Today's guest at shakin.ru - Lester 'GaMerZ' Chan, author of many popular WordPress plugins. Every WordPress blogger knows his plugins: WP-PageNavi, WP-Polls, WP-Ban, WP-CommentNavi, WP-DBManager and many others. You can visit full list of WordPress plugins created by Lester.
I really appreciate that Lester took time to answer my questions.
Can we have a little background information - where do you live? How old are you? What is your education?
I am currently 25 years old living in a small country called Singapore. I am currently perusing my degree in Computing (Information Systems) and will be graduating at the end of this year.
What gave you the idea to create your first WordPress plugin? What plugin was it? What gave you the idea for this plugin?
My first plugin was WP-Polls, I was always fascinated how polls works (as in the coding part) and hence I decided to try it out myself. It started out as a "hack" for b2 and I eventually ported it to WordPress when it came out. I used to play counter-strike a lot last time and this site CS Nation, csnation.net is the one give me the idea for the polls as that site used to have lots of polls last time.
All of your WordPress plugins are awesome! What plugins are your favorite?
Thanks for the compliments. My favorite plugin is also my first plugin which is the WP-Polls as I have seen it grow from a simple poll to where is it now.
Which plugin was hardest to develop? Which one of your plugins is most downloaded?
🔥 Кстати! Я провожу платный курс по продвижению англоязычных сайтов SEO Шаолинь seoshaolin.com. Для читателей блога я делаю хорошую скидку по промокоду "blog". Тариф Про стоит не 41, а 35 тыс. рублей. Тариф Лайт не 21, а 17 тыс. рублей. Тариф Команда не 58, а 50 тыс. рублей. Для получения скидки пишите мне на globatorseo@gmail.com с темой "Курс" или в Telegram @mikeshakin.My WP-Polls is my most downloaded plugin of about 202,000 downloads. The most difficult plugin to develope is the WP-Email/WP-Print because of the rewriting rules involved. It always get broken with each major WordPress upgrade.
What advice would you give to someone who wants to create his own WordPress plugin?
I always believe in open source but at the same time, there is no free lunch in this world. Offer the WordPress plugin for free and charge for modification as well as more complex support issues. At least by doing this, the plugin author can get some allowance to buy something that he or she will like.
Lester, which version of WordPress do you suggest? Some bloggers like to upgrade to the latest version, some stay with 2.3.3, some use 2.5.
I would always suggest bloggers to keep WordPress up to date as possible due to bug fixes as well as security loopholes. I would say WP2.7. WP2.8 is coming out soon, and I would suggest bloggers to wait for WP2.8 if you are deciding to upgrade it from WP 2.3, WP2.5 or WP2.6.
Lester, what are your plans for future WordPress plugins?
At the moment, I am pretty occupied with my school work and I stopped creating new plugins. I am just basically updating them to make sure that it is compatible with each release of WordPress. I was hoping to get a full time job related to WordPress when I gradate at the end of this year.
What kind of music do you like?
I like Techno/Trance music as well as Pop and R&B. Never like Metal or Instrumental music.
Thanks a lot, Lester! What advice would you give to Russian bloggers?
No problem, thanks for the interview. I always tell my fellow bloggers to keep WordPress up to date and backup your database/site daily. Data is more important then anything else afterall these data are the blogger years of work. I would love the visit Russia one day, perhaps during the winter season. I love cold weather. In Singapore it is always 30 degrees Celsius whole year round!
You can watch video about Singapore:
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