and just click through those 2 links above and absorb the scenery. Simply gorgeous.
After some initial bumps getting into Chicago I checked into my hotel and immediately hoofed it to the speakers dinner (an hour late), held at a really tasty Mexican restaurant called Zocolo. It was exactly what I needed. Good food, wonderful and strong margaritas, and lively conversation among friends. The perfect way to start unwinding from the reality of daily life and into the conference mindset.
The first day of Peers were the workshops. These were essentially classroom style settings where all us attendees heard lectures on the ins and outs of the elegant PHP library Laravel from the creator Taylor Otwell and the new CMS, Craft, from Pixel & Tonic.
As a PHP developer, the Laravel workshop was something I was really looking forward to. I’ve long had a fascination with Laravel but just haven’t had the time to dig into at the level needed to own it as a resource so hearing the gospel straight from Taylor’s mouth was amazing. My head is still running wild with the possibilities this amazing framework offers. Things like unit testing, closures, and other advanced PHP functionality coming back into my life, after a couples years stuck in PHP limbo with CodeIgniter development, has me plain excited. It really is an elegant framework.
The other workshop, “Build a website with Craft”, was put on by Brandon Kelly (with some impressive tech support from Brad Bell) of Pixel & Tonic where he walked everyone through the process of setting up a website with their new content management system Craft. Brandon’s a really good teacher, had assignments and everything, and it was quite easy to follow along and see the beauty in Craft. It’s easy to see that creating sites with Craft is going to be a treat for us and our clients.
After the first days workshops Jess had an amazing treat for everyone; a catered party to an old school video arcade with an open bar called Emporium Arcade Bar (Best. Name. Ever). More though, to ensure the safety of everyone (because drinking and a new city can be a real problem) she worked out a deal with Uber to provide transportation to and from the event. She even added a cherry on top with a sweet idea of having each car setup with a presenter so the attendees and speakers can get to know each other. Very classy in my opinion (though, I was more impressed with my passengers than the other way around).
The second day was when the various tracks, “Developer” and “Business”, started. This is a trend I’m really happy to see become adopted in conferences more and more. The basic crux is that there are more options available to attendees by having a variety of topics running concurrently. So, if you don’t want to hear about X you can always go watch Y or, sometimes, even Z. Really, the only downside is when multiple talks are interesting but scheduled at the same time and you have to make a choice. Peers had that awesome problem.
For example, right off there were 2 talks from 2 amazing speakers. Taylor Otwell was back, talking about Laravel for the CodeIgniter developer, and Chris Newton (from CartThrob) talking about shaking things up for your company.
Since I was there for Taylor’s workshop the day before I had to make the tough call and go watch my buddy Chris drop some knowledge. I’ve seen Chris do a couple presentations and they’re always entertaining and fun and this time was no different. Very funny and full of insights on how to get momentum back in your company when things start going wrong.
After Chris’s presentation I decided to watch Anna Brown talk about her trials dealing with some insane performance issues with a HUGE ExpressionEngine site instead of Alan Branch’s talk titled “Allocating Your Time for More Revenue”. I heard from those that went to Alan’s talk that it was really good but Anna’s talk is right in my wheel house, being about performance and hardware, so I had to check that one out.
This site’s just plain crazy. Tons of complicated data sets stored in an ExpressionEngine site and a client who just wouldn’t let up on the edge cases and WTF scenarios. Frankly, it’s a wonder she’s still sane. She’s clearly a resource to utilize if you have ExpressionEngine issues. Also, EngineHosting appears to be just bad ass at hosting these types of sites and keeping them up.
The Statamic workshop came after Anna’s talk. This was just like the other workshops in format (devs show how to use their tool) though obviously about the CMS Statamic and given by those developers. (BTW, how cool is it that every workshop at Peers was given by the developers?)
Unfortunately, I had some weird biases against Statamic (that I’ve since learned weren’t accurate) so I didn’t attend. I did get to talk shop with both Fred and Jack (name dropping!) afterwards though and can’t wait to dive into it in the next couple weeks.
The last event of the day was the “Roundtable Discussions & Peer Review”. This was essentially an event where attendees could work 1 on 1 with another developer and talk about anything. Seriously. ANYTHING. It had started out as a pretty formal “schedule a time” style thing but ended up being much more informal and social (though still focused on problem solving tech issues). I think with a little more announcement this could be a real treat at the next Peers Conference. Still, lots of fun even listening to others problems and solutions.
Whoooo! Blackhawks!!! Whoooooo!!!1! Hockey Rulze!!!! Whooooo!!
That was Friday morning in Chicago. Not. Bad.
Having grown up in Los Angeles, where the sports celebrations are heavily regulated and regimented (read: boring), this was a sight to see. Literally millions of people out on the streets of Chicago showing their support and love for their home hockey team. Yes, it made getting to the venue first thing in the morning frustrating, but that was a small price to pay to see something like that in my opinion (and looking back on it from home).
The first talk on Friday (and last day of Peers) was probably one of the most profoundly touching and moving presentations I’ve ever witnessed at a technology conference. Greg Baugues, of Table XI, talked about the elephant in the room of technologists with his presentation titled “Devs and Depression”.
As the title suggests, Greg’s talk was all about his experiences dealing with depression (personally and professionally) and how it is truly a problem in our industry more than most. The similarities between his experiences and others in the industry were striking and really hit me right in the feels. Depression and metal illness is something we should all be aware of and he really made a great case. It’s unfortunate that, with the parade, not everyone was able to see it but, hopefully, he’ll continue giving it at other conferences.
After Greg’s talk I had to start preparing for my talk so I sat the next few sessions out. Being a programmer, design does not come naturally to me so I obsess over things like my slides a bit more than I should. There’s a lesson there I think…
I’m pretty of disappointed I missed them though since they were all developer centric and really interesting topics. Greg Ferrell talking about building a Craft add-on and Phil Sturgeon discussing Composer would have been especially useful to me specifically but, considering my front end and Git skills aren’t as pro as they should be, Rob Sanchez’s and Trevor Davis’s talks would probably have earned me more money in the end.
My talk went over pretty well I think; had my slides all done with pictures and words (in English even!) and everything. Can’t really be subjective about it though so you’ll have to hear from others about quality or usefulness. Still, the overall theme was to be aware of the problems inherent in our choices. Use a CMS, know what performance bottlenecks you’ve setup so when issues happen you’re not caught unawares. Build a patchwork system; better know the issues you’ve laid out for yourself. Etc.
After my presentation, Angie Herrera had her presentation about finding balance in our professional lives. Not something that comes easy to most of us. I had never watched Angie speak before but she’s quite charming and clearly put a lot of thought into how to stay happy while working. Of course, I had to miss Adrienne Travis talking about Stash and all the usefulness that offers.
Lodewijk Schutte (Low) closed out Peers Conference with a really good “think talk” asking why we work and what we work for. Very thought provoking and interesting idea: what are we doing all this for and why?
Overall, Peers Conference was a wonderful experience with tons of notable speakers and topics. I walked away energized and ready to attack the challenges of this neat little industry we live and work in. I can’t wait for the next one.
Posted on Jul 02, 2013 by Eric Lamb
In an upcoming release ExpressionEngine will support New Relic, an application monitoring service.
New Relic gives you all sorts of juicy data about your website and web application (in this case it would be ExpressionEngine). It can also do PHP application monitoring and measure response time, throughput and other server information.
From the EllisLab blog post announcing the upcoming support:
ExpressionEngine will soon be bringing out-of-the-box compatibility with the popular application performance monitoring service New Relic. We’ve been using the service ourselves and find it incredibly useful and oftentimes enlightening. With no need to install a module or add any tags, ExpressionEngine will automatically detect if New Relic is enabled in your PHP environment and provide you with a wealth of useful information.
If you’re unfamiliar, New Relic gives you a look into all aspects of the full stack of your site’s performance, particularly at the transaction level.
Do you already use New Relic and want to give input into the features of the New Relic API that ExpressionEngine will support? EllisLab wants your input and feedback. See the blog post for more details.
Posted on Jul 01, 2013 by Ryan Irelan
This is a on-going series of entries where I highlight EE experiences.
This is a special edition covering some more reactions to the EllisLab blog post about competition and Pixel & Tonic.
Being an outsider to the #eecms stuff, it was weird to see how a blog post could upset such a nice community of people all at once.
— Fred LeBlanc (@fredleblanc) June 29, 2013
uh… #eecms
— Jack McDade (@jackmcdade) June 28, 2013
Expressionengine punishes addon maker for creating rival CMS http://t.co/q0GVBtX1oz
— hnfiltered (@hnfiltered) June 29, 2013
#eecms Module maker makes CMS; CMS maker ups their modules. In a Daffy Duck voice, say ‘Of coursth you realize thisth meansth war…’
— HollandJim (@HollandJim) April 18, 2013
Whatever the validity of their motivation, feels like EllisLab has merely shined spotlight on perpetually playing catch-up. #eecms
— Mark J. Reeves (@circa1977) June 29, 2013
Wow. Hats off to @EllisLab for not pulling any punches! #eecms http://t.co/bXO4GEHrf3
— Chris Dowson (@myfirstraygun) June 29, 2013
Posted on Jun 29, 2013 by Ryan Irelan
Here are some reactions from Twitter to the EllisLab announcement about Grid and competition:
Great move by @EllisLab today. Well written post too regarding ethics. http://t.co/COZlEM7MIh #eecms
— Michael Roling (@michaelroling) June 28, 2013
Save $120 today but do we all lose tomorrow as other devs take to the hills and growth of the pool of add-ons slows? #eecms
— Damien Buckley (@damienpbuckley) June 28, 2013
OK @EllisLab is working, but plz cover what I can't get - robust forum, members w/multiple groups, etc. What youre doing is covered! #eecms
— Todd Richards (@wbdzynr) June 29, 2013
For a CMS that was only set apart because of @brandonkelly’s FieldFrame, #eecms seems to only want to “innovate” where he’s already been.
— Christopher Kennedy (@onebrightlight) June 28, 2013
Despite the announcements made today in the #eecms feed I have some money to go make using it so Twitter I say good night
— Justin Long (@RealJustinLong) June 28, 2013
Sigh… not sure I can be bothered with all of this. #eecms
— Christopher Imrie (@chrisimrie) June 28, 2013
Have a reaction you want to share? Let me know or leave it in the comments.
Posted on Jun 28, 2013 by Ryan Irelan