By Jeffro on March 18, 2009
Scott Berkun who has been blogging for a LONG time recently published his own review centered around WordPress 2.7.
As a mostly non-practicing geek, I don’t write much code or touch command lines often, so despite my CS degree, I don’t trust myself and I wait to do this until I think it’s worth it. And this upgrade to 2.7 totally was.
Scott’s review covers the new user interface, the auto upgrader, and the new dashboard. He does have a few minor gripes as well but nothing overly worrisome.
While reading Scott’s review, he mentioned in one of his gripes that he is still confused and scared by plugins.
There are tons of these made, but it’s hard to find reliable ones that I’m confident will be supported into the future, or will stay in sync with wordpress upgrades. I’d happily pay $$$ for a pack of premier plugins that are top quality and come with some kind of promise of service.
First off, using open source software such as WordPress with open source plugins is a risk in and of itself. When you rely on a plugin for provided functionality for your site, you have to keep a realistic point of view and realize that more likely than not, that plugin developer will one day move on or cease development of the plugin.
Also, I think he’s right. I’m sure people would be willing to pay for a suite of plugins that are constantly in development and kept in sync with WordPress releases. I don’t know of anyone or any service providing a suite of plugins for purchase but I imagine someone out their is toying with the idea.
Posted in WordPress | Tagged 2.7, Blogging, scott berkun, wordpress |
By Jeffro on March 17, 2009
The folks over at CMSWire.com have a great writeup on the 100 hours to build a website challenge that took place at SxSW. A team of developers from Drupal, Joomla, and WordPress got together to build a website based on a specific list of specifications and design. At the end, representatives from each team had the chance to get together to showcase what they created.
The WordPress team headed by Matt Mullenweg created a website on WordPress.com called WPShowdown to provide updates on the project. You can check out the CMSWire article to see an image of the scores given to each project but it looks like WordPress came in second although in the end, the results of the competition were decided to be a DRAW with no clearly defined winner.
One interesting thing to note about this competition is that Marybeth Schroeder who had no preference for any of the CMS’s used in this competition preferred Drupal as her first pick, then Joomla and then WordPress. Apparently, Marybeth had a hard time navigating through the dashboard which strikes me as odd considering all of the UI work that went into the design.
Posted in WordPress | Tagged cms, content management, drupal, joomla, wordpress |
By Jeffro on March 17, 2009
Andrew Rickmann over on his WP Fun WordPress centric site divvied up an interesting question today and that is, what would it take for you to use a plugin that replaced a core feature of WordPress?
My answer to this question is yes. An example I can think of off the top of my head is the new Widget Management system that is taking shape in WordPress 2.8. If this new management system provides a way for me to assign widgets to specific points on my WordPress powered site but the implementation contains a terrible user interface or works in such a way that I don’t agree with, I’m more than likely to stick with Kaspar’s Widget Context plugin.
Another example I can think of is my thoughts on how WordPress works with Post Revisions. No need to dig back into the archives to replay my thoughts on the Post Revision system in WordPress but I love the fact that I can use a plugin which reworks the default functionality into something I agree with.
So while Andrew’s initial thought is that many people would not use something because it contradicts the core, at least a few of us out there is willing to go against the grain.
Posted in WordPress | Tagged core, features, Plugins, questions |
By Jeffro on March 16, 2009
If you browse around the Automattic About Page, you’ll notice that Matt Mullenwegs official job title is:
As the Chief BBQ Taste Tester of Automattic, Matt travels the world sampling cuisine and comparing it to the gold standard of Texas BBQ.
Of course this is to be taken tongue in cheek but certainly at the SxSW conference this past weekend, Matt was living up to his job title as Automattic and Conjunctured teamed up to have a Texas style BBQ which over 250 people attended. GirlsInTech stopped by and offered desert in the way of cupcakes.
For pictures of the yummy food, check out Andrew Magers post on the ZDNet blog.
All in all, pretty bummed that I didn’t get the chance to go but considering I’m only 25 years old, I can still say “There is always next year“. If you were lucky enough to attend the event, please let me know how it went in the comments.
Posted in News | Tagged austin, bbq, matt mullenweg, sxsw |
By Jeffro on March 16, 2009
Tom Slayer who is the author of the Custom Widgets plugin that I wrote a review about on Performancing.com back in November 2008, sent me a note that he has released version 2.0 of the plugin. One of the things that worried me about the plugin is its interface for how you configured widgets. Thankfully, Tom has redesigned the interface from the ground up so it’s more intuitive.
On top of the new interface design, two new features found their way into version 2.0. Widget name display and more organized management.
Sleeker Custom Widget Interface
So how does Custom Widgets weigh in against Kaspar’s Widget Context plugin? Well, I’ll have to use Custom Widgets to let you know but I moved away from Custom Widgets at first because of their complicated interface. Since that has changed, I may find myself switching back to custom widgets. While I enjoy using Widget Context on this blog and enjoy Kaspar’s work, the plugin does have some weird configuration quirks in that, the configuration settings I give a widget never seem to take affect after the first try. You have to save the configuration twice. I also know that Kaspar’s is a busy bee and doesn’t have much free development time to devote to the plugin so at this point, it looks like Custom Widgets is more actively developed than Widget Context.
What I think will be interesting is seeing if any one of these two Widget management systems find there way into the core of WordPress 2.8 in some form or fashion. Or, if we’ll see something completely different.
Posted in Plugins | Tagged management, Plugins, widgets |
By Jeffro on March 16, 2009
Wow, two WordCamp events in China on back to back days. According to a post written by CNET Asia blogger Victor Cheung:
WordCamp Hong Kong is a conference organized by the creators of WordPress for blogging enthusiasts, WordPress users and developers, and it is coming to Hong Kong for the first time on April 5, 2009, following WordCamp China (third WordCamp in the Mainland) on April 4, 2009, in Shanghai.
Among those to speak at the Hong Kong event is Matt Mullenweg and Hailin Wu, PhD. Hailin is the ping pong specialist and martial artist, current working for Automattic, the company that runs WordPress.com.
Info For WordCamp Hong Kong:
Date: April 5, 2009
Time: 9-10am registration; 10am conference starts; 3pm conference ends
Venue: Hong Kong Science and Technology Parks
Info For WordCamp China:
Website: http://wordcampchina.org/
Date: April 4th 2009
Time: First speaker Matt Mullenweg at 8:30am
Location: Fudan University Shanghai
Posted in Meetups | Tagged china, hong kong, wordcamps
By Jeffro on March 16, 2009
Glenn Beck who has written books, appeared on numerous television shows, radio shows, etc. has launched his new project called The912Project. The sites purpose is to bring everyone back to the way things were in society on the day after the September 11th terrorist attacks occurred. Without diving into Glenn Becks message or the type of content he produces, I wanted to highlight the fact that the site powering his new project is WordPress and the theme it’s running is a modified version of Brian Gardner’s Metro Theme.
The 912Project Website In Action
Among the changes between the default Metro theme and The912Project website is a change in font color from red to blue. The lack of a featured content block on the 912Project website, one large header image, and instead of the subscription links being shown at the top of the site, they are shown at the bottom. That is something you’ll hardly see any other site doing as bloggers have always been taught to place subscription links right in plain view. Also, the 912Project website is using IntenseDebate for their commenting system rather then the default comments in WordPress.
To be honest, even though they are subtle changes, I think I prefer the 912Project version of the Metro theme versus the one created by Brian. What do you think?
Posted in Themes | Tagged brian gardner, glenn beck, metro
By Jeffro on March 14, 2009
Crowd Favorite which is the company founded by Alex King is looking to grow the team by hiring a good developer. While most companies are downsizing, good to see someone hiring even if it’s just one person. At any rate, here are the deets on the position.
Wants to work on cool projects, including many that involve WordPress.
Experience building web applications.
Experience with Open Source.
Enjoys developing in PHP.
You can check out the full job posting here. Working with Alex King as well as many WordPress related projects? Sounds like a cool deal to me.
Posted in News | Tagged alex king, crowd favorite, hiring, jobs
By Jeffro on March 14, 2009
Andrew Rickmann who has been around the WordPress Theme block a few times recently wrote up a detailed review of David Peralty’s WordPress Unlimited theme. In his review, he mentions how good it is to see a premium theme go against the grain by nailing down the basics first and then leaving you alone to customize the theme. Of course Andrew has a few gripes about the theme but that is to be expected. (Don’t ask me why). At any rate, if you’re looking for a detailed review on this theme before you plunk down the cash for it, I encourage you to give Andrew’s review a read.
Posted in Themes | Tagged andrew rickman, david peralty, wpunlimited |
By Jeffro on March 14, 2009
During WordCamp Germany, Matt Mullenweg mentioned something called Prologue 2. This new version of the Prologue theme introduces Ajax like real-time commenting meaning, if I place a comment on the blog and someone else is staring at the site, they will see that comment appear before them as it happens.
Heather over at the WordPress.com blog sheds some light on the project, including a video showcasing the new theme.
Overall, I’m digging the new look and functionality of the Prologue theme. In some ways, I wonder if Prologue 2 could really be used as a forum. Hmm. What do you think of that idea?
By the way, Heather mentions that P2 is already available for WordPress.com users but to look for it on the WordPress.org theme repository in the coming days. BUT. If you know how to package the theme files together, you can visit http://svn.automattic.com/wpcom-themes/p2/ and download the trunk version of the theme. I don’t know how to package the files together so if anyone can let me know, give me a shout.
Posted in Themes | Tagged microblog, prologue2, Themes, WordPress-com |
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