Sridhar Katakam's BlogSridhar Katakam's Blog

10,000 Posts in iThemes Builder Forum and counting…

Sridhar Katakam — Sat, 16 Jul 2011 09:21:07 +0000

I bought iThemes All Access Pass on 1st April 2010 along with StudioPress, Headway and Catalyst (then Frugal) with the idea of starting a WordPress based website setup freelancing service business and be able to quit my day job. At that time I was working as Principal Solution Consultant (started as UI Design Specialist) at SAP Labs India Pvt Ltd. My job involved building demos using a Adobe Flex framework for prospective clients. Even though I had no real problems with that job, it was getting routine and I did not find it interesting any more.

I tried all the WordPress frameworks and realized how Builder makes it real quick and easy to create any kind of site, thanks to the superb layout manager. I felt that while Catalyst and Headway offered a lot of options to set up things visually, they were geared more towards newbies who were not comfortable with CSS. There’s nothing as awesome as Builder if you know CSS to create websites, especially for doing PSD/HTML to WordPress. The first time I used Builder my thoughts were like “Wow! Why did I not use this before?”

I started taking active part in Builder forum and helping other folks with their questions and if I remember correctly was given a part-time offer to continue what I was doing but as a paid job within a month. I enjoyed solving what are mostly CSS questions and the satisfaction I would get to see others build/fix their sites was a lot more than in any of my earlier jobs. In the past I worked as a Teaching Assistant in Vibrations and Dynamics of Machines Lab, as a book boy in library, as a recruiter (night job) interviewing candidates in US from India, as web master at Sum Total Systems.

I quit my day job and joined iThemes in full capacity as support moderator on 6th December 2010.

Here are a few points to consider for anyone thinking about taking a support job in WordPress industry:

Be genuinely interested in helping others. You can’t work as a support person if you treat your role as just a job and something which you do because you have to do. I am usually online most of the time from 6 am to 10 pm every day including weekends (when support is supposed to officially take off).
Be very good at CSS and Firebug. You don’t have to remember the div structure or classes and IDs. Use Firebug. The single most typed (I actually have set my text expander to do this for me) sentence in my 10,000 posts thus far is: “Add the following at the end of child theme’s style.css:”
Make your life easier by writing extensive documentation. It does not make sense to type the same thing over and over when you can simply point the users to a already existing FAQ entry.
You don’t need to know how to write PHP. But you should be able to read, if not 100% about 50% PHP.
How do you know if the support job is right for you? Simple, do it for free for a month or two and you will know it yourself. Spend time in WordPress IRC channel (#WordPress), help folks in WordPress forums, take up WordPress jobs.
Google is your friend.

For young people working in MNCs (IT industry) in India: If you not working as a manager and don’t have any plans of becoming one, learn WordPress and take up a career/business in WordPress. WordPress = Money. There are so many ways of making money with WordPress. You can set up sites for others, you can create sites and sell them, you can take up a support job, and if you have got the coding brains – can create plugins, you can design themes if you are the visual type person with graphics skills. You will realize how less you have been making as a software engineer if you enter the WordPress field and see the infinite power in it.

I want to say thanks:

to my wife for supporting my decision to quit a stable day job that I was doing for more than 5 years. It is not a common practice for folks to work from home here in India.
to Cory Miller for recognizing my potential and offering me a job at iThemes.
to Ronald for being my virtual big brother. If I need guidance on any work related aspect, he is always there.

Natural Vision Guides Niche Review Template Now Available in WordPress

Sridhar Katakam — Sun, 23 Jan 2011 02:08:25 +0000

One of November 2010′s Niche Review Template on reviews of best guides on Natural Vision is now ready in WordPress format.

Live Demo: None yet.

If you would like me to set up a copy of this on your domain, buy/sign up at Niche Review Blogs.

Public Records Niche Review Template Now Available in WordPress Format

Sridhar Katakam — Fri, 21 Jan 2011 07:27:15 +0000

One of October 2010′s Niche Review Template on reviews of best sources of Public Records is now ready in WordPress format.

Live Demo: http://www.publicrecordssearch.co/

If you would like me to set up a copy of this on your domain, buy/sign up at Niche Review Blogs.

Tinnitus Remedies Review Template Now Available in WordPress Format

Sridhar Katakam — Fri, 21 Jan 2011 06:57:07 +0000

One of October 2010′s Niche Review Template on reviews of best guides on Tinnitus remedies is now ready in WordPress format.

Live Demo: http://www.thetinnitusremediesreview.com/

If you would like me to set up a copy of this on your domain, buy/sign up at Niche Review Blogs.

Personal Dental Care Site

Sridhar Katakam — Fri, 21 Jan 2011 03:46:53 +0000

I built a niche site on personal dental care in the past. Got a chance to clean it up yesterday.

Created a sales page for it at http://sridharkatakam.com/personal-dental-care-site/

Keyconfig in Firefox

Sridhar Katakam — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 15:58:10 +0000

I am always on the look out for tools and techniques to reduce the number of clicks and typing. Keyconfig + functions for keyconfig add-ons are essential for any power user that wants to increase their productivity.

A note regarding functions for keyconfig add-on: As of this post it can’t be installed in Firefox w/o forcing compatibility. Go here to learn how.

If you are not using Keyconfig add-on in Firefox, you are really missing a lot. It’s a great time saver and makes you navigate your way around in Firefox much quicker.

Below are the keyboard shortcuts that I use in Firefox, thanks to keyconfig.

Action	Keyboard Shortcut	Code
New tab	t	BrowserOpenTab();
Close tab	c	BrowserCloseTabOrWindow()
Prev tab	a	f4kc_PrevTab();
Next tab	s	f4kc_NextTab();
Go back	z	BrowserHandleBackspace();
Go Forward	x	BrowserForward();
Copy URL	u	f4kc_CopyCurrentURI();
Inspect using Firebug	i	if (!FirebugContext) Firebug.toggleBar(true); Firebug.Inspector.toggleInspecting(FirebugContext)
View source	v	BrowserViewSourceOfDocument(content.document);
Reload	r	if (event.shiftKey) BrowserReloadSkipCache(); else BrowserReload()
Bookmark in Delicious	d	yAddBookMark.open();
Toggle bookmarks toolbar on and off	b	goToggleToolbar('PersonalToolbar','');
Options window	o	Local_Install.openPreferences();
add-ons (extensions) window	e	Local_Install.openManager('extensions', false);
Focus search box	k	BrowserSearch.webSearch();
Focus address (location) bar	l	openLocation();
Page Info window	p	f4kc_PageInfo(); (OR) window.openDialog('chrome://browser/content/pageinfo/pageInfo.xul')
Ctrl+Tab	`	ctrlTab.open(); ctrlTab.pick();

The developer, dorando is super responsive and replies to all user queries posted in the Keyconfig forum thread.

Independence Day Celebration Photos

Sridhar Katakam — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 09:29:08 +0000

[salbumphotos=2,max,3]

How To Display Just the Sticky Post on Front Page in WordPress

Sridhar Katakam — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 09:30:28 +0000

Scenario

Settings -> Reading: Front page is set to display latest blog posts.

Blog pages show at most set to 1

When sticky post is the latest

In this case, only the sticky post is shown on the front page just like how we want.

When there are other published posts newer than the sticky post

In this case, 2 posts will be shown on the blog’s front page: the sticky post at the top and the latest post below it.

Solution

To fix this and have only the sticky post show up, add the following above the if/while statement that’s used to check the existence of posts (just above the loop) in index.php:

 $sticky, 'caller_get_posts' => 1, 'orderby' => ID, 'showposts' => 2 ) );
?>

Screenshot

Source: http://wptricks.net/display-a-sticky-post-only/

Builder Child Theme – White

Sridhar Katakam — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 00:01:09 +0000

I have made slight modifications to the default Builder child theme so it looks clean w/o the grays. Also removed the top & bottom borders and bottom margin for .builder-module.

Screenshot:

Download: Note: There is a file embedded within this post, please visit this post to download the file.

Two Simple Sites in Builder

Sridhar Katakam — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 01:40:03 +0000

Recently I have taken up setting up of 2 simple HTML sites in WordPress using Builder.

HTML: http://www.school-grants.org/
WP: http://sridharkatakam.com/demos/school-grants/

HTML: http://forum5music.com/Artists/Kimbra/
WP: http://sridharkatakam.com/demos/kimbra/

Used the new Custom Menu widgets in WordPress 3.0 for left side vertical navigation menus. Also used Widget Logic plugin to not show the widget having google ads on Privacy Policy, Sitemap and About pages using this conditional:

!is_page(array('privacy-policy','sitemap','about'))

Builder is really cool. We can easily re-create any existing design/HTML site in WordPress pretty quickly.