Something that pops up in just about every WordPress related Group, or WP Meetup is a particularly common question… Do you want to know what question that is? It’s this: “What web host should I use?” Yes. People want to know what is a trust worthy and reliable hosting service.

Well, at this point, I’ve got my personal favorites. Guess what? So does my grandfather, so does my mother and so does your neighbor and they all have differing favorites. Each host has positives and negatives to their service and support offerings. You’ll find articles for and against all over the internet.

But let me stop you right there. You don’t need to go scouring the internet for the information you need to find a great web host for your next site. You only need ONE site. Best Host News. They’re a web hosting reviews site built to help sort through the myriad choices by providing a central place to read and post honest reviews. They’ve been around for about a year and their primary goal is to educate and provide useful information to people looking for clues as to making the right hosting choice.

This type of thing isn’t new, but Best Host News is different and they’re goal is to help and to provide value.

Let’s thank Best Host News for doing an awesome job of helping us Sponsor WordCamp this year!

Thanks so much.

Man, how many Web Hosting providers do we have sponsoring our WordCamp this year? Answer? Have you counted the stars in the sky? There’s, like tens of tens… Hundreds even… Hold on, the person next to me says there are literally billions of stars in the sky. I’ll concede that. But I’d offer that there are some stars that shine more brilliantly than the rest.

Let me tell you about one such company, WP Engine. WP Engine is one of my few trusted hosting providers. They’ve been around for a little while now and my own business site is hosted with them. The first WordPress blog I ever built, that withstands a decent amount of traffic is hosted with them.

I’m not the only one who can say that; there are a large number of people I know who would say the same without blinking.

But the quality of their architecture, hardware and engineering prowess are only the first chapter in their book of awesome. They are also huge participants in the community, too. The one thing that many other hosting companies seem to overlook is that the WP community is really active and is something that we all take personal ownership of. WP Engine knows this and their staff is involved in the community. You’ll find them on Twitter, Facebook Groups and beyond as they take part in building up the WP community. They realize that to thrive is to help build the community. It’s a simple concept, but one that many other companies seem to forget. Not WPE.

People, let’s join hands and sing a song of thanks to the great folks over at WP Engine for once again helping us out big time!

Thanks so much!

Today I get to highlight a pretty radass company. SpectrOMTech. They’ve generously offered to sponsor and participate in our little WordCamp, here in LA, this year and frankly we couldn’t be more excited.

SpectrOMTech is a shop that goes far beyond “the basics.” Look, there’s no shortage of design shops and theme devs that can crank out a pretty site, or a site that generates leads. But I’m going to let you all in on something, just in case you didn’t know. There are those shops out there that take on the stuff that no one else wants to do, or are even capable of doing because of the mind-twisting nature of the work to be done. There are those shops out there that eat the complicated type work for a sensible mid-morning snack. People, let me introduce you to that shop: SpectrOMTech.

Headed up by Dave “The Stache” Jesch, they’re a multi-disciplinary development firm that focuses on ROI, elegant and well-thought and well-executed solutions for businesses. Not only that, but as I mentioned, he and his team take on the sorts of projects that cause lesser developers to shed tears and beg for mercy.

What they know doesn’t begin to pain the picture, though, with SpectrOMTech. Dave is one of the first people you’ll have the pleasure of meeting, if you’re in the Orange County WordPress community. His humble and helpful nature offset the true mad-scientist-level genius at work behind that big beautiful mustache. The mustache is just one part of the equation, though. They have a staff of pros to get you on your way.

Let’s give an a huge ‘River dance Themed’ thank you dance to SpectrOMTech for going to big to sponsor WordCamp Los Angeles this year. You guys are so friggin’ awesome!

“Focus on what you do best.” Of anything I can tell you about Pantheon hosting it’s that little tidbit there. I can also tell you that they’re one of the top tier optimized

What does that mean for you? Quite a lot actually.

As a developer, someone who builds professional sites for clients for a living, you probably want a platform that has an easy to use suite of tools for only what you need so that you can focus on delivering value to your clients and less time on things that don’t generate revenue such as managing separate staging/test/prod environments. You should have version control as a part of your workflow; you should be able to deploy to the platform you’re building on and not have to go through a third party service like Beanstalk or Deploy HQ. You should have automated backups; you should have great anytime technical support; you should have a platform that can be managed with only a few clicks.

In short you should have a professional hosting platform. In short Pantheon delivers just that!

Pantheon’s platform is one that I’ve been waiting for now for awhile. When I start a new project I set up a local environment and a testing/staging environment, sometimes separate of one another. This can take me 30-40min to an hour or more. I’m working on anywhere from three to four projects at a time. That time configuring these environments adds up quick. I could burn through a season of ‘House of Cards’ in the time I spend setting up 12 sites’ staging environments! I currently use a 3rd party deploy tool on a number of my projects anymore. That costs my around $25.00 per month. $300 per year. Do you think I could find something better to use that money on? You betcha! Would I spend it more wisely? Probably not! Don’t judge me, people!!

I’d recommend to any developer to give their offering a spin. They provide a solid solution optimized for folks that need agile hosting that allows them to focus on building great sites.

Let’s thank Pantheon for helping us put together WordCamp LA this year! Thanks so much!

They’ve been doing this web hosting thing quite some time now. It’s a hotly contested battleground. There are a lot of “players” in the game. There’s a very limited few that I actually recommend to people who ask me. SiteGround is one of them.

Sure, sure. You’re thinking, yeah, but they’re paying you to say that as a sponsor. While true they are stepping up big time to help our Camp, I could just as easily copy and paste a bio and be done with it. But I’m not and there’s a good reason why.

Of the myriad hosting options that are available to folks SiteGround really does provide a compelling option at the right price points. They have the right set of feature offerings to accomplish what you need. If your need is just shared hosting, then they have a shared hosting solution that doesn’t go “kaboom” when traffic suddenly picks up. If you have a high scale site handling millions of pageviews and tens of thousands of concurrent users, then their cloud hosting or dedicated server options will surely handle the load. If you’re a WordPress sort of user then they have optimized solutions for that, too! Did I mention their tech support? I’m not going to butter them up here. Their support is amazing. You get an agent in minutes; if they can’t help you they escalate pretty quickly. Their response times are blazing fast, too, more times than not… It’s ridiculously good! Are you a power user that needs SSH access? Do you need to deploy via git to your server? Do you need an easy to use, reliable yet blazing fast caching solution? Done, done and done. SiteGround has you covered.

I use them for my staging environment for all my projects and recommend them to a number of customers. I don’t make a dime off of those suggestions. No “bro links” here, people.

If all of that didn’t give you the warm fuzzies then maybe this will. SiteGround is doing more than they need to to help WCLA this year. They’re sponsoring at one of the higher sponsor levels; they’re also donating hosting accounts to attendees of the Foundation Friday Beginner Workshops; and lastly they are pitching in big time with our after party. They not only do a great job hosting your websites, but they’re also working hard to be a community leader as well; it’s not just about giving money, they’re “showing up” too! That’s the most important thing, I think. Being present.

When I think of professional service providers that have a core focus in WordPress I don’t need to look far. The landscape of providers is expansive. However, there are giants among them. Yep! Giants!!

One giant that stands far above the rest is Crowd Favorite (not to be confused with their Canadian arch-nemesis Crowd Favourite) and they’re a remarkable company. Don’t believe me? Let me tell you why!

Did you guys ever see that movie ‘Pacific Rim?’ I did and it was epic! Crowd Favorite is like the “Jaeger” of WordPress shops. Big, bad-@$$ and, well, BIG! But it’s not because of their size, you see. It’s what’s inside that makes Crowd Favorite special! Continue reading Sponsor Spotlight: Crowd Favorite →

I’d like to tell you about our new sponsor Sprout Apps. Who are they? What do they do? Why should you care? Hold on, people. I’ll get there. Be patient!

Sprout Apps is a new company that seeks to build something of value for a specific group of people. Specifically WordPress-Centric Business owners. They don’t just want to create an “also-ran” product. Nope! They want to change how you and I work. But how?

By doing something that Chris Lema talks about: “Making the hard things easy, while keeping the easy things still easy.” Specifically, they’re introducing tools that help flesh out your workflow. If you’re like me, your customer intake system probably starts with Gravity Forms, email and then an estimate or proposal from your tool of choice. It’s not integrated, it’s not sexy; it’s downright clunky. That’s the problem Sprout Apps hopes to solve. Integrated workflow; consistent branding, makes getting paid easier…

Simply put, Sprout Apps gets you to where you’re growing.

Sprout Invoices will be their flagship product and you should definitely check it out!

Thanks so much for being a sponsor of our camp this year. Can’t wait!

Do I need to tell you about Zeek Interactive? Do I need to tell you about Steve Zehngut? Well I’m going to anyway.

Steve Zehngut is one of the people who’s inspired many, many folks with his guidance, leadership and various talks he’s given over the last several years. Zeek Interactive gives back, by donating their offices for use of various Orange County WordPress meetups. Steve has given countless talks ranging from how to manage your development team, how to build mobile apps with WordPress to integrating your starter theme with Zurb’s Foundation. Steve’s a rare treasure and someone we’re lucky to have in our SoCal WP community.

Let’s thank Steve and Zeek Interactive for all the awesome they do throughout the year and beyond.

Thanks!

Andre Behla of Behla Design and Development is a pretty rad guy. These days he sports a lush mane and beard. He’s pretty rad that way.

His design prowess and design acumen shines through, if you check out his portfolio. He is one of LA’s premiere design and development shops. Not only that but he also puts back into the community big time by hosting a meetup in Topanga Canyon; traveling and speaking at many other meetups and also donating to various other WordCamps.

Let’s throw up a healthy round of applause to Behla Design + Development for their most generous contribution this year!