Profiles

Bio

I create Branding, Messaging, Design, Marketing, Websites and Social Media that enable businesses and national non-profits to identify, clarify and communicate who they are, what they do and why people should care. I’ve worked with national non-profits, technology, retail, IT, manufacturing and transportation sectors, creating everything from brands, to corporate identity systems, multi-channel marketing campaigns, annual reports, marketing materials, WordPress & BuddyPress websites, videos and online communities.

Interests

Music performance, songwriting, organizing and hosting of monthly songwriting workshops, public speaking, travel, photography, book clubs. Founder and co-host of the Song Talk Radio Podcast & Radio Show on 1280AM Toronto

WordPress Origin Story

Back in 2004, I was re-building my bands (The Parkdale Hookers website. I had created lots of websites for clients as static html pages. I knew that if the updating process on the new site was too onerous, after a while the site would become out of date. I had see that happen on too many client sites.

I thought about what would be required: a simple site, database driven that would have new content displayed on the front page. Realizing a blog engine would fit the bill, I already knew that Blogger was hard to customize, I started to look around. I tried Joomla, but that would only output table based output and I had long moved over to css based coding – to the point where I couldn’t really remember how to do table based layouts – I also knew I’d never go back.

I found WordPress and installed it. There were very few resources on the web at the time (figuring out how to create multiple loops on the front page was a challenge) but I was really happy with the result. The next couple of updates broke lots of stuff as old calls were removed (gettext anyone?) – which worried me. But it settled down after a bit.

After that I’ve never looked back!

  • Member Since: September 6th, 2006
  • Location: Toronto, ON
  • Website: focusedcreative.com
  • Job Title: Principal / Owner / Creative Director
  • Employer: Focused Creative
  • Find me on:
  • Created a topic, Does what it should even with Custom Categories, on the site WordPress.org Forums:
    A site with complex custom categories - it works!

  • Posted a reply to Month Select Popup Does not change visable calander month, on the site WordPress.org Forums:
    Also the "list, Month, Day" pop up doesn't work.

  • Created a topic, Month Select Popup Does not change visable calander month, on the site WordPress.org Forums:
    Disabled all plugins. On php 8. We have a page disp…

  • Created a topic, PHP not executing – only displays the code on the page, on the site WordPress.org Forums:
    When I create a test snippet with the code <?php …

  • Created a topic, v2.9.2.0 Borks site, on the site WordPress.org Forums:
    Just updated the plugin. Borks the site completely. Ca…

  • Created a topic, Should the text in the NAME field have “” in them, on the site WordPress.org Forums:
    In most email addresses the format is "Firstname Lastn…

  • Created a topic, Awesome, on the site WordPress.org Forums:
    Does what it does.

  • Posted a reply to SVG Uploads not working, on the site WordPress.org Forums:
    same here

  • Created a topic, two addresses just sit in the “Queued Email” list, on the site WordPress.org Forums:
    No sure why. We have a cron job set to trigger every 5…

  • Posted a reply to Is “woocommerce_price( $_product->get_price() )” depreciated?, on the site WordPress.org Forums:
    Fixed it. Use the strip_tags() to get rid of all that wacky un-html'ed html code:…

  • Posted a reply to Is “woocommerce_price( $_product->get_price() )” depreciated?, on the site WordPress.org Forums:
    replacing "woocommerce_price" with "wc_price" still outputs all the same code.

  • Posted a reply to Is “woocommerce_price( $_product->get_price() )” depreciated?, on the site WordPress.org Forums:
    Thanks for the speedy reply. Do you mean that "woocommerc_price" in : return $term .…

  • Created a topic, Archived Emails page shows “X” under error, on the site WordPress.org Forums:
    Not sure what that "X" means. Does that mean that it …

  • Created a topic, Is “woocommerce_price( $_product->get_price() )” depreciated?, on the site WordPress.org Forums:
    I've been trying to add some code to display a variati…

  • Created a topic, Unclear UX: Manage Members, on the site WordPress.org Forums:
    Great plugin, but when you go to the "Manage Members" …

  • Created a topic, messages won’t send from any outgoing option, on the site WordPress.org Forums:
    Email won't send to the mailing list, regardless of wh…

  • Created a topic, Plugin no longer working, on the site WordPress.org Forums:
    It was working ok. Now it's stopped. When you click on…

  • Posted a reply to Breadcrumbs to follow the menu structure, on the site WordPress.org Forums:
    I did that - still the same behaviour.

  • Posted a reply to Breadcrumbs to follow the menu structure, on the site WordPress.org Forums:
    Hi Everything is up to date.

  • Posted a reply to Breadcrumbs to follow the menu structure, on the site WordPress.org Forums:
    Yeah - I tried mucking about with the slugs (so I changed the static page's…

  • Created a topic, Breadcrumbs to follow the menu structure, on the site WordPress.org Forums:
    I have a WooCommerce site with the following structure…

  • Created a topic, BUG: Sample code generates an error, on the site WordPress.org Forums:
    When you paste into your functions.php file the code …

  • Posted a reply to Woocommerce breadcrumbs not displaying store base, on the site WordPress.org Forums:
    Hi there Everything is current. I'm using Yoast SEO breadcrumbs

  • Created a topic, Woocommerce breadcrumbs not displaying store base, on the site WordPress.org Forums:
    I have a WC site that has many pages. The store page o…

  • Created a topic, Login/Logout Menu item, on the site WordPress.org Forums:
    I'm sure I must be blind but I can't find any built-in…

  • Posted a reply to WP 5.6 Breaks plugin, on the site WordPress.org Forums:
    Thanks - I'll give that a shot

  • Created a topic, Editing Product archive layout, on the site WordPress.org Forums:
    Been Searching forever - not sure why this is such a s…

  • Posted a reply to editor-plugin.js not loading error, on the site WordPress.org Forums:
    ah right - makes sense. Thanks

  • Created a topic, editor-plugin.js not loading error, on the site WordPress.org Forums:
    Hi We're still getting the Failed to load plugin ur…

  • Posted a reply to Login redirect not work, on the site WordPress.org Forums:
    me too

  • Posted a reply to PHP & HTML in widget?, on the site WordPress.org Forums:
    Hello?

  • Posted a reply to PHP code not executing, on the site WordPress.org Forums:
    Actually on the page referred: `<?php /* This example assumes that www.example.com is configured to…

  • Created a topic, PHP code not executing, on the site WordPress.org Forums:
    When the code <?php include( 'https://******/…

  • Posted a reply to PHP & HTML in widget?, on the site WordPress.org Forums:
    ?

  • Posted a reply to PHP & HTML in widget?, on the site WordPress.org Forums:
    So you can't use this kind of code in your plugin?

  • Created a topic, PHP & HTML in widget?, on the site WordPress.org Forums:
    Hi I have a pretty standard bit of code that's not dis…

  • Created a topic, WP 5.6 Breaks plugin, on the site WordPress.org Forums:
    Was working great but the 5.6 upgrade just stopped all…

  • Posted a reply to How to: Dynamic Display of Subcategories of Current Category?, on the site WordPress.org Forums:
    Doesn't seem to work for WooCommerce.

  • Created a topic, How to: Dynamic Display of Subcategories of Current Category?, on the site WordPress.org Forums:
    I'm creating a template in DIVI: I need to return just…

  • Created a topic, Button stalls after user clicks to register, on the site WordPress.org Forums:
    After the user clicks on "register now" the button sta…

  • Created a topic, /shop/wp-json/wc/v2 returns 404, on the site WordPress.org Forums:
    Trying to trouble shoot something When we go to http…

  • Created a topic, Email Text WYSIWYG editor dispays without style, on the site WordPress.org Forums:
    When editing the "User Email" or any outgoing email te…

  • Created a topic, Crashy Crashy, on the site WordPress.org Forums:
    I think this plugin is defunct - whitescreens on save …

  • Posted a reply to Dashboard: Selecting links in sidebar results in 404, on the site WordPress.org Forums:
    Ah - the old "it's a plugin / theme issue" Actually I've noticed that this…

  • Created a topic, Dashboard: Selecting links in sidebar results in 404, on the site WordPress.org Forums:
    On a few different sites we run, I've noticed that whe…

  • Created a topic, Including full header in landing page, on the site WordPress.org Forums:
    I know lots of landing pages don't have the header wit…

  • Created a topic, Webinars in Menu, on the site WordPress.org Forums:
    I'd like to get a list of Webinars that are published …

  • Posted a reply to Timezone is off, displaying UTC on all events, on the site WordPress.org Forums:
    It was a plugin that was causing this. It was custom-image-sizes-by-99-robots plug-in. Disabling the plugin…

  • Created a topic, date_default_timezone_set causing time zone issues, on the site WordPress.org Forums:
    Hi The call in this plugin "date_default_timezone_set…

  • Posted a reply to Timezone is off, displaying UTC on all events, on the site WordPress.org Forums:
    Having the same issue