Updating Plugins is an Endless Battle

If you have a WordPress site, you probably use several plugins. Plugins offer many features to make your website easier to manage and easier to look at, so why wouldn’t you add a few? Often a plugin will receive an update, and if you spend any time in the backend of WordPress you are bound to see a couple of update notices. Actually, if update notices were dollars, you’d be out buying a new computer to view all those update notices.

Plugin updates are definitely a good thing, since each one helps your site run faster or stay secure, but sometimes the constant stream of updates can push you into a routine of blindly updating a plugin.

I’m writing today to tell you the following: Don’t Update That Plugin! Read the rest of this entry »

As you might know, WordPress is web software Orion Group has been using to create beautiful websites for our clients. Over 60 million people world wide have chosen WordPress to power their websites!

WordCamps are yearly events put together by WordPress users. Everyone from casual users to core developers participate, share ideas, and get to know each other.

Orion is sponsoring “WordCamp Milwaukee” and tickets are available now. 

WordCamp Milwaukee is June 7, 8, & 9 at Bucketworks.

$25 – Weekend-Only Ticket

This ticket gets you the Saturday and Sunday presentations, admittance to our awesome after party, a t-shirt, and lunch at the event.

$35 – Foundation Friday User 101 + Weekend Ticket

This ticket includes the weekend ticket, plus allows you to attend the Friday User Workshop on the foundations of using WordPress for managing your website.

Get your ticket now at: 2013.milwaukee.wordcamp.org

Use the following coupon code to get $10 off: oriongroup

In the modern world, with so many interests that one may pursue, where does one go for information? If memory serves, you used to have to go to a specific place, to find information. I believe “library” was one term, “Yellow Pages” another. As the world goes more and more online, these “libraries” still exist. But one finds oneself using it less and less, as some of the information that it contains has not necessarily moved, but migrated to online forms that are more easily accessible now, from anywhere.
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What is Responsive Design?

Responsive design is an approach to web page creation that makes use of flexible layouts. The goal of responsive design is to allow web pages to detect the visitor’s screen size and orientation and to change the layout of the website accordingly.
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A lot of clients come to us with little to no knowledge of WordPress, and that’s ok. No one should be scared, because WordPress is simple and easy to learn. Every Orion Group client implementing WordPress goes through a one-hour training session with our web staff. This will give you all the tools you need to get started, and you will be able to easily manage things like pages, menus, site users, posts and more. In this blog post, I’m going to give you a little tour of WordPress and the admin area of your website. Read the rest of this entry »

How many times per day should you tweet?

I often get asked by clients about social media and how much they should be using it. Specifically though, regarding Twitter, how many tweets-per-day you should be doing is subjective to how many other users your followers are following. If they are not following many people, your tweet interval will appear to be frequent. If they have many people in their following list, your tweeting might feel slow.

In general, you could probably get away with tweeting 3-5 times a day for starters.
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In today’s economy, the layoffs and other measures caused by the financial crisis lead some employees to worry about how committed companies are to their staff. Now, it appears executives are similarly distrustful of the commitment their employees have to their company. Retaining valuable staff members was identified as the biggest staffing concern for the next 12 months in a survey of more than 2,100 US CFOs conducted by staffing firm Robert Half. Thirty-eight percent of CFOs identified retention as their top concern with regards to staff.  The second most frequently identified staffing concern was maintaining staff productivity. Recruiting new staff members, improving staff morale and engagement also are concerns. Read the rest of this entry »

At the April Web414 meetup, Mike Rohde shared about his new “Sketchnote Handbook“. Read the rest of this entry »

Email is a VITAL day-to-day business tool that we all rely on in some form or another. Whether you are communicating with clients or sending important job specifications to a co-worker, it is an integral part of our everyday lives. So, what happens when your email stops working? Deadlines are missed, specs don’t get put into production, and clients feel ignored. Basically, all communication comes to a halt. Worse yet, what happens when your email account is compromised or hacked? Confidential information can be stolen, your account can be used to send SPAM to other addresses (often inappropriate in nature), and your email could even be used to send viruses to everyone in your contact lists. Read the rest of this entry »