Category: How It Is

Making philosophy about the why behind technical things.

Make Your Advice Work

I love Project Runway. Seeing people be that dramatic and traumatic over making clothes is fun, plus I love the design. One of the best parts is when Tim Gunn steps in as a mentor. He rarely tells people exactly what they need to do, but he will give them his opinion. It’s the way he handles critique that makes him impressive. Recently he had a new show called Under the Gunn where he let other people mentor some young designers, and that show was, shall we say, less than spectacular.

One of my favorite designers, Nick Verreos (aka Uncle Nick), was one of the worst mentors. Instead of helping his mentees, he did the work for them and made their designs look more like him. He drew for them, he sewed for them, he even gave them ideas.

That’s not the Tim Gunn way.

COURTESY OF A+E NETWORKS
Tim Gunn (left), host of the new Lifetime show ‘Under the Gunn,’ on set with mentors (second from left to right) Mondo Guerra, Anya Young-Chee and Nick Verreos, all former contestants on ‘Project Runway.’

When people ask you for advice on their work, it’s hard to not insert yourself into the process and put your own self into the work. You, too, are a smart, creative person. That’s why they asked you! So how do you keep yourself out of your advice and let people learn?

Boy that’s hard.

You have to let go of your own ego to do this. You have to be willing to remove your own desires from the equation, and instead of saying “Do this” you have to suggest “What if you did it like this?” It’s a classic case of leading the horse to water, but you really are the one who is going to show them the land where the ideas are and nudge them along.

One of the things I do a lot of is plugin reviews, and many times I see people reinventing the wheel. I don’t often put value judgements on plugins, and in fact I try hard not to do so. But when I see someone taking the hard road of handling a feature, like wanting to put autoplay in all YouTube videos, I wonder why they’re inventing a new oembed and shortcode and not filter oembed_fetch_url and have it check if it’s youtube and, if so, put in the arguments for autoplay?

But… Do I tell them “Here’s the code you want” and give it to them? Will that make them better developers? No, it won’t. Instead, I have to explain why reinventing the wheel isn’t a great idea.

Any time a plugin replicates functionality found in WordPress (i.e. the uploader, jquery), you’ve done something wrong. It’s a security risk, for one, as the features in WordPress have been tested by many more people than use most plugins, so the built in tools are less likely to have issues. But more importantly, you’ve given people too many ways to do one thing. A user doesn’t want to remember seventy shortcodes. They want to know “Hey, I know pasting in my video URL makes it show up on WordPress! I’ll do that!”

They want the easy, and you need to remember to give them the easy.

Similarly, advice on what’s right should lead towards what’s easy. What’s easier for you to maintain, to develop, and support. I know what works for me, but when I’m teaching someone how to update plugins and they ask me “What tool do you recommend?” I say “What do you already use and like?”

That’s my secret, by the way. I teach and mentor by trying to learn what they already know, what they’re already comfortable with, and then explain how to do things better or faster with those systems. But I try not to show them “This is the way to do it.” I stress this is A way to do things, unless what they’re doing really is a reinvention of the wheel, without making the wheel any better.

26 September, 2014
Don’t Be Afraid of Looking Foolish

If you’ve ever watched baseball on TV (which is rare for me, I prefer the radio), you may have seen some of the most incredible faces that athletes make. This is Pitcher Jared Weaver of the LA Angels:

He looks crazy, doesn’t he? He’s also an insanely good pitcher. He can make a ball do things just by changing how he holds it or points his elbow. It’s a gift. It’s not really a useful one to a lot of people, but it’s certainly not something I can do. He doesn’t worry about the silly faces he makes (I hope) because he can see the results are worth it.

One of my most popular tweets ever is this:

Everyone screws up code, no matter how awesome a professional you are. Accept it.

When I wrote it, I was laughing at myself for seriously bolluxing some code and pushing it live too soon, which happens to the best of us. I knew I messed up as soon as I saw the first error report, and pushed a fix right away.

What I didn’t do was worry about how it made me look.

Oh don’t get me wrong, I knew it looked bad, and it was embarrassing, but I’m not afraid of making mistakes. I didn’t let the fear of looking bad stop me from trying something new and experimenting and making a change. I knew there was a chance to end up with egg on my face, but I knew there was also a chance I would make everything perfect and ‘save the world.’ Or at least make my code awesome for more people.

We’re going to mess up. We’re going to make mistakes. We’re going to break things. While we try hard not to do that, the glory, the hero within us comes to play not when we’re perfect, but when we recover. Mistakes will be made, accidents happen, and you will screw up.

What will you do when you make a mistake?

24 September, 2014
The Mindset of Security
I talked at WordCamp LAX this year about KISS Security, keeping it simple and being aware of what it is you’re doing. Because security isn’t about the right passwords, and upgrades, and plugins, and .htaccess, it’s about you doing what’s right. And in fact, while I did mention some plugins, some features on servers, and I certainly was willing to give my advice and opinion on them, I don’t recommend one security plugin over another. Instead, I talked about the mindset of being secure.

Don’t be stupid

My mother is one of the few people I know who has almost completely conquered the will to be stupid.

Miles Vorkosigan on his mother, Cordelia Naismith Vorkosigan
Brothers in Arms by Lois McMaster Bujold

If I can not be stupid, then I can be secure. Sounds easy, but ignorance is the lynchpin of stupidity, and you must defeat that first. But they’re not actually stupid at all. They’re just uneducated and this whole WordPress thing is new, and the security stuff is scary.

With that in mind, I aim more towards education when I help people. When I debug a site, I send the customer a two-fold email. The first is the tl;dr stuff. “You were hacked because you’re on WordPress 2.6 and your theme and plugins had backdoors due to old, vulnerable code.” That’s the easy part. Then I explain in detail how I found the hack, why it was a problem (like did you know inactive themes can still be visited in your browser and, as such, are vulnerable?) and some details on how to fix it, even though I know they’ll still make mistakes. But I get them started with understanding what I’m looking for and why I think it’s bad.

Use Common Sense

The reality of security is that we’re all ignorant, at some point in time, of what we’re doing, of what it means. Identity theft can go on for years because people don’t monitor their credit card statements. We get ripped off by not checking receipts. We give away our credit cards without thinking. We all do dumb things in the moment and regret everything. We have 20-20 hindsight. And getting to the point where we don’t do that, where we think first, takes deconstruction of myths, education, and trusting your gut.

Don’t Get Overwhelmed by the Hype

Stop me if you’ve heard this one. “You’ll be hacked unless you install a plugin.” Or maybe this one… “You’ll be hacked because you installed a plugin!” It goes on and on. Should you upgrade? Of course! But do I think upgrading alone is the answer? Heck no! Upgrading, being concerned with plugins and themes, using good passwords… those are all important, but they’re not going to be the end all of everything. They don’t make you smarter, and that’s why I hate them. What they really do is make you lazy. You think that because you have them, you’re safe, and you stop being aware.

Security Tripod

I came up with that in 2010, the Tripod Theory of Security when it comes to websites. In order to be smarter about security, I have this pretty simple tripod theory.
1. Your Webhost (server)
2. Your software’s developers (WordPress)
3. YOU (everything else)
If everyone holds up their leg, the security of your site is locked down. If you have a responsive webhost, secure software, and good behavior, you’re going to be happy, the odds are that a WordPress upgrade never breaks your site, and you’ll be safe for a long time to come. Awesome! But as someone wailed at me at a barbecue, “How do you get to that point when you can’t CODE!?”

Education

The most simple answer is the most obvious. Know what you’re getting into with software. The plugins and themes you use are ones you should know about. Read the readme, follow the FAQ. Don’t be afraid to ask questions about features you want. But the best thing you can do is use your brain and think. When we grab code and don’t think about who wrote it, where it came from, and what it means, we open ourselves up to disaster, and we may as well be posting our passwords on the front of our websites. Taking that moment to be aware that hey, maybe a nulled theme is a terrible idea will save you.

The biggest thing to do, though, is not to research everything to an inch of it’s life, but to stop and think. When we jump in to things without any forethought or awareness, when we ignore that nagging feeling of doubt, we run the risk of being stupid. Gas station sushi is still sushi, right? And sushi is totally awesome. Well. Yes. But it’s also a fast track to spending the rest of your day in the bathroom. And you know this. Your gut knows these things because of your experiences, and when they outpace your knowledge, that’s when we get those momentary blips of “This is a baaaaaad idea!” Listen to them. If it helps, picture a relative looking over your shoulder going ‘tsk.’ Admittedly, mine would be Taffy holding a glass of wine, saying “Don’t be stupid, Mika.”

What I Look For

Practicality matters, though. I can’t just say “Find code by a WordPress Core Developer and never worry a day in your life” because everyone can make mistakes. Instead of looking for perfection, I look for behavior. I want to see a developer is active, both in general and in the overall community. I want to see how they respond to people, either in the same terms and language they use, or if they’re always super-technical. I want someone who understands what they’re doing, even if they’re not always right, and I want someone who can balance out the need for fixes with the annoyance of an update every day.
22 September, 2014
WordCamp Ventura

I’ll be speaking at WordCamp Ventura on the topic of plugins and approving them. Or not.

WordCamp Ventura County will be November 8th, 2014 at Green Art People, Ventura, CA. Tickets will be on sale at http://2014.ventura.wordcamp.org/ soon, but in a weird (yes Konstantin, I think it’s weird) move, all the speakers are set in advance! Like before you buy a ticket you’ll get to know that I am, indeed, speaking.

WC Ventura: Introducing Mika!

19 September, 2014
What To Expect When You’re Expecting to Go to WCSF

So WordCamp San Francisco is in a month and a half and you’re raring to go? I’ve done two WordCamp San Francisco’s, so I’m by no means an expert of them, but I’ve been to the Bay Area enough to know some of the more annoying aspects of it. Here are my top considerations for the camp of camps.

Airport delays

I’m going to say this. SFO sucks. It just does. I’ve only flown once without significant delays, and that was 2012 where they had a ‘surprisingly mild summer.’ The rest of the time, consider flying into Oakland. You can still take the Bart. The reason SFO sucks, in general, is the cloud coverage. The airport is right by the water, and the weather caused by the bay is nuts. Speaking of ….

Weather

Pack for cool weather. “Summer” in the Bay Area is not like summer in pretty much the rest of California. It’s a micro-climate, hemmed in by the bay and the mountains, which means it’s cool and a little damp. Unless you’re used to it, pack long pants and light jackets because the damp will do a number on you. Spring or fall weight (light sweatshirts) versus summer weight is smart. Lots of people bring shawls, if you’re into that, and the trick is light layers. Everyone from outside the US, I’m really sorry, it’s not ‘summer’ at all. I will note than in 2013, it was actually warm, so having a light jacket that was easy to tuck away was my best friend.

October isn’t going to be cold in San Francisco, but it won’t be warm either. That light jacket will be your friend.

Comfortable shoes

Speaking about clothes, remember your feet! You will walk. Bring comfy shoes. In fact, bring two pair. I pack sneakers, comfy ‘talking’ shoes, and a pair of flip-flops for the inevitable moment when I can’t fit my feet back in my shoes. You will also be standing and talking a lot. If you, like me, have a knee that likes to flip you the bird, keep that in mind and have no shame in telling people you have to sit down.

Transportation woes

There are six taxis in SF and you probably know the way better than they do thanks to Google Maps. No, I kid. But really, taxis are rare. A lot of people use Uber or Lyft to handle booking cars for quick transport, but even with that, people use other options. It’s kind of like Gypsy cabs, if you’re from the East, only a little less sketchy. Most of us use the BART, though. It comes right from the airport (both Oakland and SFO), and you can get a Clipper Pass to use both MUNI (which goes from downtown to where WCSF if held) and traditional BART. If you plan on coming back to SF ever, it’s a decent investment.

Walking through many classes of areas quickly

You can go from upscale to seedy in about a block, so if you’ve never walked through the city before, please go with someone you know already, or suck up the price of a car ride. Can you walk from your hotel to WCSF? Probably. Do you want to? Probably not by yourself. This is not to say that San Francisco is particularly dangerous, but it’s a big city. There are crazy people and bad people in every major city in the world. Be aware of this. I try to never be alone on the streets at night in any city, just as a rule, unless I know the city really well. Even so, I lived in Chicago for 15 years, and I never once forgot that I was a woman, and it just plain wasn’t safe to walk though, oh, Cabrini Green by myself at night. If you don’t know what is and is not a safe part of town, don’t go alone, or don’t go at all.

Computers

Unless you’re speaking or doing the Happiness Bar and, thus, need the laptop, leave it at home. Bring your tablet to take notes on or use a notebook. There are usually some Moleskin and pen swag lying around, so grab one if you forgot yours and take your notes/reminders there. If you bring your computer, you will be tempted to log in, be social there, and do work. You just came to a massive, in person, WordCamp. Look up from the screen once in a while. I promise, WordPress is people.

Swag

Everyone gives away swag at WordCamps. There are the high-level sponsors who have tables, and they’ve usually got t-shirts, pins, pens, candy, postcards (with information), water bottles, and all sorts of weird stuff. You can get swag from everyone, even your competitors (who really are your coopetition, right?). I’m fond of how soft the WPEngine shirts are. You will get tons of swag. Leave room in your luggage for this stuff so you can get home. Also you’ll want to bring an empty bag with you to the event to tote stuff around. Unless, like me, you know how to make bags out of swag pins and t-shirts, you want that extra bag.

Hugs (set boundaries fast!)

I need to preface this with “The way I hug you is not directly proportional to how I feel about you.” I hug like I follow people on Twitter. Sometimes I do, sometimes I don’t, and it’s pretty fluid based on my mood.

It’s okay not to hug! A lot of us are huggers, though, especially because some people are considered family. No, I’m not related to Amy or Andrea (or Andrea) or Courtney or Jen, but we’re good friends and they’re people I will likely hug a lot. Especially right before they go on stage, or right after, or when we first see each other, or when we’re leaving for the day, or when we check out of hotels… Then there are people like Otto and Jaquith and Nacin and Koop who almost always get at least one hug hello.

There are also a lot of people I bro-hug. You know the one, right? Where you clasp a hand and keep it between you as you one-arm hug?

This doesn’t mean I like you less. I’ve hugged my wife this way following a performance. It may mean I’m feeling overwhelmed and need not to hug someone. I may have spilled my drink on myself and not want to get you wet. Maybe I smell bad and don’t want you to know. Point is, different people have different huggy rules depending on their mood. Respect that. Also it’s okay to hold up your hands and so ‘No, bro, no hugs.’ I went to WordCamp Portland while getting over a nasty flu bug, and was on a no-hug trip. People understood.

People talking like they know you (and they probably do)

They do know you. Or your work. Or your avatar. Suffice to say, it’s weird the first time it happens, and it’s weird every other time. Even Otto has remarked to me that he finds it weird. I mean, we’re just people, we’re not celebrities, right? You’d be surprised how other people feel. It’s still weird to me, but recently someone said “Where do I know you from?” and I smiled and replied “Probably the Internet.” He cracked up and we exchanged nicknames which was when he realized he’d seen me on WordPress TV. People know you, they know your avatar, and they’ll want to treat you a little different than ‘normal’ because to them, you’re kind of important. Say ‘you’re welcome’ when they thank you, and if they have something to give you (like more of those awesome 10up moleskins?) say ‘thank you’ and you will be a great person.

Mobbing and/or Monopolizing People

So many people do this, I feel bad for Matt Mullenweg (whom I know expects this and is probably okay with it). A lot of people want to meet Matt and talk shop. Respect the fact that everyone wants his time, and try not to take up more than five minutes. Maximum. If there are other people hovering around you looking anxious, ask him what a good way would be to get in touch and talk longer later.

As for other people… I was at a WordCamp where I was chatting with a friend and noticed someone standing to the side looking edgy. I smiled at her, stepped to open up the chat circle, and asked if she wanted to join our chat. She actually wanted to thank me, personally, for something. As we talked, a couple more people queued up. As the first woman kept on talking, I finally said “You know, I’d love to talk to you more about this, but we seem to have made a line. How about we all sit together and lunch and we can all chat?” She huffed, but agreed, and the next person smiled at me and said she didn’t want to monopolize, but did I know of a good plugin for something. I did, she thanked me, and left. That set the tone for the next few people. They realized they weren’t the only person important to me in that moment, and they shared me.

So the take away here? Share the person you’re mobbing. Take no more than 3 minutes. If it takes more than that, you should offer to buy them lunch/coffee/dinner and have a private chat. After all, they’re here to learn too!

Afterparty Earplugs

Sensitive ears? Bring ’em. The afterparty is a party. It’s loud, and it may not be for you. But know that earplugs are probably a good idea. Also it’s NOT a dinner, so after camp breaks up, get with a group of people and go eat. Go to your hotel and nap. Then come party. We’ll still be there. They usually have to kick us out.

Losing your voice

I come out of WCSF sounding like Angie Harmon, and with a really sore throat, every single time. I talk to a lot of people, I end up shouting to be heard at dinner/parties. I am far more social at at WordCamp than I am in my normal life, where I like to be pretty quiet, so I almost always come back a little Kathleen Turner. So I guess there could be worse fates!

What about you?

What are your tips and tricks?

10 September, 2014
The Great Internet Slowdown

Wednesday is the Great Internet Slowdown where websites all over the world are going to protest the cable conglomerates getting together to tell us how fast our internet can be to specific sites, when they want it to be fast or not.

I’m going to do this one simply. You know how you can dial anyone on your phone, and it’s your responsibility to not dial up sex numbers if that offends you? The phone company doesn’t limit your ability to do that. It doesn’t stop you from sexting your ex at 2am when you’re drunk and that was a really bad idea, wasn’t it? They don’t tell you, as you dial a psychic, that you should dial this other one instead. No, they let you shoot yourself in the foot.

Well that’s not how they want it to work on the Internet.

Cable companies are spending billions to gut the heart right out of net neutrality and create fast lanes and slow lanes on the Internet. A company that pays them more will get their site loading faster. A company that doesn’t, even if it has superior products, would be slower.

This isn’t about how quickly our cat videos load, it’s about the future of our ability to communicate, to learn, to create, and to rebel. It’s about the future of humanity.

I know that sounds a little heavy handed, but it’s true. The ability to use the Internet for communication is massively important. I work with people all around the globe, I fix websites all over the place and I talk constantly with people everywhere. I need to be able to do this to succeed at my job. If cable companies get their way, it might make it impossible for products like WordPress to develop as quickly as it does today.

It’s already hard enough, with nations putting up firewalls and blocks preventing China from reaching Google for fonts, to get things done. But now we’re letting companies you and I might not even use decide they know what’s right?

Come on! Let me decide if I want to go to that site and talk to those people! It’s just like the phone, after all.

If you’re on WordPress, grab the Cat Signal Plugin. You can install it and leave it on, it’ll turn itself on when needed.

8 September, 2014