Promote Your WordPress Plugins Tuesday 2006-09-05
A new and promising site, for presenting and getting WordPress plugins, has just been launched. Sean Hickey, aka Headzoo, author of such efficient WordPress plugins as aLinks, Edit N Place and Create N Place, has just launched WP Plugins, a friendly place for plugin authors and bloggers to meet.
WordPress plugins abound. Due to the relative ease, with which you can create plugins for the popular blogging tool, and the flexible framework WordPress offers, a lot of functionality can be added through plugins.
There are plugins that make the administration easier, or present all kinds of statistical information. And there are plugins to include any imaginable Multimedia, and plugins to build social networks, to include other bloggers’ feeds or to earn a buck on ads.
You name it, and there is a plugin. And if there isn’t, you can write one, or just wait a while, and someone else will.
The mere amount of plugins spread out on their authors sites, makes it difficult to find that very gadget, that gives you the functionality you dream of. There are a few repositories for plugins, as Lorelle on WordPress mentions in her latest excellent article on plugins.
Sean’s idea seems to be, that they lack some functionality, be peer reviews, a voting system or the possibility to search by tag. Or maybe just too dull. I don’t know, but this new repository has all this features, a friendly look and easy navigation.
So if you are a plugins author, head over and present your plugin at WP Plugins. You’ll be on the front page immediately. It’s very simple, you just register for an account, log in and fill in a form with a description of your plugin, and a link to the install package on your site.
That’s all there is to it.
If you are a blogger in pursuit of the ultimate plugin for your needs, you may already find what you want. The site is new however, so it will take a while to get the great variety, we all want to find in the grocery 
A Million WordPress 2.0 Wednesday 2006-08-23
What makes you happy ? »
Podz, well known WordPress guru, wrote in Mars, 100000, “That’s a big number !”
WordPress 2.0 download counter has now passed a million - that’s one more of zeros.
Congratulations! The counter now shows a blinking instead of that big number. Maybe the counter register can’t take such a big number - like the millennium bug mistake - or the Adriane II elevation control disaster 
Tags Saturday 2006-08-12
Here are the tagging results produced by Lorelles Technorati tags bookmarklet, modified by Bavra Mann.
Technorati: tags, bookmarklet, blog
Get it, install it and tag along!
Flickr Spinnr Now Stand Alone Thursday 2006-08-10
Headzoo and yours truly have released a new version of the Flickr Spinnr. The WordPress plugin has gotten a few bug fixes, to solve problems some users had. If you use a widget aware theme, you’ll be happy to know that the Spinnr is widgetized.
The real news is that the 0.4 version has a stand alone variant. This makes it possible for you, to include the rotating cube in any web site. The requirement is, of course, that you can run PHP on your server.
If you already installed the 0.3 version of the WP plugin, it doesn’t hurt to upgrade to 0.4.
Download it from Headzoo, unzip and upload to your server - simple as 1-2-3. Set options if you like.
Documentation is included in the distribution ( PDF ).
Have a look at the stand alone version here.
WordPress 2 and Counting Sunday 2006-08-06
Just a short note for the habitual WP blogger. You’re not alone, if that’s what you thought.
The download counter is approaching one miljon. Time for celebration!
WordCamp 2006 Saturday 2006-08-05
Being a bit Swedish, I’m proud to discover that the 2006 WordCamp is run at the Swedish American Hall in San Fransisco in cooperation with Café Du Nord. The Hall was designed Swedish architect August Nordin, father of lots of buildings in that besung city.
You may want the tentative architecture of the Camp, just to know what to ( possibly ) expect. The meaning of “tentative” can be easily smelled at Podz place. The AfterParty was to be held, or is still going on at the time of writing, at Pier 38. We may be hearing from that too, as some few of the participants will probably throw some pixels at Flickr.
Matt at the event, credit: Scott Beale Laughing Squid. It’s a one day show, so I’m a bit late here - sorry about that.
Now, will the version 2.1 of the best blogging software on the planet be annonced at this WordCamp? The “What’s New in 2.1” feature list from Ryan Boren suggests something, don’t you think?
The near future will provide evidence from Matt and or Ryan, I’m sure. Just you wait and see, and may the blog be with you!
( Not to mention your plugins
WordPress 2.04 - Done Sunday 2006-07-30
Ooopee! I followed my own advice and upgraded my blogging tool to version 2.04. Like a breeze
1. Took a backup of important database table using Skippy’s’s WP Database Backup plugin, which let me send the backup as a ZIP archive to me by email or just save it to my local harddisk.
2. Made copy of my whole blog directory.
3. Killed the wp-content/cache directory ( I had to “Clear the cache” first )
4. Deactivated all plugins
5. Downloaded the 2.04 version and unpacked in a local directory
6. Copied everything exept the wp-contents directory to the server
When I went with my browser to my blog, WP suggested that I run the wp-admin/upgrade.php, which means just to click on a link.
I the went back to the admin/manage/plugins and activated the plugins I use - é voilà !
I’m up to date.
Update Your WordPress Saturday 2006-07-29
WordPress version 2.04 is here in a stable release, and Matt is out on the WordPress blog to convince all WP blogger so update. Safe and sound as it is the new version contains important security updates, as well as some 50 bug fixes - who would believe that?
As you may have seen from recent Bug Hunts, there is also a major 2.1 upgrade under ways, but don’t hesitate to install the intermediate 2.04! The 2.1 version may linger in the clouds for yet some time.
The update is simple enough. Just download and copy the files of the new version over the old.
As usual don’t forget to make a backup of the old one first, and don’t overwrite the following files:
* wp-config.php file;
* wp-content folder; Special Exception: the wp-content/cache folder should be deleted.
* wp-images folder;
* wp-includes/languages/ folder–if you are using a language file do not delete that folder;
* .htaccess file–if you have added custom rules to your .htaccess, do not delete it;
* robots.txt file–if your blog lives in the root of your site and you have created such a file, do not delete it.
Here is the download and the detailed instructions for any upgrade in the all mighty Codex.
Go ahead and just do it!
Hyperlinking Considered Harmful? Thursday 2006-07-13
Oh my gosh!
Lorelle of WordPress fame writes in her very much readable blog “Do I Need to Ask Permission to Put a Blog in My Blogroll?“. She says that she haven’t thought about the question before and writes
“Since a link in a blogroll is a compliment and recommendation, do you need to ask permission to include a blog in your blogroll? Good question.
I would think not. You are not linking to content, and you are not violating any rights. You are linking to the whole blog, not a single post. There is nothing to ask permission for, is there?”
Earlier in the week she pointed her audience to an article by Shel Holz entitled “When is a Link not a Link“, which questions your right to link to somebody else’s content.
This seems to to amount to something, I don’t know what. Don’t blame Lorelle, she is perfectly sane or I’m brain dead, but could it be that the summer over the western hemisphere is too hot , or maybe the web has matured to the point of being suicidal?
Is HTML, “Hypertext Markup Language” to be considered harmful? Oh, Goodbye.
Before we seriously enter the Web 2.0 world of fame an ridicule, let’s take a deep breath and a step back and look at what the web 0.1 - 1.0 is all about.
It all started as a possibility to link text based information to other relevant text based information. When the author of a ( usually scientific ) document referred to sources or or other texts of interest in the domain of his/her article, it would easily be reached by including a link to that material.
With the advent of HTML as a formalized way of accomplishing this, and the hypertext transfer protocol as a standardized communication protocol between the information servers and clients ( consumers ), the web was born. The rest is, as they say, history. And amazing as such.
This is what it’s all about, don’t you, dear reader, agree? Linking information to other relevant peaces of information. In the beginning very few used the web and decided what was relevant. Linking was done in rather closed domains and cross linking between domains sparse.
As the web has grown ( some under stating here :), the writers and readers on the web have very disparate opinions on what’s “relevant”, and as a consequence cross linking among “domains” abound.
Many links lead to ballooney, and link lists without human comments are useless. Human nature plays its part - and it should. It is to be expected.
For those of us who want the web to be a source of useful information, it may be frustrating to sift through ads we don’t want, sex we don’t like and thoughts we think could be offered by a piece of wood - or worse.
But it’s inevitable, and in some way the start of a new kind of democracy ( oh, how dared I ?), where everyone has his or her say. If you say something clever many will listen. Yes, hopefully, I know.
Am I spacing out? Right, I am. It’s my blog, so I can do that.
Back to the linking and blog roll business, or “can I link to any content on the web?”.
Yes I can, but with some exceptions.
- I can link to anything if I don’t pretend or imply it’s my own stuff.
- I cannot link in someone else’s images or media in my own page without permission.
- I cannot use someone else’s texts in my own pages, except for citations.
Citations should not be extensive and the should be attributed to the copyright owner, possibly linked to the original text.
This means for example that you should not link someones HTML or other document into a frame of your own document, as this could give the *impression* that it is part of your own site.
As for asking permission to include someones blog in my “blogroll” or linking to other recommended reading - give me a break!
If someone doesn’t want to be linked to, or recommended or read at all for that matter, there are lots of ways to avoid that. Here are a few.
- You may choose to send the info by email to a selected audience.
- You can publish your documents in a closed network behind firewalls.
- You can require authentication for individuals or groups that you allow to read your stuff.
- You can set up a robots.txt file to tell ( well behaved ) search bots not to collect all or certain parts of your web.
- Finally you can sell all your stuff and gadgets and hide under a rock.
I don’t think I’m being harsh here The web is all about hyperlinking and it is a social endeavour. It’s all about information and it’s all about people.
Link on, and happily so!
The Flickr Spinnr 0.3 Release Tuesday 2006-05-16
After a intense finishing session I’m happy to announce the release of FlickrSpinnr version 0.3. As before you can download the WP plugin at Headzoo’s place. The new version, as predicted, uses a Flash presentation layer - the cube. Images are fetched from Flickr and presented on a rotating cube. You can see the cube in rotation in the sidebar. A mockup for the upcoming stand alone version for more or less static web sites can be seen in my labs.
[Edit] Well, the coding session was a bit to hot, and we made a mistake. It was not a feature - it was a bug. If you downloaded the Flickr Spinnr version 0.3 before May 19, you may not see the cube. A bug fixed version is ready for you at Headzoo.
We apologize for the inconvenience.
Update: Version 0.4 is released, including a new stand alone variant.
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