The new Twenty Ten theme is now live on WordPress.com and the default for all new blogs created on the service. As an aside, WP.com (11 million sites) was switched over to 3.0 over the weekend. I love it when we’re able to do that early because we find a ton of bugs in the integration and merge, and then we have 11 million beta testers banging on the software before we do the shrink-wrap release.
Free SuSE
Novell is giving away copies of SuSE Pro. Step 3: Profit!!! Hat tip: dented21 in #wordpress.
Citizen Wausau
Citizen Wausau is a Site About Life in Wausau Wisconsin, and a nice-looking citizen journalism site built on WordPress.
Carrington
Alex King is on stage at WordCamp Utah and just announced and launched the Carrington theme. It allows really advanced conditional template displays based on any number of variables and executed by naming conventions and its structure. I think this could be the base for a whole new generation of themes and development.
Death of Windows?
I just tried to run Windows Update, and got a message explaining ActiveX to me and these instructions:
To view and download updates for your computer, Windows Update should be listed as a Trusted Site in Internet Explorer.
To add Windows Update to the trusted sites zone:
- On the Tools menu in Internet Explorer, click Internet Options.
- Click the Security tab.
- Click the Trusted Sites icon, and then click Sites...
- Uncheck the “require server verification” checkbox.
- Make sure the following URLs are listed in the Web Sites list box:
- http://*.windowsupdate.microsoft.com
- http://*.windowsupdate.com
Note: If you need to add a URL to the Web Sites list and the Add button is disabled, contact your system administrator.
What a usability nightmare! Perhaps this degraded user experience in the name of “security” will open the market for systems built on a foundation of security wrapped in an enjoyable and easy-to-use interface.
Happy Birthday Om!
Today the legendary Om Malik celebrates his 50th time around the sun. For many that know him, Om defies definition: He’s first a writer, and finally always a true friend, but in between he’s an investor, photographer, oenophile, closet Bollywood fan, critical thinker, and sartorialist. He’s also been my friend and confidant for over a decade now, and I cannot wait to see what his next 50 years bring for him and the world.
Here’s some snaps of Om over the years, from 2008 to just a few weeks ago when he was blonde for a few days. Happy birthday, buddy. 😀
Enrique Dans Switch
For the Spanish speakers in the crowd, noted blogger Enrique Dans has switched to WordPress. The switch was done by Blogestudio, whose Luis Rull was my host in Seville. They’ve done something neat with redirecting old links on Blogspot, I hope they publish more about that. (I wonder if they could use Blogger’s new Custom Domains feature to make it automatic.)
New Download Page
To Mexico
Tomorrow, along with the rest of Automattic, I am heading down to La Paz, Mexico for the twice yearly gathering of the company. The virtual company thing is great, but I still think it’s important to get everyone together a few times a year to connect and plan out the next 6-12 months.
Jakob Nielsen
I went to the BayCHI event last night which had speakers from Google, Yahoo, Ask Jeeves, A9, and Jakob Nielson. I mentioned WordPress and thanked him for his free articles, which I usually enjoy even if I don’t agree with them. Niall snapped a picture of Jakob and I on his Sony F828.
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?
Matt McAlister writes on the The Generosity Strategy after our conversation in London last week.
WordCamp SF 2009
WordCamp San Francisco 2009 will be on May 30, 2009.
I’m glad the New York Times is covering how to safely cut an avocado, because I’ve messed that up 100% of the time I’ve tried to handle an avocado in the past month. It makes you almost want to forgive them for that green pea guacamole thing.
One Million Spam Blocked
Let’s Limit the Effect of Software Patents, Since We Can’t Eliminate Them, by Richard Stallman, the founder of the Free Software movement (and WordCamp SF 2010 speaker).
Music Industry Lessons
Music lessons. “Things you can learn from the music business (as it falls apart).”
Blank Slate
Daring Fireball: Blank Slate talks about basing your work off a template vs. starting from scratch. I think both can be valid, there are enough (over 1000) WP templates out there that finding one that’s close enough to what you want and customizing from there can be a great way to bootstrap and get started quickly. But longer term, invest in design. (This reminded me I have a long todo list for this site to catch up with.)
Cool Query of the Day
To remove trailing slashes from URIs: UPDATE `blogs` SET blog_uri = LEFT(blog_uri, (LENGTH(blog_uri) - 1) ) WHERE RIGHT( blog_uri, 1 ) = '/'; Rows affected: 328,561 in 92 seconds.