I’m finally going for my first ever WordCamp. Not only I am attending, but I’ll give a talk as well. In WordCamp Singapore, you will hear me talk about the advantages of utilizing WordPress hooks. How they can massively help pushing features into a large codebase/theme become almost a cinch. When is the best time to add a hook and where you can usually best place a hook. Ultimately, I hope to give you an idea on how actions and filters work in the WordPress ecosystem.

Please checkout the WordCamp Singapore site for other amazing talks and schedule — https://2016.singapore.wordcamp.org/

For those who missed the live-stream of WordCamp Europe 2016 or missed several talks, you can watch the recorded videos right in the #WCEU 2016 official website.

http://2016.europe.wordcamp.org/schedule/track-1-livestream/

First time I joined the event, although virtually, but I had a ton of learning out of watching several speakers talks. It’s amazing to know how these super talented people collaborate for this beautiful thing called WordPress to grow.

If you can’t watch all the videos, I suggest these topics a.k.a the ones I’ve watched:

• Making Ads Great Again by Adam Silverstein
• Code is Poetry: A Musician’s Tale by Helen Hou-Sandi
• Art Directed Web Typography by Marko Dugonjić
• WordPress State of Accessibility by Rian Rietveld
• The Ultimate REST API (2 parts) by Joe Hoyle
• Inheriting Large and Legacy Projects by Andrew Nacin
• Using REST API and Javascript to create better WordPress Interfaces by  K. Adam White
• My condolences you’re now a maintainer of a popular open source project by Daniel Bachhuber
• Modernizing WordPress Search with ElasticSearch by Taylor Lovett
• Contributing to WordPress for Business, Profession & the Community by Kel Santiago-Pilarski
• Of course, don’t miss the Q&A with Matt Mullenweg.

Honestly, I think almost all the talks are worth watching. I’d definitely go back and watch those that I missed.

  
Getting started with Panasonic Lumix DMC-LX100. View the photos published on VSCO. 

Sometimes it’s not what you know, but who you know.

It suggests that sheer talent or even honing your skills aren’t enough. You gotta go out there and get connected with people that would take you toward the direction of where you’d like to see yourself to be.

When someone comes to apprentice with me, I’d like them to make a two-year commitment and not work outside of Red Rider, because I think it takes that amount of time to go out and paint decent signs.

Showing up for two years even you feel like there’s nothing could come out of it. I’m not all about how after 2years you’ll be making so much money but it’s more on having to accomplish what you you’re trying to be best at.

Read up on Norma Jeanne Maloney: From Truck Driver to Complete Creative Control.

I’m not sure when was the last time I touched this WordPress plugin but nonetheless, i’ve finally got some time to work on several updates. And below are the list of changes that you’ll find in 1.1.0:

• Compatible with ACF 4.4.6 and ACF Pro 5.3.7
• Prevent class conflict if this plugin is already added directly in your plugin/theme.
• Fix: Prevent style being printed in JSON export

You know the drill when an update is available 🙂

WordPress 4.5 is coming up! Peruse this guide for the developer-focused changes  https://make.wordpress.org/core/2016/03/30/wordpress-4-5-field-guide/.

Pay attention to Backbone and Underscore being updated. Might break your scripts (e.g Add button in media library #35853), so make sure to test your code. While you’re at it, it’s even better to test other parts of your plugins and themes with the rest of the changes included in this release. 🍷

Last Saturday night, the big family got together and my uncle mentioned about my brother being free spirited. I was extremely curious and have been wondering since then.

Being free spirited…it did ring a bell with me as I’m not sure if I am free spirited yet. Im not actually sure how does someone becomes free spirited. What I know is my brother knows what he wants to do and dont give a dang care about whether he’s right or wrong, and the fact that he ain’t got any responsibility in our family, not because that’s what I feel but that’s what really it is, might mean something about he’s aura of being free spirited?

I can’t help after that but think if untangling oneself from any responsibilities make him/her free spirited?

I somehow agree to that.

In retrospect, in my elementary years I felt like I was free spirited. No responsibility and no pure pressure. Mostly fun. Surely, that could might be it — it could be the feeling  of knowing your self completely, going after things while completely ignoring any consequences. You just do and feel it.

If those are the case–then I’m not yet one of them. No, something in the process of growing up made me not one of them anymore.

There’s a huge difference between merging master into feature and merging feature into master. So please for those who’s starting learning git – don’t ever make the mistake I made. Don’t disregard the use of --no-ff. In my case, I didn’t disregard it completely, though. I missed adding the flag as I perform git in terminal.

One easy way so you’ll never have to type it again and run the risk of missing it is update your global git config:

git config --global merge.ff false

When merge.ff is set to false, this always creates an extra merge commit, thus it is equivalent to adding --no-ff flag.

One golden use case:

When you revert to your merged IN master, this commit reference is the one you revert to to pull out the changes from your feature.

I am feeling quite frustrated and tired right now. I have experienced one of the most poorly strategized events in my life.

After recieving the notification of flight cancellation, I could’ve either (a) proceed with rescheduling to 10am (the earliest flight available from the airline) and find a cheap hotel near the airport to get sleep; or (b) request a refund and book another flight with the earliest and cost effective departure date, which I tried looking and there’s one. When i realized these options, I was too late. This is what I get for settling with what’s being given and coward enough to try unexplored options.

On top of that, I over value money and overlooked my well being. I thought I have saved by not going anywhere no matter what the circumstances. Because exiting the airport means taxi rides and expenses. I thought I have saved by sticking to what I have paid for the airfare and thought that should be the only cost and no more. But I don’t think I saved at all. In fact I’ve wasted so much energy and prevented my already tired body to catch up. And it’s going to take its toll tomorrow. I get the picture!

And these donuts that I have for home, I hope they’re hanging in there as much as I am. 

I failed to balance cost and comfort. I truly admit that. I’d be damn if there’s a part 2 of this exact event in the future. Plus the coffee is kicking in in this wee hours–begetting this post.

Following the guide How To Downgrade Droplets, I have successfully downgraded my server in Digital Ocean. As every other guide, the scenario is almost always not exactly the same so I did my part of researching to resolve issues that have arised along the way.

I’d like to note important things tailored to my needs that the guide never mentioned.

• Export the database manually. The guide only covers copying of the files, not the database. When you have the exported file, use it to bring back the database into the new/smaller droplet.
• Re-install openssh-server if you encounter close connection.
• Purged and re-install mysql when couldn’t connect to local MySQL server.
• Indeed, pay attention to warnings when reading!!
• Overused command ssh-keygen -R [hostname]:port

My expertise isn’t lie on system or server administration but I certainly enjoy doing this stuff every once in awhile. But man, it’s hot. Don’t play with it unless you’re ready to get burned!