Joining me this week on WordPress Weekly was Douglas Bell who operates Webmacster87.info as well as hosts the PHPBBWeekly podcast. In this episode, David and I chatted about a number of subjects including:
WordPress User Interface History
BBPress
PHPBB3
The possibilities of the WordPress team working with PHPBB to develope a bridge between the two
Security of PHPBB3 and WordPress
And a whole lot more. While PHPBB and WordPress are two different pieces of open source software serving different needs, I find it interesting to discuss the differences in strategy as well as the similarities between the two.
Plugin Of The Week:Maintenance Mode – Adds a splash page to your blog that lets visitors know your blog is down for maintenance. Logged in administrators get full access to the blog including the front-end. When the maintenance mode is activated, a custom defined message is shown to site visitors
Announcements: On January 16th, Jonathan Davis who has created a comprehensive e-commerce plugin for WordPress called Shopp will be our special guest.
I flew solo for episode 35 while Keith cranked out some college work. In this episode, I interviewed Mark E. who is just about ready to release the first beta of his comprehensive WordPress Security plugin called Maximum Security. During our discussion, it was easy to see that this plugin contains just about everything except the kitchen sink as it relates to security and WordPress. If you don’t believe me, view the long list of features this plugin has with more on the way. We also discussed security through obscurity, basic WordPress security practices and much more. Mark has 15 years of experience in network and system security and within this episode, he gave us about 4 years worth of experience in less than an hour!
Plugin Of The Week:Comment Luv – Comments are a wonderful thing to receive on your blog and while adding the dofollow plugin is one way to reward your commenter’s, why not place a link to their last post under their comment. With CommentLuv, you can do that automatically! This is an excellent way to promote comments from your readers. The CommentLuv WordPress Plugin will visit the feed of the comment author and attempt to scrape the last post they made and display it under their comment, this way you can encourage people to join in the discussion of your posts and give something back straight away. WordPress.
Announcements:Douglas Bell will be our special guest on January 9th..
First off, BuddyPress is looking real good these days. Secondly, I’d like to thank Andy Peatling, head honcho for the BuddyPress project for stopping by and lending us an hour of his time to explain exactly what BuddyPress is and does. On December 15th, 2008 Andy released the first beta version of the project. So what exactly is BuddyPress?
BuddyPress is essentially a set of WordPress MU specific plugins. Each plugin component adds a distinct feature to BuddyPress and only handles functionality for that specific component (for example, private messaging). BuddyPress also has a core plugin that all other plugins require, it contains shared functions and performs the basic modifications to the WordPress MU interface.
Tune into the show to hear Andy delve into the feature set of the project as well as taking questions from the audience. By the way, if you don’t have the ability to install WordPress MU and then BuddyPress, you can view and participate in a live demo by registering an account on http://www.testbp.org
Announcements: This was our last show for 2008. Keith and I look forward to creating more great podcasts in 2009 and we both thank each and everyone of you who continue to support the show. Have a happy holiday and a merry new year.
Mark E. Will Be On The Show For January 2nd To Discuss His Comprehensive Security Plugin
On Thursday, December 18th, I had the honor of having a fireside chat so to speak with Matt Mullenweg. The chat lasted a little over two hours and then, Matt stayed around after the show for an additional two hours to field questions from anybody that asked them. There are a number of things that I have taken away with this chat with Matt and I’ll be listing those in an article in the following days but without a shadow of a doubt, Matt is a stand up guy. He answered all of my questions, even the tough ones which were submitted by the community. While there is room left to debate the GPL and what is or isn’t compliant, Matt answered the GPL questions to the best of his ability and in most cases, his answers are nothing more than his personal opinion since certain aspects of the GPL would be much clearer if there was a court case to stand by.
I really feel as though this two hour recording is the most important recording I’ve made yet and is the biggest contribution I have made so far, back to the community. If there was one podcast that you should listen to as it relates to WordPress, the GPL, Matt’s involvement with Automattic and the Project, this would be it. Special thanks to Matt Mullenweg for agreeing to come on the show to address all of the issues that were presented to him by me.
To get a sample of the information discussed in this episode, here are the list of questions that I asked Matt. After this list, he took questions from anyone that asked them either by those who called in or sent them in the chat.
Why were those themes removed from the repository and if you look back at the situation now, do you think you made a mistake by not making a public post about the removals?
Can you explain why the new guideline was added to the theme repository?
Why is it that so many people within the inner circle of the WordPress community believe you and Automattic don’t want anyone else profiting through or around WordPress?
In your opinion, do you think that premium themes have actually benefited the community by way of furthering the overall development of WordPress themes?
In a recent conversation, I saw you describe premium themes as propietary and how you felt that was a better word than premium. Why is that?
How many of these debates and the way things are done are a result of their not being a court case to go by?
Does it bother you at all to see countless debates on various WordPress theme author sites about the GPL and what is and not compliant with it?
Drupal and Joomla have decided the commercial stuff is okay but why not WordPress?
In November of 2007 hot off the heels of WordCamp Argentina, news came out about a possible theme marketplace where people sold themes through the marketplace and the theme author as well as Automattic each recieved a cut of the profits. Was that your way of trying to help premium theme authors and has their been any progress on the idea?
The Drupal community has debated this GPL/Premium/Theme issue for a while. And a solid understanding has come from it:
A theme is made up of several files – template files (ending in .php), CSS, images and JavaScript. The template files are considered a part of Drupal, which is licensed under the GPL, which means they are not restricted in their redistribution. You are free to share the .php files so others can benefit from them. However, the rest of the theme – images, CSS and JavaScript – is independent from Drupal and owned by us and licensed by you for one website per purchase. You may not publish or share these parts of the themes with anyone else. Please review our EULA for full details. (Taken from a Drupal Theme Developers page)
When the notion of making money by selling themes pops up at WordCamps, you are quick to explain the WordPress.com business model of selling services and building support/value around the prodcut but this model will not work for everyone. What is a premium theme author to do?
I’ve spoken to a few premium theme authors and they tell me that because of the GPL, nothing stops someone from picking up Brian Gardners themes, changing the footer link and then undercutting his business by selling support at a cheaper price. Is that a valid argument?
Redistributing paid themes for free, which is ok under the GPL thus, rendering the business model of selling themes useless, as I understand it. Yet, that hasn’t happened and I wonder if that is because most end users are not aware of the GPL, all they see is the single-use multi-use licenses attached to themes
Is there a way where premium theme companies such as iThemes and you or Automattic can come to a compromise?
Lets say I have a template generator that outputs GPL themes, but has premium features. It could be used to create freebie themes which would be eligible to be in the repository, but since the generator outputs themes with a link back to my site which promotes the premium services, which in turn may be used for creating themes suitable for the repository, but again those themes have a link back to my site.
Is it true that the notion of Child themes which appears to be gaining momentum can be viewed as a loophole as far as the GPL is concerned considering these are themes which are purele CSS and Image based?
At what point do you stop accepting good themes that comply with the GPL because of a connection an author has with commercial themes. How far does it go.
If WP.org is about the community, why are decisions made unilaterally, rather than by the community?
Just out of curiosity, do you get annoyed sometimes by people blaming or mentioning Automattic for the decisions or things that take place for WordPress.org? I mean, Automattic and the WordPress project are two separate things.
What is your role with automattic and what is your role with the wordpress.org project and is their ever a conflict of interest between the two?
In your opinion, how far does the GPL go? CSS, images, phpfiles,
Why have you not used the WordPress development blog to bring forth the issues of GPL and various other aspects of the project?
This whole show has pretty much been dedicated to themes but how does all of this effect plugins, the plugin repository and such?
Episode 33 Kenn Bell of TheDogFiles.com as well as Jason Schuller who is one half of the Revolution 2 project. This was a great combination of guests as Kenn initially created the design for TheDogFiles site while Jason applied his code ninja skills to make the design a reality. Here are a couple of bullet points of discussion from this episode:
Brief discussion of WordPress 2.7
Why WordPress was chosen as the publishing platform of choice
The design and implementation of TheDogFiles website
The Revolution 2 project
Last but not least, since Jason is a prominent theme designer in the WordPress community, I took the opportunity to have a small discussion with him regarding the removal of 200 themes from the WordPress repository. We did talk a little bit about the GPL and we also discussed the Revolution 2 business model.
Announcements:Andy Peatling of the BuddyPress project will be our special guest on December 19th..
Due to some obligations which sprang up, Keith was unable to make it for this episode. So while schools, automakers, and banks ask for bailout packages, I had to do the same thing and you delivered. Special thanks to those who called in and turned what would have been a boring show into a great discussion on a number of topics.
We encourage you to leave a comment whether it be feedback, questions, rants, or corrections then tune in and see if your comment made it on the air! To send us feedback via email, contact us at wpweekly at gmail dot com.
Announcements: Ken Bell, who operates TheDogFiles.com is scheduled to appear on December 12th.
WPWeekly Meta:
Next Episode: Friday December 12th, 2008 8P.M. EST
Episode 31 of WordPress Weekly featured a special 1 hour 26 minute interview with none other than Lisa Sabin Wilson, the author of WordPress For Dummies. Keith and I grilled Lisa on the topics of:
Writing a book for a piece of software which has an extremely fast development cycle
How different versions affect the publishing of the book
WordPress For Dummies The Second Edition
Lisa’s thoughts on WordPress 2.7
Lisa’s explanation on permalinks and slugs
Lisa’s take on premium themes versus free themes
much, much, more.
Keith and I really enjoyed our time with Lisa and wish her the best for the second edition of WordPress For Dummies.
Announcements: The two lucky recipients who will each receive a signed copy of WordPess For Dummies 2nd Edition are Chris Thompson and Lenire.
Keith, Andrew, Jacob and I discussed the news of the week. In fact, I tried to break the world record by opening up as many cans of worms as possible within a 60 minute period. You’ll have to listen to the show to hear if I was successful.
We encourage you to leave a comment whether it be feedback, questions, rants, or corrections then tune in and see if your comment made it on the air! To send us feedback via email, conect us at wpweekly at gmail dot com.
Plugin Of The Week:
Jeff -WPTuner – WP Tuner for WordPress is a powerful and easy way to answer hard questions about why your blog is slow or cranky. What’s causing the slowdown? Is it a plugin? Is it your host? This plugin will help you find out. Used with a bit of common sense, this powerful plugin helps blog administrators as well as software developers improve their WordPress blog performance – One caveat with this particular plugin is that it’s not for the faint of heart. While I was able to understand what the plugin was showing me, it may not be that obvious to you. Be sure to read the plugins readme file and the associated help documents before using it.
Keith -Comment Approval Notification – This WordPress plugin will send an email to comment authors once their held-for-moderation comment is approved.
The WolfHound Segment:
Bill needs some help working with WordPress. He came away from WordCamp Dallas excited to use the software but has run into a few roadblocks and thus, needs our help. So to help Bill out, we have created the WolfHound segment because we know that not everything we cover on the show is addressed to a specific audience. I’ve been told numerous times by new comers who listen to the show that the content flies over their head. If this sounds familiar, this segment is for you.
The Short History Of The Blog And Near Term Goals:
Here is a quick history of Bills blog. – Installed a late 1.x version and have been updating along the way and experimenting with themes. Just recently I finally installed Akismet after I starting get hit with spam. Being that I still considered it to be “in work” I never really let the world know it was out there. I guess you could say that I have two sets of goals. One being near term and the other long term.
First, the near term goals.
1) Get my logo to work on my chosen theme (Chameleon 1.0 by Ainslie Johnson)
2) Only have most recent articles (2 max) appear on front page
3) Settle on what should be considered “must-have” plug-ins
Listen to the show to hear our responses. If you disagree and feel you can help Bill out better than we did, leave a comment with your tips and suggestions.
Announcements:Lisa Sabin Wilson, Author of the WordPress For Dummies book is scheduled to appear on November 28th.
WPWeekly Meta:
Next Episode: Friday November 28th, 2008 8P.M. EST
Keith, Andrew, Mark and I discussed the news of the week. With guest contributions to the show, we went in-depth on a number of topics including the icon survey and much more. Don’t forget to tune in to hear our plugin picks of the week. Come back next week for more action packed WordPress discussions!
We encourage you to leave a comment whether it be feedback, questions, rants, or corrections then tune in and see if your comment made it on the air! To send us feedback via email, conect us at wpweekly at gmail dot com. In this weeks episode, we covered a comment that was submitted to the blog on a previous episode. We also answer a listener question regarding how to let visitors submit stories to a website without being a registered user.
Plugin Of The Week:
Jeff -WP Advanced Code Editor – Integrates the EasyArea advanced code editor into WordPress. This adds real time syntax highlighting, line numbering, full screen editing, and more to the code editor to the “Add New Post” and “Add New Page” screens. After installation, make sure that the WYSIWYG editor is disabled. WP Advanced Code Editor is not compatible with the WYSIWYG editor. The entire syntax code editor (called EasyArea) was written entirely by Christophe Dolivet.
Keith -Ultimage Google Analytics – Automatically enables the use of GoogleAnalytics’ urchin tracking technology to pull together web stats
WordPress Job Of The Week:
Job published on November 12th 2008. The job description is as follows:
Hello, My name is Dave and I write a pop culture blog called NineDaves.com, out of the NYC area (Flatiron District). My server is Yahoo, and I’ve been with WordPress since I started the blog in July 2008. Since then, I’ve had the same WordPress version. I’m interested in upgrading to a more current version, but I’m nervous. Despite the fact that WordPRess offers detailed “how to’s,” I’m still worried that I don’t understand things properly. Rather than have someone just do it for me, I would like a WordPress expert to teach me to fish.
So – would you be interested in showing me how to upgrade my WordPress before I mess something up and lose all my work? I’d prefer someone to meet me in person and show me how to do it, so if you live in the NYC area, that’s perfect! If not, I can set up a WebEx and phone call.
As you can probably tell from the title, this episode features quite a bit of discussion surrounding WordPress 2.7. Not to worry though as there are plenty of other things that Keith and I discuss such as our favorite feature in WordPress 2.7 Beta 1, the WordPress showcase, whether or not Drupal can beat WordPress, and near the end of the show, Anthony Cole called in and gave us the 411 on WordCamp Australia which is taking place on November 29th and November 30th.
We encourage you to leave a comment whether it be feedback, questions, rants, or corrections then tune in and see if your comment made it on the air!
Plugin Of The Week:
Jeff -Custom Permalinks – Custom Permalinks is a WordPress plugin that gives you ultimate control over your site structure. Lay out your site the way you want it. Set the URL of any post, tag or category to anything you want. Old permalinks will redirect properly to the new address.
Keith -Feed Entry Header – FeedEntryHeader provides you the ability to protect your content online. Many of us have had the experience of seeing our content posted mysteriously on someone else’s website word-for-word. It usually happens by having someone grab content from your RSS feed and slap it into their blog. (Bloody splogs!) This plugin provides you the ability to customize a header to be placed at the start of each article in your feed to help ensure that sploggers are pointed out, and links back to your original post are included in the splog’s repost.
WordPress Job Of The Week:
Job was posted on October 30th, 2008 by Mark Ghosh. The job description is as follows:
We are looking for a web and graphics designer for a popular blog. Ideal candidates include artists and designers with experience in working on WordPress, who have a fair amount of experience in designing graphics with a flair for modern colors and styles and the ability to conceptualize and produce web experiences from the ground up. Experience with SEO, web usability, semantics and
ethical and effective marketing also required. PHP programming experience not as important. If you want to work with us, you need to wow us with your portfolio. Individuals and design houses welcome. Our promise is to give you the ability to flex your design muscles, provide outlets for your creativity and a lot of exposure for your work. If we like your work, we will get back with you and talk about costs and timelines under NDA.
If interested please contact mark at wltc dot net
WPWeekly Meta:
Next Episode: Friday November 14th, 2008 8P.M. EST
Joining me this week on WordPress Weekly was Douglas Bell who operates Webmacster87.info as well as hosts the PHPBBWeekly podcast. In this episode, David and I chatted about a number of subjects including: