This month, I'm participating in some professional development offered through Reclaim Hosting's EdTech Subscription, where we're diving into all the Gravity Forms offers. Last week, we met for the first time so I wanted to jot down some notes and set up some gorals for the next 3 weeks! First, I did have some experience with Gravity Forms prior to this workshop, Reclaim already utilizes the plugin in a couple of forms within our internal work flows, and even on some Domain of One's Own schools! You may have seen some of these forms in action, like our Migration Assistance...Read More
Blog
New Tool Find: Scribe
I wanted to highlight a very cool tool I found (thanks to TikTok!). I am always running folks through processes, like renewing domains or transferring accounts, where the process would be the same each time you go through the scenario. I write documentation for these processes or writing within tickets. Any time I can Use visuals is always helpful. Introducing Scribe: The chrome extension that allows you to create a step-by-step process in a matter of seconds. And it was the easiest set up ever. I signed into my account using their Google SSO integration and installed the extension. Then...Read More
2022 Desk Setup
As promised in my last post, I am writing a post about the tech specs as to how everything comes together on my desk. Working from home again meant I needed to come up with a dedicated space to work, and moving into a new space allowed Brandon and I to think through the perfect space for the both of us. And it's like I have two built-in coworkers now! Right now, I'm running two machines, a 2019 Macbook Pro and a hand-me-down gaming PC (that still runs like a champ). Current specs on the PC: an Intel i5 8600k,...Read More
Desk Evolution 2022
Over the years at Reclaim, my desk/workspace has seen several iterations. I've worked through CoWork, the dedicated Reclaim Hosting office, then shifted to work from home at the beginning of the pandemic and back to the Reclaim Office. Reclaim recently went "fully remote" (as if the pandemic made this transition easier), where we retired the physical office space and allow all employees to work remote. Reclaim always had some idea of a remote company back in it's history, really since it began. When I joined the team back in 2017, the team was still scattered across the world, and we...Read More
Professional Development: Activating Omeka User With Our Password Reset Email
Recently, I've found that I've needed access to an Omeka admin dashboard without a previous admin user on the site. Installatron makes it easy to log into sites like WordPress automatically but they don't offer this option within Omeka or other applications. We've been able to figure out a way to access the site through the dashboard directly from the database. This method relies on receiving an email reset to confirm the password, but what happens when you don't receive the email? Well, let me teach out! Omeka Login Once you've added the user to the Omeka database following the...Read More
Domain Tips and Tricks
Domains are honestly some of the coolest pieces of the web that I've worked with over the years. There are so many combinations to them. You can work with whatever you want on the beginning (like mine for example, meredithfierro.com) and there are a wide variety of domain extensions as well! Most folks know .com .net .edu .gov .org for example but did you know you can have extensions like .media .photography, even .yachts! I even found some that I didn't know existed looking through GoDaddy's list of extensions (although I would recommend referencing the IANA list through data.iana.org instead)...Read More
Reclaim Cloud: Accessing Databases
Previously on Reclaim Cloud Learning; I talked through working with SSL certificates on the Cloud and Mattermost training, and now I'm going to be talking about working through databases to round out the Reclaim Cloud month. This one, in particular, surrounds accessing databases (like WordPress, or Mattermost) without the confirmation emails from Jelastic. I'll walk you through getting access to the database node from your Cloud Dashboard without your database credentials. Reclaim Hosting uses this method on our support, so we don't have to reach back to the user to see if they've saved the credential emails. It helps us save...Read More
Changing Your WordPress Theme from the Database
I wrote about changing your SiteURL and home page URL within your database if you're working with a blank screen in WordPress, but I wanted to document what it looks like to change your WordPress theme from the database as well. I was working with users to set their site to the default WordPress themes if there was ever an error with the site. Say the theme was outdated and broke after an upgrade. If your theme is wonky, you may see several different errors, a Critical Error in WordPress, an HTTP 500 Error, weird CSS on pages. If you...Read More
Zendesk Behind the Scenes 2022
I blogged about automations in Zendesk back a couple of years ago but I thought I'd take the time to document some of what we've done since! We've added more to round out specific functions of automation, triggers, groups, and service level agreements (SLAs) to help Zendesk work for Reclaim. It's become an important part of our internal processes to route tickets to the right place and these processes are vital to how we can provide such great support to the Reclaim Community. We also made a switch to Zendesk Guide to create a Help Center for Reclaim guides and...Read More
Reclaim Cloud: SSL Certificates
SSL certificates, oh SSL certificates. Where to begin? These little certificates help hold the big web securely together to protect websites. But they are finicky. Reclaim Hosting uses Let's Encrypt across our infrastructure and using it on Reclaim Cloud was a no-brainer. Jelastic partners with Let's Encrypt to bring SSL certificates as an addon to most environments. This week was all about SSL certificates. And continuing on-trend with Reclaim Cloud learning, specifically using a custom wildcard SSL certificate for a few WordPress Multisite's Reclaim Hosting manages. I'd always issued SSL certificates through Let's Encrypt in cPanel or within the Addon...Read More