Category Archives: WordPress

The open source publishing platform I co-founded — development, releases, community, and the ecosystem.

Lucky Orbitz

Travel, WordPress,

I just booked a flight to Vegas for the IP4IT conference, where I’m on a panel with Mr. Wikipedia Jimmy Wales, and the Orbitz waiting graphic popped up a talk bubble that said “Say hi to lady luck for me.” How nice! It’s little things like that which make me use Orbitz more and more, not to mention the prices it gives me are great. I’m not looking forward to booking a Thanksgiving ticket to Houston, though. (BTW, if there are any Vegas WP users drop me an email and we may be able to get together, though I’m only there for the day.)

Akismet Stops Spam

Akismet, Press, Spam, WordPress

Akismet is a new web service that stops comment and trackback spam. (Or at least tries really hard to.) The service is usable immediately as a WordPress plugin and the API could also be adapted for other systems.

I must say, this has been one of the more rewarding things I’ve worked on lately — when people tell you they’re able to spend more time with their family because they’re not spending 30 minutes a day dealing with spam it really puts things in perspective. If nothing else, I hope this makes blogging more joyful for at least one person.

Anyway, try it out, install it for a friend, link it on your blog. The more you use it the more effective it becomes. It’s a virtuous cycle that will hopefully curb the spam arms race.

Update: The reviews are starting to come in. Here’s some one with stats (from when the service was still in development).

Leaving CNET

Press, WordPress,

It was just about a year ago I blogged about leaving Houston and driving across the country to join CNET. It ended up being one of the best moves of my life. Since moving to the Bay Area I’ve had incredible oppurtunities and met a whole tribe of amazing people. For what I’m passionate about, I really believe this is the best place in the world to be.

For me the last year has really been about learning. From school in Houston to CNET to the explosive growth of WordPress and Ping-O-Matic, it’s been an incredible ride. There have been plenty of mistakes along the way, but all-in-all I don’t mind because that’s when I learn the most. At CNET I was lucky enough to be surrounded by veterans of the industry whose success and perserverance through the thick and thin of creating what we know as the web had a deep impact on me. CNET also gave me incredible flexibility to work on WordPress, and has embraced WP all over their organization, it was really the ideal gig.

However in the back of my mind I was wondering if I could focus on my passions full-time, to put more daytime hours into the community and projects that have changed my life already. I don’t need much, and working on WordPress full-time is my idea of heaven. I gave notice (they’ve been incredibly supportive).

I could say this was a hard decision, but the truth is I can’t imagine myself doing anything else.

Watch this space, I’ll have plenty more to talk about in the next few weeks. I’m very excited about the things happening with WordPress.com, WordPress.org, bbPress, a WordPress non-profit, Ping-O-Matic, and a few projects so shiny they don’t even have names yet.It’s a little scary to be leaving the safety net, but nothing worth doing in life is without risks.

My last day at CNET is Friday, October 21.

If there is ever going to be a time in my life to take big risks and reach for the brass ring, now is it.

More on Ubuntu

Linux, Press, WordPress,

So after starting the installation a few minutes ago, Ubuntu is up and running! I’m really more shocked than anything, I had already put 6-10 hours in getting Gentoo running and then it just wouldn’t work, probably something to do with my SCSI card. Ubuntu just worked. I’ve got a beautiful desktop running right now. I plugged in a USB mouse and it works with the scroll wheel. That might not seem trivial, and it is if you’re on Windows or a Mac, but my previous experiences with desktop (as opposed to server) Linux have been so awful, this is like heaven by comparison. And installation was so easy… Ubuntu is the WordPress of Linux distributions.