If you have a site that looks modern but was created more than a couple years ago, it is possible that the coding standards used back then still work to the naked eye but are throwing errors in the background. To find the errors, enable debug mode, as outlined here.
WordPress allows you to alter the default settings in a way that is helpful for debugging problems … including problems you don’t know your site has.
I’ve written before about two of the great starter themes — _s (underscores.me) and _tk (themekraft.com). Each wants you to modify the theme to your heart’s content, even to the point of advising you not to use it as the parent for a child theme. _s makes this particularly easy.
As with everyone else, I’ve written before about the merits of using WordPress’ child themes feature rather than hacking the master theme. I’ve recently discovered that not everyone does this, even in cases where the developer claims to be a WordPress expert.
I recently inherited a WordPress blog that had been developed three years ago by a designer who had abandoned the client. The site mostly seemed to be running, so I wasn’t too worried, but I started checking the code anyway.
Back in March, I posted an item about Bitnami WordPress, which dealt with the Bitnami stack for WordPress up to version 3.9.0 of WordPress. Since then, Bitnami has made an improvement in the installation, although it comes with one new drawback.
Earlier this year I wrote about the Underscores theme for getting started with rolling your own WordPress theme.
Just because you’re not a ninja WordPress developer doesn’t mean that you’ll never have the need to make your WordPress blog look a certain way … a way that no existing theme duplicates.
For years, when I needed a local instance of WordPress, I’d spend a few hours installing MySQL, hacking Apache config files, downloading and setting up WordPress, configuring my localhost to point to the WordPress install, etc. I could get it to work, but it was a real ordeal, and when I was done, WordPress would… Read More Bitnami Stack for WordPress
Last year, a friend of mine hired a new office worker whose brother is a WordPress developer. Between the two of them, the brothers convinced my buddy to convert his massive site from Movable Type to WordPress. Part of the pitch was that the developer brother was going to update the look of the site… Read More Developer caveat
Greg Raven’s WordPress Blog 
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