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Taking Tech Writing To The Next Level

By on May 17, 2011 in Techinch, Writing

The internet is an amazing place. I live in a small town in Thailand, and am originally from Knoxville, TN and the Dallas, TX area. Through all the differences between the places I call home, one thing’s the same: the internet. Facebook, Twitter, and chat may be incredibly easy ways to kill time, but for me, they keep me connected to all of the parts of the world I’d like to be in. I’m currently finishing my degree from a college I’ve never actually been to, and have been blessed to work with colleagues around the globe that I’ve never met in person.

I started out writing about technology on my first WordPress.com blog, and then shortly thereafter started writing for Labnol.org, a blog from the talented Amit Angarwal in India. I then began writing for Howtogeek.com, a Virginia based site that’s started by Lowell Heddings with contributers today from around the globe. Then, I started writing for Envato’s AppStorm.net network, which is based in Australia but is about the most global company you could imagine.

This month, I’ve been privileged to take a larger role with the AppStorm.net team, as I’m now the official editor of Web.AppStorm.net. I’ve enjoyed writing about the latest web apps there over the past months, and am very excited about the new opportunities as the editor. We’ve got an amazing team of contributors from around the world, and it’s always comical to look at my Skype list and see the multitude of time zones represented today.

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Readability | A Bookmarklet Grows Up

By on March 30, 2011 in AppStorm, Writing

The newest app to help you keep up with articles you’d like to read, Readability started out as a bookmarklet to clean up articles online. It’s grown up now, with a full-blown HTML5 mobile app so you can read offline from your browser.

Check out my full review at Web.AppStorm

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VaultPress | Painless WordPress Backup

By on March 29, 2011 in AppStorm, Writing

My review of Automattic’s new VaultPress WordPress backup service is now published on Web.AppStorm. Short version: it’s the best backup service I’ve touched, period.

Techinch.com is now backed up with VaultPress, and it’s so much better than other WordPress backup solutions it’s not even funny. Now with Jetpack bringing all the other Automattic addons to WordPress, and Akismet keeping spam out of our comments (including the very odd comment spam we get daily advertising Bing and the Zune…), we’re all set!

Read the rest of my VaultPress review

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Reviews on the AppStorm Network

By on December 10, 2010 in AppStorm, Writing

Looking for more good reviews of apps you might want to try out?  In addition to my How-to Geek writing and posting reviews and tutorials here, I’ve begun writing articles for Web.AppStorm.net and iPhone.AppStorm.net.  These sites contain exclusive reviews of webapps and iOS apps, respectively, covering only the best apps in each category.

I’m excited to be working with the great teams at each of these sites, and have already written over a dozen articles between the two sites.  Just like I do with all of my writing, I’ve been regularly tweeting my new articles as they’re published.  If you’d like to keep up more directly with my writing at these sites, you can find my articles at the links below:

Additionally, sometime in 2011 I’ll be updating Techinch’s theme to include tumblog style posts.  Once that’s done, you’ll start seeing link posts to any new articles I write around the web.

I hope you find my articles interesting and helpful.  If you ever have a program, webapp, or iOS app you’d like to see reviewed, or something about tech you’d like to see explained better, feel free to contact me or leave a comment anywhere on the site.

Happy Reading!

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WordPress Plugin Reviews on WPBeginner

By on November 12, 2010 in Featured, Other Sites, Writing

Would you like to take your WordPress powered sites to the next level with advanced WordPress plugins?  Recently I reviewed two of my favorite pro plugins for WordPress on WPBeginner.com, a great site to help you get started with WordPress.  Here’s a quick summary of the reviews, but be sure to click through and check them out on WPBeginner.com if you haven’t already read the reviews.

Keep Your WordPress Content Safe with BackupBuddy

Most of us backup our computers, emails, and more, but if you’re just getting started with blogging and running your own site, you may have never thought about needing to backup your website.  You could always export your database and download each individual file from your site weekly, but this would be time consuming and difficult.  BackupBuddy is a great plugin from iThemes that makes it dead simple to keep your site backed up.  It’ll backup all the files and posts on your site, saving them on your server, on a remote FTP server, or in the cloud with Amazon S3.  Then, if tragedy strikes and your hosting company goes AWOL, you can quickly restore your entire site in minutes using BackupBuddy’s restore tool.  I use BackupBuddy with Amazon S3 to keep all of Techinch.com’s data secure, and highly recommend it.

Checkout the full review on WPBeginner.com

Make Your WordPress Site Mobile Friendly with WPtouch Pro

As mobile devices become more popular, more of your blog’s traffic will come from mobile devices.  Unfortunately, it’s often difficult to view full-sized sites on smaller screens, and it wouldn’t make sense to code a new app for your site just to make your content accessible on a mobile device.

That’s where WPtouch Pro comes in.  It’s a WordPress plugin that converts your site into a great iOS style interface when you visit it with a modern smartphone.  WPtouch Pro includes tons of options to let you customize the mobile site however you want, and will soon be getting updated to support iPads as well.  My WPBeginner.com article gives you a good overview of how the plugin works and how you can use it, and then check back here at Techinch soon for more customization articles about WPtouch Pro.  I’ve been switching Techinch over to WPtouch Pro, and will be sharing what I’ve done to customize it so you can put it to good use on your site!

Checkout the full review on WPBeginner.com

Doing More With WordPress

Do you have any more WordPress plugins you’d like to see reviewed?  Feel free to drop me a note and let me know!  And don’t forget … if you want to learn more about WordPress, you should definitely check out the Digging Into WordPress eBook.  It’s a great resource that will teach you how to manage your site, write new themes and plugins, keep your content secure, and more.

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