Hey, I'm Alexandra White.
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March 30, 2015

Building a Bingo Plugin for WordPress

Two weeks ago I was presented a new challenge: build a bingo card for Antiques Roadshow that randomly populated with icons on refresh and on-command (by a “refresh” button), make those icons clickable, indicate a win if five in a row are selected, and last but not least, allow the user to share if they do indeed win. The bingo card (Edit: as of 2019, this post has been removed) was released today, just in time for tonight’s episode.

This was the perfect opportunity to build a WordPress plugin. If done right, bingo could be played in multiple posts at the same time, instead of just played for a one-off event.

The plugin itself is fairly straightforward. Content administrators add two shortcodes to the post they hope to Bingo-fy. 24+ randomized images should be uploaded to that post (not including the image for the free space, winner images, a bingo header, or anything else). All additional images used should be uploaded to the media library but not attached to the post.

ars-bingo-card

The first shortcode, [bingo_gallery], adds the images to a hidden div within the post. This will allow the shortcode [bingocard] to refer to said images to populate a table, as well as to a set freespace image, winner image, and header image, all of which are set on the Bingo Settings page. The actual order of these shortcodes within the post doesn’t matter.

At the moment, the plugin is built for three posts with Bingo cards but can be scaled up depending on the user’s knowledge of PHP. I hope in version 2.0 I can more easily add up to ten bingo cards in the back-end so that PHP/jQuery knowledge isn’t necessary for those wishing to add more bingo cards.

You can download the Bingo Card Plugin on GitHub.

December 20, 2014

Fusion RiseUp: NASA Builds Community and You Can Too

Fusion RiseUp: NASA Builds Community and You Can Too

Back in November, Jeanne Brooks (fellow member of Tech LadyMafia) reached out to me to ask for me to speak at an upcoming hackathon for Fusion RiseUp. Though I’ve spoken at events before, for the most part it had been through JCC Association and JCC events. I had never been asked to speak as me, as a professional.

To be honest, I was surprised. I couldn’t help but wonder, in the pool of amazing women that we belong to, why would she ask me? Of course, that may have had something to do with a bit of my own confidence issues in the moment, but what came back was a list of reasons as to why I was indeed more than qualified.

As nervous as I was, I said yes. This was not an opportunity that I could miss. And boy, am I glad I did.

Instead of speaking about development or hacking in a traditional sense, I spoke about building community. Back in November 2012, I attended NASA Social Final Journey of Atlantis. As you may (or may not) know, even getting to Orlando was an adventure (thanks Hurricane Sandy). Community building carried on long after the event ended, and there is now a group of individuals that are a part of my extended network with a shared love for all things space.

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October 31, 2014

Why I Love Passion Projects

This post was originally featured on Grammar. Style. Life.

I’ve done a lot of freelance work in the past few years, but nothing has been more fun and more enjoyable than the work I did for free. I’ve built wedding websites for friends and a site for my roommate’s feature documentary, Sanskriti.

There are a number of reasons I think I enjoy this. Partly, I am giving it as a gift. I love giving gifts more than anything, finding that perfect item for a person I care about, and watching their eyes light up when they receive it. Sometimes, that’s homemade cookies. Once, it was a personal travel journal where I hand wrote best places to visit in the United Kingdom and printed subway maps. But one of the best gifts I can give someone is the time and effort to give a website that is better than any generic template they could find, or a free service provider with ads.

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August 17, 2014

To New Beginnings and Developing at WNET

oven mittTwo years, six months, and seventeen days ago I got off a plane at LaGuardia Airport with a backpack and two giant suitcases. I got in a taxi and we sped (well, probably no more than forty miles an hour, but you get the point) towards Brooklyn. I moved to New York less than two months after college, two weeks after returning from traveling abroad solo, to start my first job as Digital Marketing Associate at JCC Association.

After two years, six months, and three days as a working professional, I hugged my colleagues goodbye and took my cubical decorations and paperwork home. The very next day, I took my Michigan oven mitt and a three legged chanchitos figurine (thanks Alex, Sarah, and Tom) to my new job at WNET (also known as Channel Thirteen). I accepted a position as Associate Web Developer (sometimes in official paperwork known as Web Engineer), beginning the day after I left.

Over the past year, I had decided I really loved building for WordPress and wanted to focus on becoming a better developer. That being said, my resume still spoke volumes to my marketing and community management abilities, more than my technical skills. While I decided in the spring to start looking for a new position, I decided I would apply on both sides of my skill spectrum. I knew my next position would probably help steer the rest of my career, which was extraordinarily nerve wracking. I knew what I wanted, but I also knew that without a computer science degree or a host of previous developer roles I was at a huge disadvantage.

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July 08, 2014

When I Started Calling Myself a “Woman in Tech”

I was recently asked by a friend of mine, an extraordinarily smart and talented young woman who I met while at a hackathon in Boston, to contribute a story about what it means to be a woman in tech. She gave me no parameters, no length requirement. The only request was that the story focused on a time I was a proud to be a woman in tech.

Let me start by saying for the most part, I’ve been pretty fortunate. I can’t speak to how my childhood influenced my career decisions (I went from dreaming of Harvard Law to becoming an actress to becoming a professor to… well, what I do now). I never thought of myself as someone who would build websites, though I always thought it was cool in concept. I thought I was sneaky when, in my sophomore year, I made my knowledge of CSS seem much more in-depth by using a template website.

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June 10, 2014

Take Pride in Being a Generalist

This post was originally featured in my regular contributions to Grammar. Style. Life.

When I graduated from Michigan State University (was it REALLY two and a half years ago?!), my resume felt like a jumble of skills. I can build you a website AND write your tweets AND write instructions for using software AND build you an elaborate stage set. I have the skills to design a basic logo AND create communications strategies.

Malcolm Gladwell’s book Outliers suggests it takes 10,000 hours to become an expert (though a recent study disagrees). So how can one call themselves a specialist in something or an expert if they focus on so many different things? How do you communicate your expertise?

Take pride in being a generalist.

There’s a huge benefit to having a list of skills that are related. Particularly when going into a non-profit or a smaller company which may not have segmented out certain responsibilities, being able to say, “I can help you with your web communications AND your print” is hugely beneficial. Being “the best” can be nice, but tout your other skills as an added bonus.
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