Blog

All the technical and personal posts I've written on this site going back to 2008.

2023

Taking Apart My Space

Another Year, Another Apple OS Upgrade

A New Phone and a New Watch

Preparing for New Tech

Wednesday, 20 September, 2023

Starting to Pack

Friday, September 15, 2023

Preparing to Move and Hoping for Home

We Found a Condo

Friday, 8 September 2023

Where is the Positivity?

My Experience in Testing JetBrains’ IDEs

Time for a Reset

Thinking of Going Back to JetBrains

Time is Growing Short

A Bright Spot

Walking Away

Chicago is Getting Real

Where are all the CMS applications going?

Wednesday, 16 August 2023

Home, I think?

That Would be Amazing

Another Piece of My Childhood is Gone

Code Streaks

A Good Move or a Bad Move?

So Close

A Good Sign?

3 Reasons I Do My Side Projects

More New Features for Kana 0.11.0

A Shortcut for Installing Go Versions

Friday, 21 July 2023

Wed, 19 July 2023

What happened to happy?

More Personal Projects

Finding Focus

Back on Pop!_OS and I’m Loving Linux Again

Announcing gh-backup to Backup your Public GitHub Repos

Learning Something New

Enjoying the Long Weekend

Completely Removing Twitter

Kana 0.10.0 is Live

Can 2023 Just End Already?

Making my Dotfiles Public

Another Birthday

Kana Continues to Develop with 0.8.1

A 3-day Weekend

It’s Time for a Digital Reset

My Tech is Actually Working for Me

I Need to Fix This

I Enjoy Writing Code When I Can

Don’t Forget the Tests

It’s Friday

No more fighting my tech

Progress on Kana

Ivory for Mac

Back to Ubuntu

Back in Florida

Almost “home”

I miss my office

Site Migrations are Hard

Grateful for Friday

The Real Test Begins

Florida really does make me sick

Yes, I over-engineered my office

Is it time for a new WordPress theme?

Could this be failure?

I Miss You Mom

Pausing is Hard

Life is Hard

Another Week is Done

Revisiting My Thoughts on Remote Work

Now with 50% fewer images

The fast pace of change in tech

Hiding boosts in Ivory for Mastodon

Porto, Portugal: Our 1st trip abroad since 2018

Not Today

First impressions of traveling again

Stepping back from the web

It’s time to work together and not be so negative

Mailpit, an updated alternative to Mailhog

New doesn’t mean “more productive”

I’m grateful for local software

The Eternal Project

My post schedule is too rigid

My Mastodon Anniversary

Finding Energy

Announcing Kana 0.6.0

Tuning Out is Hard

So long my friend

It’s OK that I can’t use Linux for everything

Getting Sick

The power to fix productivity

The WordPress plugins in use on ChrisWiegman.com

Use your strengths

WordPress, you’re getting very hard to love

Updating GitHub Profiles with WordPress and Go

My WordPress wish list

Things I will miss from Apple

Design is more than visuals

Still wishing for a better blogging tool

The Perfect Mastodon Client for Me

Code, Ideas and the Future of Kana

It’s time to be simple again

Writing Is The Point

Fixing Networking in Fedora 37 and Docker-compose

Running on Empty

Getting Used To Linux Apps Again

My Obsession With Tools Isn’t Healthy

Back to Work

Thoughts on moving from Ubuntu to Fedora

Hello 2023

2022

Looking Back on 2022

So Many Bad Options

A Tale of Finance Software Woes

Investigate Apple Alternatives for 2023

Ready For A Break

Time To Reduce My Reliance On Big Tech

Kana 0.2.1

Advanced Data Protection is a Great Feature

Ready for the Holidays

Can I Ever Be Happy With My Tech?

A Short Post

Hello Again Linux, I Missed You

A Full Year of 10,000 Steps: Done

Digital Privacy Isn’t Easy

Too Much Apple Is Never A Good Thing

Yes, I Do Have Much to be Thankful For

WordPress Should Embrace the Fediverse

Still Searching for Focus

I need to stop worrying about my tools

The House Is Quiet Again

Managed Hosting is Wonderful

A Long and Valuable Week

A Full Year Back in the Apple Ecosystem

Thoughts On Mastodon and Twitter

Focus is Hard

Two Years Without Beer

100 Book Goal – Complete

Day After Day

Apple OS Updates are Boring – and That is Good

Summer is Back

I’m OK With No Tech Posts

Visiting Family

The Future is Very Dark

Change is Never Easy

Write Because You Love To Write

Will We Finally Get Modern Internet?

We’re Not There Yet

Home But Still Waiting

It’s Time To Move

Waiting To Return

Requesting Hope

It’s Crunch Week and I’m Tired

The Joy of Writing

Finding Enjoyment In Building Software

Announcing Kana 0.0.3

Code Is Never Easy

Shopping For Better Writing Software

Introducing Kana – A Simple and Powerful WordPress Development Environment

Nothing is Forever

Just Push Publish Isn’t Always Easy

I’m Not Getting A New Phone… And That Is Exciting To Me

Grateful For The Holiday

A Few Tricks For Managing a FOSS Project

A PHP (WordPress) Dev Falls in Love with GoLang

A Symptom of My Depression

I Love My Work but I Do Miss Writing Code

All Tech Is Garbage

Let’s Go

Getting Close on a New Project

My Little Escapes

Thoughts on Remote Work

Anxiety Is Hard

Checking In On My Tech

What’s the Point?

Not All Languages Are The Same

Bye Bye Gulp, Thanks for All the Help

Finding Peace At Home

I Want to Talk Again

Adding A New Daily Habit

So Much Time and Nothing To Do

1 Year of Regular Blogging

Meet Kana

Meet Lindy

Meet Pele

Writing Is Hard

If I Built A Large Website Today…

A Week Off Social Media

Social Media Is Not Activism

It’s Time For A Social Media Break

This Month Has Been One Hell Of A Year

The Perfect iPad Keyboard?

Trying Full Site Editing in WordPress

Choosing To Be… Happy?

Another Birthday

Is Winter Coming, Again?

It’s Time To Stop Playing The Game

It’s 2022 and Chrome Still Sucks

Looking Back at My Writing

Summer

The Writing Is The Point

So Much For Modern Technology

60 Books

Writing Code For Me

It’s Time for Help

A Loss For Words

What Is There Besides WordPress?

The Little Things

Back to Work

Keeping My WordPress Index Pages Current

Upgrading My Home Office Studio

Step Away From the Computer

On Vacation

Why Hello Apple, I’m Glad You’re Back On Your Feet

My Life as an Imposter

Do I Need to Upgrade My Home Studio?

My Ideal Tech

Follow Your Twitter List Even If You Leave Twitter

Rethinking How I Use Technology

Finding Motivation to Write

I miss teaching

Don’t Forget To Shop Around

Leaving Twitter for Mastodon is Easy

Finding Community

My Relationship with My Data

131 Days

Always Searching for the Perfect Tech

Creating a Free, Personal Shortlink Service with Netlify

The Pros and Cons of Apple OS Updates

It’s time to start self-hosting (again)

Dreading the Endless Summer

Fridays

Maccy, the perfect Mac clipboard manager

Venturing Out

Wellness Day

So Much Tech and So Little Work

The Impossibility of Minimalism

2 Years

How Much Is Enough?

The Case For WordPress Multisite

Hello WordFest Live

The Futility and Possibility of Tech Boycotts

Why Keep Blogging?

A Welcome Break During Bad Times

The Performance Benefits of a Minimal WordPress Site

It’s Time for a New WordPress Theme

The Perfect Office?

From Study to Action

Adventures in Programming

Is it time for a hiatus?

Writer’s Block or Burnout

There Should be More to Normal than Escape

Three Months Soda Free

Hello February

Hosting Your Email Simply and Safely

Enjoying the Season

No More Analytics

Finding Home

The Perfect Phone Does Not Exist

7 Years

Installing Node LTS with The Latest NPM using NVM

One Year With iPhone

My Relationship with the “Internet of Things”

15 Years of iPhone

Digital Spring Cleaning

A “Senior” Title Should Mean Something in WordPress

Hopes and Dreams for 2022

2021

So Long 2021

Using PHPCS with Homebrew On MacOS Monterey

The Ultimate WordPress Development Environment

Merry Christmas

Finding Your Groove as a Remote Worker on Vacation

Tweetbot vs Twitter – Which is Better?

Usability, Privacy and the State of My Tech

The Future of This Site in 2022

Does Gutenberg Work For You?

I am Thankful

Generating New Blog Post Ideas

There are Many Paths In WordPress

Regular Blogging – 5 Months Later

Bye Bye Dev Work and Hello Engineering Management

Travel Is Stressful

My Office – 2021

Happy Thanksgiving

Jetpack’s WordPress.com Stats – A Clarification

Back to WordPress. com [Jetpack] Stats

Making My Peace With Gutenberg

WordPress is Just Software… and that’s OK

Thoughts on Building a Fitness Habit with Technology

Welcome Back, Fall

generator-wp: A WordPress Project Generator

First Impressions of My M1 MacBook Pro

Now For The Real Diet Challenge

The Year Without Beer (For Real)

Easy Content Security Policy (CSP) Headers for WordPress

Three Projects For When I Have A Laptop Again

Stepping Back From NextDNS

Blog Comments Are Hard

Running An Update Function In Your WordPress Plugin

Back to Mac

The Travel I Dream of The Most

Please Stop Hiding wp-admin

Privacy or Accessibility… Most People Can’t Have Both

A Great Big Planet… and Nowhere To Go

Announcing Atlas Content Modeler

Homesick

Opening Common WordPress Tools with Makefile

Privacy vs Security

The Many Communities of WordPress

Why Are You Still In WordPress?

Do You Know How Your Blog Is Licensed?

Development Is More Than An Internet Search

Managing Projects with VS Code

Yes, A College Degree is Still Worth It

My Development Toolbox – 2021

The Perfect Notes App

Don’t Push Publish… Yet

Thoughts On My Blogging Schedule

Plausible Analytics for WordPress: A Review

VS Code Extensions for WordPress Development

Apple is No-longer A Safe Option

Why Visual Studio Code

Cleaning Up Docker Conflicts and Leftovers

The M1 iPad Pro, Three Months In

Why Static Site Generators Aren’t for Blogging

Will I Go Back to Linux

Comments are Back

Finding What Application Is Running on a Given Port

Three Uses For Make in WordPress Development

Returning To Simple Apps

Learning React Fast

Using Parameters in a Make Target

The Changing WordPress Ecosystem

Linux or Windows or Mac, Oh My!

Automating WordPress Development with Make

Blocksy vs GeneratePress

Building a Blogging Habit

Fixing Lando Crashes in Docker Desktop

It’s Time for a New Site

My New Normal

Two Weeks With the iPad

Creating A Minimal WordPress Theme In The Era Of Gutenberg

Delete All Installed Homebrew Packages

iOS 14 vs Android 11: My Experience Using Both

Back to iPhone

Relying Entirely on a Single Tech Ecosystem is Bad… But Don’t Just Take My Word For It

Will I Buy an M1 Mac?

Choosing A VPN To Protect What Matters

2020

Hindsight is Always 2020

My Adventures in Leaving Big Tech – A Status Update

Trusting Lando SSL Certificates in Firefox

My Development Toolbox – 2020

Hello WordPress, My Old Friend

Privacy Empathy and the Zero-Sum Game

Homebrew Is the Missing Package Manager for Linux

Getting Started With a Full Featured WordPress Plugin Environment

My Principles for Tech Perfection

Configure Your DigitalOcean Firewall With a Dynamic IP

My Struggles With Tech Are Not New

Why I Can’t Recommend Linux to Others

Limiting My Exposure to Surveillance on Android

How and Why to Setup NextDNS for Your Home

I Have a New WordPress Site

My Blogging Workflow With Hugo

Leaving Big Tech Behind Take 2

Remote Work Tips From a Career of Remote Experience

Moving This Site to Netlify

The Road to Sustainable Tech

Running Nextcloud With Docker and Traefik 2

2019

Looking Back on a Decade of Progress With an Eye to the Future

Keeping Docker Containers Updated

Setting Up Private Website Analytics With GoAccess

Protecting Your Docker Socket With Traefik 2

Travel and WordCamps and Conferences Oh My

The Real Cost of Leaving Google Behind

How I Mostly Removed Google From My Life

Serving Your Docker Apps With HTTPS and Traefik 2

Leaving Big Tech Ecosystems Behind

Anonymizing Nginx Logs

WordCamp Orlando 2019 Recap

Tools of the Trade 2019

It’s Time for a New Site

On WordPress and Mental Health

Product vs Agency vs In-house in WordPress

The Simple Struggle

Ensuring the File Path is Present to Create a File in GoLang

3 Lessons for a PHP Developer Working in GoLang

Gutenberg… I’m Loving It

WordPress: It’s Still More Than Code

First Thoughts on the Samsung Chromebook 3

Hello 2019, Here’s to Better Habits and Less Stress in the New Year

2018

From Mac to Linux – First Impressions on a Major Workflow Shift

Rethinking My Social Media Use

My Tools of My Trade – 2018 Edition

So Long Primary Vagrant

A Developer Looks at 40

Google Fi and Pixel… 5 Months Later

Stop Autoplay Videos in Google Chrome

Goodbye 2017 and Hello 2018: Goals, Hopes and Spoiled Plans

2017

Why I Worry About Net Neutrality

Standardizing Our WordPress Plugin Development

Experiments With Gravity Forms and Secure Data Storage

What is Your Threat Model?

Securing Your WordPress Logins with Jetpack and WordPress.com

Making FitBit Work for Me: How FitBit Really Has Made Me More Fit

From Apple to Google (and more): My Adventure in Escaping the Apple Ecosystem

Pixel 2 XL vs iPhone 8+: A Week of Using Both

HighEdWeb 2017: That’s a Wrap

My Tools of the Trade for 2017

3 Reasons Why I Don’t Write More

WordCamp London 2017

Becoming a Professional Developer Is More Than The Latest Library

2016

A Review of 2016 with a Preview of 2017

Escaping Late Doesn’t Require Escaping Often

Reflections of a WordPress Developer

Vagrant is Not The Answer For Everyone

I Have a Voice

Onward and Upward

Why I’ve Stuck With WordPress

Accessing Elasticsearch Remotely through Vagrant

Debugging Google AMP

The Year Without Beer – My Progress So Far

My Tools of the Trade: 2016

Getting Media on Your Local WordPress Site

Thoughts On Our First Year At Home

The Year Without Beer

2015

WordCamp US 2015: Make WP-CLI Work For You

Sanitization is for Translations Too

Frog on a Chair

WordCamp US – That’s a Wrap

Don’t Use PHP’s Mkdir in WordPress

Handling HHVM Crashes with NGINX

My Development Toolbox – 2015

Moving On To New Endeavors

2014

This Site is Finally All HTTPS

WordCamp DFW 2014

WordCamp Providence 2014

Why I Sold Better WP Security

What Does HTTP Mean?

Speaking at WordCamp Maine

NAMS – Some Thoughts On A New Experience

Sublime Text to PhpStorm – Why I Switched

Successes and Failures of a Large Free Plugin – WordCamp Miami 2014

3 Thoughts on WordCamp

Keeping Track of wp-config.php Information Across Different Environments

Where to Get the Best WordPress News

WordCamp Austin – It’s the People!

Getting the Correct IP Address With PHP

Announcing Better YOURLS

Introducing Primary Vagrant

What Happened to Better Google Tasks?

My Development Toolbox – 2014

Beginning Backbone.js

2013

Virtual Machines… The Holy Grail of Local Web Development

WordCamp San Francisco… That’s a Wrap

Add Social Media Icons To Your Site Without Images

3 Tips For Protecting Your Social Media

But I Thought there Were No Core Bugs in WordPress?

Remove the Default style.css in WordPress with Genesis

5 Ways To Tell If Your Website Has Been Hacked

Adding a Widget Area After Your Post In WordPress and Genesis

Website Security Is More Than Just Prevention

Bye Bye MAMP Pro, Hello AMPPS

Excluding a Category from your WordPress Homepage

Bit51’s Development Tools – 2013 Edition

Notes and Observations on WordPress Security

Securing WordPress – The Full Video of my 2012 WordCamp Austin Talk

2012

Protecting Your Site From the Perils of Free and Open Wi-fi

Is It Time To Revisit Jetpack for WordPress?

When Will Your Website be Responsive?

3 Website Problems You Don’t Even Know You Have

Add Code To Your WordPress Posts With Crayon Syntax Highlighter

Follow Friday: 3 Developers Who Can Help Make Your Summer Productive

Add A New Image Size To WordPress

How Often Should You Blog?

Debugging WordPress

How do you handle writer’s block?

The 3 Most Neglected Parts of Any Website

5 WordPress Plugins I Can’t Live Without – 2012 Edition

Step Away From Your Computer

Stop wp-cron (WordPress cron Jobs) From Firing on Every Page Load

WordPress Plugin Developers: Clean Up After Yourself

Customize The Genesis Author Box in WordPress

Customize WordPress Login Page Logo

When Will You Upgrade To PHP 5.4?

Does Your Blog Have Too Many Features?

Gender in Social Media, the New Divide?

Redirect Your RSS Feed to FeedBurner

3 WordPress Plugin Developers I Trust

How Many Social Networks Should You Publish Your Blog On

My Web Development Toolbox – 2012

5 Reasons This Site Runs On WordPress

Customize the Contact Info Fields in WordPress Profiles

One Simple Way To Secure WordPress

Using SSL With MAMP PRO 2.x

Facebook Bug Lets Anyone Edit Your Page

Adventures in Monetization

Customize Your WordPress Dashboard in 10 Seconds

2011

Drupal vs WordPress – Which is right for you?

Why You Shouldn’t Care About PageRank At All

So Long Coda, Hello Espresso

3 Lessons on Accessibility For Blogs

My #heweb11 Top 5

What Is The Best Way To Install A WordPress Plugin?

FastCGI vs suPHP vs CGI vs mod_php (DSO)

Never Publish Anything Immediately

Shared Hosting vs VPS vs Cloud vs Dedicated Server

3 Ways Your Host Can Effect Your SEO

The One Thing You Must Do For Your Site or Blog

How to Open an Apple Pages or Keynote Document on Any Computer

5 Google Services Your Website Needs (even if you don’t)

3 Speedometers For Your Website

How to Properly Redirect Your Domain With or Without www

5 Places Where QR Codes Can Work For You

Changing File Upload Size Limits in WordPress Multisite

The Importance of Following The Right People On Twitter

5 Ways Aviation Helped Me Become A Better Developer

The Limits of Unlimited Hosting

Tools To Grade Your Website

Professionalism in Social Media

Web Languages For Non-techies

Google’s Second Class Customers

What Is The Best Programming Language To Learn 1st?

The 3 Most Important Ways To Keep Your Website Safe

Overcoming Social Media’s Shortcomings

There Is More To SEO Than Meta Tags

5 Tools For The One-Man (or Woman) Web Show

5 Signs Your Social Media Expert Isn’t What They Say They Are

Joomla Joins the 21st Century With Rapid Release Cycle

How to Get LiveFyre to Work With Studiopress Focus/Genesis

Hosting on Amazon AWS – My Experience and Some Tips

A Lesson On Backing Up Before An Upgrade

Drupal vs Joomla via Another Metric

Prepare Your WordPress Theme To Be Minified

Your Blog Doesn’t Have To Be Your Career

A Worthy Digsby Alternative for Mac

Don’t Forget the Details

Analyze Your Site’s Performance With Google Page Speed Online

Web Development Should Not Happen In A Bubble

10 Things I Love About Google

Why Every WordPress Site Should Have Zemanta

10 Things I Hate About Google

Why Your Small Site Needs Caching

Don’t Lose Your Focus

QR Codes Aren’t Just Your URL

10 Web and Social Media Tips for College Students

5 WordPress Plugins I Can’t Live Without (2011 edition)

14 Practical Ways to Increase the Security of Your Website

Social Media Shouldn’t Be A One-man Show

CMS Success in Unlikely Applications

Drupal 7 vs Joomla 1.6

2010

WordPress Caching: Super or Total

Installing mod_pagespeed On Individual Sites

When The Ax Man Cometh – An Excellent Piece on Higher Ed Live

Experiments with mod_pagespeed

PHP 5.3 – Finally Ready For Primetime

Thoughts on a Flash-free Mac

Changing the Default Theme on WordPress 3 Multi-site

Higher Ed Web Dev – Boom or Bust

Higher Ed Live – a Cool Resource for Higher Ed

Higher-Ed vs The Private Sector: It’s the mission stupid!

iPhone 4…yawn

Running Apache+FastCGI+Suexec in Ubuntu 10.04 without /var/www

PHP 5.2 on Ubuntu 10.04

Using a Custom wp-signup Page With WordPress MU

Experts Earn Their Title

5 Things I’d Like To See In 2010

2009

Windows 7, A Redeeming Quality or Two on Another Failed OS

Windows 7 – It Still Sucks

Reflections on the New iPods

5 Reasons Everyone Should Blog

Why I Won’t Waste My Time On Windows 7

10 Applications for All Web Developers

Why I Tweet

What to look for in a website host

5 Lessons New Web Developers Should Learn

From Vista to Linux (It was a lot easier than I thought)

2008

2 Weeks With a Mac (After 15 Years With Windows)

10 Apps I Couldn’t Live Without

Are those rain clouds?

IDEs for web developers

Linux Development on Vista

5 Reasons Why Free Software Can’t Replace Everything

Some Thoughts on Blogging