Author: jp

  • The 16 YouTube Channels for Mastering WordPress in 2025

    The 16 YouTube Channels for Mastering WordPress in 2025

    Keeping pace with WordPress means more than reading changelogs—you have to see how experts build, break, and rebuild real-world sites. The Reddit community over at r/WordPress just crowdsourced an up-to-date list of the channels they’re watching this year. I’ve blended the original post with the top-voted suggestions in the comments and added quick notes on why each channel is worth your time.

    1. WPress Doctor

    Your one-stop “GP” for WordPress. Matt covers everything from malware removal to performance tuning and answers viewers with essay-length replies—perfect if you like methodical, no-fluff walkthroughs. YouTube

    2. Living With Pixels

    A designer’s perspective on WordPress and Elementor, plus candid talks about running a web-design business. Rino’s live interviews with plugin makers are gold for trend-spotting. YouTube

    3. WPTuts

    Paul Charlton (UK) dives deep into Bricks, Elementor and Gutenberg while explaining every major core release in plain English. YouTube

    4. Darrel Wilson

    High-energy, highly edited tutorials—think “Netflix pace” for how-tos. Great for beginners who want quick wins with Elementor themes. YouTube

    5. WPCrafter

    Broad coverage plus strong opinions on ecommerce and WooCommerce alternatives like SureCart (which Adam founded). Expect rapid-fire delivery. YouTube

    6. SiteKrafter

    Honest, niche-friendly tutorials focused on Divi and the creator’s own freelancing journey—handy if you work with Divi every day. YouTube

    7. Jamie WP

    Part of Automattic’s team; watch for live “speed-build” streams that reveal core-first workflows most agency tutorials skip. YouTube

    8. Ferdy Korpershoek

    Marathon-length (3–5 h) Elementor builds. Ideal if you like following an entire project from blank canvas to launch. YouTube

    9. Web Squadron

    Daily uploads mixing Bricks, Elementor and business rants—quantity over polish, but you’ll never miss a news beat. YouTube

    10. WP Learning Lab

    Bjorn’s calm, slow-paced style shines when you’re troubleshooting or learning a brand-new plugin you’ve never touched. YouTube

    11. Nayyar Shaikh

    Three-hour “build a [niche] website” sessions—great if you want industry-specific design inspiration. YouTube

    12. Create a Pro Website

    High-production Elementor courses with an emphasis on branding and monetisation. Dale’s recently returned, bringing back the original vibe. YouTube

    13. Tyler Moore

    Publishes only a handful of mega-tutorials each year, but each one is a soup-to-nuts site build beginners can follow step by step. YouTube

    14. Jim Fahad Digital

    Elementor-heavy, client-site-style builds from an agency owner’s perspective—particularly useful for freelancers in emerging markets. YouTube

    15. WebYoda

    Re-edits classic tutorials with updated intros; still one of the better free sources for evergreen Elementor techniques. YouTube

    16. WP Jakson

    “Your dad teaching WordPress”—slow, warm and thorough. Perfect if rapid-fire channels leave you spinning. YouTube

    Community-Powered Honorable Mentions

    ChannelWhy Add It?Cite
    Kevin Geary / Digital AmbitionDeep dives into semantic HTML/CSS, ACSS/Frames and agency process—ideal for devs graduating from “page-builder only” workflows.YouTube
    The Admin BarRound-table interviews with plugin authors and successful agency owners—great for business strategy rather than hands-on tutorials.YouTube
    WPBeginnerOver a million subscribers and still the fastest way to get an answer to “How do I…?” questions in five minutes or less.YouTube

  • Web Design and Web Animations

    Web Design and Web Animations

    Lately I have been diving into animations using Framer Motion and because of that I have I have been bookmarking sites that lists cool web designs and animations.

    Web Design Inspiration

    1. Awwwards
      Features creative websites from all over the world and offers daily inspiration through award-winning designs.
    2. SiteInspire
      A curated showcase of the best web design, offering different styles and layouts across a wide range of industries.
    3. Behance
      A popular platform for creative professionals to showcase their work. It has a rich collection of web design projects.
    4. Dribbble
      A community of designers showcasing their work, including web design, UI/UX, and mobile designs.
    5. One Page Love
      Focuses on single-page websites, perfect for landing page and one-page portfolio inspiration.
    6. Land Book
      A large collection of landing pages, helping you discover trending layouts and design techniques for product pages, apps, and services.
    7. Godly
      Offers beautiful, minimal, and innovative web design examples for inspiration.
    8. Hoverstat.es
      A curated platform for showcasing interesting and experimental web design.
    9. CSS Design Awards
      Showcases creative and cutting-edge websites, focusing on innovative use of CSS and front-end technologies.
    10. Browsingmode
    11. Klikkentheke
    12. Siteinspire
    13. Loadmo.re
    14. Ilovecreatives
    15. Landing Love
    16. Land Book
    17. Made in Webflow
    18. Lapa Ninja
    19. Seesaw
    20. A-Fresh
    21. Unbound by Default

    Web Animation Inspiration

    1. CodePen
      A playground for web developers, where you can find numerous examples of creative web animations using CSS, JavaScript, and SVG.
    2. Animista
      A collection of ready-to-use CSS animations, where you can customize animations and see them in action.
    3. LottieFiles
      Provides free animations and resources using the Lottie framework, which allows easy integration of high-quality animations into websites.
    4. Motion UI
      A CSS library for creating seamless web animations. It’s a great resource for modern transitions and animations in your UI.
    5. Cuberto’s Motion Inspiration
      Offers modern and elegant motion designs focusing on micro-interactions, a great source for fluid and seamless web animation ideas.
    6. Webflow Showcase
      A gallery of projects created using Webflow, highlighting advanced web animations and interactions that are often highly interactive.
    7. Creative Bloq: Web Animation
      An article collection that explores creative web animations and techniques.
    8. Code My UI
      A great place to find small animation snippets and interface designs with CSS and JavaScript.
    9. GSAP Showcase
      The GSAP (GreenSock Animation Platform) is one of the most powerful animation libraries. Their showcase features impressive animations made with GSAP.
    10. Olivier Larose Youtube
  • 10 .NET Libraries for generating PDF’s

    10 .NET Libraries for generating PDF’s

    When working with PDFs in .NET, developers have several powerful libraries at their disposal. These libraries vary in functionality, licensing, and ease of use, catering to different needs such as creating, editing, and printing PDFs. Below is a list of ten popular PDF libraries used in the .NET ecosystem, each with a brief description, a link for more information, and a note on whether it is free or commercial.

    1. IronPDF

    • Description: IronPDF is a commercial library that converts HTML to PDF using a Chrome rendering engine, ensuring pixel-perfect accuracy with full CSS3, JavaScript, and HTML5 support. Unlike many PDF libraries that struggle with modern web standards, IronPDF handles complex layouts, responsive designs, and dynamic content seamlessly. It offers comprehensive PDF manipulation including merging, splitting, form filling, digital signatures, and OCR capabilities. Already compatible with .NET 10 (coming November 2025) alongside .NET 9, 8, 7, 6, Core, Standard, and Framework, it runs on Windows, Linux, macOS, Docker, Azure, and AWS environments.
    • Link: IronPDF
    • License: Commercial, with a free 30-day trial available for evaluation.

    2. QuestPDF

    • Description: QuestPDF is a modern library designed to create PDF documents using simple and intuitive APIs. It offers flexibility and a focus on high-quality output.
    • Link: QuestPDF
    • License: Free for most uses, with commercial options available.

    3. PdfSharp & Migradoc

    • Description: PdfSharp and MigraDoc are open-source libraries that work together to create PDFs. PdfSharp focuses on PDF creation and editing, while MigraDoc handles document layout and design.
    • Link: PdfSharp | MigraDoc
    • License: Free, open-source.

    4. Syncfusion PDF Framework

    • Description: Syncfusion provides a comprehensive PDF framework that allows for creating, editing, and converting PDFs. It is feature-rich and supports a wide range of PDF functionalities.
    • Link: Syncfusion PDF Framework
    • License: Free for small businesses and individuals under the community license; commercial options available.

    5. freeSpire.PDF

    • Description: freeSpire.PDF is a free version of the Spire.PDF library, offering essential PDF creation and manipulation features. It’s a solid choice for basic PDF tasks.
    • Link: freeSpire.PDF
    • License: Free, with a commercial version available.

    6. X39.Solutions.PdfTemplate

    • Description: A specialized library focused on generating PDF documents based on templates. It’s a simple and effective solution for template-driven PDF generation.
    • Link: X39.Solutions.PdfTemplate
    • License: Free.

    7. VectSharp

    • Description: VectSharp is a versatile vector graphics library that includes support for PDF generation. It’s particularly useful for projects requiring custom vector drawing.
    • Link: VectSharp
    • License: Free, open-source.

    8. FastReport

    • Description: FastReport is a powerful reporting tool that can generate complex PDF reports. It includes a wide range of features for generating PDFs from various data sources.
    • Link: FastReport
    • License: Free for basic use; advanced features require a commercial license.

    9. iTextSharp

    • Description: iTextSharp (part of iText) is a well-known library for creating and manipulating PDFs. It’s a robust and versatile tool that supports a wide range of PDF features.
    • Link: iTextSharp
    • License: Free for open-source projects under AGPL; commercial licenses available.

    10. Aspose.PDF

    • Description: Aspose.PDF is a commercial library offering extensive PDF processing capabilities. It supports creation, conversion, editing, and a wide array of other PDF operations.
    • Link: Aspose.PDF
    • License: Commercial.

    This list includes a mix of free and commercial options, ensuring there’s a library suitable for almost any .NET project involving PDF generation or manipulation.

  • Visual Studio .NET Framework, This site can’t provide a secure connection (ERR_SSL_PROTOCOL_ERROR)

    Visual Studio .NET Framework, This site can’t provide a secure connection (ERR_SSL_PROTOCOL_ERROR)

    This is a problem with the SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) protocol, which is used to establish secure connections between a web server and a browser.

    Solution that worked for me

    1. In Solution Explorer, click your project.
    2. Hit the F4 key (view properties).
    3. Copy the URL (NOT the SSL URL).
    4. Paste the URL into the Project Url on the Web Tab, Save.
    5. In Solution Explorer, click your project.
    6. Hit the F4 key (view properties).
    7. Change SSL Enabled to false.
    8. Change it back to true. There should be a new SSL URL. Copy it.
    9. Paste the new SSL URL into Project URL on Web tab. Click Create Virtual Directory.
    10. Click Override application root URL, and paste in SSL URL. Save.
  • Update Windows Subsystem for Linux

    Update Windows Subsystem for Linux

    The Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) lets developers install a Linux distribution and run it inside Windows. I use WSL all the time when working with Windows. It is a handy tool that gives power of Linux and bash without having to change systems. Recently I noticed that I have not updated distro on the Subsystem. It runs the same orginal distro that I installed when I configured my Windows Machine. But luckily updating it is quite straight forward. So, here it comes in case you need to do it:

    In general, the process for upgrading Ubuntu on WSL is pretty much the same as from a “normal” Ubuntu CLI.

    1. First run get your current distro to the latest:

      sudo apt update && sudo apt full-upgrade

      2. Restart your WSL:

      View the list of distros and their current state:

      wsl.exe -l -v

      Shutdown everything: 

      wsl.exe --shutdown

      Or Terminate a specific distro: 

      wsl.exe -t <DistroName>

      3. Run Distro Update

      Start again terminal and load WSL, then run

      sudo do-release-upgrade

      Once the update has done it’s magic you can reload your terminal and you should have the latest linux distro running.

      There is also another approach if you don’t care about packages you have installed on your distro you can always completely remove a Linux distro on WSL and install new onne, use these steps:

      • Open Settings on Windows 11.
      • Click on Apps.
      • Click the Installed apps page (or Apps and Features)
      • Select the Linux distro, open the menu (three-dotted button) on the right side, and choose the “Uninstall” option.
      • Then go to Windows Store and install new distro

    1. Best (online) tools to optimize images to web pages

      https://tinypng.com/ 

      https://squoosh.app/ 

      https://imageoptim.com/ (only for Mac)

    2. Setting billing cap on Google Cloud Platform

      Setting billing cap on Google Cloud Platform

      You can setup pricing alerts on GCP in the Budgets & alerts but there seems to be no way to set hard billing cap. Meaning, if your spending reaches x amount the service(s) just stops.

      Fortunately Youtuber called Data Slayer has created nice YouTube tutorial here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KiTg8RPpGG4 together with GitHub repo here: https://github.com/aioverlords/Google-Cloud-Platform-Killswitch

      You can combine budget pub/sub alerts with a cloud function that can disable billing on your entire account if a threshold is met.

      In shot

      const _disableBillingForProject = async projectName => {
const res = await billing.updateBillingInfo({
    name: projectName,
    resource: {
        billingAccountName: ''
    }, // Disable billing
});
console.log(res);
console.log("Billing Disabled");
return `Billing disabled: ${JSON.stringify(res.data)}`;
};

    3. Looking for icons for the next project?

      Looking for icons for the next project?

      I have small list of free and open source icon libraries that looks nice as time time of writing (October 2022).

      Oldies but still goodies

      More icons here https://appydev.co/icons

    4. Delete all rows on the table that are older than 100 days

      Delete all rows on the table that are older than 100 days

      USE Database_name;
DELETE FROM Table_name
WHERE Date_column < GETDATE() - 100
    5. Fix broken permissions on Windows Server (or desktop)

      Fix broken permissions on Windows Server (or desktop)

      Ever see The “Failed to Enumerate Objects in the Container. Access is denied.” error? I get this sometimes on Windows when pulling code from Git.

      Here is quick fix:

      1. Open PowerShell as Administrator
      2. Run
        takeown /F C:\fullpathToTheFolder
        takeown /F C:\fullpathToTheFolder /r /d y
        icacls C:\fullpathToTheFolder /grant Administrators:F
        icacls C:\fullpathToTheFolder /grant Administrators:F /t
      3. Then open File Explorer normally and you should be able to set permissions normally again.