Fighting back the support requests with Bryan.
Category Archives: Colleagues
Does WordPress.com Support Macs?
Believe it or not, I get asked this question quite a lot. Does WordPress.com support Macs? Well, I submit for your consideration this photo from fellow Automattician Joey Kudish and his scavenger hunt.
Yes, that’s almost every employee at Automattic (the company behind WordPress.com) holding up their computer, a Mac. What about those of us not holding up our Macs? We left them back in our hotel rooms.
So, does WordPress.com support Macs? You bet we do! In fact, we pretty much support Macs first, since that’s what we use to make everything.
Anyway, this is a rather moot point these days, as most modern browsers (with the notable exception of Internet Explorer) offer very consistent rendering across all platforms, making the Mac vs. PC distinction practically unnecessary when it comes to the web.
So, what does WordPress.com support? We support any browser listed here, regardless of which platform you’re using. We also support any standards-compliant browser not listed there, including a variety of mobile browsers, and you might want to try one of the WordPress mobile apps if you’re a mobile user.
Automattic in San Diego
A week ago, I made it back home from my second Automattic meetup, this time in San Diego. Once again, we had a whole week to meet almost everyone (which is refreshing since we’re globally distributed), work on some awesome upcoming features (mostly for WordPress.com), and engage in some local adventures. I won’t spoil any of the upcoming new features, as they’ll be announced on the WordPress.com blog when ready, but you might actually see some in action if you have a keen eye.
I’d rather not spend time explaining why we do meetups and what goes into such a thing, since Toni (our CEO) has already done an amazing job, though I did snap some photos while I was there. I know, it’s a lot less than I usually have, but you can see more photos from Andrew, Anthony, Chelsea, Danilo, Erica, Gary, Jackie, Joachim, Joen, Jorge, Matt, and Stephane.
Core Happiness in Amsterdam
Last week, the Core Happiness Engineers of WordPress.com gathered for a week of work, introductions, and sightseeing in Amsterdam. In case you don’t know, Automattic is a globally distributed company and all but a few of us work from home, so it’s nice to get some face-to-face time a few weeks each year and to knock out a few projects that would otherwise take months of back-and-forth text chatter.
We made several improvements to tools on our end, so you won’t see much offhand, but you will notice much quicker support responses in the days to come. Also, you should notice some improvements to the WordPress.com signup process and the main support page in the near future.
Throughout the trip, I did manage to snap a few photos, and you can see more from my amsmeetup2012 tag, Andrew, Bryan, Erica, Jackie, Karen, Matt, and Nick.
Core Happiness in Tybee Island
Over the past few months, the Happiness Engineers of WordPress.com have grown to require separation into sub-teams. Enter the new Core Happiness team: the Happiness Engineers who are focussed strictly on answering support requests and creating/improving documentation.
Earlier this month, the new Core Happiness team met for our very first chance to work together as the new team. We invaded Tybee Island, Georgia, the home town of fellow Automattician Jane Wells, for a week of work, food, and some sightseeing.
As you can imagine, there was a lot of work to do. Since we mostly work on the customer service end of things, you might not see any of the week’s work outright, but you’ll probably notice that we’re able to resolve issues a bit quicker than before.
As for sightseeing, we toured the island itself and bits of Savannah, including River Street and Bonaventure Cemetery. Throughout the trip, I managed to snap a few photos, and you can also sample some of the local delicacies in my tbimeetup2012 tag.
Automattic in Budapest
I had one heck of a great time at my very first Automattic company meetup. As we are a globally distributed company, it was great to finally meet all of the talented folks that I had only chatted with until recently.
This year, we were in Budapest, turning out some awesome new features for WordPress.com. These features would have taken months to build and perfect over text, but we knocked them out in less than a week by working in person with small groups. I don’t want to spoil the surprises, so keep your eyes on our blog for the official announcements.
I did manage to salvage a few photos after low-light blurriness claimed most of them, and I have a few more hiding in my budmeetup2011 tag. It goes without saying that there are plenty of talented photographers at Automattic, and you can find more photos from Karim, Alex, Sheri, Erica, Lori, Krista, Anthony, Ran, Martin, Nick, Daryl, Isaac, Kevin, Dan, and Ashish.
WordCamp San Francisco
You may have thought that the fun stopped after our St. Louis meetup, but you’d be wrong. A handful of us, myself included of course, immediately boarded a plane on the last day of our meetup bound for San Francisco, California to volunteer with more of our fellow Automatticians at WordCamp San Francisco.
WordCamp San Francisco is often thought of as the annual WordPress convention, and this year proved that to be no exaggeration. Thousands of people, from new users to developers alike, travelled from across the globe to attend all three days. The highlights for me definitely had to be meeting more of my co-workers and helping about eighty folks use WordPress for the first time in two workshops run by Happiness Engineer Andrew Spittle.
This was pretty much the end for my poor little camera, but I did manage to get a few decent shots off of it. For more photos, check out my wcsf2011 tag, and keep your eyes on WordPress.tv’s WCSF section for regularly added videos from this year’s WordCamp San Francisco.
Happiness Engineers in St. Louis
Much like we did in Vienna, my fellow Happiness Engineers and I (plus a few awesome special guests) got together in St. Louis, Missouri earlier this month to get to know one another beyond the boundaries of chat screens and to build things to improve the WordPress.com support experience that just can’t be done over email.
There was quite a bit of work to be done, and you should start seeing the results of this soon. In fact, some of you may be seeing it already. Of course, one can’t work all day long, and the evenings were routinely filled with awesomeness. Of particular note were the two Cardinals games, a trip to the amazing City Museum (which resulted in an impromptu Slasher-esque mystery as members of the group were lost in the caverns one by one), a free-play pinball arcade, and an outstanding meal and Rock Band party at the house of fellow Happiness Engineer, Mr. Ryan Markel.
Of course, I can’t neglect to mention the rather fascinating coincidence which resulted in a Genius Bar staffed entirely with Happiness Engineers at WordCamp St. Louis. It was loads of fun, and a pity that we can’t do it for every WordCamp.
I’m sorry to say that my camera was pretty much on its last leg this trip, but I do have a few semi-decent photos to share. For more photos and fun, check out my stlmeetup2011 tag, and these posts from Lori McLeese and Andrew Spittle.
MacManX.com on Duster
Wow, I have really fallen off the wagon on this whole post a day thing. Time to get back on!
As you may have noticed, MacManX.com is now sporting Duster, courtesy of my colleagues, the Automattic Theme Team. I actually spent about two days trying to tweak this back towards my previous color scheme, but I just couldn’t part with Duster’s default colors, which means that this is the first time I have ever stuck with a theme as provided.
If your curious about the faces that MacManX.com has worn over the years, check out the MacManX.com Themes gallery.
Happiness Engineers in Vienna
One of the most interesting things about working for Automattic is that we really don’t have a specific home office, so all of my co-workers come from across the globe. Considering that, we like to get together a few times each year to strengthen our bonds and work on projects that just can’t be handled over IRC and email.
Last week, we had a great time in Vienna, working hard to improve support for WordPress.com and IntenseDebate, sampling the local delicacies, and trying really hard not to freeze while walking to dinner at 10pm.
Some of my fellow Happiness Engineers are major shutterbugs, and I was definitely feeling camera envy, but I did manage to take a few decent shots, and check out these from fellow Happiness Engineers Karim and Naoko.
Of course, I couldn’t resist posting this awesome video, courtesy of Karim. It’s the perfect ending for such a great meetup.
