This was an awesome weekend. WordCamp Austin officially came to a close Sunday afternoon after record-breaking attendance and a diverse group of attendees and speakers from all over the planet. Thanks again to the organizers for all their hard work to organize the event. The Austin WordPress Meetup continues to grow each year, thanks to the dedicated work of organizers. Attendees came from all over the Continental U.S., from Portland to Phoenix to Tampa, Florida. But, the “I traveled farthest to come to WordCamp Austin” award goes to one of my favorite developers and bloggers, Konstantin Kovshenin. His transatlantic flight[...]

Today, I’m talking with Alex Vasquez, who is one of the awesome folks in the Orange County WordPress meetup group. That’s one of the most active groups on Facebook, in terms of supporting each other’s work, etc, and Alex is a cultural leader of the local community. Alex is doing the lion’s share of his work with higher ed, helping those institutions do online employee training, online courses, and publishing content. His company, DigiSavvy is a full service, boutique agency, based in Orange County, and serving clients all over. Alex is a Pacific Northwest-born dude, who has made his way[...]

Three weeks ago we held our quarterly “All-Hands” event where every WP Engine employee travels to our Headquarters in Austin, TX for a week to spend quality time together as WP Engineers. Everyone from San Francisco to Philadelphia gathers for a week of face to face meetings and fun shenanigans that help build relationships and strengthen our company culture as we continue to grow. While many of our teams are used to working remotely with each other, regularly conducting meetings via phone or Google Hangouts, nothing can really replace a week of face to face meetings and events. It’s important[...]

Last week, WP Engine was very proud to have The President of the United States, Barack Obama, visit the Capital Factory startup offices. As an Austin entrepreneur, I’m very proud that President Obama chose to visit Austin, and our offices in particular. It’s an exciting time for the city of Austin, as well as for WP Engine, and the President’s visit provides a unique opportunity for us to comment on WP Engine’s approach to job creation. WP Engine has benefitted from the community and resources in Capital Factory for the past 3 years as we’ve grown as a company. Our growth[...]

This guest post is a technical  by Brad Williams, a leading WordPress developer and security expert, as well as a co-founder of WebDevStudios, one of the top WordPress agencies. He is the author of Professional WordPress, and also co-hosts the DradCast. One of the most important steps when writing code, regardless of what platform the code will run on, is making sure it is secure from hacks and exploits. Running a plugin with a security hole could open up the entire WordPress website to malicious hackers. WordPress features some built-in security tools that you should always take advantage of when[...]

Today, I’m chatting with Aaron Campbell, one of the partners and CTOs (yep, Pete Mall is the other one) of Ran.ge, one of the top WordPress agencies. Aaron joined up with Pete and Sara Cannon to solve some of the tough technical problems for well-known brands and large-scale websites. Ran.ge counts PandoDaily, 500 Startups, Venture Beat and Automattic among their clients. Their reputation is doing nothing but grow. Aaron currently lives in Phoenix with his wife and son, where he has plenty of space to be outdoors. “Snob” is a work that fits Aaron’s obsessions with coffee and beer. But[...]

The fourth post in our security series is an in-depth look at the history of the security of WordPress written by Jason Cosper, the head WordPress Expert at WP Engine. Jason has led support teams for 10 years at places like DreamHost, and now at WP Engine. He also has a strong background in Information Security growing up inside the Los Angeles hacker community.  It’s time to clear up the debate once and for all. Despite all the doubts (and some haters), WordPress core is without a doubt one of the most secure platforms you can choose to put a site on.[...]

Yesterday morning our mail provider, Mailchimp, had a bug that triggered a series of WP Engine emails to be sent all at once to a small part of one of our email lists. If you were part of that subset, we apologize for any trouble or inconvenience this caused you. WP Engine values doing our part to keep our customers as close to inbox zero as possible. We have a policy to only send emails when necessary and valuable to our customers. As soon as our team realized the emails were being spuriously sent, and took steps to prevent further[...]

This week, I’m talking with one of the top developers in WordPress, Tammy Hart, one of the excellent design engineers at 10up. Tammy is a pro from the backend systems side, to front-end development, to programming, which is one of the reasons she works at 10up, known for being a top full-service agency that specializes in WordPress engineering. Tammy is one of the awesome folks leading the charge in Birmingham, Alabama. Birmingham is one of those creative cities that has become a mecca for talented tech folks like Tammy. She’s a developer who is obsessed with clean code and intuitive[...]

It’s pretty hard to believe that on May 27th, WordPress will turn 10 years old. That calls for a celebration, don’t you think? The WordPress Foundation has called for local WordPress meetups to save the date for anniversary parties, and we’re helping organize the Austin edition of the party. Since most good parties in Austin, Texas involve lots of barbecue, we’re going to bring some in and celebrate at the Rattle Inn. If you’re within driving distance, please join us! Here are the details: Who: Everyone who has ever used WordPress, or visited a WordPress site (everyone is welcome!) What:[...]