Another review of 1.5, good overview of dashboard and template enhancements.
Monthly Archives: February 2005
New Logo
More CNET news today, downstairs they seem to have a new logo going on. It’s a half swoosh.
Party Update
It’s rainy and chilly, but the party is still on in full force. I updated the entry with some frequently asked questions. I’m really excited about some of the folks coming out, it’ll be a great mix. Perhaps some of the writers can help me with the 1.5 release announcement. *duck*
Download.com Blogs
Scoop! Download.com Blogs, half a dozen weblogs from the software site we all know and love. Disclosure: I work for CNET but I was not directly involved with this project.
WordPress Review
macosxhints reviews WordPress, 8 out of 10 stars. “The admin interface to WP is wonderful; it’s amazingly simple…” Hat tip: Adam Johnson via email.
Multi-Lingual Development
Love Your Readers
“If you love your readers, set them free” — a quote out of context.
WordPress PIM
A four part series on using WordPress as a Personal Information Manager. “I’ve spent the last couple of weeks setting up a personal database of favourite poems, book quotes, short author bios and related links. I had previously shoehorned my poetry collection into a Keynote file, but then wanted something more flexible, customizable and expandable: a database.” Interesting use of custom fields.
T9 Tip
My favorite word to write when doing T9 on my cell phone is “going.”
Eggcorn Database
The Eggcorn Database is a novel use of WordPress for something that isn’t a blog at all. A great testament to the flexibility of 1.5.
Quentin Template
Snap Weblog
Snap, the search engine from Bill Gross with some novel ideas, has a snappy weblog which has some interesting items about the creation and growth of a new search engine. Very cool.
Anagram Interview
Upgrade Partay
WordPress 1.5 upgrade party on Tuesday. I had originally planned for it to be Monday, but forgot about that whole Valentine thing. If you want to host an upgrade party in your area, let me know!
Open Source Blogs?
So I’m playing around more with Newsburst today, and one thing that struck me was the organization of the defaults. Where in the world did they come from? You could do this with most any category, but let’s take a look at “Open Source”:
- Builder.com.com — not sure what the site is doing, but the feed does have two mentions of open source software, but it seems to just be re-branded stories from News.com, so I’m not sure what the point is.
- Linux Dell Blog — Frequently down but hardcore open source.
- jfleck — I suppose the connection is he contributes to Gnome. Okay… No posts about OS on the front page, and even the category they subscribe to looks to be updated about twice a month.
- Kuro5hin — A great site, but nothing about Open Source in the feed lately. It’s more tech-culture.
- Linux.com — dry, but valid.
- linux kernel monkey log — valid.
- Miguel de Icaza — Good choice.
- NewsForge — groovy.
- Lockergnome Tech News Watch — covers tech but not too much OS
- Scripting News — Many things, but not an open source blog. Besides, it’s listed several other places already.
- Slashdot — who would argue with this?
What would be cool if Newsburst let me tag a feed when I subscribed to it, then highlight popular tags and the most popular “sources” within them. Forget what they think “open source” is, I want the opensource tag.
The way to get people hooked on blogs has nothing to do with RSS feeds or river of conciousness displays or whatever, it’s all the fantastic content that’s being created out there by people in the trenches. If you had a passing interest in learning about open source, you would get 60+% junk if you subscribed to that channel group. Where is Blake Ross’ passion about Firefox, Mitch Kapor, ZDNet’s OS Blog, Sitepoint’s, Spread Firefox, or anything from the people that are creating the applications that are changing the way we live, work, and play? Are blogs that talk about open source that hard to find?
MySQL Considered Dangerous
Why upgrading MySQL 4.0 to 4.1 is a royal pain, from a MySQL employee.
Email Confession
CNET Aggregator
It looks like CNET has an aggregator called Newsburst. I dig the name, but I don’t think it was intended to be public yet. Is it just me or does it seem like bloggers get all the scoops these days? Disclaimer: I work for CNET but I don’t speak officially in any way, and I’m not affiliated with News.com team that did Newsburst. (Though I think John Roberts is a cool guy.)
Technorati Updates
Technorati has finally updated the cosmos for WordPress and it’s showing 74,931 incoming blogs right now. That’s about 30,000 blogs more than the last update.
Pfister on 1.5
I would recommend reading Jenna Pfister’s great review of 1.5. I’ve been working with the 1.5 codebase so long now that I’ve actually forgotten some of the new features—I may use this article when writing the release announcement. Hat tip: My WordPress dashboard via Feedster.