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Working With Memcached in WordPress

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In the early 2000s, LiveJournal dominated the blogging world. While known as a pioneer in the world of online communities, many may not be aware that  its creators are also responsible for one of the most important caching technologies currently powering the web: memcached (pronounced “mem-cache-dee”). Memcached is the caching engine behind Facebook, Twitter, and, a favorite at 10up, WordPress.com. Even though memcached is a stable and mature caching system, it has subtle nuances that can make it difficult to tame. Given that our work at 10up frequently involves development within memcached environments, we have become quite familiar with the ins and outs of the tool. In this article, I share some of my insights, cautions and thoughts on developing in a memcached environment.

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Slides: Enterprise Class WordPress

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Updated 9/16/2012 with the latest version of the deck, presented at WordCamp Los Angeles.

Here are my slides from Enterprise Class WordPress – a talk I debuted at WordCamp Orange County last weekend. Like What Would Core Do?, the focus was on big ideas, not code. I found this difficult to formulate, largely because it involves a complex “problem” that’s more human than technical, and as such, requires a lot of generalizing. I do think that the underlying ideas are important to WordPress’s growth, and I’d like to see the conversation percolate. I plan to refine the talk and explore this with other communities and at other camps – starting with Boston. Please chime in with ideas!

See you at WordCamp Milwaukee!

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In an unexpected, but certainly delightful turn of events, I will be speaking at WordCamp Milwaukee next weekend! As some of you may or may not know, my family is from Milwaukee and I lived there for a few years, so I’m really excited to not only attend, but speak at the city’s inaugural WordCamp.

WordCamp Milwaukee will consist of three tracks: User, Developer, and Unconference. I’ll be speaking in the User track and delivering my “WordPress Can Do That” presentation. My talk will focus on showcasing some of the amazing sites running WordPress, profiling unique front-end user experiences and the custom backend publishing interfaces that make managing these sites a breeze.

If you’re in the area or plan on attending the event, feel free to ping me on Twitter (@jessjurick) if you’d like to meet up!

WordCamp Seattle 2012 Recap

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The WordCamp Seattle organizers had great foresight when they chose last weekend for their 2012 event at the Seattle Art Museum. Not only did everything turn out perfect, from the weather to the venue, but 10up’s entire Portland contingent was able to make the trip.

We had an excellent time mingling and meeting likeminded folks and were impressed with the quality of sessions offered in all three tracks. I think the only regret is we weren’t able to attend them all.

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Join us at WordCamp NYC 2012

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I am excited to announce that Jake, Helen, and I will be speaking at WordCamp NYC 2012 – which we’re also sponsoring – on June 9-10. This will be my first time to speak at a WordCamp. Jake and Helen are old pros.

In Jake’s presentation, he will be asking: “What would core do?”, and challenging you to keep asking yourself the same as you add your themes and plugins to WordPress. He will show you how to extend core “with class and consistency”.

Helen will be talking about: “Making Plugins and Themes Disappear into the WordPress Admin. One of the best things about WordPress is its beautiful admin UI.” Helen suggests, “We should take advantage of what is built-in and also strive to have our additions look as though they are native.”

I will be talking about: Actions and Filters in Core JavaScript. As JavaScript becomes an ever more important part of the WordPress admin, knowing how to use these JavaScript hooks will become as essential as knowing PHP hooks.

If you are in the New York area, come see us. We would look forward to meeting you (or seeing you again).

Sponsoring WordCamp Boston 2012

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WordCamp Boston has a very special place in my heart, as I helped organize the first camp back in 2010, and then made it the first event that 10up would sponsor back in 2011. We’re excited to be repeating our Silver Sponsorship in 2012. You can expect to see 3-4 members of team 10up at the event, and, hopefully, at least a few of us speaking. With a first class organizing team behind the event, one of the biggest meet ups in the country behind it, and a good old New England passion, you can expect this WordCamp to be every bit as amazing as the prior two!

Team Rep and Community Things

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About a month ago, Jane Wells posted surveys for various WordPress contributor groups, including one for core code contributors on wpdevel, in an effort to begin getting them more organized and select team representatives. I’m very excited to have been chosen as one for the core contributors group. We’ll be aiming to have regular cross-group chats and an in-person summit sometime in the near future. This is very exciting, not just for those of us representing the various groups, but for the community at large. Some of the things that I know I’m looking forward to are more communication and collaboration across groups (e.g. UI and accessibility, core development and documentation) and encouraging more people to contribute in whichever way suits them as the WordPress ecosystem continues to grow.

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WordCamp Orange County: Enterprise Class WordPress

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I’m looking forward to meeting the Orange Country WordPress community in a few weeks (June 2-3) at their upcoming WordCamp, where I’ll be speaking.

Having taken the “fine-tuning administration” series as far as I can go (Hijacking WordPress Admin, Editing the Visual Editor, and What Would Core Do?), I’m turning my attention to another topic that’s near and dear to me: WordPress as an enterprise caliber content management solution.

There’s no question that WordPress has won the hearts and minds of the publishing industry, with everyone from the New York Times to TechCrunch embracing the platform. And WordPress is used by many huge business organizations, non-profits, and government entities – but usually, for microsites, a blog, or another “piece” of their publishing solution. WordPress still faces resistance from many big institutions in many verticals when it comes to that “enterprise CMS” need – the content management system that’s at the core of the organization’s online presence.

At 10up, we’ve had some big successes helping large organizations adopt WordPress as their central CMS, but we’ve also seen huge prospective opportunities ultimately shy away because of lingering hesitations about WordPress’s suitability to the enterprise class title. Some of the concerns are legitimate worries about its functional suitability to issues that only concern huge, international entities. Other concerns are more organizational – can huge companies use a CMS owned and managed by an open source “community”? Is WordPress a CMS meant for the million dollar project?

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WC SEA 2012: There’s a Function for That!

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On May 19th, I will be speaking at WordCamp Seattle. My talk is entitled: “There’s a Function for That: Doing More for Less with Core Functions”. It is exciting to have the opportunity to geek out about some of the hidden gems in WordPress Core.

I plan to curate a plethora of interesting, obscure and powerful WordPress functions to give them the attention and love that they need. Drawing from my experience with complex WordPress projects, I will introduce developers to exciting WordPress functions. WordPress Core has had so many brilliant developers contribute to it. Part of those contributions have led to an extensive catalog of powerful functions that are waiting to make developer’s lives easier. I hope to shed light on these functions to make developer’s work more agile, allow developers to do things the “WordPress way,” and help contribute to the cannon of poetic code in the world.

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Attending WebVisions Portland? I’ll be joining Lorelle VanFossen’s panel session to discuss the “insider stories, tips, tricks, and techniques” that we use to make your website awesome both inside and out. We’ll talk about all the emerging web technology buzzwords: HTML5, responsive, and CSS3 plus exciting ways WordPress can be extended and tailored through plugin and theme development. I look forward to meeting you there!