Fun Writing Samples
These are a few of the fun, consumer-facing tech articles I wrote for ValleyTrends Magazine several years ago as their “Tech Hero” writer.
- My Video Intro
- Saving Yourself From Bad Air
- What’s Is All The Bing About?
- OpenOffice: Like MS Office, But Free
- My Spelling Is Not So Gr8
- When Tech Rescues Tech
Technical Portfolio
Most of my previous work can be seen on my previous website’s portfolio page here (there are three sections to this, the link starts you out with web builds):
https://michaelpenner.com/category/web-integration-builds
I’ve kept that website online because it demonstrates many aspects of how I think and where I’ve been recently. I built that website using iThemes Builder and a full suite of their plug-ins, along with major modifications to the site’s functions.php file which allow me to leverage certain CSS techniques.
I’ve been using iThemes products since 2010, and in the past two years have also become very familiar with ThriveThemes products as well. I maintain current Developer’s Licenses for all products and services at both of these companies. Then too, WooCommerce and it’s vast array of plug-ins were a major pre-occupation of mine until very recently. I built calagjobs.com and tol-inc.com with it, and this was easily the most complex WordPress site I ever attempted on my own. That site also uses a unique implementation of SearchWP to filter out search results and protect paywall hidden content from Google and hackers.
I’m an expert at theming and securing WordPress websites using iThemes and ThriveThemes products (Iv’e done it with Genesis, Thesis, and others as well). Here is an example how I used iThemes themes as a starting point and then customized the front end (these products also allowed me to create what I called my DeepCMS approach, which enhanced WordPress’s usability for my clients. Such back-end work will not be possible to share on a public portfolio):
Starting Theme: iThemes Thrifty
Resulting Theme: tol-inc.com
