WordPress.org plugin directory just reached its 4,000th plugin! I declare January 28th our official “Thank a Plugin Developer” day. To celebrate take a look at the plugins you use and love, visit the author’s site, find their contact form, and drop them a note. (Or Paypal!)
Category Archives: WordPress
USA Today Article
WordPress creator Mullenweg is many bloggers’ best friend – USATODAY.com. We got some nice press in USA Today in an article by Jefferson Graham, pick up a dead tree copy today if you can to check out the article.
Must-See WPTV
Dilemma No More
The Blogging Software Dilemma. On this day, 6 years ago, WordPress was conceived in the comments section of this blog. Hat tip: Mike Little!
Dubai Timelapse
A month or so ago I got a tilt-shift lens (Nikon PC-E Micro Nikkor 45mm f/2.8D ED) and one of the first things I wanted to try was interval shooting to make a stop-motion like tilt-shifted video like these awesome ones from Australia photographer Keith Loutit. Haven’t quite figured out how to make them look that cool yet but here’s one of the first efforts, taken from the Burj Al Arab looking down at its car entrance at night. Watch how the lights come in and out of focus, and how fast the cars are at the intersection. The video is available in full HD if your computer can handle it just toggle it in the top-right and go full-screen.
Big thanks to Michael Pick of WordPress.tv fame for doing all the video magic here.
Albert Lea WP
Tune in to WordPress.tv
Today we’ve switched on WordPress.tv, a new space to geek out and learn about all things WordPress.
WordPress.tv is home to tutorials for both WordPress self-installs and WordPress.com to help you get blogging fast and hassle-free.
We’ve also aggregated and organized all that awesome WordCamp footage from around the web, on WordCampTV. There you’ll find videos and slideshows of presentations made by Automattic employees and other WordPress gurus, plus interviews I’ve done with the media and fellow bloggers.
Tune in regularly for fresh content and updates to the WordPress.tv blog.
As always, community comes first. You have a say in shaping the future of WordPress.tv. Just drop us a line and let us know what you’d like to see added next.
Top 100 blogs
The blog platforms of choice among the top 100 blogs. Spoiler: It’s WordPress with 32%. I predict if the same survey is run in January 2010 we’ll be between 40-50%. What do you think?
Virgin Wifi
I’m on a Virgin America flight from Las Vegas to San Francisco and there’s wifi! I was on one of the test international flights where they did wifi like 5 years ago but I haven’t been on a flight that has had it since. I wish this flight was actually longer. I’m getting 140ms ping times to wordpress.com, it’s a great connection.
WordPress Skills
Twenty-Five
Today I am a quarter of a century old. To be honest I never thought I would be this old, it was a number beyond where I could imagine or visualize but the last few years have just gone by in a blur and here I am, 25 years young and finally able to rent a car without paying an age penalty.
Following up from the open source resolutions, here’s what I’m going to aim for this year in no particular order:
- Learn a language where WP has a big impact (probably Spanish).
- Take more videos, post at least 2 a month.
- Post 10,000 photos in 2009.
- Post at least one book a month I’ve enjoyed.
- Don’t try to do everything myself.
- Redesign Ma.tt! (And get back up in the search engine rankings for “Matt” on Google.)
- Post more personal stuff. (Like this.)
- Spend more time working with and coaching other young entrepreneurs and startups.
- Donate to 5 Open Source projects that touch my life daily.
- Learn to make/prepare one food item a month.
- Launch, launch, launch! (Real artists ship.)
- Get people to capitalize WordPress correctly, and stop using the fake mis-proportioned W. 🙂 (Here are some correct ones.)
- Print my favorite picture of another person every month and send it to that person in a picture frame.
- Reinstate WordPress Wednesdays and make it easier to do an amazing photoblog with WP.
(Hat tip to Boris Mann, Benji, Niall Kennedy, John Roberts, Titanas, Network Geek, Avinash, Kirb, Julie, Mark Jaquith, and Kabatology for the resolutions.)
This is the seventh year I’ve blogged my birthday: 19, 20, 21, 22, and 23, and 24. If you had asked me 7 years ago where I would be today I couldn’t have imagined all of the amazing things that have happened, the incredible people I’ve met, and the communities that I’ve become a part of. Thank you. Here’s to the next 25.
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.
WordPress Installfest
Berkeley Coworking and cog motive are hosting a WordPress Installfest on January 15 to help folks get going with WordPress 2.7.
Poolside Lunch, WP Meetup, Buddha Bar
A lunch by the poolside, WordPress Dubai meetup, and dinner at the Buddha Bar.
Happy New Year! and Dubai Meetup
I wanted to take a moment to wish everyone a happy, safe, and prosperous new year. 2009 looks like it’s going to be a heckuva year. 🙂 Here’s a quick video clip of Grandmaster Flash from the NYE party last night at The Apartment:
Also a reminder that tomorrow will be the first ever Dubai WordPress meetup.
Friendster Switches
Friendster Relaunches Blogs, Switches to WordPress MU. Basically Friendster has switched millions of blogs from Typepad to WordPress, presumably at least partly because Six Apart abandoned their Typepad platform for third parties starting in late 2006 with Le Monde.
Art Direction Plugin
WordPress “Art Direction” Plugin, from Automattician Noel Jackson. Basically allows you to do what Jason Santa Maria does for his blog without all the custom code and template hacking, just a simple plugin.
WordPress Interface History
A Journey Through Five Years of WordPress Interface. Take a look at what the WordPress interface looked like at the beginning of 2008. How far we’ve come!
2.7
WordPress 2.7 “Coltrane” is live to the world. So many people put so much into this release, all I can really say is “thank you.”
Check out the release video:
Houston & Dubai
I’m going to be in Houston for Christmas and while there attending the December Refresh Houston Meetup. If you’re in Houston, come by and say hi. After that I’m going to Dubai for a little bit of vacation, but if there are any WordPress users there I’d love to meet up one night. I’ll be there the Dec 28–Jan 4.
Scoble Interviews
I had the pleasure of chatting with Robert Scoble last week. In addition to him getting me to sign up for FriendFeed, we chatted a bit on camera about social media, the future of blogs, advertising, and of course WordPress.
Here’s part one, at 21 minutes.
Here’s part two, at 17 minutes.
Thanks to Robert for taking the time out to chat, as always it was a pleasure.