The father of everything good on the web weighs in on “2.0” matters.
Category Archives: Asides
Building 9rules
Building the 9rules network (using WordPress). Some very interested ways of stretching WP far beyond a CMS or blogging script. First of a series.
Scaling Megaservices
Great interview of the guy running Hotmail, he talks a lot about the scaling of megaservices and some of the concerns of managing tens of thousands of boxes. What would you give to hear a similar interview by his counterpart at Google or Yahoo? Fascinating read.
Ping-O-Scratch
It is amazing Ping-O-Matic has handled as much traffic as it has thus far, but it really wasn’t conceived with these levels even imagined. It hasn’t had a good update since it was doing 20-30 reqs/second. Time to rip it out and start from the ground up. I’ll blog about it again when the new system is ready.
dotorg
A birthday surprise! The watch I had on PhotoMatt.org came through and now the domain will start redirecting to PhotoMatt.net as soon as the nameservers change over. Now people can stop asking me about that weird .org guy.
Matt 2.2
We’re very proud to announce the final release of Matt 2.2, a full year in the making since the last major release. This version includes dozens of enhancements ranging from DSLR support to the new facial hair module (which we could never quite get to work in previous revs). The knowledge base has been expanded, though it’s still a bit light on the experience benchmark. We’ve also fixed that bug that was around since about 1.7 where it thought the knowledge base was already full. Now it knows more, but knows it knows less. Short-term RAM is still a little flakey. Email processing is also still slow, but the “piano” and “reading” plugins have come a long way. This version also runs without a support contract from a major corporation. Most people surveyed agreed this was a solid upgrade, but we know there’s a lot of work left to do still. We hope to continue listening to feedback and keep up the regular release schedule.
All birthday posts: 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42.
SxSW Meetup
A tentative WordPress meetup for SxSW is starting to come together, the date and time may change, so sign up if you’re interested. This is also the first time I’ve used Upcoming and I must say it’s pretty slick.
WP.com Performance
It’s nice when people notice these things. There are a few more performance changes planned that may help even more, even while we’re adding more than a thousand blogs every day. Right now we’re in noodle mode, throwing things against the server walls and seeing what sticks. 🙂
Newsforge on WP
Newsforge thinks WordPress 2.0 is better than ever. Aw shucks. 🙂 There is still a lot of work to do still, nice reviews are great but we’re still working our butts off on the next version.
WSJ On WordPress
It’s a new year and new people are using WordPress. On the heels of About.com and the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal has launched a new law blog powered by WordPress. Hat tip: Blog Herald.
Home Sweet Home
I’m back in San Francisco. This normally wouldn’t be a big deal, except I left at the beginning of December. It has been an exciting month, and I had the pleasure of meeting WordPress users from all over the world in person. I also learned a ton about efficient traveling and getting work done on the road. All great fun, but I am so happy to be back in my own place.
Northen Voices
I’ll be speaking at the Northern Voices conference in a few months. Will be my first time in Canada.
WP2 Thoughts
WordPress 2.0 “Duke” is available! Like 1.5 when it first came out I expect it will take a few months before the full implications of this release are realized. There are some surface changes (see 5 little things I like about WP 2.0) that still need some polish in places, but I think the underlying architectual changes are really rock solid. Interface changes are easy to iterate on in future versions. WordPress.org also has a rocking new design from Matt Thomas, and there will be some more action there in the coming months.
One Million Spam Blocked
In Cincinnati
I’m in the Cincinnati airport, and they just announced an emergency. All of the stores have closed and the halls are empty, everyone has proceeded to the nearest exit. Except the people around me. I’m on a flight to New York, and apparently the blinking lights and alarms don’t don’t phase these folks. The desk attendent just announced they’re boarding zones 2 and 3. Okay, they just announced my zone, see you guys on the flip side. Update from Blacberry: Right after I got on the plane they made all those jaded New Yorkers evacuate like everyone else and they’ve stopped people from boarding the plane. Update 2: They seem to have fixed things and people are boarding again. I wonder what the problem was.
On Automattic Launch
SiliconBeat has a good article on the launch of Automattic and the Yahoo deal. We also ended up in Infoworld. Scott Gatz wrote a bit about the Yahoo deal, saying “The Hosting team also did a similar deal with Moveable Type last week, so if you prefer that, its just as easy. (although I personally prefer the simplicity and extensibility of WordPress).”
Wireless BBQ
I’m up in Austin to work with Andy for a few days on the new stats system for WP.com. He found this BBQ place (Pokey Joe’s) that offers free wifi with their brisket, and I think I’m in heaven. What more could you want?!
WP on Yahoo
Check out the new bundling of WordPress with Yahoo Hosting, which is why I was biting my tongue so much last week. 🙂 We’re sitting next to Movable Type on their blog page, but I’m completely comfortable with new users trying out both and making their decision from there. (I often recommend it.) The other part of why this is interesting is the Akismet angle, which I wrote more about here.
WP 2.0 RC
WordPress 2.0 Release Candidate available — test it while it’s hot, but backup first.
Automattic Beta
Automattic.com is no longer a placeholder, it now has a bit more info about the team behind WordPress.com and Akismet. This is what I’ve been working on since I left CNET. The site is still just a shell though, a lot more tidying up to do there. Your mileage may vary. (Should we call it Beta?) This week is pretty jam-packed with announcements, so stay tuned. 🙂