WordPress Plugins Auto Update Doesn’t Work – What to Do?

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We receive plenty of traffic from people looking for answers to various WordPress and other open source questions, here at Silicon Dales, as we’re constantly posting tutorials and items of information which are likely to be of use to novice and professional webmasters. If you’re looking to troubleshoot issues with auto-update not working on your …

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PHP 8 has been released – get Silicon Dales to update your stack

PHP 8 was released on 26th November 2020. This is the latest version of PHP. A note before update Updating to PHP 8 is not without issues , particularly if you have older code. You will most likely get warnings and perhaps even errors coming from some of your scripts. If you’d like help upgrading …

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Silicon Dales contributes to WordPress 5.9 update

WordPress 5.9 was released on 25th January 2022. You can see the news statement from WordPress here. What’s Joséphine got to do with it? WordPress names all its release after jazz musicians – this time it’s Joséphine Baker, a jazz singer born in 1906. New theme The new update ships with a new theme: Twenty Twenty-Two. Take …

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Case Study: Moodle and Mailchimp Integration for WooCommerce

The Institute of Photography booked Silicon Dales to update integrations between WooCommerce, Moodle and Mailchimp, including a Moodle re-theme and some custom code. What’s the Institute of Photography? The Institute of Photography (or IOP®) was founded by photography and online photography course experts to help people increase their skills from the comfort of their own …

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The Silicon Dales Guide to Updating WordPress

WordPress is used by 65.2% of websites – even in a sample of the top million websites. It’s popular and it works.

In order to keep up with a changing world, the code powering WordPress is updated on a regular basis. As a result, the plugins, themes and integrations which work with WordPress also update on a regular basis (at least, the good ones do!).

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The Silicon Dales Guide to Updating WooCommerce

WooCommerce is the most popular eCommerce plugin for WordPress. Silicon Dales are verified WooExperts and have a wealth of experience assisting a variety online stores operating on the software. For WordPress sites without WooCommerce, see our Guide to Updating WordPress websites here. You will need to update your WooCommerce store for three good reasons: so …

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WooCommerce Update: Version 2.6 AKA “Zipping Zebra”

The latest update from WooCommerce came through on 14th June 2016.  Named “Zipping Zebra“, the update heralds a handful of very useful features for online store owners. Here’s a summary: Shipping Zones – create your own shipping zones and add multiple flat rates Account Pages – now with attractive tabs Cart Page – a switch to in-page functions …

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How to set up a Coming Soon page for WordPress

We’re often asked by clients to create a Coming Soon page to handle website visitors while a website is either under construction or under maintenance.

Why do you need a Coming Soon page?

A Coming Soon page keeps trust high with any visitors who land on your website while it’s unavailable. It helps to service pre-existing links, reassuring people – and search engines – that yes, they’re in the right place, but no, the website isn’t available right now.

Coming soon pages are a powerful way to build hype before a site or project launch, and also conveniently hide work in progress until you’re ready to go live.

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Give your WordPress website some TLC this Valentine’s

Every WordPress website needs tender loving care, to keep up with the latest versions of software, new browsers & devices and the latest security patches. To give your users the best experience possible, make sure your website gets the TLC it deserves with our checklist below: The Silicon Dales WordPress TLC Checklist Backup your website. Update to …

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WooCommerce 3.5.5 Update – 20th February 2019

If you have a WooCommerce store, this week you will have seen a prompt to update to WooCommerce 3.5.5. This security & fix release went out on 20th February 2019 and it is recommended that stores update as soon as possible. Silicon Dales clients on maintenance contracts do not need to do anything. Click here …

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