Without WP Admin Error Handler

With WP Admin Error Handler

WP Admin Error Handler is a WordPress plugin that catches all the errors and warnings and displays them neatly in the admin bar so you can read them at your convenience. You can also visit the Tools > Errors page to see a more in detailed list of the errors and where they are coming from. Hopefully it will allow you to debug your WordPress errors in a more streamlined way without breaking the look of your WordPress admin area.

function make_clickable($text)
{
	return preg_replace('@(?])\b(?:(?:https?|ftp|file)://|[a-z]\.)[-A-Z0-9+&#/%=~_|$?!:,.]*[A-Z0-9+&#/%=~_|$]@i', '\0', $text);
}

Supports normal, ftp, file and email URL’s as well as subdomains. Also it doesn’t mess with HTML a tags that already exist in the string.

The solution is simple. When setting a line-height on an input, also set a height.
See it in action.

1. Open up /Applications/MAMP/bin/php/{your PHP version}/conf/php.ini.
2. Find display_errors = Off (around line 277) and change it to display_errors = On.
3. Restart MAMP.

Voila! You should now see PHP errors.

Maybe you fancy a simpler approach to writing a blog, without having to worry about backend administration, security issues etc. Or maybe you simply need to build a static site and don’t want to worry about installing a bulky CMS? Pico may well be for you.

Pico aims to be stupidly simple. To create a blog for instance, you simply need to create a new text file for each post and upload it to your server. Want to put your blog posts under a “category”, simply put them in a sub folder. “Simples”.

So head on over and check out Pico and let me know what you think.

if ( !function_exists( 'get_blog_url' ) ) {
    function get_blog_url(){
        if( $posts_page_id = get_option('page_for_posts') ){
            return home_url(get_page_uri($posts_page_id));
        } else {
            return home_url();
        }
    }
}

Showcase aims to redefine the “gallery” in WordPress by making the whole process of uploading, ordering and editing your images as simple as it can be. Then it makes your gallery look stunning by automatically showing your gallery in a beautiful lightbox slideshow. Not to mention built-in features like dynamic image resizing and simple lightbox theme changing.

So head on over and check it out and let me know what you think.

P.S. Check out the blog post for a chance to win a Developer license worth $99!

So with that in mind today I am announcing the launch of Sellwire: the easiest way to sell digital goods online. Sellwire aims to make selling digital goods online as simple as possible, literally upload a file and share a link, and takes care of the complex e-commerce payment gateways and tracking stuff so that users can focus on making great products.

Sellwire is a “scratch my own itch” solution to a problem I’ve experienced lately, and I hope others might find it just as useful as I have. So if you are interested why not head on over and check it out.

I suppose I should start by defining “success” in this context. The Nivo Slider has been downloaded more than 890,000 times and sales have generated more than $40,000 USD in the first six months and have increased every month so far. Put it another way, the Nivo Slider will generate way more than double my day job salary in its first year. That is where I’m at just now. But how did I get here?

The Beginning

The Nivo Slider script was created over a weekend in March 2010 in my Uni flat. I was in my final year at the time and had spent most of my degree teaching myself web development and was always creating scripts and plugins (check out my portfolio for evidence). At the time a lot of ThemeForest themes featured the awesome looking Cu3er flash image slider. I had made a few ThemeForest themes to generate some cash so I knew the community a bit.

One day I spotted that the Cu3er slider was changing its license so you were going to have to pay to use it in premium themes. Lesson 1: spot the gap in the market. I figured I could make an image slider that was free and open source that looked great that people would be able to use in their premium themes. Ok it probably wouldn’t look as good as the flash slider, but I would make it using pure JS, HTML and CSS and I would make it as easy as possible to implement.

Nivo on Reddit front page

It’s worth noting here that I’m no marketing whizz and did almost no marketing for the slider. I simply blogged about it and announced it on Twitter. The rest was done by other people sharing the word.

So I guess lesson 2 is always be creating side projects. Not only does it keep your creativity fresh, but you never know which small projects might actually make it big.

Making Money

So the slider continued to grow in popularity and was being used in premium themes all over the place. For more than a year I continued to develop the slider but didn’t think of making any money from it as I fully expected it to die out eventually. I honestly thought it was just a fad that I had started (which was cool enough) that would grow but then start to die off.

However more than a year on, 600,000 downloads later and it was still growing. It began to dawn on me that there must be some money to be made from this. At the time the site was getting the best part of 9,000 visits a day and I was earning about $200/month in advertising revenues (which I thought wasn’t bad).

I had been wanting to create a WordPress plugin for the slider for a few months (this is June 2011 by now) and I had been toying with the idea of selling it (and keeping the jQuery plugin free and open source). So the calculation I did in my head was “if 1% of 600,000 downloads buy the WordPress plugin, at say $15, I would earn $90,000 in a year”. Wow. It shocked me that I hadn’t even thought about this till now. Suffice to say I went ahead and started creating the WordPress plugin.

So on the 1st June 2011 I launched the Nivo Slider WordPress plugin. In the first month I had a daily average of $194 USD in sales per day. Yes per day. It had worked. I couldn’t believe it. Lesson 3: Don’t be afraid to ask if your software can make money.

While I’m here lesson 4 might also be that the “freemium” model works if you have a market already established. Because I was a first mover of sorts it seemed like I had gained a significant market domination. And all that traffic means that even with low conversion rates, you can still earn a significant amount of money.

Spending Money

Site redesign by John O'Nolan

So after I had made some money from the WordPress plugin I decided it was time for a professional full-blown redesign. I asked for some help and James McDonald kindly offered his services and produced what is now the current design of the slider site. This was the first money that I had earned and reinvested it straight back in to making the site better. I was now bootstrapping and it felt great.

So lesson 5 has to be never underestimate the importance of design. I fully believe that having a well designed product and site are crucial to a successful business venture. And you don’t need to invest loads of cash to make it happen. For instance lesson 6 is ask/trade/beg for help until you can afford to buy it. Admit you can’t do everything and that sometimes it is best to outsource.

Learning

Something I have only recently began to experience is how to tweak your business and learn from mistakes. For instance I recently changed the pricing scheme for the WordPress plugin. A pretty big move that seems to have paid off pretty well.

Since I first launched the WordPress plugin there was a “single license” $20 option and a “Pro” $10/month option. While the idea of recurring monthly income is attractive, it simply didn’t work in this model. I never had more than 40 monthly subscribers at any one time. So after listening to my customers and seeking some advice (from more experienced entrepreneurs) I made the bold move of completely changing the pricing scheme and removing subscriptions completely. And so far it has paid off well.

Lesson 7: Don’t be afraid to take your time and make mistakes. The process of learning makes you a better entrepreneur and, in theory, your decisions will make you more successful in the end.

The Future

So that’s the story of how the Nivo Slider got to where it is today. The Nivo Slider continues to grow and I still can’t believe how popular it has become. Who knows what the future holds for it. I very much take one day at a time, and while people will probably tell me I should have a long-term plan for the slider, I’m happy enjoying it while it lasts. If it allows me to continue to create more awesome stuff on the web and do what I love, that’s cool. If it eventually dies out or someone acquires it, that’s also cool. It will still have been an amazing experience and my first “success”.