Book Giveaway: Print Version of Digging into WordPress
by Jeff Starr on Tuesday, January 5, 2010 – 124 Responses
I have a free print version of Digging into WordPress to give away to one lucky winner. To qualify for the giveaway, simply leave a comment on this post stating your absolute favorite thing about WordPress. The winner will receive a free printed copy of DiW shipped to their door, plus a lifetime subscription to the PDF version of the book. I will announce the randomly chosen winner next week. – Good luck! :)






124 Responses
Catherine Azzarello – #1
My absolute favorite thing about WordPress…hmmm…the community, I think. In 2008, when I was trying to ‘get’ the right CMS, WP kept rising to the top. Now, after working with it, attending WordCamp, and meeting WP users/gurus online–I’m confident I’ve made the right choice.
So, yes–the community. That and the fact that I can make WP look ANY way I want! ;-)
Sean O'Grady – #2
I think what sets Wordpress apart from all the other Blogging Platforms/CM Systems is it’s extensibility. If a client asks me “I need X and Y done”, chances are Wordpress can handle it easily.
Templating is easy to grasp, plugins add tons of features, and the community behind it is undeniably massive.
Jayson Ng – #3
What I love about WordPress is it’s easy to use admin area. especially with recent releases, upgrading to newer versions, activating plugins and themes has been remarkably fast - and easy!
Love it! :)
Stephen Cronin – #4
Hi Jeff,
I would say that my absolute favorite thing about WordPress is the community and the fact that I’ve come across wonderful people such as yourself - but that may come across as sucking up just a little too much! (although it is true)
Instead I’ll say that it’s the flexibility to make a site do anything I want. I get excited every time I add a hack to one of my sites or write a WordPress plugin. It’s just so easy and flexible. I work with enterprise level CMS’s for work (though not much hands on) and they are hard to change. WordPress is a delight.
John – #5
The one crucial thing I love about is Wordpress’s extensibility, among a load of other things.
Tony Dunsworth – #6
My favourite thing about WP is that I can make it whatever I need to. It is so flexible and extensible that it really is everything.
Erik Rubright – #7
Simplicity. It’s my absolute favorite thing about WordPress.
Omar – #8
I love how you can manipulate absolutly everything that WordPress has threw hocks and filters! And how easy it is to create themes for it.
Naum – #9
I love the abundance and variety of plugins for WordPress.
Michelle – #10
I like how you can write your posts in advance and schedule to have it published at a future date.
(Coincidentally, I signed up today as an affiliate for your Digging into Wordpress - does that disqualify me?) I’d love to win it anyway - I have learned a lot from your site over the past year!
Design Informer – #11
I absolutely love the ease of customization in WordPress. It’s amazing what you can do in WordPress and how easy you can do it as well.
Oh, I really want this book. I sure hope I win.
Dee – #12
My favorite thing about wordpress is the great community that rallies around it, extends it, evolves it. Go wordpress peeps! (and gimmie that book pls!)
Micah – #13
I love Wordpress because of its dynamic nature. Change one thing and it changes sitewide!
Dave Doolin – #14
My favorite thing:
WordPress lowers the barrier to personal publishing. I believe WordPress is technology on par with Google, Twitter, Facebook and yes, as much as I loathe it, Microsoft Word.
It’s a game changer.
Rick Beckman – #15
My absolute favorite thing about WordPress? That would be the community, Jeff. All the theme authors, the plugin authors, the hackers, the bloggers… Everyone. This is so not only because of what I gain from them but because they give me the opportunity to share what I know as well. It’s a 2-way street which I am glad to be a part of.
Vin Thomasl – #16
I love that I can do almost anything I want if I get creative. WordPress is super flexible!
Logan Leger – #17
Wordpress is a great piece of software because it’s flexible and powerful yet simple and elegant. Plus it’s supported by a huge network and community which makes development and support really just a breeze.
Irimia – #18
There is nothing you can’t do with Wordpress .. This is why I love it.
Tony – #19
The thing I love most about WordPress is the level of sophistry is packs yet is still possible to be understood through careful study. In addition, I enjoy the level of support they provide such as the WordPress Codex and Forums.
Alexander Savage – #20
What I love about wordpress, is weather you’re a new person using this CMS or a Pro creating that perfect website for a client, it works wonderfully. The support on the forms, the plugins support, the ability to request help and share ideas with the world is something that I haven’t seen done before on the web.
I see wordpress as a CMS that will not only be here for many many years to come, but to set the standard for all other CMS.
Israel – #21
I used to hate programming for websites. Too much work for too little reward. Wordpress made it fun to be a code-monkey again…
Angie Bowen – #22
I’ve been yearning for a copy of Digging into WordPress since it came out. My favorite thing about WordPress is its flexibility. No matter what kind of site I need to create, I can use WordPress to get it done.
Mart – #23
I love the easiness of installing and using wordpress. It’s set up in a minute and intuitive to use and still you can use it for almost every kind of website.
mac boy – #24
My fave thing about WordPress is the custom fields and the taxonomies. Combined, those two capabilities allows one to build Dynamic Catalogs. Essentially, one can build a custom database without doing any SQL coding nor any PHP coding. Cool!
Michael Pehl – #25
Favourite… hm, there are many.
1. the always helping Community!
2. huge amount of useful plugins
3. the simplicity
4. it is so easy to customize
5. SEXY ;-)
There is no better “CMS”
webbografico – #26
I love Wordpress because of its community, they’re great people and you can find a lot of help with them. I also like it because there’s a lot of famous webdesigner using it and writing great tutorials and books (thanks Chris). What I hate about WP? Too many upgrade…
Sherif – #27
I’d loved in Wordpress by using it’s uWordpress as creating community blogging, and find easily writing own plugins :) and for helping community.
Now my 80% projects are in Wordpress :) It’s very easy.
Jan – #28
I like WP for its great community which moves things further ;)
Alex Denning – #29
The community is quite probably the most valuable aspect of WordPress; everyone is quite willing to help others out either through their blogs or on the forums which is always great to see. Not so great about it is the view that the people giving this help should offer up their time for free with no thanks from the person asking the question.
Adam Wood – #30
I have not yet thought of something I needed and then been unable to find a plugin that does exactly what I thought of.
Donny Kurnia – #31
I hope I win this ;)
Thanks for the opportunity.
The things that I like most in Wordpress is that I can install and activate plugins directly from admin area, without manual upload to the server. That’s a great feature to have for a web application.
Inspiring Pixel – #32
I love the fact that you can make any kind of website with something that was launched as a Blogging Platform. Do not know if you noticed it but WP 2.9 does not have a Blog Stats link but a Site Stats link.
Plethora og plugins is an added advantage.
I hate the every next week of updates that they through.
Becky – #33
Oh it’s hard to pick! I love the ability to customise and create beautiful themes … but I think it has to be the range of plugins/extensions available provided by a brilliant, helpful community. It’s almost like having a web-Swiss army Knife!
Ganesh Iyer – #34
Wordpress has erased the line between a blogging system and a CMS. It can do everything. My school’s site uses wordpress and many of the students use it too…so you see how it appeals to a huge variety of people.
and also…
Serif Fonts-Wordpress has brought them back into fashion
Angel – #35
It’s easy to maintain and create the theme.
Graham – #36
I think one of the things I absolutely love about Wordpress is how you can make it fit in with your own custom design. The fact that you are not forced into conforming into a certain style or layout really does it for me!
Atul Thanvi – #37
User Friendly Interface of Wordpress Admin and its also Designer Friendly. So I just love wordpress :)
John W. Vermaes – #38
Right off the top of my head, the three things that I love about WP the most is:
1) It is easy, yet extremely robust at the same time.
2) It can be customized to fit virtually any type of situation, appearance, etc.
3) The community - to have that much knowledge in one place is absolutely amazing.
Vassileios Mastorostergios – #39
My fav thing about Wordpress is the community. Always helpful and knowledgeable. One question to the WP forums and you can do pretty much everything.
Eddie Giese – #40
My favorite thing about Wordpress is how robust, yet simple, it is. You can get WordPress to do just about anything, and that’s why it \m/
Ty gossm – #41
I luv me some wordpress!
Hacking custom form entry fields, custom fields,
mobil blogging via the itouch app are a few reasons.
I can only imagine the goodness in the digwp book.
Wellworth the purchase price.
Christine – #42
My favorite thing about Wordpress is that it meets you at the level you are at. It is user-friendly for my clients to meet them at a beginner level, but it is also ready to go the distance and offer infinite added features for the more complex design.
I look forward to learning even more about what Wordpress can do using your book!
Peter – #43
My favorite thing is how we thought out the entire application is. I can add new functionality via plug-ins, change the look via themes, both of which can be done from within the application itself (no more FTPing your ZIPs). If I need to tweak on of them, I can do that from within the interface as well.
Peter Shackelford – #44
As a web site developer, the helpful community is pretty great. If you have an idea of what you are wanting to do, you only need to do a few searches before you have the right terminology. Once there, there is no shortage of people who have shared what they have learned about that particular area.
Zunkel – #45
My absolute favorite about WP is, that it is so easy to use and administer, so I dont have to spent much time on administration and can let it do, what I want to do and I dont have to support the WPs of my friends, cause they can do mostly all alone :)
Ipstenu – #46
My favorite thing is WordPress.
Really. I can’t pick one thing, because if I pick plugins then I’m short changing the power of themes (and theme children and functions). If I pick themes, I’m ignoring the built ins. If I pick the built ins, then I’m not talking about how you can hook up your WP install with bbPress, let alone Buddypress!
And somewhere in there I’m totally not mentioning the forums and trac and just how cool people are. Oh and I shouldn’t forget how amazing it all is to use as a luddite (according to my partner and cousin).
It’s just all that.
But the thing perhaps I love best is that WordPress knows what it is, and while we use, abuse and cajole it into being more than a blog or CMS (gallery, FaceBook, Twitter, etc), the more it remains what it is. Poetry is code. Code is poetry.
Tomas – #47
Simplicity, for sure.
Chris Brennan – #48
My favorite thing about Wordpress is that it stole the keys to my heart.
Gary – #49
The ease of setting up anything you want…
Slatron – #50
I really like the admin controls and how customizable they are per project. I can set up a WP install for clients of many different levels and easily customize their CMS experience to their level of knowledge.
With everything being so modular - it’s pretty simple to reuse something I have to work hard on for one client later on another site.
Korby Imagery – #51
I like that the design is completely separate from the content. It’s so clean and easy. It makes some content management systems look bad.
Lance Jurgensen – #52
My favorite thing about wordpress is that I can setup a site, and very quickly train someone who has absolutely no knowledge regarding editing a website. In a short amount of time, they are up and running, editing pages, adding content to their site and managing it on their own.
Monkeyail – #53
* the templating/view system
* those little usability things
* the manual/reference
Archon Digital – #54
My absolute favorite thing about Wordpress is the large community of users, designers and developers who are all part of the reason why Wordpress is such a successful CMS.
Sully – #55
K.I.S.S. = Keep It Simple Stupid! Long live WordPress.
Shadow Caster – #56
It masquerades as just a blogging program but it is really a powerful, easy to understand and extend CMS under the hood.
Wai Wong – #57
The best with Wordpress is the actual blogging feature :D and of course the possibility to make custom themes
Sid – #58
Who are we kidding? The absolutely best part of Wordpress is that it is FREE.
Kenneth – #59
Automated updates!
Oliver Edwards – #60
I’m amazed with the interactive feel that wordpress delivers; it makes you feel in touch with world while making publishing easy with various plug-ins, the large community and all the open source possibilities.
Elizabeth – #61
I love Wordpress because it is so easily customizable! Creating a new blog design has never been easier. :)
Garrett – #62
My favorite thing is that even if you just know a little html or php Wordpress is super powerful.
millca – #63
That’s a simple one: WordPress’ community of third party plugins and support.
Mike Henderson – #64
I like that WordPress is so flexible and can be used in many different applications. I’ve probably only used 10% of its capability.
WolfRage – #65
I like that WordPress is very user friendly so my clients can pick it up and do most of their own content editing. I also like the way that I can add functionality by adding my own code into it’s execution.
Joel Caballero – #66
It’s opensource!!
Alexander Moya – #67
My absolute favorite thing is the hooks system, great things can be accomplished with hooks on theme designs, and it isn’t that complicated once you started using them.
TJ Mapes – #68
Post scheduling is the best feature and the feature we use the most and the feature we absolutely rely on! I hope I win the book! There is always more to learn!
Jose Duenas – #69
I love everything about WordPress, especially it’s GPL licensed and the it’s easy to extend.
Lars Tong Strömberg – #70
The ease of use, it´s open source, huge community, fast development, flexible and extendable… It´s really an amazing tool and since it comes at no cost, it has lowered the barrier for so many wanting to publish online!
Goran Ilic – #71
I have purchased the PDF version already and i love it, but oh i wish i had a printed version.
Somehow i am no the e-book type of user :-)
haRacz – #72
Simplicity in every aspect. From managing new posts, themes editing, automatic updates, tons of widgets and plugins and ending on maintenance tasks. Every one of these is super easy in Wordpress.
Eliazer – #73
The easiest theme managing blog CMS.
includes jQuery :)
mary – #74
the menu icons are cute in the dashboard. ok maybe that’s not my favorite thing but i’m still somewhat new to wordpress so i don’t know my favorite thing quite yet. but the icons are nice.
Gustavo – #75
How adaptable, versatile and robust it has become from a very humble beginning. Probably a success case for web development in the last few years.
Greg – #76
I love WordPress because of it’s community: helpful and robust!
Thorsten – #77
I like about Wordpress that it’s spawned such a big number of great plug-ins and community involvement.
Czymra – #78
WordPress is really easy for ‘cut n’paste’ coding as it is easy to understand, and easy to find code snippets (like on this site). For a code illiterate like me, it’s incredible what I’ve achieved… and yeah, I’m sure a Digging into WordPress book would boost my success even more. ;)
Eric Lightbody – #79
I love the community and enthusiasm surrounding WordPress. It makes me want to help develop for it and assist others who use WordPress.
Davies Lim – #80
Hmm, I like Wordpress because it’s just too easy to use, much like a car with an engine and you can customize/mod it/pimp it up to your taste! Best CMS ever!
Alexandru Dinulescu – #81
I like Wordpress because of the fiability and because of not easily being broken. I also like wordpress since it’s updated faster and better than more commercial products. (i havent seen many commercial products with a team as dedicated as the WP team and which ship bug fixes and releases even overnight if needed). With wordpress is a system that you cannot fail with. And the bonus part is that if you dont know what the hell is a html/css/php/servers/programming stuff you can use it highly effective and it’s quite build for dummies in regards with the ease of use and usability.
Kaiserlino – #82
Hi…
With as many competitor as this, will be hard, but for sure it’s worth trying.
Dan – #83
I love WordPress because it understands that I care about using the right typography and the right markup.
Tyler Abell – #84
My favorite thing about WordPress is it’s versatility, endless possibilities, flexibility, easy usability, and the large active community. That is what makes WordPress so great, and I can not wait for canonical plugins… I really hope I win, and would love to read the book.
Eddy – #85
My favorite thing is that Wordpress makes it so easy to manage a site, no more ftp business, just log in and edit right in the browser.
Sharad – #86
Simple & Flexible.
Pablo – #87
What i love…mmm…
that Wordpress is poetry…
Freese – #88
My favorite thing about Wordpress is it’s flexibility. If cannot find a plugin for whatever you need, you can extend it easily.
Patrick – #89
I really like how it’s simplicity introduced me to CMS and php, while allowing me to offer more to my clients through their plethora of plug-ins.
Bleyder – #90
Without any doubt the Wordpress community!
Lazza – #91
My favorite thing about Wordpress is being extremely easy to use and user friendly while being very powerful. It’s a kind of “blogging for everyone”. :P
Michael Pehl – #92
I bought the eBook yesterday. What a brilliant piece of informations :D
Tony Bricko – #93
My absolute favorite thing about Wordpress is being able to setup a blog for someone so they can easily start posting away to their heart’s content.
It’s just as simple as something like Blogger.com, but there’s so much more power behind it so you can keep building and building upon what you started with.
Nick Plekhanov – #94
I love how it’s easy to manipulate absolutely everything that WordPress has through hacks and filters! And how easy it is to develop awesome themes for it.
Oh, I hope I win :)
Frank Strube – #95
I just updated my installation of Wordpress using the automatic update feature in the administration panel. It was flawless and simple! Other blog/cms platforms have given me headaches in this arena before, so it is nice to find that the WP team has mastered this.
Jay Stebbins – #96
My flat out favorite thing about Wordpress…. Easy; Community Support!
You can know nothing about building a blog, start off with a Wordpress.com hosted blog and learn as you go. So many Wordpress gurus and developers share the knowledge that a newbie figuring it out is ridiculously easy. Granted you have to read and read some more. But the possibilities are fantastic.
The only reason this works so well is because of the sharing nature of the Wordpress Community. Thank you, Thank you, Thank you. My bog would not be otherwise possible.
~Jay
torstennn – #97
Wordpress is simple, powerful and has a great community behind it.
@torstennn
Alex Toth – #98
My absolute favorite thing about Wordpress is the fact that, perhaps unintentionally, documents the human experience from countless perspectives.
Daniel – #99
my favorite thing about Wordpress, is the whole thing.
I’ve tried Drupal, Joomla and used Blogspot, but none of them compare to the power, usability and grace of wordpress.
Lillan – #100
My favorite thing about Wordpress is it is so exstandible and yet foreseeable. The usability is enormous, even for a newbee, and your skills grews easily while your’e learning to manage the platform. It works with grace and - not to forget - Wordpress connects people all over the world. THAT’s a colossal feeling ;)
Mike – #101
WP is just a great blogging platform that allows you to be creative and individual- something essential in a globalised world of today! ..Its fantastic range of plugins , themes, support help forums, and tutorials make it the no1 platform for blogging and CMS …. and winning a book would just make it even better … good luck everyone!!
Zach Younkin – #102
I absolutely love the openness that Wordpress allows me to have!
Marko Randjelovic – #103
I’d have to go with flexibility as my absolute favorite thing. I just love the freedom I have while designing themes: being able to place everything where I want it, using callback functions that won’t get overwritten by a WordPress update, using one of the gazillion plug-ins already available or writing a new one… I think you get the idea. ;)
Thanks for organizing the contest! :D
wites – #104
Be able to shape it to whatever you want it to be. May it be design or code. That is my absolute favorite thing about WordPress.
Blaze – #105
My favorite thing about wordpress is all of the support from the community of users.
Random_dude – #106
hey,
my favorite thing about wordpress is the theming system. its so flexible, and useful.
at the moment im actually creating a wordpress theme, and i need the experties from this book!!!!
Tutorial City – #107
The community is the greatest thing about wordpress!
Callum – #108
My favourite thing about Wordpress is that it allows its users to create great looking websites that can be edited easily and it also allows users to develop themes for there websites to allow them to add a personal uniqueness to them. WP also has an awesome community which allows the platform and also the users to flourish.
Dian – #109
My absolute favorite things about WordPress is the abundance of manual, help and community, i didn’t start with the wrong foot learning how to blog & web development trough WordPress.
Madalin – #110
My absolute favorite thing about Wordpress is the community.These days,anyone who want to become a wordpress developer may do this over night.The internet has so many manuals,tutorials and stuffs about everything:install,use,edit,develop,etc,etc,etc.
philip – #111
My favorite thing about Wordpress the ability to create a plugin for a client that will save them many man hours.
Navjot Singh – #112
The one thing I like about Wordpress is that I can use it for making any type of site I want - blog, static site, photo gallery, video gallery, classified site or even a job board.
WP’s Core gives you endless possibilities to expand and customise it your needs everytime without even hacking a single line of the core. And on top of it the community support where you never feel alone when tinkering with your wordpress site.
Nothing can beat Wordpress as a CMS.
Betsy – #113
I love Wordpress because it allows me to concentrate on design to make beautiful sites. While I hope to dive into theme development ultimately, I can look at a template, determine if it has the scaffolding I desire to add my elements to and have the skeleton done in no time, while being compliant, efficient, and keeping the code level down (thus keeping the Internet cleaned up and efficient too!). Wordpress allows the creation of beautiful websites that are full of function and follow a fairly set group of rules. As its use grows, the Internet will become more efficient and less cluttered and confused. (Can you imagine that???) Hurray for Wordpress!
Trevor – #114
It’s just so damn enjoyable to use! It’s absolutely exhilerating to build a wordpress site after slogging through something on Drupal (or any other less elegant cms).
I should note that I use Dean J Robinson’s Fluency Admin, a stylish admin theme, and the first thing I install every time. It really elevates the administrative side of things for me.
John Hoff - WP Blog Host – #115
I suppose my favorite thing about WordPress is that it has expanded my knowledge in the computing and Internet world.
I knew a lot already, but using WordPress has in many ways forced me to push my own limits. I like that.
Talton Figgins – #116
WordPress is striving to tear down the stigma that it is hard to operate and manage a dynamic website. As a developer I can now produce robust websites that are easy to hand off to clients to update. No other open source CMS out there does this and this methodology is what I feel makes WordPress truly powerful. They’ve gotten this way by listening to their awesome community and I think this type of thinking is what will propel them into the future as the leading, easy to operate CMS for most of the websites out there. More websites, more knowledge, more ideas. This can only be a good thing.
lawrence77 – #117
Why I love Wordpress…
wordpress is just like water, whereever it is it takes that shape..
We can customize it!
Next, the community, wide range of plugins, lot of tuts, and I’m loving as a newbie i like it very much…
And also i like this book very much…
hey random.org pick me as a winner :D
thnks for the giveaways… ;)
Patrice Poliquin – #118
Wordpress is the best because it is just SIMPLE et EFFECTIVE :)
Aaron – #119
How about the fact that I really got started with the self-hosting version a few weeks ago, and I’m already customizing the site, tweaking the themes, and more to my satisfaction?
I like that bit.
Jeff Brown – #120
I am brand new to WordPress. I have trying to learn DreamWeaver but the absolute best thing I love about WordPress is that it is user friendly. I look forward to developing a dynamite web page with a blog.
I have the .pdf version of your book and I love it but should have also bought the print version. My daughter is fighting me for computer time. Thanks for a great book!
Joel Kidd – #121
I love how flexible WordPress is. In my opinion it’s one of the top 5 web design tools available.
Guido – #122
i like the wordpress admin backend, its really easy to use and very nice to handle. very flexible and i use it about a year.
Mark – #123
The fact Perishable Press runs on it.
=þ
Chip – #124
My favorite thing about WordPress is the intelligence level of the people behind the leading blogs that use WordPress. They really make the platform look great and set the bar high for the rest of us.