0:00 are you ready sure
0:03 okay let's get this party started Greg
0:05 yeah hey everybody we are in Episode one
0:21 of weaver radio I am Jill workman I am
0:25 Greg Bar shared excellent and I am so
0:28 excited Greg I thank you for asking me
0:31 to do this podcast cuz I've been wanting
0:33 to do a podcast for so long and I have
0:36 all the cool apps for years been paying
0:39 for updates for them and have never
0:41 actually used them so today is the first
0:43 day I actually get to use all these cool
0:44 podcasting apps that I have so sweet
0:46 judging by the intro that then you play
0:50 for us it appears you are well suited
0:53 for this so okay so we've a radio it is
0:59 definitely a podcast that we plan on
1:02 doing on a weekly basis for you guys for
1:05 web designers and with especially with a
1:08 spin tours rapidweaver right since both
1:10 Greg and myself develop heavily for the
1:13 rap Weaver community but if you are just
1:15 a straight web designer you'll get a lot
1:17 out of this as well we definitely want
1:19 to keep this to around 30 minutes so
1:21 it's a nice short and quick you know
1:23 sound byte that you can listen to it on
1:25 the way to work or whatever so in
1:27 today's episode what I think we're going
1:28 to be talking about is kind of just
1:30 looking back at 2017 and things that
1:33 we've done maybe a couple small
1:36 introduction of ourselves who we are and
1:37 where they were to get ahold of us and
1:40 things of that nature and then we're
1:41 gonna jump into kind of what we've done
1:44 last year and lessons learned and things
1:46 of that nature Greg you want to go first
1:49 yeah sure look two things so um you know
1:54 Greg bar shard bitten I have run chili
1:57 dog software chili dog hosting been
2:00 around the rap we have the community
2:01 since oh man feels like eons almost a
2:05 decade now
2:08 I started started in grad school - just
2:10 started programming Weaver FM I think
2:14 was my first one it was with it was when
2:17 I had started do all those um the
2:19 wedding circuit you know so you didn't
2:22 needed tools for people to share those
2:25 photos that we collected from all my
2:27 friends weddings so I made Weaver box
2:30 and Beaver FM as a way to have all those
2:35 guests upload their photos collect the
2:37 photos so that we can you know enjoy
2:39 enjoy the events they're doing it ever
2:41 since now swing yeah Joe doesn't need
2:45 any introduction I mean your oh please
2:48 well my fame is greatly exaggerated but
2:52 anyway hopefully if you don't know me I
2:54 am Jill workman and I've been making
2:56 head-ons for a fever since 2009 well
3:00 that's when I sold my first ad on I
3:01 think ice the first one for free in 2008
3:04 so almost ten years which is kind of
3:06 exciting
3:06 right and so we'll be getting more to it
3:10 in the next episode but right now you
3:12 can find all my stuff at Joe or command
3:14 net and the future that might be
3:16 changing really soon but yeah Joe
3:21 workman net I sell I have over a hundred
3:22 and fifty add-ons for rapidweaver mostly
3:25 stacks right head you know shout out to
3:28 Isaiah over at your head for stacks
3:29 amazing plugin I owe my life to him
3:33 right now
3:33 so my cool indie life that I have and
3:36 enjoy Thank You Isaiah we love you so
3:43 what what did you do what what did you
3:47 think you had what did you think you did
3:49 right in 2017 how about that did you
3:52 miss anything cool oh yeah yeah it was a
3:57 busy year I mean it feels like it flew
3:58 by doesn't it yeah cuz I was just you
4:02 know me in preparation for this I was
4:04 thinking a lot about you know how how
4:07 quickly I just felt like it passed by
4:08 and how little I got it felt like I got
4:11 accomplished but I always want to do
4:13 more right beyond some of the highlights
4:16 of 20 2017 in my mind
4:19 big updates to forms plus forms plus is
4:23 a this multi-step Oh contact wizard that
4:28 I released I was finally able to get
4:31 some of the bigger features that people
4:33 requested in there and I still have some
4:35 a lot more to do big updates to gridiron
4:40 that was that was a lot of work to try
4:42 to bring that to to users a lot of the
4:47 fundamentals that go behind gridiron to
4:49 make it fast make it searchable make
4:52 it's horrible
4:53 now gridirons your stack that lets you
4:55 create HTML tables right and is a lot
4:59 like it's a lot like your power grid all
5:01 the way around a great iron sauce and
5:03 everybody and go check it out
5:04 yeah yeah her good is you know how we're
5:08 good oh I'm just joking say who said you
5:15 can't qbb competitors and friends say
5:17 look at that yeah of course of course
5:19 um I mean probably the other thing that
5:22 I was happy to get out is just a new
5:24 website for Chile the software didn't
5:28 get chilly uh new to have new chillydog
5:29 hosting site live but I got a chili dog
5:31 saw for a site live which felt really
5:34 good to get off my plate you redid your
5:36 logo in 2017 right that was was that in
5:38 2017 years 2016 no it was revamped a
5:45 DeLorean or something like yeah it's
5:47 been a couple years I might have been to
5:49 2015 oh man time flies
5:52 yeah yeah that was screwed that was a
5:55 very dark day that was a very dark time
5:57 so it was like probably about four
5:59 months of not not being a happy person
6:02 yeah for background for you know our
6:06 listeners I had a my former company name
6:10 used to be Java Bean hosting and Java
6:13 Bean software and Oracle was kind enough
6:19 to send me a cease and desist because of
6:21 a trademark around the terms Java and
6:24 software in the name they could have
6:27 taken a lot worse according to my lawyer
6:30 but I had to come up with a new name and
6:32 new business as quickly as possible
6:35 thankfully I fell on to something that
6:37 I'm happy with but it was dark it was a
6:39 very dark day
6:40 man yeah I remember I was talking to him
6:43 when that happened that was just like I
6:44 couldn't believe that why would Oracle
6:46 even care like their Oracle and it's
6:50 like javabean it there was no conflict
6:53 whatever we won't dive into to open old
6:55 wounds but I love I love what you've
6:57 done with chili dogs since and I really
6:59 love like I said that new logo that he
7:00 did I thought you swore you revamped it
7:02 like a year ago or so but I love it it's
7:05 great
7:06 thinking appreciate it so how would you
7:10 Joey what do you think you've done
7:11 perfectly well in last year man you know
7:14 it it like you said you know it's time
7:16 goes so fast that you know I thought I
7:17 was gonna release and do a whole lot
7:19 more in 2017 you know I you know I am
7:23 working on a new site design and I swore
7:25 that was going to happen in 2017 which I
7:27 also swore I was gonna do that in 2016
7:29 and 2015 you know but you know it's like
7:33 that the shoemaker's complex where you
7:35 need you know you make shoes for
7:36 everyone else but not yourself or
7:38 whatever that is you know that saying
7:39 but you know I did do some cool stuff in
7:42 2017 you know it released really some
7:45 really really nice stuff some new stuff
7:47 my email stacks which we're gonna be
7:50 talking in more in depth in a couple
7:52 more episodes about email but you know
7:54 how about an entire suite of drag and
7:56 drop email stacks and you know that's
7:59 been a really big hit users are really
8:02 loving it it's basically like foundation
8:04 you know for those users that are using
8:06 foundation to build your website it's
8:08 exactly like that but for email so drag
8:09 and drop of all that stuff but you know
8:12 making all of that is so much different
8:14 as you know Greg you know HTML for email
8:16 is so different than it is for you know
8:20 building a web page because you know you
8:22 do have to develop for the lowest common
8:24 denominator which in emails cases
8:26 outlook and man if you think Internet
8:29 Explorer is bad like Outlook is even
8:33 even worse dude it sucks like so bad so
8:36 yeah email stacks really cool it does a
8:38 lot of it you know obviously behind the
8:39 scenes it does all the heavy work for
8:41 you right
8:43 another big one actually this year with
8:45 SiteLock you know sai laksa a powerful
8:48 plug-in that are it's a it's it's not
8:50 wrapping for specific that you know web
8:52 presenters with me using site lock for
8:54 years and but they've been integrating
8:56 it into rapidweaver just using because
8:59 it's just some PHP scripts and includes
9:00 it unions including your project but it
9:03 was a little tricky for most people so I
9:05 you know I've been having actually for
9:08 years I've been wanting to create my own
9:09 like you know user login
9:12 you know add-on for rapidweaver but
9:14 finally I just realized that I was never
9:17 going to accomplish all the other things
9:19 that I wanted to do so in order to speed
9:22 that process up I just decided you know
9:24 everyone's already using site lock and
9:26 it is a great plugin so I just created a
9:30 set of stacks that leverage site lock so
9:33 interesting yeah it you know it's nice I
9:37 used it for the rapid eerie conference
9:39 and a couple there small things and it
9:43 works well it's a great user management
9:44 tool right it it just works and it's
9:48 pretty it's really simple to set up and
9:49 it's it's pretty inexpensive I think it
9:52 was like $40 per domain right which
9:55 which for what you get is is pretty good
9:58 right so one-time fee for 40 bucks for
10:01 site lock right and then my stacks are a
10:02 one-time fee for however however many
10:04 websites you want right but but yeah so
10:08 what I how about you back to you what
10:10 what was your biggest accomplishment you
10:11 think in 2017 oh man
10:16 biggest accomplishment that's that's
10:20 quite a threshold no pressure here no
10:25 pressure no pressure no pressure now
10:29 probably probably the coolest thing that
10:31 I probably did probably the later half I
10:36 think a lot of the stuff in the early
10:39 first six months mm-hmm
10:42 just kind of led up to more stuff at the
10:45 end of end of the year so you know
10:48 that's when that's when you know I was
10:50 able to work on you know stuff like the
10:53 database integration for forms plus and
10:56 figure out how that works and it's
10:59 really cool because you know in rap over
11:02 you can build a contact form and you can
11:05 change it but when you have a database
11:07 and you have a my sequel database those
11:10 are typically fixed databases mm-hmm
11:12 right so forms plus will automatically
11:16 do the migration for you so if you added
11:18 an extra contact form or a contact field
11:22 that automatically gets saved into the
11:24 database and will do the migration to
11:26 add that column to the database for you
11:28 automatically
11:28 so forms plus actually creates the
11:31 database table and maintains it for you
11:33 oh wow that's pretty slick that is
11:36 pretty slick everybody yeah yeah so one
11:40 so once you give it the you know
11:42 database server username password that's
11:47 it that's it and you can and if you had
11:49 multiple forms plus on them on your site
11:51 you could they gonna pull a little the
11:53 same database and it adds an extra
11:55 column that lets you distinguish which
11:58 farm it was so that's pretty cool yeah
12:02 yeah that was that's probably my
12:04 favorite more my favorite things that is
12:06 that is pretty cool yeah how are you
12:10 what's your which your pride and joy for
12:12 2017 you know I spent a lot of time on
12:17 total CMS this year like probably way
12:21 more than I should have but um it got a
12:23 lot of focus it's actually been like my
12:25 main focus for like two years straight
12:27 and it will be a big focus this year as
12:30 well so last year I really shipped total
12:33 CMS 1.4 that really revamped the blog
12:38 and enhanced that a lot so that was
12:41 really cool
12:42 well that was cool I actually think one
12:44 of my one of my favorite technical
12:46 implementations was my new video wall
12:49 stack is really cool where it allows you
12:52 to bring in a playlist from YouTube or
12:55 Vimeo or your own html5 videos and you
12:58 could build like a wall of videos and
13:00 you know and you can mix and match so
13:03 you can have you know bring an entire
13:04 playlist from YouTube and then mix in
13:06 some of your own
13:07 as well if you want so or multiple
13:09 playlists from YouTube and stuff so it's
13:11 really cool and I kind of took it to a
13:15 level where basically like it runs its
13:17 own little web service on your web
13:19 server and then the stack just uses like
13:22 Ajax to call it in
13:24 so it's like a nano encapsulated little
13:26 web service you know so from a technical
13:29 perspective it's I was really happy with
13:32 that code it was just I was patting
13:34 myself on the back for a while on that
13:35 one it's really cool stuff tastes nice
13:37 it sounds it sounds similar to you know
13:42 Weaver picks which is one of my things
13:45 that I didn't get to in $27 I wanted to
13:48 know Weaver picks Weaver picks Joe knows
13:52 but not everybody knows this it has the
13:54 same kind of idea where it takes all
13:55 your images from an array of sources and
13:58 aggregates them into you know a
14:01 slideshow gallery or sensori great minds
14:04 think alike yeah yeah I just wanted to
14:09 get it out into the world six six months
14:12 ago yeah yeah I understand II totally
14:16 yeah yeah yeah you know I almost really
14:18 spell the whole stack probably my last
14:19 my last release of this year was in
14:21 which a stack called agent right which
14:23 you know there's a lot of people that
14:26 want to have like different layouts from
14:30 mobile to desktop right and what they do
14:32 is they like in stacks at least they
14:33 have like the you know hide this stack
14:35 settings and in all this you know every
14:38 stack has that or most acts have that
14:39 setting right but what a lot of people
14:42 don't realize is that that feature like
14:45 it just hides it it doesn't actually
14:47 like so if you have like if you hide a
14:49 stack that has like ten images on it
14:52 right those images are still on the page
14:54 right so maybe you're hiding those on
14:56 mobile but they're still actually there
14:58 and still actually loading in the
14:59 background right so what agent does is
15:04 it uses PHP on the server to not even
15:07 send that data down to the down to the
15:09 mobile device right so that was that was
15:12 a cool accomplishment and it was it was
15:14 really cool to see how users used to
15:15 that and then that made me iterate and
15:17 add some more features so like agent can
15:20 do like URL
15:21 handling it'll do like multi-language
15:23 stuff now which is really cool so but it
15:26 all does it on the server so you know
15:28 there are other stacks out there that do
15:29 all that stuff but basically it just
15:31 hides or shows content on the webpage so
15:34 in effect it it's just hiding stuff
15:37 everything is still getting downloaded
15:39 on everything so by by you know hiding
15:42 that stuff on the server it never brings
15:44 that stuff down so that was a really
15:46 simple stack but a really cool one
15:49 because it just I think it was a
15:51 paradigm shift for some people and they
15:54 really saw some nice benefits of that so
15:55 that was really cool yeah you know it's
15:58 definitely better for SEO and and those
16:01 kind of things in PageSpeed yeah it's
16:03 definitely yeah I mean SEO and PageSpeed
16:06 are very tightly coupled nowadays
16:07 because you know they want to make sure
16:09 your page downloads are are quick so
16:12 yeah what do you what do you think was
16:14 the biggest or some media less less life
16:17 lessons from 2017 so you know my last
16:21 thing I say my lesson from so The
16:25 Weavers I you know I had Weaver space
16:26 conference this year and you know I had
16:30 the first one in 2016 and I did another
16:31 one in 2017 and I learned a lot from the
16:35 first conference and I I do think the
16:37 the conference of 2017 was actually
16:40 smoother it went better the technology
16:42 that I used was more efficient but I
16:46 didn't I didn't I didn't properly market
16:49 that conference well you know just from
16:51 a business standpoint I I was so busy
16:54 implementing stuff that I forgot to
16:56 market it property and it was really
16:58 like I didn't I didn't really market it
17:00 until like six weeks before a conference
17:02 and you can't really do that you can't
17:05 expect you know a lot of people to you
17:06 know come and take you know two three
17:09 days off and and a join your conference
17:14 with just you know a month and a half
17:16 you know notice so this year I'm
17:18 definitely you know gonna try to plan
17:19 ahead a little bit further get people
17:21 more advanced notice but I think you
17:25 know the conference itself was was it
17:28 was definitely a success you know really
17:30 well like I said I just think that I
17:32 could have
17:34 influenced more people and got more
17:36 people to attend if I had you know
17:39 marketed and done a better job you know
17:42 getting the word out earlier so hey yeah
17:45 that's that's something I struggle with
17:46 is the working on the business first
17:49 working business yep yeah
17:52 you can't can't always be doing the fun
17:54 stuff you have to do stuff that's
17:56 sometimes outside your comfort zone I
17:57 mean you like to market and do those
17:59 things too but not everybody does right
18:01 yeah no no no even for me like you know
18:04 I I try to portray you know myself as an
18:06 outgoing person but there are times
18:08 where you just don't want to do it you
18:10 just you just get lazy you know and
18:12 you're like oh I don't wanna I don't
18:14 wanna you know risk myself out and get
18:18 out myself out there and put myself out
18:20 there and you know people you know
18:22 reject it or what does it stuff you know
18:24 yeah do it last exactly exactly how are
18:30 you Greg what was your biggest thing in
18:31 2017 that you think you could improved
18:33 on or done better
18:35 no is it was probably the it was
18:38 beginning at twenty seventeen it was it
18:41 was it was a rough learning experience
18:43 and it was it's kind of just shocking
18:45 and um what happened you know you know
18:50 everyone chili dog hosting right and
18:51 part of what I do is that try to make
18:53 informed decisions for users and do what
18:58 is best for them without them having to
19:00 worry about it yeah so you know I take
19:03 that as part of service and if you go to
19:05 another company they're typically just
19:07 gonna stick you on a server and you're
19:08 gonna get that server you'll never you
19:10 never move you'll never you know and
19:12 that's fine you know I try to always use
19:16 the latest and greatest hardware you
19:19 know the various software packages to
19:21 make sure you know your excites being
19:23 accelerated I'm doing basically doing
19:25 whatever I can to make your site as fast
19:28 as possible as scalable as possible etc
19:34 sometimes that involves moving hardware
19:37 because you can't necessarily just swap
19:41 hard drives or change the motherboard
19:42 you know and instantly get
19:46 that extra speed so in the beginning of
19:48 2017 I was looking at you know what it
19:52 would take to scale uses sites even more
19:55 and I had moved into a a new data center
20:00 with better connectivity yeah you know
20:03 better you know better hardware least
20:06 that's what I thought right and it
20:09 turned out it didn't did not work as
20:11 well it's all the preliminary tests you
20:14 know we're great
20:16 the biggest nail in the coffin was just
20:19 dealing with the data center support to
20:23 address the issue you know and I in my
20:27 and you know my business hurt I
20:29 unfortunately learned that a lot of
20:30 people don't care about some of those
20:33 things you know that I care about you
20:35 know they don't care about you know
20:37 using using a you know faster hardware
20:40 using better networks to serve their
20:44 webpages with better connectivity to you
20:49 know Europe and all these other data you
20:52 know all these other regions in the
20:53 world you know in it but I also learned
20:56 that I do have a lot of customers that
20:57 do care and do appreciate it so that's
20:59 you know a little reassuring but you
21:02 know I take it when people leave I still
21:04 take it very personally you know and I
21:07 know it's part of the business and my
21:09 wife still yell at me about it but you
21:11 know it's I care about the websites I
21:13 know so I don't think that's ever gonna
21:16 change but you know just learning the
21:19 fact that people don't care about that
21:21 the only care about can I get to my
21:24 website I know you know and I understand
21:26 the frustrations so I just kind of had
21:32 to decide that I can't necessarily chase
21:33 those people I have to you know work
21:36 with the people that care about the
21:37 things that I care about so well I I
21:41 definitely think you're you've been
21:43 successful at that because of all the
21:46 you know if you if you look at all the
21:48 hosting threads on the forum like the
21:50 people that are with that are hosts with
21:52 you all of them are like never regretted
21:55 being with Greg you know he doesn't mean
21:57 to work and and whatnot so so yeah
22:00 now I know everyone if you're looking
22:01 for a host and Greg has the best
22:03 customer service of any hosting company
22:05 out there so go check him out thank you
22:08 thank you Joe
22:08 Thank You Joey I've appreciate that I
22:11 appreciate of a breeze you know I'm very
22:13 being vocal in the forums and I know
22:15 it's that's probably the most sincerest
22:18 form of flattery for me it's just those
22:20 kind of things
22:21 oh yeah I mean even for me you know it's
22:24 like you know I you know there are days
22:26 all work 20-hour days just you know
22:28 thriving and you know trying to you know
22:30 get some code out and you know implement
22:32 a stack and then you know seeing how
22:34 people use it and how they appreciate it
22:36 and how they changed their lives or you
22:38 know it's funny to think that you know
22:40 the stuff that we do Greg it's like you
22:45 know I years ago I thought it was cool
22:47 that I got to you know make money by you
22:50 know coding up some stacks I was like ah
22:52 this is cool you know and somewhere
22:54 along the point you know I my mind
22:57 shifted where I realized that there are
22:59 people out there that are making a
23:01 living because of what we do right
23:05 because you know they're doing foot
23:08 they're full-time web designers because
23:10 of the add-ons and stuff that me and you
23:13 build you know and that's powerful and
23:16 it's that that's really stuck with me
23:18 for the past couple years it makes me
23:20 feel great to know that you know I'm
23:22 supporting other people but with the
23:25 tools that we make you know and that's
23:27 that really makes my day at the end of
23:31 the day and you know when I get you know
23:33 I'm sure you get them too you know
23:34 customers that you know you get
23:36 customers that leave your hosting
23:37 company but you know even from a
23:38 software perspective or someone's like I
23:39 want a refund this thing is horrible and
23:42 you know and I do take those personally
23:44 too it's similar you know where it's
23:45 like oh like why I like like I put my
23:49 heart and soul into this and you know
23:50 what let me help you work it you know
23:52 get it get it better but there are some
23:54 people out there just you just you
23:56 really have to just say sorry say lathy
23:58 you know maybe you liked it like the
24:01 next thing I have you know or something
24:02 like that but but yeah I do stuff yeah
24:06 well I will I love the winds but you
24:08 know sometimes if I can't serve that
24:11 person in the way that they need then
24:13 yeah I want them to be happy so how you
24:16 know Rick I put them in the right
24:17 direction you know yep so it is cool I
24:21 think we are hitting the time everyone
24:23 for this episode episode two we're gonna
24:25 be talking about what exciting things
24:27 we're doing this year in 2018 I know I
24:29 got some cool stuff you got some cool
24:31 stuff coming up Greg you bet sweet
24:33 everyone we will see you in the episode
24:36 - later later Joe
24:40 [Music]"}]