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Category: The Business

  • The Best WordPress Themes

    During a recent client site build, we realized we weren’t super happy with the base theme we were using. While we quite like Beaver Builder for a page builder, the theme we were wrapping it with just wasn’t quite as powerful as we wanted without additional add-ons. So we decided to try and recreate some…

  • What WordPress Acquisitions Mean for Plugin Quality

    In September’s WordPress plugin acquisition news, StellarWP acquired LearnDash, the de facto learning management system plugin for WordPress. We don’t do a lot of LMS work over here at Sterner Stuff, so, you know, whatever. But if you receive any kind of business-minded WordPress newsletter or are otherwise plugged into “the business of WordPress”, you…

  • Get a List of All Your Instagram Followers for Free

    A great way to organically increase your Instagram followers is to run promotions specifically for followers. We recently organized a promotion for Porterhouse Clothing where followers were automatically entered in a gift card drawing, plus an extra entry for tagging friends in comments. Of course, this meant pulling a list of followers, which Instagram doesn’t…

  • WordCamp US 2019

    WordCamp US 2019

    Every year, WordPress users from across the country gather for WordCamp US. While regional WordCamps happen across the country, WordCamp US is by far the biggest, attracting attendees, speakers and sponsors from across the country. This year, Sterner Stuff made the trip to St. Louis for the event. We take every advantage of opportunities for…

  • Takeaways from Scott Hanselman’s “Scaling Yourself”

    Takeaways from Scott Hanselman’s “Scaling Yourself”

    Recently a video hit my inbox. It’s a presentation from Scott Hanselman at GOTO conf talking about how to scale your own productivity. Yet another productivity video. I’m a notorious multitasker and my email is always open, responding to the latest thing to hit my inbox, potentially dropping everything to work on something new. He…

  • Powering WordPress with Auto-Scaling AWS RDS

    Powering WordPress with Auto-Scaling AWS RDS

    Sterner Stuff recently inherited a pretty massive site. With over 100,000 posts, 200,000 attachments, and site loads reaching 4000+ visitors and anywhere from 5-9 logged-in authors at any one time, it’s been one of the largest projects we’ve tackled. While a proper reverse-proxy solution can mitigate the majority of the front-end load on a project…

  • Meeting new projects with arms wide open

    Meeting new projects with arms wide open

    To maintain the deep portfolio that large web design firms often have, the staff will ultimately end up with some “9-5ers”. Folks like these probably don’t have the passion shared by their coworkers and, likely, the company owner. And that’s a bummer for you. Nothing against these folks–they get work done just like the next…

  • What’s in a name?

    What’s in a name?

    What’s in a name? that which we call a roseBy any other name would smell as sweet; While the context here has little to do with Sterner Stuff, let’s get a quick recap: Scene: Romeo approaches yonder window through which Juliet appears. The two lovers, from warring families, mourn that the feud keeps them from…

  • Hanging out my shingle – Sterner Stuff is born

    Hanging out my shingle – Sterner Stuff is born

    Hey, I’m Ethan I’ve been doing web development for a while now and there’s never been a dull moment. I’ve seen the best and worst of every aspect – design, content strategy, clients – and I’ve certainly come a long way since I marked up a page for my Neopet. This experience together with a hunger…