Achievers in games want one thing out of their experience: to be the absolute best in whatever the game has in store. Whether it's winning the top prize or beating the baddest boss, these players want to climb to the top of the pyramid of success. Prestige, and the thrill of the achievement, are what drives these players to keep playing and to keep…
We've learned that Gamification is the act of taking gaming principles and applying them to real world situations in order to modify behavior. But before we jump in with both feet, there's a few things we have to consider. Let's look at a few sample "players" - a term used to define the users we will be interacting with. We'll do so in the context of an…
I've never shied away from the fact that I'm a huge fan of gaming. Most nights, once the rest of the family has gone to bed, you'll see me traversing the lands of Eorzea as my alter ego Lucina. Beating bosses, collecting loot, and enjoying the company of the other players I work with - there's more than a few reasons why I keep…
Did you know that there's a hidden options panel in WordPress? It's one page you can visit that will allow you to set every single option available to you on your site - even some of the hidden ones that are set via plugins and/or other functions. http://www.mydomain.com/wp-admin/options.php Navigating here will show you any options, ACF (Advanced Custom Fields) options, SEO options (if you…
Hibernation. I've been trying to come up with a good word that explains my life for the past year or so. Hibernation, I think, fits the bill quite nicely. The last few months have been a transition period. A new job (at Vanderbilt University). A new baby (who's three months old now). A myriad of other things all happening at once - all of those compounded…
A few days ago we showed you how to add an SSL certificate - one that you can purchase - to your newly created Amazon AWS Instances. As I was researching SSL certificates, I came across an interesting initiative: Let's Encrypt. It's an organization dedicated to serving up free SSL certfiicates so you can encrypt your site data. According to their website, they have six…
The last few blog posts have been an in-depth tutorial on how to set up an Amazon AWS Instance. And, while the basics were more than covered, I had a few reader asking me about a super important topic: SSL and Encryption. What exactly is SSL Encryption? The short answer: it's that fancy green lock on your favorite sites that keeps information secure. The…
This post is part two of a series on setting up an Amazon Web Service Instance for a WordPress site. Part 1 covers the initial setup, security, and terminology of Amazon's AWS. Edited: Oct 12, 2016 to include newest versions of software. If you've read the link above, you should have a newly created Amazon AWS account (running on Free Tier settings!) with an…
For a while now, I've been diving more and more into the realm of the "server administrator" and setting up servers for clients. I started with Ramnode, but eventually moved to Digital Ocean because of its ease-of-use for a (then) newbie like myself. Over the past few days, however, I've been migrating a client away from a big-box WordPress host over to something they…
Let's talk "comments", shall we? I popped into the #blogchat tonight for the first time in a while. Partly trying to avoid work, and partly trying to avoid the Golden Globes, I realized that I was actually in front of my computer at a decent time to be able to follow along. What came out of it was some (unknowingly) deep discussions that I think…