This is a guest blog post written by Joachim Kudish, author of the blog, http://jkudish.com/. You can also follow him on Twitter.
WordCamp Montreal 2010 was held on (August 28th and 29th) in Downtown Montreal (at the UQAM Coeur des Sciences venue). The two-day conference was a success with over 300 attendees. The venue was divided into two rooms, one serving more beginner topics (such as A beginner’s guide to WordPress) and the other more advanced ones (such as Tweaking plugins to be 3.0 Network-Compatible).
Attendees were well treated with T-Shirts, the usual selection of stickers, breakfast and lunch (during both days), a special cupcake appearance and a great after-party. One could tell that the event was a success by the amount of tweets on the #wcmtl hashtag on twitter. The infamous Rennick family drove down all the way from New-Brunswick for the event. Both Ron and Andrea gave amazing talks, all whilst volunteering at the registration desk and providing cupcake security. Andrea’s talk was particularly enjoyed by the crowd who let away lots of laughs.
All of the presentations can be found here (most have slides up on slideshare), and you should check out the awesome photos of the event on flickr. I also hear that videos of the event are scheduled to pop up soon!
WordCamp Montreal was organized by Jeremy Clark, Brendan Sera-Shriar and Shannon Smith and was the 2nd WordCamp for Montreal (first one was in 2009).
During the event, an important decision was made for the Montreal WordPress community. WordPress meetups will be held on a bi-monthly basis, where WordPress users can get together to chat about their favorite piece of software.
I don’t know about you, but I have a widescreen monitor and I’ve enjoyed having the WordPress administration menus collapsed versus extended. The extra real estate is nice to have with less for me to look at. However, this collapsed menu comes at a price whereas, this menu option does not allow me to see updates for plugins, themes, nor can I see if any comments are being held in the moderation queue. While I think this is a WordPress shortcoming, Scott Reilly has once again created a simple plugin that solves a simple problem. It’s called Notifications For Collapsed Admin Menu. This plugin shows a visual notification by providing a background color on the comment and plugin icons. As a bonus, if you hover the mouse cursor over the icons, a tooltip will show the number of comments or plugins that need to be taken cared of. The following image provided by Scott is a good explanation as to how this plugin works.
If you choose to use this plugin, keep the following note in mind:
As the plugin’s name suggests, this plugin only takes effect if the admin sidebar menu is collapsed. Also, the admin user must have JavaScript enabled.
Also refer to the plugin page for directions on how to change the color that is used for the visual notification.
One of the things I was most interested in doing at OpenCamp was getting an interview with both a representative from the Joomla community as well as the Drupal community to ask them a round of questions specifically to see how their communities have dealt with some of the issues the WordPress community has. Unfortunately, I was not able to obtain an interview with someone from the Drupal community which is understandable considering there was so much going on, it was hard to get a hold of anyone. Fortunately though, I managed to snag Joe Leblanc for 10 minutes to talk about the state of things in the world of Joomla.
About Joe: Joe is a freelance Joomla! developer developer based in the Washington DC area. He’s the author of the book Learning Joomla! 1.5 Extension Development,as well as the video series Joomla! Essential Training at Lynda.com. When he’s not biking, writing, or making a mess in the kitchen, he can be found pontificating at DC PHP Developers Group meetings.
In this interview, I talk to Joe about how the stance on GPL by Joomla almost ripped apart the entire community, his opinion on the positive and negative effects of not having a face to the project, his thoughts on the Open Source Matters foundation and much more.
Not too long ago, Aaron Brazell published an interview with Copybloggers, Brian Clark where he explains the reasons for why he left DIY Themes. In that interview, there was no mention of StudioPress or Brian Gardner in relation to the future for Brian Clark. Fast forward to today and if you take a look at the footer on StudioPress.com, you’ll see the following:
Interesting to say the least. While I don’t know any of the details involving the deal that has gone down, the trademark of StudioPress is now owned by Copyblogger Media LLC which leads me to believe that either some of the assets, the entire company, or a majority of the company has been sold to Brian Clark. Just like you, I’ll have to sit back and wait for the official word on the details involving the deal but it would not surprise me at all if Brian Gardner has sold the company to start a new venture. Brian just seems like the type of guy that has his hands in all sorts of cookie jars and is always experimenting with ideas.
I think it’s time that not only do I inform new readers but remind long time visitors that this site is my home and you’re just a guest. The WPTavern.com about page does a decent job of explaining how this site came to be and what its purpose is. WPTavern is still a project but let me explain a few things. For starters, I am not a journalist. I’ve never taken a journalist class and my role is not to be the journalist of WordPress. WPTavern is an enthusiast community about WordPress. It’s comprised of fans of the software, one of them being me. So whatever standards of journalistic quality you’d like to hold me to, get rid of them, they mean nothing.
What I do here is routinely take a look at the WordPress horizon and write about what I see. Things that are interesting to me or that I have a comment/opinion on end up as forum or blog posts. I am not officially endorsed by WordPress.org or Automattic although I do receive monetary support through display advertising by Automattic. Am I a fan boy of WordPress? My answer to that is no and my track record which is available through the WPTavern.com post archive will illustrate this. I am a person that can be swayed from one side to the other. One day, I think something is a great idea and after further discussion, I might think it’s the worst idea ever. That’s just who I am. A fan boy in my opinion is someone who tows the line and only thinks unilaterally in favor of the platform or key figure. That’s not me.
I have to admit, I think I had more fun with this hobby of writing about WordPress and what people were doing with it when I didn’t know anyone personally. For the past 2 years, I’ve worked pretty hard not to burn any bridges and directly go after anyone. In the past two weeks, I’ve been pretty grumpy and those bridges have ignited into flames. It’s hard to stay neutral and not burn those bridges when you look out at the horizon and see a bunch of asshats in the community you love to be a part of. But I can’t publicly call them asshats or describe what their doing to be asshattery because of this notion of taking the high road. While great in practice, it’s good to take a detour every once in a while. These past two weeks have been a detour for me and it feels pretty good to sling some mud where I feel it necessary. The WordPress community is made up of millions of people and only a fraction of those people are assholes, thank god for that. However, I think for now, my mudslinging is over with, at least in the public space.
So you may have heard from someone that I’m the voice of WordPress, a voice of reason, or some other title. The truth is, I didn’t ask for any of those titles and I don’t try to live up to any of them. My interviews, the way I write and the things I do regarding WordPress all stem from my own curiosity.
Over time, my goal and direction for WPTavern has changed. The past two months have been a financial break down. I’ve been working to turn WPTavern into a full-time job, a great source of income for me. It’s not working. There are numerous times in which I’ve looked at the amount of time and work I’ve put into this site, the podcast, etc and wondered if I should continue, at least at trying to make a full-time gig out of it. The choice is becoming increasingly clear in that the answer is no. So I’m currently thinking about revamping my mindset and using WPTavern as my second part-time job that brings in extra money versus having it be my primary source of income. Basically, turn the site and podcast back into a hobby that occasionally pays money. At least this way, the stress of trying to please others first rather than myself will decrease and I don’t need to worry so much about page views or artificial limitations that people have placed on me. I have thought about selling the site or disbanding it but I’m still a distant way from pulling the trigger. After all, the forum is doing very well, the site is still a good resource for many people, and I still enjoy writing about the software.
So while the drinks are still on the house, any liquid that does not make it from the cup to the mouth will be considered alcohol abuse and you’ll be charged a hefty fine.
Today, I’ve disbanded the WPTavern VIP Program that I launched at the end of May. Everyone that was a part of the program was sent a pro-rated refund. I’ve been keeping tabs on this particular section of the forum and it was under utilized. I’ll take some of the blame for that. While I did keep up with the coupon portion, I didn’t put effort into the other areas of the program. To really get that section going, I would had to put forth extra effort and work which would take away from the site in general. I’m one man when in reality I need 5. I also didn’t think the program provided any value anymore and thus, was a waste of money. I know some of you simply went through the checkout process as a means of supporting me and the site which I sincerely thank you for but you paid money to be part of a value oriented program which wasn’t delivering on a consistent basis.
So instead of letting the subscriptions expire and simply disabling the subscription process, I wanted to get this out of the way as quick as possible. For those of you that subscribed and your money situation is bleak, think of this as a mini stimulus package!
Peter Westwood who is a core comitter for the WordPress.org project and has been involved with the community for the majority of the projects existence has announced on his personal blog that he now become the newest member of the Automattic team as a “Happiness Gardener”. I’ve lost count but for the conspiracy theorists out there, this now makes one more Automattic employee with committ access.
This level of enjoyment has led me to consider at a number of points in time whether or not I should switch job and work full-time on WordPress.org as a freelance consultant or as an Automattician. In the end it felt like the right thing for me to do was to apply to be an Automattician. This will hopefully ensure that I have a dependable long-term income stream and the ability to spend my spare time on the things I love: Music, Photography, Food, and of course WordPress.
Congrats on the move Peter. Look forward to getting the chance to meet you at a future WordCamp.
Phil Simon who is an accomplished book author with two books already under his belt, Why New Systems Fail and The Next Wave of Technologies is currently in the process of receiving enough funds from the public to write and publish his new book, The New Small: How a New Breed Of Small Businesses is Harnessing the Power of Emerging Technologies. While Phil was originally going to write a book chronicling the life of WordPress from the past to the present, that idea has switched into discussing how companies are creating some cool jobs thanks to emerging technologies. Phil will be profiling twelve different companies from different industries. When I asked Phil what this book has to do with WordPress or Automattic for that matter, this is what he told me:
There’s a whole section on FOSS such as Drupal, WP, Joombla, and other free products. The book is about how small businesses can act big and save oodles of cash.
So far, Phil has managed to raise $3,085.00 out of the $4,000 needed. There are special perks being offered to those who back the book with a certain amount of money such as your name in the acknowledgments section or an acknowledgment plus a copy of the book. Good luck Phil and I hope you reach your amount by November 2nd. I also hope to have Phil on the WordPress Weekly podcast to talk about his book once it’s been published.
Thanks to an extension for Thunderbird called Display Contact Photo, you can now view Gravatars within emails in Thunderbird. The Gravatar blog has a good explanation on how to setup and install the extension. I’ve installed the extension as Thunderbird is my email client of choice. So don’t be surprised to see a beer mug accompanying replies from me although I’m not sure yet if both parties need to be running the extension to see the images.
I recently came across a new WordPress based book that is different from most of the ones on the market in that it provides blue prints for creating specific purpose sites using WordPress. The book is called WordPress 3 Site Blueprints and was written by Heather R. Wallace and published by Packt Publishing. The first chapter of the book covers a topic that is still very relevant, Migrating a static website to WordPress. Considering the amount of businesses still switching from static based sites to dynamic content this is definitely a use case worth knowing about. The table of contents is as follows:
Chapter 2: Building A Community Portal
Chapter 3: Building An E-commerce Website
Chapter 4: Building A Local Classified Ads Website
Chapter 5: Building A Consumer Review Website
Chapter 6: Building A Job Board Website
Chapter 7: Building A Microblogging Website
Chapter 8: Building A Local Business Directory
Chapter 9: Building A Membership Website
As you can see by the table of contents, this isn’t a beginners book nor is it a how to install themes and plugin book. Instead, the book lives up to it’s name by giving you the blueprints to build 10 different specific use websites. Before making the purchase, I encourage you to read the sample chapter which is chapter 4: building a local classified ads site.
This is a guest blog post written by Joachim Kudish, author of the blog, http://jkudish.com/. You can also follow him on Twitter.
WordCamp Montreal 2010 was held on (August 28th and 29th) in Downtown Montreal (at the UQAM Coeur des Sciences venue). The two-day conference was a success with over 300 attendees. The venue was divided into two rooms, one serving more beginner topics (such as A beginner’s guide to WordPress) and the other more advanced ones (such as Tweaking plugins to be 3.0 Network-Compatible).
Notifications For The Collapsed Menu
By Jeffro on September 6, 2010
I don’t know about you, but I have a widescreen monitor and I’ve enjoyed having the WordPress administration menus collapsed versus extended. The extra real estate is nice to have with less for me to look at. However, this collapsed menu comes at a price whereas, this menu option does not allow me to see updates for plugins, themes, nor can I see if any comments are being held in the moderation queue. While I think this is a WordPress shortcoming, Scott Reilly has once again created a simple plugin that solves a simple problem. It’s called Notifications For Collapsed Admin Menu. This plugin shows a visual notification by providing a background color on the comment and plugin icons. As a bonus, if you hover the mouse cursor over the icons, a tooltip will show the number of comments or plugins that need to be taken cared of. The following image provided by Scott is a good explanation as to how this plugin works.
If you choose to use this plugin, keep the following note in mind:
Also refer to the plugin page for directions on how to change the color that is used for the visual notification.
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Posted in Plugins | Tagged comments, menu, notifications, Plugins, updates