Why You Should Never Ever Use Vistaprint

On Tuesday, November 9th of 2010 I placed a small order for some personal checks from vistaprint.com. The reason for my order was both obvious and not so obvious. Obviously I had run out of checks but I also really really needed new ones due to my upcoming settlement on a home on November 30th. Since Vistaprint had given me a 50% off coupon upon changing my address via the Postal Service I thought that I would give them a shot.

Boy was that a mistake.

The first trouble occurred when I tried to explain to them that I needed my new checks delivered to my mother’s address. They explained that sending the checks to an address different then the one on the actual check would be some sort of security breach and was not possible. Apparently they didn’t get the whole part about me MOVING.

I finally settled on buying a small amount, 25, and getting my mom’s address on them. No biggie, right? I placed my order and chose a shipping rate that would get my checks to me by November 23rd.

November 23rd has come and now gone. Its November 24th and, having checked with my mother, have still not received my checks. What to do? House settlement in less than a week!

I just got off the phone with Vistaprint and, after a discouraging conversation with their telemarketing rep, have not had my issue resolved. The woman told me that their website calculates shipping rates based on calendar days but in the “checking world” their dates are based on business days. Are you freaking serious? You can’t build a website that can accurately tell me when my order is going to be coming? And the icing on the cake… they have absolutely no way to track my shipment because they have no tracking number for it! What kind of hodge podge business are they running?

Needless to say, I am discouraged. They offered to refund me my order as well as expediting an order to me that would arrive in 7-10 days (oooh, but is that calendar days or business days? They’re probably not even sure) which is NO HELP.

I will never ever be using Vistaprint again and no else should either!

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WordCamp Philly 2010

Re-imagining higher education as an open source community with WordPress and BuddyPress

Munir Mandviwalla

  • Temple University was once the largest user of Blackboard
  • Now trying to use WordPress as a way to engage professors and students in a democratic and social environment
  • Students have permanent accounts with ability to make online e-portfolios
  • Are encouraging open source development on the higher education front

Taking Over the World With Custom Taxonomies

Sean Blanda

  • Co-founder of TechnicallyPhilly.com
  • Why use taxonomy? SEO, $$$, organization
  • Three types: tags, links, categories
  • Now have people and company taxonomies
  • Simple Taxonomies plug-in allows you to create a custom taxonomy (no crazy hand-coding as previously needed)
  • Can make custom page templates for different types of taxonomies
  • Justin Tadlock website has great posts about custom taxonomies
  • Taxonomy templates: more information on WordPress Codex site
  • WordPress.tv has videos on WordPress

Making WordPress Work AT Work

Doug Stewart

  • Making WordPress work behind the firewall
  • There are a number of plug-ins available to replace all types of systems within companies

Twenty Things a New WordPress User Should Know

Jim Doran

  • Speaker Site
  • Speaker Twitter
  • Presentation Link
  • oEmbed
    • Built in to WordPress
    • Can directly paste a YouTube link in to the post and WordPress automatically embeds it
    • Works for Vimeo, DailyMotion, blip.tv, Flickr, Viddler, Hulu, etc.
  • Slug is the URL part of the category
  • Don’t duplicate tag names and categories
  • Can compare two revisions
  • Don’t want to ever mess with the WordPress core
  • Themes: monotone is cool, as is p2
  • 2010 theme replaces the Kubrick theme in WordPress 3.0
    • Well-commented code to learn from
  • Child themes: use “Template: twentyten” as a line in the header of the CSS file
  • Good plugins to use
    • BuddyPress
    • SEO-All-In-One_Pack
    • Akismet (free for non-profits)
    • bbPress (in the works)
    • Custom-Post-Type-UI
    • WP Super Cache
    • Anthologize
  • Use as few plugins as possible
  • Custom menus
  • Always upgrade when WordPress asks – keeps you up to date with security

WP E-Commerce

Justin Sainton

  • Speaker Site
  • Speaker Twitter
  • First version came out in 2006
  • Originally was a very very buggy plugin that is recently becoming more stable and useful
  • Alternatives: Shopp, osCommerce, magento, YAK, eShop, e-commerce themes, etc.
  • Example sites: Brooklyn Slate Co., International Fleeces, CitySurf
  • New version coming out: 3.8
    • Custom post types & taxonomies
    • Uses less custom tables so it takes less of a hit on your server
    • Tax system completely overhauled
    • UI overhaul (products, categories, variations)
    • Almost 200 filters/actions
    • WP themes
  • More info? Getshopped.org
  • Remember that this is a platform with hooks (actions/filters)
  • Chances are, if you can conceive it, you can build it in WP and WPeC
  • Integrates with Authorize.net
  • Questions? http://slidesha.re/bzj19L

Spooky WordPress: Disturbingly Brilliant Uses of WP

Brad Williams & Brian Messenlehner

  • Co-founders of WebDev Studios
  • Think outside the box
  • WordPress can be used for anything!
  • apps.facebook.com/autophotobook/
  • http://collabpress.org – task management plugin
  • http://rolopress.com – contact manager theme
  • http://getqualitycontrol.com – simple ticketing system theme

Productivity 101: Making a Easily Redeployable Dev Environment with Subversion

Ryan Duff

  • No good clients for Mac supposedly; I will have to investigate myself

What’s Next for WordPress 3.1

Andrew Nacin

  • andrewnacin.com
  • 3.0
    • No longer just about making blogs but more about making sites
    • Custom post types
    • Multisite
    • CMS
    • Twenty-Ten
    • Custom menus
    • Custom backgrounds
    • Custom headers
  • Turn WordPress.org in to 3.org
    • Handbooks: split the codex in to two parts
      • 1. 5 curated handbooks; move away from a wiki and more towards a curated resource
      • 2. API reference
    • Plugin directory improvements: how do you know it works, how do you pick a plugin, ratings system, etc
    • Theme reviews: themes are now being audited for proper code
  • 3.1
    • Refinement release
    • Internal linking: link from one post to another
    • Admin bar (especially for multisite version)
    • Post formats: a way for themes to build on top of WordPress similarly to custom backgrounds and custom headers; themes can specify what they support
    • Theme search: make it easier for you to find exactly what you want
    • Incremental improvements
    • AJAX goodness: going to the next post etc doesn’t require a page refresh
    • Network admin: make multisite easier to use
    • Custom post types: custom post type archives, where they show up in the menu, etc.
    • Taxonomy queries: can make multiple taxonomy queries
    • UI & UX always
    • Coming in December 2010
  • 3.2
    • Moving to PHP 5.2 (developers rejoice)
    • Plugin: Healthcheck will check your php version and inspect your server
    • bbPress as a plugin: forums on WordPress by WordPress that’s being reachitected; forums in a box
    • BuddyPress: social networking in a box; bbPress can plug right in to BuddyPress
    • WordPress.tv: view all different videos from WordCamps and other help videos
    • Mobile
      • WordPress for BlackBerry
      • WordPress for iOS
      • WordPress for Android
      • All of the mobile apps are open source
  • The WordPress Family
    • BYOTOS: Bring your own terms of service
    • You own your content
    • Open source
    • GPL: general public license
  • Freedom is guaranteed
  • The freedom to run the program for any purpose
  • The freedom to study how the program works, and change it to make it do what you wish
  • The freedom to redistribute
  • The freedom to resdistribute
  • The Bill of Rights
    • All WordPress people should be loyal to this
  • The WordPress Founadation
    • Always be free!
  • Have fun breaking WordPress
  • That’s what I call quality assurance
  • Support and documentation
  • UI team (meets on Tuesdays)
  • Core development
  • Evangelism: go back and talk to your friend about WordPress
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Penn UI Conference Day 2 (07/22/10)

This post is a continuation of my notes from the University of Pennsylvania’s UI Conference. Notes from Day 2 are below.

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Penn UI Conference Day 1 (07/21/10)

The past two days I had the pleasure of being an attendee at the University of Pennsylvania’s UI Conference. Many famous speakers were in attendance and overall it was the same, if not better, than the Web App Masters Tour I had attended not long before. Here are the notes from the two days.

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WordPress Demystified (06/29/10)

These are my notes from June 29th’s PANMA event on WordPress.

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