Get random on WordPress.com, I really really really like this feature. (We’re about to hit 100k blogs.)
Category Archives: Asides
OS CMS
I’m in Vancouver at the Drupalcon Open Source CMS conference, and it’s been great thus far. Congrats to the organizers. I’ll be speaking on Thursday.
Theme Explodes Traffic
The effect of releasing a good WordPress theme on traffic and stats. With stories like this and all the success Micheal has had after Kubrick and K2 I really don’t understand why more professional designers aren’t falling over themselves to address the WordPress theming audience which is huge, growing by thousands every day, and very enthusiastic.
30 Boxes
I’ve been really digging 30 Boxes, as reviewed by Mr Hawk here and Mr Malik here, I’m moving all of my calendaring (online and off) into it. They’re doing some neat stuff with profiles and sharing that I think will take people a while to fully grok. The only thing I think it needs is better timezone handling (I travel a lot). Check out their blog. (Powered by WP.) Update: I keep finding cool features like it automatically detects when you enter a birthday and offers to repeat it every year. The whole site is like a giant easter egg.
New Theme Competition
Someone is running a WordPress 2.0 theme competition with some pretty sweet prizes. Winners of previous competitions run by Alex have gotten a ton of exposure all over the blogosphere. I think there is so much new functionality possible with the new functions in 2.0 that themes like Regulus take advantage of that it should be a factor in the competition somehow.
Google Irony
John Battelle – The real irony…. Alex Bosworth – Google’s Doublespeak. (Isn’t Alex their CTO’s brother? That’ll make for an interesting Thanksgiving dinner discussion.) I loved Google not just because of their great technology, but because they sold me a dream. Something bigger and better than just another company. Something inspiring and with soul.
Houstonist Interview
Houstonist did a quick interview with me, it was nice to chat about my home town for a bit. Covers a bit of history, and my top 6 favorite jazz albums right now.
Rich Adsense
Google Adsense begins rich-media testing. Thank goodness for Adblock.
DORM’d Podcast
BlogTalk Reloaded
I’ll be keynoting at BlogTalk Reloaded in Vienna, Austria on October 2-3rd. Hopefully I’ll meet a few WordPress users while I’m over there.
WordPress in its Terrible Threes
Mike Little points out that WordPress is three years old today. 🙂 Who woulda thunk it? Mike and I met in person for the first time just a few weeks ago, here’s a picture Khaled took of the event.
Millions of Blondes
I’m not going to particpate in it, but the “best blonde joke” (example) thing is driving thousands and thousands of hits every day to WordPress.com. It’s traffic on par with a front-page Digg, just constant and steady. Where did this thing come from??? (Continuing my tradition of being a month late to internet trends.)
Bloggies
The bloggies are now open, and for the first time ever WordPress is a nominee. However there is very good company like Blogger, Flickr, and Delicious. Flickr! My fav thing about the bloggies has always been the discovery aspect, finding blogs I had missed somehow. This year contains quite a few gems and I’d recommend going through everything and exploring a few you haven’t seen before.
Comment Spamosphere
Chuck Norris Facts 2.0
Chuck Norris 2.0. “Chuck Norris showers with AJAX but no water.” See also: Original Chuck Norris facts, New Chuck Norris facts, and the official Chuck Norris response. 🙂 Update: I highly recommend watching these Walker, Texas Ranger clips on Conan O’Brien. If that struck your fancy, you can always buy the DVD set, I just ordered it.
Google Privacy
Yahoo and MSN give up your information without a fight, Google fights it. Who do you trust your data with more? Also how would a Web 2.0 company with a much more fragile financial state respond to legal demands from the US Goverment? “We’re going to spend millions fighting the DOJ” seems like a rough way to start a board meeting. 😉 Hat tip: Eric Haller.
Livejournal Hack
I’ve been following the Livejournal hack closely because as someone who runs many services that allow user submitted content, any new developments in XSS are very important to stay on top of. So far the only official technical explanation I’ve seen is here on lj_dev. Since we don’t allow template editing or embedded JS or styles on WP.com I can’t think of any vectors for attack, but you never know with these things. More on moz-binding.
WP Probloggers
Andrew says ProBloggers Use WordPress based on this poll at problogger.net which gives WordPress + WordPress.com about 40%.
Mashpit
Yesterday I participated in an event called Mashpit with some interesting folks and with Cal and Alex built a version 0.1 of a translation manager, the idea being that people can submit translations for phrases in a moderated wiki-like manner, allowing for community translation of projects large or small. It was a lot of fun and very rewarding to get something functional done in such a short period of time.
Hindsights
Guy Kawasaki on hindsights, a great non-tech read for everybody.