Displaying 61 To 90 Of 128 Comments AtD Grammar And Spellchecking Bookmarklet Excellent – a way to add wholesome AtD goodness to all text fields! This is especially handy for me because I often visit the demo page on Raphael’s site, just to quickly check something I’m writing, this bookmarklet will save me that step. It is interesting, though, that AtD doesn’t yet know the word “bookmarklet” ;) It is a pity that it doesn’t work in Chrome, currently my favorite browser, it seems to almost work. I’m looking forward to seeing what comes next, such a wonderful product – a product for conoisurs! » Posted By donnacha | WordSkill On January 8, 2010 @ 3:57 PM Far from segmenting the WordPress community, WPTavern provides a valuable space for alternate communities to form within the WordPress universe. For instance, while I don’t agree with the anti-GPL gang, I think it is valid that they have somewhere to coalesce, ferment and express their doctrine. Thanks for all your hard work in 2009 and I hope that in 2010 you will achieve your dream of making your WP-related efforts financially sustainable. » Posted By donnacha | WordSkill On January 5, 2010 @ 10:05 AM I think it is worth pointing out that the new owners of vB have treated their users and the original employees (the people whose hard work over many years made vB the best forum software on the market) in a spectacularly shoddy fashion. I don’t dispute that it is technically good software and, of course, when you are attempting to kickstart a community, you want to give yourself the best possible chance, but, looking ahead, they may have killed the golden goose that made vB what it was. Two years ago, I would have argued for vB over other options because I believed that it was the best investment of my time – the money involved is a very minor consideration when you consider the thousands of hours you will pour into running a forum, anything that lessens the headaches is worth it and, back then, the gap between vB and the other options was considerable. Then, following the sale of the company, development went in a strange direction. The original developers, based in the UK, had, through supporting and interacting with their customers over many years, formed a clear idea of where they wanted to go with vB4 and the users were stoked about that. Sadly, differences of vision started to emerge, with the US-based management pulling in a different direction. This, combined with the decision to change the licensing structure (screwing their existing users) resulted in the best devs leaving last year and the vB4 project being started entirely from scratch, only now emerging from an insufficient beta period and missing many of the most eagerly anticipated features. Now, don’t get me wrong, it is still very good forum software, but I believe they missed out on two years worth of development and, in the meantime, the competition have caught up. In terms of social feature, which were originally meant to be the main focus of vB4, they are completely outclassed by BuddyPress, especially the impending 1.2 iteration. I understand the doubts about bbPress (another project that has suffered from disruptions and it only now starting to get its act together) but, frankly, if I were starting a community of WordPress enthusiasts, I would use it as my forum, simply because BuddyPress adds so much and has a much clearer future path. The key is momentum and, while vB has thrown away it’s vibrant modding community, BuddyPress has gained serious momentum. I say all this as a vB license holder, but my license will remain unused because I no longer trust the company and will not spend my time developing skills that are locked into their proprietary structure, for which they can change the pricing again at any time – I could become the world’s best builder of vB-based communities, but I would be locked into their decisions every time. From a business perspective, it makes much more sense to invest my time in a system that is open. Jeff, I think that you and your mods have done a great job with the tavern, but I do think that, in deciding to go with vB, you have left a gap for a competing WP-oriented community, based upon BP, to emerge. » Posted By donnacha | WordSkill On January 1, 2010 @ 8:00 AM Can A Theme Developer Put Himself Out Of Business? @Cory Miller – Wow, now that I look at your file versions page, I can see that you have made loads of changes to Essence, I’ve clearly missed a lot but have now subscribed to your feed and will pay closer attention in the future. Thanks Cory. » Posted By donnacha | WordSkill On December 1, 2009 @ 10:07 AM @Cory Miller – As someone who uses WordPress all day, everyday, I am glad whenever anyone decides to contribute their time, energy and talent towards improving any aspect of the WordPress eco-system. Your Essence theme was ideal for something I was working on when I bought it in early ’08, I benefitted from it, and, yes, I was aware of one revision, but my overall impression was that there wasn’t a lot of post-sale activity and I was not made aware of ithemes other ventures, even though I pay pretty close attention to what’s happening in the WordPress world. Essence was worth every cent, it was just a noticeable lack of attempts to entice me into deeper engagement with your company although perhaps I would have a very different impression if I was one of your $500 customers. You shouldn’t take my raising the issue of customer engagement as a personal criticism, it is something that even corporations with thousands of employees rarely get right, as an early innovator in commercial themes you had a lot of other stuff on your plate, everything takes time. I watched the video you posted on your site, in which you chat about Builder with your developer, that was a good example of engagement, I look forward to seeing where your new direction leads you and, if you produce useful themes and training products at a good price, I will be one of your biggest advocates. » Posted By donnacha | WordSkill On November 30, 2009 @ 10:48 PM @Benjamin – The fact that you own developer licenses for all of them does, for sure, give your opinion serious weight and I would certainly agree that, for any Web designer with a decent amount of customers, ALL of these developer packages are worth every cent, it is great to be able to offer your customers such a wide array of styles as a starting point. The question mark I raised over the price that ithemes are charging was more based upon the huge amount of starting Web designers who churn through the lower end of the market, I meant to suggest that ithemes were losing out overall by not pitching their price to appeal to the thousands of designers who give Web design a shot for about a year before moving on to something else – it is very much that sort of industry, I would guess that “temporary” Web designers outnumber serious, long-term designers at least ten to one, and anyone struggling to get started is going to opt for the $200 option rather than the $500. I didn’t know about the unbranded video tutorials, that does sound useful, and I didn’t know about the training seminars which also sound good, but it would appear that, for whatever reason, awareness of these good things that ithemes are doing is not very high, and it could be because most people switch off when they see how much their flagship All-Themes package costs. Again, the Builder theme could change that. I agree that the newer themes are good, although Essence is still my favorite. I disagree that Essence being 2 years old justifies not updating it – I am not arguing that I, as a customer, deserve that, I am saying that they, as a company, are losing an opportunity to keep past customers engaged. I bought a developer package from Brian Gardner only once, but he has kept giving me a return on that. The return he gets for the continuing value he provides to me is that I recommend him to others and I know for a fact that this has resulted in an ongoing stream of sales. For such an supremely intangible product, that is a pretty good model. If I was to make any criticism of StudioPress, it would be that their management of their affiliate scheme is a bit of a mess, I would not recommend it at all, but no company can get everything right. » Posted By donnacha | WordSkill On November 30, 2009 @ 8:13 PM @Benjamin – Personally, I don’t agree that the selection ithemes offers looks particularly good or distinctive although, as I’ve said, I did buy Essence. To my eyes, most of their other themes look old-fashioned and almost blandly generic as parking pages, whereas StudioPress and WooThemes have a certain wow factor. From my perspective as a customer, I would say that ithemes are also behind the times in terms of their ongoing customer service and community building. Before Brian really pushed the innovative marketing idea of giving theme customers great ongoing service, a forum and timely free updates that kept his themes compatible with the latest releases of WordPress and to introduce new features, it was normal for commercial themers to view a sale as the end of the matter and ithemes followed that old model. I think there was one compatibility update of Essence (2.7?) but no new features were ever added and there was no encouragement to become involved in any sort of ithemes community. This was a missed opportunity because a few developer hours spent on, say, adding Gravatar support would have kept the themes relevant and pleased existing owners no end, encouraging them to recommend ithemes to their friends – that is precisely what made Brian so successful, word of mouth, but, as I say, the old-school commercial themers has a less sophisticated approach to marketing. » Posted By donnacha | WordSkill On November 30, 2009 @ 5:29 PM Good to see ithemes getting back into the game, they haven’t been making much of an impression over the last year or so, as demonstrated by their poor showing in the poll you ran a few weeks ago. Itheme’s failure to keep up with the other premium themers was surprising after the promise shown by excellent early theme set Essence, which I purchased and was very happy with. I think a more appropriate question when it comes to iThemes would be “Can A Theme Developer PRICE Himself Out Of Business?” – their developer package at $500 seems ridiculous when you consider the more interesting and more varied suites of themes that StudioPress and WooThemes offer at far lower prices. Perhaps ithemes have a huge installed base of customers who simply don’t know about other providers, but I’ve never met a Web Designer whose reaction to their price wasn’t “WTF!”. I suspect they could have made a lot more money overall if they had the sense to pitch at a more competitive price, certainly not more that the $200 that Brian charges. Then again, perhaps this Builder theme is their attempt to start competing, perhaps it will provide enough flexibility at a sane price to compete head-on with StudioPress but, right now, the beta is only available to $500 subscribers, rendering it largely irrelevant. » Posted By donnacha | WordSkill On November 29, 2009 @ 6:40 PM Mullenweg Interview Remastered Perhaps now we should also have a remix of the arguments that the first release of the interview sparked here in the Tavern? :) » Posted By donnacha | WordSkill On November 29, 2009 @ 6:45 PM Looking forward to the Mudge interview, I’ve got a few questions that I’ll submit to the forum thread. » Posted By donnacha | WordSkill On November 28, 2009 @ 8:23 PM New York Matt Mullenweg Interview @Chip Bennett – Before I say anything else, I should make it clear that I am not Donncha O’Caoimh, the WordPress MU developer, I think you may have us confused, it’s an easy mistake to make, so, I always post as “donnacha | WordSkill” to differentiate. Note, too, that my name is Donnacha, his is Donncha – mine is longer. I didn’t mean to come across as condescending but I did mean to come across as angry – because I am. When I questioned your understanding of the GPL, I did so because of this comment: I am glad to hear Matt admit that he is intentionally conflating the legal construct that is the GPL and the philosophical concerns and ethics of the Free Software “movement”. Pretty much all the people who have done the heavy lifting in the WordPress project (and the Linux, Apache, MySQL and PHP projects upon which your installation of WordPress depends) would be appalled and insulted to see you refer to the Free Software movement, with the word movement in inverted commas. By any definition, the Free and Open Source Software movement is, indeed, a movement, one to which people have dedicated their live’s work, one which has had a major impact on the evolution of the software industry, one without which the Internet as we know it today would not exist and the GPL has been one of the keystones of that movement. The Free and Open Source Software movement is not some hare-brained scheme that a bunch of hippies have come up while picking nits out of their hair – this is a movement of countless people, in every country of the world, united by a common vision and the WordPress project emphatically shares that vision. You may not agree with that vision, but your failure to recognise and acknowledge a bona fide and long-standing movement suggests that you don’t understand the history and legacy of the project you are so determined to change. That it not condescension, it is an evidently accurate observation. You then went on to say: It is basically Matt saying, implicitly, “I want the WordPress community to adopt the ethics and philosophy of the Free Software movement”. I would *love* for Matt actually to use this terminology, rather than the bogus “spirit of the GPL”. This is want I meant by hateful and sloppily argued, it is straight out of the Bill O’Reilly playbook: you set up a proposition, that Matt is somehow trying to hide a belief in the ethics and philosophy of the Free Software movement, as if it is his dirty secret and you just want him to come clean, when, in fact, he has been repeatedly, consistently and eloquently espousing FOSS right since the beginning of WordPress. Again, you can disagree with his position but, please, do not try to spin the argument, we are not morons in the WordPress community, we are people with an interest in and a deep understanding of ideas and meaning, we are not sitting in front of Fox News drinking cheap beer and potato chips, we actually notice when someone uses cheap rhetorical tricks to smear someone else. I do not mean to level this complaint entirely at you, you are just falling into line with a quite recent increase in rudeness towards Matt and the deliberate misinterpretations of the GPL, orchestrated by a very specific group. I have been around WordPress long enough, and have observed the community closely enough, to know that these memes are being stirred up by a handful of guy with a personal financial interest in using the WordPress eco-system to sell products, usually products that are not very good. I have nothing against premium themes and plugins, and it is worth noting that the really talented and productive guys, such as Carl Hancock and Brian Gardner, understand and are cool with WordPress and appreciative of the platform that WordPress provides. By comparison, ask yourself, the guys who are moaning loudest about access to WordPress.org, the guys who stir up the most vitriolic attacks against GPL, the nastiest personal attacks on Matt – exactly what have they produced that they are so anxious to sell? If you will look closely, you will notice that they have failed to produce anything worthwhile and now, disappointed and frustrated, are eager to blame their failure on “the system”, personified by Matt. Again, I don’t know where you stand in all this, perhaps you are just picking up on and echoing their frustrations – people with a gripe are always louder, it would be easy to mistake a cabal of malcontents as being the community, but they are not. There is a huge, mostly silent majority of WordPress users who don’t necessarily have time to hang out on WordPress forums, or to maintain a high profile in blog comments, mainly because they do not have a vested interest in doing so, but they are the real stakeholders and contributors to the WordPress project, you can be pretty sure that they are glad that its leaders are holding firm to the simple philosophy upon which it was founded. Anytime anything worthwhile is created, the hustlers gather, the vultures circle. From time to time, someone has to kick the money changers out of the temple. » Posted By donnacha | WordSkill On November 19, 2009 @ 9:56 PM @Chip Bennett – It is always hilarious when people who don’t understand the GPL decide that they’d like to start forming committees to take over control of a phenomenon that would not have been possible without the GPL. If you want a say in the direction of WordPress, get coding. Or forking. Just stop with these Rush Limbaugh / Bill O’Reilly style attacks, there is absolutely no support among regular WordPress users for this hateful and sloppily-argued campaign against Matt and the WordPress project. » Posted By donnacha | WordSkill On November 19, 2009 @ 7:08 PM A gem of an interview, Jeff. Also, no need to apologize for asking direct questions, or naming names! Direct questions are precisely what we need and you gave Matt the opportunity to clear up any misunderstandings; that was useful because this whole “controversy” has been whipped up by one side in order to increase traffic and move product. » Posted By donnacha | WordSkill On November 19, 2009 @ 8:07 AM Would You Like To Hear An Interview With Anil Dash? @Anil – very true, I based my comment upon impressions gathered years ago, I apologize for any offense I may have caused and look forward to listening to your interview. » Posted By donnacha | WordSkill On November 18, 2009 @ 10:16 AM Anil has, in the past, been quite a dick on the subject of wordPress. I guess anyone who has been around blogging long enough is able to offer interesting insights but I would take any views he has to offer on the current state of play with a pinch of salt – I don’t wish to be mean but his judgement in the past has been pretty disastrous, including giving away his company’s lead in blogging software. MovableType would be worth a huge amount today if Anil hadn’t tried to cash in too early. He literally handed the market to WordPress. So, this is not a guy who gets it, and we already have a few morons in the WordPress community who, for their own selfish reasons, are spreading FUD about the GPL. I would worry that Jeffro is too nice an interviewer and will let false assertions go unchallenged. It’s going to be just ridiculous if this guy launches into a full-scale criticism of a company who, unlike him, understood the long-term value of their community. Then again, if he has been speaking at Wordcamps I guess he must have some genuine interest in WordPress, beyond it’s role as his competitor and the topics Jeffro suggests do sound interesting. » Posted By donnacha | WordSkill On November 17, 2009 @ 11:22 PM Should WordPress Change The Blog Nomenclature Within The Backend? @Jeffro – heh, I just went in and made it even shorter! I love that your commenting system is so flexible. » Posted By donnacha | WordSkill On November 3, 2009 @ 8:40 PM @One Fine Jay – this is off-topic, but your blog’s name and domain are awesome! » Posted By donnacha | WordSkill On November 3, 2009 @ 8:32 PM We should be proud of but not limited by our origins. » Posted By donnacha | WordSkill On November 3, 2009 @ 8:30 PM WordPress Dev Chat For 10-22-09 That’s pretty funny about the trac voting. » Posted By donnacha | WordSkill On October 26, 2009 @ 5:13 AM Jeff, thanks so much for running this competition, I had a blast writing that story, I’m glad your readers enjoyed it and I am very much looking forward experimenting with Gravity Forms. Thanks too to Redwall, Nic and Dgold, whose stories I enjoyed, and to all the people who took the time to vote or leave feedback. » Posted By donnacha | WordSkill On October 5, 2009 @ 1:31 PM This is an impressive release and BuddyPress itself is an inspiring testament to what people can achieve when they pull together and create something that everyone in the world can use and build upon. It is also a thuddingly definitive answer to all those who think that worthwhile things must carry a price tag, that they can only exist behind pay-walls. BuddyPress cuts through all the FUD, all the deliberate misinterpretation that has been flying around recently and reminds us, as a community, that WordPress is about more, much more, than a few guys whipping themselves into hysteria because they feel that WordPress, and all the effort that has gone into it over the years, hasn’t made it easy enough for them to cash in. What need you, being come to sense, - W.B. Yeats » Posted By donnacha | WordSkill On October 1, 2009 @ 6:09 PM Custom Install Profiles Sounds Like A Cool Idea @Jeffro – Or he could aspire much higher and, rather than waste his time trying to hawk it as a paid add-on to the fairly small percentage of people who pay for plugins, he could offer the whole thing for free under the GPL and see his work used regularly by tens of thousands of people, possibly millions if it gets rolled into the core. Having such a prominent inclusion listed in your resume, something right out in front of millions of WordPress users, would be a huge boost to any young programmer’s career, worth far more than few hundred hard-won bucks he might manage shake out of the “premium” market. I don’t know why, but there is a craze these days for monetizing way too early, looking to cash in, playing the short game rather than taking the long-view of your life, your career and what you, as a person, are about. » Posted By donnacha | WordSkill On September 29, 2009 @ 12:55 AM Installation profiles are a great idea, it is insane that we have to carry out exactly the same hundred of so steps to get set up with the settings and plugins we always use. Ideally, we should be able to specify ANY plugin when writing our profiles, along with whether or not we wanted it to be automatically activated. The installer would not need to be pre-programmed with specific routines for specific plugins, all it would need would be to read the profile XML file which would state each plugin’s download URL and whether or not you wanted it to be automatically activated. If a plugin has unusual requirements, such as needing to be installed somewhere other than the plugins folder, well, that particular plugin is not going to be suited, but 99% of plugins will be straightforward enough. A more advanced version of the installer might also allow us to specify info that we have to submit every time, such as our Akismet API code. Before the installation goes ahead, each entry in our profile should be displayed to us with tick boxes and delete buttons, allowing us to make specific changes for that specific installation. For example, I almost always use the Sitemap generator, so, it is ticked but, this time, I don’t need it, so, I untick that box to stop it being activated or press delete to entirely remove it from that specific installation process. No changes are made to the profile file itself. @DD32 – I had a look at WP Quick Install a day or two ago and neither the 0.5 pre-beta release nor the nightly build seem to be working. The forum also seems to be fairly inactive, no posts within the last month. Your project has huge potential, it really is something that would be of genuine use to many, many people, but you should try to capitalize on the interest and get it moving while people are still excited by the concept, otherwise it will just become another StayPress, a burden around your neck. » Posted By donnacha | WordSkill On September 28, 2009 @ 10:10 PM In theory, the one-button upgrade should be easy but I am finding it really hard to concentrate because every time I am about to press the button, Kanye West bursts into the room, grabs my mouse and says “I’m really happy for you and Ima let you finish … but Beyonce has the best upgrade process of all time!” This happens eight or nine times before I finally became irritated and shout “Dude, stop! And how the fuck did you get into my house anyway?” Damn, it is only a button press, but there’s no way I’ll be able to get this done while Kanye keeps interrupting. The only way I can get Kanye to shut up is to get an even bigger celebrity to help me out. I consider calling Beyonce, Kanye is obviously impressed by her, but no, that wouldn’t be a good idea – I forgot to phone her after the last time she stayed over and that was weeks ago, it would be kind of awkward getting in touch again now. There is only one other celebrity who is both big enough to make Kanye West quieten down and who also knows all there is to know about WordPress upgrades: Matt “telescopic lens” Mullenweg! But how do I get him here? The answer hits me in a flash of inspiration: I’ll pretend to hold a WordCamp and Mullenweg will magically appear, he can’t resist those. I scribble the words “WordCamp Donnacha’s House 2009″ on a piece of paper, stick it to door of my office and, in a flash of fire and brimstone, there he is, Dr. Blog himself. He is wearing a hat. Just as I’d planned, Kanye is suddenly being very quite, clearly in awe at being in the presence of a real celebrity. “Er, Matt,” I say, “I was wondering … er… I thought you might like to give your keynote on the topic of er … How to Upgrade Donnacha’s WordPress!” “Hmmm, okay” says Matt, “But first I want to review your security procedures; what version of WordPress are you using?” “Um, I’m not sure but I haven’t upgraded recently, I’ve been really busy”. Matt looks at the screen and gasps “But this is B2!” “Yeah” I say, somewhat ashamed, ‘I’ve been really busy since, er, 2003″. Mullenweg asks me what password I would like to use. I smile and proudly tell him that I use the same password for everything because it’s easier to remember. Matt looks uneasy. Well, what is it, he asks. The word “password” I tell him. He slaps me. “Donnacha, I’m very disappointed, you need to take this upgrading thing more seriously” say Matt as he grabs me and we fly up into the night sky, zooming above the twinkling cityscape. I feel like Louis Lane. We land in a rough part of town, right in front of a mad, raving homeless guy. It takes me a moment to realize that this wretched, ranting, unwashed creature is Robert Scoble, the legendary Scobleizer. “My blog got hacked and I’ve lost EVERYTHING” he wails. Matt is unsympathetic: “Robert, I was worried about you when you left the WordPress.com VIP service, I emailed you several times to make sure you were taking care of the security stuff but you never answered!” Scoble’s face freezes, the fury drains away, he bites his lips, nods gently and murmurs “Yes, you’re right, I deserve this, I should never have left”. He bursts into tears – loud, blubbing tears. Matt and I are embarrassed, we quietly step away. As Matt flies me back to my house, I ponder the deep lesson I have received but, as we land, I feel compelled to ask one last question. “Matt, you’ve been so helpful and you’ve spent years helping the world learn to love blogging … but what’s in it for you?” “Well, I’ll let you into a secret, Donnacha – I’m doing it for de lols! I’m going to get all you suckers to spend the next few years tapping away at your keyboards, pouring your lives into our system and then … I’m going to delete all that shit! “Seriously man,” continues Matt with an evil glint in his eye, “It will be hilarious! First, all the WP.com blog posts will be replaced with pictures of Anil Dash beating a kitten. Then I activate my secret backdoor into every self-hosted WordPress site and replace all of those posts, millions of them, with pictures of an enraged Orangutang beating Anil Dash”. “But Matt” I gasp “You’ll ruin your business and your career!” “Nah, I only ever did this WordPress shit as a way to meet chicks at WordCamps – seriously, have you seen all the photos of WordCamp chicks I post on my blog? I’m not kidding, I’ve had all of them” “No way! You lucky swine! Even that supercute one in Shanghai?” I ask. Matt smiles, nods smugly and slowly enunciates “Twice!” Damn! We high-five and make hooting noises for a few minutes. When we both calm down, I ask the big question “But, Matt, why would you, just for the sake of a massive deletion prank, why would you give up all those girls and all the money? “Well, I don’t need the money, I’ve already been offered the job of my dreams at Microsoft, creating a blogging platform that runs entirely on Zunes … it’s going to be massive. As for girls, well, I’ve run out of sperm anyway. ” “What?! Is that even biologically possible?” “It is if you attend as many WordCamps as I do. It’s all gone, my entire lifetime supply, that’s just how it is when you’re a major celebrity, women practically mug you for it. Richard Branson told me that he ran out of his lifetime supply when he was just 14″ “Wow, I’m sorry Matt, I never realized that there was a downside to be a super successful celebrity, surrounded gorgeous women all the time. “It’s not all bad, he says cheerily, “When we celebrities use up the last of our sperm, we gain the power of flight – unlike normal mortals, we now have super-light nutsacks, freeing us from the Earth’s gravitational pull” “Talking of which, I must go now, I am needed elsewhere” he says, starting to hover above the ground and preparing to jet off into the night. “But wait, what about my upgrade?” I shout. Matt turns, stares at my Macbook, tilts back his head and I am momentarily stunned as a broad, bright red laser beam shoots violently out of his nostrils for several seconds. The beam envelopes my Macbook. “There, I’ve given you the secret version of WordPress that all of us insiders use – the version with automatic remote upgrades of the core, the plugins, the themes … everything – never again will you suffer the burden of having to press a button. Oh, and I’ve also upgraded you to Snow Leopard” And with that, he shoots up and away, apparently unable to hear my final shouted question: “But what about my installation of Joomla, you wanker?!”. » Posted By donnacha | WordSkill On September 25, 2009 @ 2:17 PM An Inside Glance At StudioPress I became one of Brian’s customer’s almost two years ago and, through all the name and licensing changes since then, he has always treated his existing customers extremely well. With a StudioPress developer package, you get outstanding ongoing support without having to pay a $20 per month subscription fee. A recent WPTavern poll about paid theme companies had to be abandoned due to the rather clumsy attempts to manipulate it, but it is notable that Brian, whose StudioPress was running a strong second before the cheating began, did not lower himself to that level. The character of the people you do business with is important and I have always had a good feeling about Brian. » Posted By donnacha | WordSkill On September 21, 2009 @ 9:30 PM @Carl Hancock – Thanks for the detailed explanation. Good to hear that any validation problems will only affect the ability to upgrade and not prevent any forms from appearing. » Posted By donnacha | WordSkill On September 17, 2009 @ 7:12 PM Yeah, there’s no point replacing something that already works well for you and, really, a contact form doesn’t require something as advanced as GF. What will be interesting to watch, however, is the way in which people innovate around GF’s more advanced functionality, taking WordPress to new places. For those sorts of uses, the $31 or so (after 20% discount) is easily worth it. I think the key for GF’s success will be in enabling that advanced functionality and opening up those possibilities. I’m looking forward to seeing what 1.2 will bring to the table. » Posted By donnacha | WordSkill On September 17, 2009 @ 5:35 PM @Jeffro – Thanks, yeah, I’m finding that most people discussing it only had access to the beta, so, the copy protection is a bit of a mystery. I’m surprised they didn’t give you a free license, seeing how often they have been mentioned here and on the podcast, I would have thought that would be a good marketing investment, to keep you engaged with their product. » Posted By donnacha | WordSkill On September 17, 2009 @ 5:16 PM Sorry for taking the conversation away from Gravity Forms. One thing I would like to know from anyone who is actually using GF on a live site: how intrusive is whatever form of copy protection they are using? I seem to remember interviews in which they described some sort of call-home validation integrated into the upgrade process. Does this mean that you have to enter your license numbers each time you upgrade? Could temporary validation problems, such as the ones that afflict the Windows validation process, prevent a form from working? Could they even prevent the entire site from rendering? I haven’t head of any problems, so, that in itself suggests that the copy protection is unproblematic but I would like to hear it first-hand from anyone who is actually using GF, as opposed to people who are just members of the affiliate scheme. » Posted By donnacha | WordSkill On September 17, 2009 @ 4:53 PM @shawn – I think the problem with VideoPress is that guys like Matt Mullenweg and the other main Automattic guys, with their big personal followings, are now sufficiently distanced from the ordinary “blogger on the street” that they perceive the world in terms of one person broadcasting to many. For that reason, it seems natural to them that VideoPress should be a one-way street – the blog owner produces a video and his thousands of fans watch it in silent adoration. Much of the original success of WordPress stemmed from it’s ability to ignite conversations, the main Automattic guys have long sense moved beyond the point where comments really matter, they have a mass audience whenever they post, the comments are just a minor sideshow. So, when considering a video product, they naturally drew from their current blogging perspective and geared it towards the one-way pulpit communication they have become accustomed to. It is a shame, because if the same decisions were being made a few years back, before WordPress and the people behind it became so hyped, VideoPress would have more closely reflected WordPress’ two-way nature and included video comments. » Posted By donnacha | WordSkill On September 17, 2009 @ 4:41 PMComments Posted By donnacha | WordSkill
But fumble in a greasy till
And add the halfpence to the pence
And prayer to shivering prayer, until
You have dried the marrow from the bone?
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