Web Development tutorials, source code and reviews
Welcome to The Web Development Blog where I share my ideas on working with WordPress, Ubuntu, PHP and a lot of other "geeky" stuff.
I'm Olaf Lederer and most of the tutorials and code that I share are used in my own projects. Through the years, I have received so much support and guidance from other webmasters that I started the Web Development Blog to in turn help others. As part of my 'day job', I am continually researching SEO, web hosting and tech stuff. I'll share my views on web hosting issues, various online services and other assorted web programming topics.
From time to time, I'll invite some of my friends to guest post and as always, everyone is welcome to join the discussion.
Latest Blog Posts and Articles

What is the most affordable Mailchimp alternative in 2019?
For you as an online business owner it’s not so easy to find the best email marketing platform. There are so many services and each

How to validate the right email address format in PHP?
Receiving email messages via your website or web application is an important feature and often the only way to get in contact with your customers.

A better website search with SearchIQ for WordPress!
We all know the standard search function in WordPress doesn’t provide the most relevant results. I don’t blame WordPress for this shortcoming, but the MySQL

Using Elasticsearch with PHP a simple guide
Elasticsearch is an open-source full-text search engine which allows you to store and search data in real time. You can search for phrases as well

How to use Mailgun with MyMail the newsletter plugin?
Like most of you I use MailChimp to publish newsletters and for the management of my mailing list. If the number of subscribers becomes bigger

Find Errors Quickly: Simple PHP Code Debugging
Each beginning (and more advanced) PHP coder will fail because of errors while writing PHP code. This post will teach you some simple things about
What do you like to know about web development?

All about Website Development
Website development is the one topic that ties together everything I discuss here on Web Development Blog. Much of what we do as web professionals goes beyond writing code. I'll be sharing ideas and tips on running a web development business, site design and usability, image use and tools that make creating websites easier.

PHP Classes Scripts & Tutorials
All of my PHP tutorials are based on scripts that I am using on my own website projects. I try to keep my PHP code simple without complex code structures but with smart and easy functions. I wrote most of the code discussed on the Web Development Blog , but I also like to talk about 3rd party scripts that I frequently use.

WordPress Theme & Plugin Development
Over the past few years, I am finding myself using WordPress more frequently while building my own websites and sites for my customers. WordPress has become so powerful and it's easy to add more features. I write about cool plugins I've found and share the modifications I have written for my own WordPress websites.

Website Hosting Reviews & Tutorials
Without web hosts, there would be no websites. Within the past few years, the hosting business has changed. There are many Cloud hosting providers and Linux hosting on Ubuntu is easier than ever before. I maintain several Ubuntu-based virtual servers using ServerPilot and share my experience here on the Web Development Blog as often as possible.

Shopping Cart Themes & Templates
Choose a premium shopping cart template and add a new design to your web shop within hours. There are templates for Magento Commerce, Zen-Cart, WooCommerce, Opencart and several other eCommerce platforms. All themes come together with the full demo content and a layered PhotoShop (.psd) file for your own modifications.

More WordPress & Web Development
Like this WordPress website, many PHP applications are using the PHPMailer class for sending e-mail messages. Using this PHP class, sending email messages via SMTP becomes reliable and easy. Search this Web Development Blog for the keyword SMTP and find all relevant articles or visit the ElasticEmail website and get a free SMTP account.