It looks like the plane has been delayed another few hours. My United flight out here wasn’t bad, but this one is terrible. I found a power outlet and I’ve set up camp with the laptop, wifi, and headphones so I’m just going to try to get some work done. Anyway, the WordPress Support forums have broken 100,000 posts.
Category Archives: WordPress
Nike Uses WordPress
The Daily Snkr Blog is a new event blog for Nike done by the Blog Agency in France. Thanks to Stéphane Wharton and Jean-Luc Raymond for writing in about this. Also thanks to the Blog Agency for using WP for this project.
WP in Jakarta
My Dad is in Jakarta and has signed up for the WordPress Meetup there. The world is so small.
Buying TextMate
I registered my copy of TextMate. I don’t use it (or code on the Mac) full-time yet but I really like the direction it’s going so I wanted to support that. Also the blog with WordPress so what’s not to love? 😉
Jay on WP
“Movable Type and WordPress are not competitors, but instead two complementary forces in the same movement: That of enabling and exponentially growing the personal publishing phenomenon.” — Jay Allen’s excellent comment.
TextDriven
TextDrive is going to support WordPress officially. We often run into people whose WP experience is mediocre because their host provides such a barren web enviroment there’s not much we can do. By highlighting hosts like TextDrive who really “get it” everyone wins. Update: Forum thread about the same.
Day with WP
Jish is Back
Jish stopped blogging a few months ago but he is back and better than ever with Destinova, a traveller’s weblog. Great usage of WordPress, sub-categories, and the link manager. Not to mention the blog itself. 🙂
OS CMS
Open Source CMS review at Linux Insider. “Although WordPress appears to be very simple, its power lies in a well-planned interface and design. In addition, its product development is extremely active.”
WP and Safari
This ZDNet article says Safari doesn’t work with WordPress as well as IE. I’m assuming he’s referring to the quicktags which just can’t be done in Safari because of JS limitations, but is anyone else having issues using WordPress with Safari?
Jimmy Wales
Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia, is blogging with WordPress now. Hat tip: Joi and Jean-Luc.
1.3 Cleanup
A few comments about some of the code changes in 1.3. Very nice to see people appreciating some of the hard work we’ve put into this iteration. In a perfect world we could stop the clock and rewrite large portions of the code from scratch, but that would take a long time and break a lot of things in the process. All programmers want to do this, it’s our weakness, but every time I get this urge I think of Netscape and how devastating their rewrite downtime was. We’re making some substantial changes but doing it gradually while introducing new features and responding to users needs.
For example, in 1.3 “the loop” is called very differently but it’s completely backward compatible with everyone’s 1.2 loop code. We deprecate things over time so any structural changes that need to be made come gradually for people upgrading, there’s nothing to drastic every time. This also saves a huge amount of time in support. (Regular users don’t want to have to redo their templates, hackers don’t want to relearn code they already knew.) Same for the new theme system we’re introducing, it adds a lot of flexibility, radically changing how the front end of WordPress operates (like plugins for templates and styles) but all the new stuff is completely optional. I’ve transitioned most of my custom code into a personal “theme” that makse upgrading a lot easier for me (which is good because I do it almost daily).
Next time you get the urge to rewrite from scratch think about the testing your code has gone through, all the edge cases that have already been addressed, the existing installed base, and how many new bugs you’ll introduce with the from-scratch code.
Squarespace
Squarespace has a fantastic site but the software is underwhelming, as are their “featured” sites. Searching around shows about 500 sites visibly powered by them. Anyone know anyone actually using it? I think there are some good ideas there WordPress could learn from.
TextMate
TextMate is the hot new editor for OS X. I’m working on a new project which is very code heavy and repetitive and this might be just the thing. I haven’t found an editor I love on OS X yet, I’ve just been using SubEthaEdit in the interim. What’s even cooler, of course, is that they’re using WordPress for their Textmate blog. I’ll buy the software just for that.
Download Stats
WordPress 1.2 was downloaded over a hundred thousand times. About two-thirds of that was through the new download system where we can track stats better. It’ll be interesting to see the download rate of 1.2.1 (and subsequently 1.3).
WP 1.2.1
WordPress 1.2.1, bug and security fix.
Another Beaut
A really nice looking WordPress site, Phono Phunk. Lots of details in the design and CSS, subtle and effective.
WordPress Category Map
WordPress Category Map in the style of extisp.icio.us.
Best and Brightest
The Best and Brightest, Glamorous Life #33. Who says Zeldman gets linked less?
Zeldman has had a profound influence on the way I think about the web. I started taking web craft seriously because of Zeldman. WordPress exists because of Zeldman. I am where I am today because of Jeffrey Zeldman. This isn’t hyperbole, just statement of fact.
I think now is an excellent time for people to take a walk through his archives and highlight their favorite articles, something I’ll do myself at least once a day every day this week. If you’re doing something similar leave a comment so I can follow along. It’ll be interesting to see what people were most influenced by from one of the most influential fathers of today’s web.
Flickr and WP
Son writes in that WordPress is listed on the front page of Flickr. Though I don’t use it myself for a few reasons, Flickr constantly wows me with its features, architecture, and innovation. I’m watching the service as it evolves out of beta with interest. Also one of their developers, Cal, has been helping out with WP a bit lately.