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Plugins are a great way to add functionality to a website. Most WordPressers have a list of preferred plugins they use. Can’t Speak Geek has their own list. I try to take the minimal approach to plugins. If one can have more features that I will use I tend to go with the multi-taskers instead of the uni-taskers.

Can’t Speak Geek’s Top 10 Plugin List for 2015

1. iThemes Security: This is the first plugin that goes on every site that I build, maintain, or consult on right after the install is complete. Depending on your needs I personally choose the Pro version but the free version is great to. I enjoy the added features of Pro but have used the free version on many sites. Security is crucial to a website. One can take the measures now or pay to have a site cleaned later. I once wrote a review about iThemes Security. You can find it here.
2. Akismet: This little jewel comes with the core files when you install WordPress. If you plan on letting your readers leave comments, Akismet is a great tool to aid against spam comments. Plus it is built by Automattic so there is an added comfort there.
3. BackupBuddy: One of the very few plugins I do pay for. BackupBuddy from iThemes makes a backup of my website and my database of every single one of my websites and sends it to my Amazon storage vault every single day. I will always have a backup of my website if the server breaks or my site gets hacked. BackupBuddy is very inexpensive for peace of mind every night.
4. Jetpack by WordPress.com: My absolute favorite all in one plugin. Jetpack is the mother of multi-tasked plugins. I use the Monitor, Publicize, Sharing, Contact Forms, and much more of Jetpack’s awesome features. Earlier I wrote a review on how much I love Jetpack. You can find it here.
5. WP Optimize: No one likes a messy database. WP Optimize runs once a week to take off all post revisions, spam comments, transient feeds, and other unnecessary garbage off my database. I set the schedule when I downloaded it and now it runs on its own.
6. Genesis Simple Edits: When it comes to themes, I am a Genesis girl. I heart them. What I do not heart is a login button at the bottom of my website, but I only code when I have to. Genesis Simple Edits gives me the freedom to make adjustments to the footer and entry meta. Great plugin and easy to use with no coding needed.
7. iThemes Sync: Rounding off my iThemes plugins is Sync. This beauty has been a great timesaver for updating plugins and core. It also has an option to unlock users who have been blocked with iThemes Security. Best part is that it is free for up to 10 WordPress websites.
8. WordPress SEO: Content is king and SEO is the master. WordPress SEO by Yoast is the best plugin ever for content creation that is SEO friendly.
9. All In One Favicon: This is another “I do not want to code so there is a plugin for that” type of plugins. I know how to make a favicon but this is just easier. The plugin has a picture uploader. Once a picture is uploaded, viola it is a favicon.
10. Canva: Instead of paying for graphics, I make my own. Canva gives me the opportunity to make simple graphics in the WordPress dashboard. It is a great plugin for when I am writing a post quickly and do not want to hunt or make a very detailed graphic. It is very easy to use. They do have some premium stock pictures you can use that are $1 but it is not necessary to use them.

I know everyone has their own idea of what are their favorite plugins. Talking to others about what they use is how I found about half of these that I use now every day. What plugins do you use? What is your number one plugin?

 

Disclaimer: All views made in this post are viewpoints of the author. No plugin companies or authors had any influence in the writing of this post. If you still have questions, please contact the webmaster.

Many times I am asked who do I use for hosting. In 2014 I played musical hosting companies until I settled on SiteGround. I have now been with them for almost a year.

I decided to go with their Start Up plan at first just to test them out. The Start Up plan is only for one website and is their basic plan. I always choose to run a basic plan with a new company to test out the waters. The starting company that I was using I had two sites on the server but I only wanted one of the sites moved over to SiteGround. I gave them all of the information for the site I wanted moved. I did inform them that there were two sites but to leave the other one on the old server. About a day later I received an email saying that the site has been moved and everything was great. When I checked they had moved the wrong site. I got on their chat support and talked to one of their techs. He was super helpful and retook all of my information again to make sure everything was correct and said that he would pass it to the department that works on moving websites. Yes, I do know how to move a website but I wanted to see how well this new hosting company was going to stand with the other companies. Another company I had tried before SiteGround moved the wrong site twice, hence I am not with them anymore. That took a total of 4 days to realize they would not be a good fit for me. The next day I got an email saying that everything was moved and the site had populated. When I checked, they had moved the right site and everything was perfect. They even updated the server paths so there were no errors on the site.

Fast forward eight months and I got an email from SiteGround saying they have a deal going that if I want to upgrade to the Grow Big plan so I can add more sites to my shared hosting that I could so at a discount. I decided to take them up on the offer and I moved two more sites over to SiteGround. One site moved over with perfect colors and one not so much. Again, I contacted support through their website and was helped within less than a minute wait time. They were super helpful and got the site up and running while on the chat.

I run Jetpack’s Monitor on all of my sites so I am made aware when my sites go down and when they come back up. Rarely ever have any of my sites on SiteGround have been down and none of them longer than about an hour. Typical downtime has been 1-3 minutes. In the past year the sites have been down a total of 5 times. Their up-time has been the best out of the 5 companies I have been with.

When it comes to customer support, I have seen very few companies that have the level of customer service that SiteGround has. More companies could do well by copying their customer support model. When using the online chat it is never more than a minute wait time. I am always greeted by my name. No one is ever rude or disrespectful. All of the technicians have always been eager to help and will finish a ticket or escalate it to make sure my needs have been met. It is a rarity when a customer can not say any negative about a customer service department but I have nothing but praise for SiteGround’s customer service.

Should you choose SiteGround?

Bottom Line: There are so many hosting companies out there to choose from. I am very happy with SiteGround.  By far they have proven themselves to be a great company and will continue to get my business. If you would like a great hosting company with a great record of up-time and great customer service I would definitely give SiteGround a try. Always do your research before choosing a company to host with.

 

Disclaimer: No company is paying for this product review. The contents of this post is the views of the author. They have no connections with any hosting company. Please contact the webmaster with any questions.

Last weekend I had the pleasure of speaking on beginner’s WordPress for the folks at the San Antonio WordCamp. It was their first ever WordCamp even though you would not have known. They put together a great day with great food, better sessions, and the best people you could talk to. With it being their first WordCamp they got a lot of people new to the WordPress community. It was great to see all the eager to learn faces and to hear the chatter of what they were wanting to do and learn.

When doing a beginners talk there is such a broad range of beginners. There are the ones who know how to do basic things on WordPress but do not know how to code or edit more outside of simple theme edits. Then there are the ones who have heard of the CMS but do not know the difference between a page and a post or what widgets do. These are the type of beginners I love to teach. This beginners talk was a mix of both types of beginner’s and it was really a fun talk. I wish I could have went longer to have been able to answer all of the questions.

With my takeaways from WordCamp San Antonio I have decided to start uploading my slide decks from previous talks to Can’t Speak Geek. I have also decided to do some tutorials on WordPress to help out the beginners. We were all beginners once upon a time. At the bottom  you will find my “From Zero to WordPress” talk that I did in San Antonio. If it ends up at WordPress.tv I will add the link in the future.

 

I one day asked my grandfather why he has multiples of the same tool. He told me “If ever I lose one, I know I will always have another.” That should also ring true with everything you keep on your devices.

Many years ago I had purchased a new laptop and gave my mom my old one. With the laptop I gave her a copy of all my pictures I had saved through the years on there. I also added a copy of them to my laptop. I however did not inlude a copy of my music on the old laptop. I only trasferred it all to the new. About three weeks later my house was broken into and my brand spanking new laptop was one of the items that were stolen.

I was devistated. I was more than devistated. So much of my music was hard to find stuff that took me years to accumilate. I cried. I had John to try to see if we could dig it up off the old computer. That did not work. I was at a loss. Thank heavens I did make a copy of all my pictures or all of the kid’s baby pictures would be lost forever.

I learned a lot from that experience and I hope that never happens to myself or anyone else ever again.

There are some things you can do to prevent this catastrophe and that is backup everything you might want later.

What information should you backup?

After loosing important music files, I now backup everything. Any files you can save on your computer can be backed up and saved someplace else. All music, movies, pictures, home movies, family budgets, homework, and much more can be saved in multiple places. The pictures and videos on your phone and tablets can also be backed up. There are no more worries about not being able to save that great picture of the beautiful sunset your Aunt Marcie texted you of their trip in Mexico.

Where should you backup your information?

One of the more popular at home storage devices is the external hard drive. An external hard drive can be wired or wireless. A wireless or network enabled storage drive can be accessed by any person on the network by its password. I back everything up to my personal external wireless hard drive.  I back everything up to it and often. For one, if anything was to happen to our house, one external harddrive is easier to grab than two PC towers, three laptops, and other devices. Personally, the bigger external harddrive you can afford the less of them you will have to buy in the future. We are now in the process of buying another.

I also have a portable external harddrive that hold my pictures only. Pictures are the one item that crushes a heart if they are lost. It also makes life easier when the grandparents are wanting a lot of pictures becuase I can just let them copy off the portable instead of trying to send multiple emails of pictures. A portable harddrive is like a big USB flash drive. They are a handy tool.

For smaller files that you want to backup and have ease of transport, a flash drive or a media storage card is always a great choice. You can now get them from 1GB to Kingston now offers a 1TB flash drive. They are great for carrying files between work, school and home. I see many people

Online, there are many options of cloud storage. All that I have found has a small free version and a pay-for version that is bigger storage. The most popular being Dropbox. I also use Bitcasa. What cloud based storage to use is up to preference. I have more than one that I use but that is primarily due to what each is used for. Most can be used on mobile devices so you can use them across the platforms. The best thing about using cloud storage is that it is not stored in your house. In the event something happens to your home, all of your files stored in the cloud will not be damaged because they are stored on the cloud servers. Another great advantage with cloud storage is you can access your files wherever you have an internet connection.

There is also what is now concidered the old school way. You can still save everything to CD and DVD disks. Anymore, the only time I use disks is to put pictures on for customers. I am not a fan of this method anymore but many still prefer it.

How you back up your information is your choice. My main advise is to backup everything and back it up often.