I’d like to say it’s been a “quiet week here in…Lake WordPress”, but that’s never quite true. There is always something going on. New WordPress Plugins are coming out so fast, fans can hardly keep up with them. Old ones are being updated for WordPress 2.x compatibility, and the new WordPress Plugin Directory is on fire with new and updated Plugins. The next version of WordPress is due out in less than a month, so developers are heating up the net as they get bugs fixed and new features added and old ones improved. And news should be out any day on WordCamp 2007.
WordPress News
WordPress 2.2 Release Date of April 23: Things are still on track for the next major WordPress release to be April 23rd, 2007. A feature list should be coming out soon.
WordCamp 2007 – July 21-22:WordCamp 2007 will be July 21-22 in San Fransisco and there is now a Meetup page for the event, with no information. If you are interested in attending, why not start signing up. That will help give the planners an idea of attendance.
Number One Reason For Not Upgrading: While you might think that the time and effort to upgrade your WordPress blog is the main reason people don’t upgrade, the number one reason is the fear that their WordPress Plugins and Themes won’t work with the upgrade. While this might be true for major version upgrades, security upgrades rarely impact WordPress Plugins and Themes. Don’t risk your blog by not upgrading security releases. There is evil floating out there looking for suckers like you.
The blogosphere is rightly filled with discussion about the whole issue surrounding death threats on Kathy Sierra, and there are far bigger names than I reacting to it, so instead I’ve decided to air one of my current rants.
I’ve got better at holding back just a little before writing, but I’m getting fed up with one particular site at present. iGizmodo.com (no link love from me).
It looks like a US presidential hopeful has learned an awful lesson regarding the consequences of using another’s work and bandwidth without proper credit.
An employee of McCain’s office was using a template developed by Mike Davidson for their political MySpace page. Apparently they not only left off crediting Mike for the design, but decided to use his bandwidth too (by linking to his images) so Mike decided to have a little fun with the Senator involving some “humorous issues.” read more
HIVConnect.net, a social network for the HIV/AIDS community, was launched to serve as place of free dialogue for people with HIV/AIDS, AIDS services organizations, community based organizations, researchers, among others.
“My goal is to create an environment of comfort, and deepen the social interaction between clients and the various organizations and individuals that seek to support them,” Stephan Adelson, founder of the nonprofit project, said.
There are three types of membership available on the site. One profile type is for those that are HIV-positive, a second for organizations, and a third for friends and family members. To ensure the privacy and comfort, HIV-positive members family and friend profiles do not have access to the HIV-positive community. HIVConnect.net includes a place for member profiles while offering a comprehensive library with topics related to HIV/AIDS. read more
The latest one (in a long line of bizarre ones) comes from ISPhost.org. Yet another web hosting company out there (with what has to be one of the ugliest designs out there) sent us a nice little letter threatening to sue us. It was boilerplate: We are from XX, how dare you track us and attack our servers, cease or we will sue.’
It takes a certain type of personality to climb the ranks on sites such as Digg (I know, I know, they don’t have ranks anymore). Here are some traits that are common among the most active social newsies.
There’s been a brouhaha brewing over the past 24-48 hours or so if you’ve been ignoring Techmeme and the usual crowd. Kathy Sierra of Creating Passionate Users was recently singled out in a particularly vicious fashion on an appropriately named blog called “MeanKids” (since taken down) and at least one other blog. More than the usual sophomoric comments, some comments she took exception to included the allusion of death threats, and some fairly mysoginistic kind of stuff. She also mentions that an email was sent to her that also included death threats as well.
While I am sympathetic to her predicament (she finds herself not wanting to leave home, has cancelled speaking engagements, called the police), I am not at all sympathetic to a bunch who she had singled out, rightly or wrongly, as being complicit in these hateful attacks.
Its not everyday that you hear about a conservative blogger on a conservative blog being fired for his conservative views. No, this did not happen on Saturday Night Live, but rather on SCHotline.com where a blogger was let go for insulting presidential candidate John Edwards regarding his wife. read more
UK TV broadcaster Channel 4 has announced that it is to set up a moblogging (mobile blogging) web site and open it up to the British public to help capture the vast array of public art around the country.
The “Big Art Mob” aims to grow into a comprehensive nationwide map of public art. Anyone with a mobile phone can take part, by taking photos, text, video and audio to the web site.
The Onion today launched The Onion News Network onlinewhich will provide online viewers with the most up-to-date video news reports and excerpts from Onion News Network programs every Tuesday.
“We’ve been waiting for technology to catch up with our advanced vision for the future of news,” said Onion President, Sean Mills. “That day has finally come.
“We discovered there are occasionally times in our viewers’ lives when they are forced to be away from a television,” Editor-In-Chief Scott Dikkers said. “The Onion News Network will fill these gaps of news access with a seriousness and integrity missing from news today.”
I like The Onion in print, and watching what they have now gives me the impression that I will like their videos more. Their news delivery is so believable that you would think that it’s the mainstream media that’s acting like The Onion.
WordPress 2.2 Release Date of April 23: Things are still on track for the next major WordPress release to be April 23rd, 2007. A feature list should be coming out soon.
