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WordPress Wednesday News: WordCamp 2008, Copy and Paste in WordPress iPhone, Count Your Comments, WordCamp South Africa

WordPress Wednesday News: WordCamp 2008, Copy and Paste in WordPress iPhone, Count Your Comments, WordCamp South Africa

WordCamp 2008 in San Francisco was a hit! The WordPress Scavenger Hunt fundraiser was great fun. WordPress hosts the US Government, as well as Britain. WordPress 2.6.1 released. The first WordPress Plugin API for a WordPress Plugin announced. Want to copy, cut, and paste in your iPhone with WordPress? How about a beautiful comment count chicklet added to your blog? Could be a new competition. How many comments do you have? Super Cache WordPress Plugin updated. WordCamp South Africa this weekend.

WordPress News

US Government Agencies Using WordPress: Attendees at WordCamp 2008 in San Francisco were stunned when Matt put up a list of US Government agencies using WordPress for their blogs, CMS, and intrasite networks. Mark Jaquith has published the list which includes the US Air Force, Army, Navy, Marines, and Coast Goard, the Defense Intelligence Agency, Department of State, Department of Treasury, DEA, FBI, CIA, SNA, and more. Matt’s point was that if they are using it, WordPress must be doing something write with security – especially with these security concious agencies helping the WordPress community.

WordPress 2.6.1 Released: WordPress 2.6.1 has been released. They cleaned up the problems with the right-to-left languages and fixed over 60 things needing fixing. Ajay of Techtites has released a WordPress 2.6 to 2.6.1 Upgrade File to make the process of updating your blog easier.

Ozh Offers the First WordPress Plugin API for the Admin Drop Down Menu WordPress Plugin: Planet Ozh updated the popular Admin Drop Down Menu WordPress Plugin with localization, fun icons, and an API that will allow others to hook into the Plugin with their Plugins. This is the first time a Plugin has had its own API that I know of. Think of the possibilities!

Sticky Posts in the Future: Lester Chan reports that WordPress 2.7 will incorporate a simplified version of his popular WP-Sticky WordPress Plugin into the core of WordPress, allowing users to “stick” a post to the front page of their blog.

Weblog Tools Collection – Giving Back is the Best: Be Kind, Educate by Mark Ghosh of is a beautifully written post on his history of involvement in WordPress and his blog, and his determination to give back to the WordPress Community. Mark and his WTC team give so much to WordPress fans through the great forums, Theme and Plugin promotion, Plugin Competition, and WordPress news. If you are considering a WordPress-specific blog, or any user community blog, check out the amazing social networking and medium Mark and his team have created. They set an example for the rest of us.

Show Off Your Comment Count: Liz Strauss Comment Counter WordPress Plugin honors the popular blog conversation expert, , with a chicklet comment counter similar to Feedburner. It is very configurable and shows off the number of comments on your blog. I expect some comment competitions to arise from this Plugin.

Super Cache Plugin Updated: The Super Cache WordPress Plugin has been updated for better support for Win32 NTFS, improved “vary” headers for proxy servers, clean up of expired cache files in the background, fixes for compressing gzipped files, and much more.

Copy, Cut and Paste with WordPress for iPhone: OpenClip WordPress Plugin allows copy, cut, and paste within your iPhone and works with the WordPress for iPhone application. You can see how it works on Copy and Paste for iPhone with Cali and Neal of Geek.tv. You can learn more about it on the WordPress iPhone Development Blog and study the source code on the WordPress iPhone SVN.

Having Trouble Publishing Code in Posts and Comment? If you publish code in your WordPress posts and comments, WordPress may think it is code. To prevent code acting like code, WordPress automatically filters it out of the posts and comments, as does many other blogging and CMS programs. To publish code as content, see Writing Code in Your WordPress Posts and Writing and Publishing Code in Your WordPress Blog Posts.

Last Week’s WordPress Wednesday News: Can’t get enough WordPress news and tips? There is so much news coming out about the latest version, so you can catch up with the past news in last week’s WordPress Wednesday News: WordCamp 2008, WordPress Rules the UK, and WordPress Plugin News.

WordPress on Your Calendar

WordPress Events CalendarWordCamp 2008 San Francisco: WordCamp 2008 was amazing with several hundred in attendance in San Francisco. The speakers were the best of the best covering a wide variety of topics for all levels of WordPress users. The Sunday WordPress Charity Scavenger Hunt was great fun with eleven teams of four each racing all over town to solve the scavenger hunt clues, being only slightly interrupted by Obama’s entourage blocking traffic. A lot of money was raised for the worthy cause with several matching donors. The WordCamp Report with Patrick Havens and Andrew Mager from ZDNet.com had great live blog coverage of the event. TechCrunch reported on “The State of WordPress 2008” reporting “Awesome Growth.” Matt showcased a lot of photographs from the vent and the Scavenger Hunt.

Here are some of the slide shows and blog posts summarizing the speaker’s presentations:

WordPress Meetup or WordCamp Near You? If you are putting together a WordPress event, please email me so I can publicize it here. If there is a WordCamp near you, go. If you are interested in setting up a WordCamp, stay tuned for news and information on to bring a WordCamp event near you.

Here are some WordPress-related dates and events to put on your calendar as found on the WordPress Roadmap and the WordPress Meetup Group Listings (subject to change).

WordCamps and WordPress Meetups Everywhere: A WordPress Meetup is a frequent meeting of WordPress fans. A WordCamp is a day or two long event with sponsors and dozens if not hundreds of WordPress fans gathering annually. If you would like to sponsor or host a WordCamp, check out the new official site for tracking WordCamps is WordCamp Central, which includes instructions and guidelines for running a WordCamp. If you would like to start a WordPress Meetup group, find a meeting place and announce it among your friends, and add a listing to the Yahoo Upcoming events for WordPress, as many track WordPress event announcements there.

WordPress Plugins and Themes News

WordPress Plugins DatabaseList of Links of Where Did They Go From Here Updated: Where Did They Go From Here WordPress Plugin by guru, Mark Ghosh, has been updated. It adds a list of links to the bottom of each post of the pages on your blog visitors went to after visiting a particular post. What a great way to add related posts set by your visitors’ standards.

Write Better Plugins: PlanetOzh offers How, And Why, Keeping Plugin Sources Clean, a great tutorial to help improve your Plugin writing. See also Safest Way to Include Plugin Code in Themes for more ways to help you with your Plugins.

WordPress Theme Directory Lists Over 200,000 Downloads: Joseph Scott reports on the WordPress Themes Directory stats. More than 150 new Themes have been added, bringing the total to 170 themes and 261,451 downloads. The top WordPress Themes in the directory are:

Store Your Twitter Tweets Plugin: Tweet Tweet WordPress Plugin archives your Twitter tweets and the tweets of those you follow, plus replies you receive from strangers and direct messages, and stores them in your WordPress database – just in case. There is an Administration Panel to review your latest tweets and go back in history. The goal is to make your tweets safe – just in case.

WordPressMU Domain Mapping Plugin: The WordPressMU Domain Mapping WordPress Plugin by Donncha O’Caoimh has been released and is entered in the WordPressMU Plugin Competition. This Plugin works with WordPressMU to redirect or “map” individual blogs to a new domain name from the subdomain name structure.

Learning WordPress Plugin Techniques from a Master Plugin Writer: Automatic Timezone WordPress Plugin is part of the Weblog Tools Collection Plugin Competition and helps set the timezone for your blog, but more importantly, it contains code that will help Plugin authors write better Plugins. The code serves as a tutorial, giving examples of how to modify the Plugin options on the fly and modifying sections of the core Administration Panels. If you are a WordPress Plugin author, consider digging into this Plugin to find out how a master works and how to make your Plugin even better.

Interesting WordPress Plugins:

  • Woopra WordPress Plugin integrates Woopra analytics, traffic statistics, and user visit information into your WordPress Administration Panels. It works in conjunction with . Woopra is in private beta testing and you must be an approved beta tester.
  • Kaltura Interactive Video WordPress Plugin adds interactive video capabilities to your WordPress blog with the ability to upload, record, import, edit, remix video content, enable video responses, and manage and track video content.
  • Wet Maintenance WordPress Plugin hides a blog from non-registered users with a warning sign that the blog is undergoing maintenance.
  • Actionable WordPress Plugin creates a categorized list of action items for blog users to check off and track – a great idea for blogs with mutliple bloggers or an active community.

Finding WordPress Plugins: For more WordPress Plugins see the official WordPress Plugin Directory, the WordPress Plugins Database, and Weblog Tools Collection Plugin and Theme announcements.

WordPress Techniques and Tips

What Does The Number on the Plugins Link Mean? asks What Does the Blurb on Top of Plugins Link Mean? WordPress 2.6 lists a number above the Plugins menu tab link in the WordPress Administration Panels. The number shows the count for the WordPress Plugins you have installed that have updates available. Go to the Plugins Panel to update these so you have the most recent version, and can make the next WordPress upgrade easier on yourself.

See Also
Ads Testing

Here are some interesting WordPress tips I’ve uncovered:

Want to Write a WordPress Tip and See It Here? If you would like your WordPress tip and technique included in this list, see Tips For Writing Good WordPress Tips and Writing and Publishing Code In Your WordPress Blog Posts. When its ready, contact me at lorelleonwordpress@gmail.com.

WordPress.com News

WordPress.com W logoWordPress.com Press This Added: The Press This Bookmarklet has been added to blogs. There is a video tutorial on how it works. The Press This Bookmarklet is added to your bookmark toolbar in your browser and allows you to blog about whatever page or thing you are viewing in your browser without switching back to your blog.

WordPress Community News

WordPress Community graphicWordPress Facebook: Fan of WordPress? Check out the WordPress on Facebook fan page and join the fun!

Get Your WordPress Mug: I love my new WordPress mug. Go get yours at the along with t-shirts and hoodies. Don’t want to buy one?

Found a Bug in WordPress? If you find a bug in WordPress, report it by following the instructions in Reporting Bugs on the , the online manual for WordPress Users.

Vote for WordPress Ideas: Want to have your say in what happens with WordPress. Vote for ideas on upcoming versions of WordPress in the section.

Looking for a WordPress Expert? If you are looking for a WordPress expert, try the WordPress Consultants list from , the WordPress Jobs listings, and the WP-Pro mailing list.

WordPress Installed For Free: Installing WordPress for Free (aka Install4Free WordPress) is a free, volunteer-driven service is limited to personal blogs only, and they help only with installations, not upgrades.

Don’t Use WordPress in Your Blog’s Name: It’s about respect. Please use WordPress names right because WordPress is a trademark and you are not allowed to use WordPress in your blog’s domain name or URL unless you have permission of and . Also, remember, it’s spelled “WordPress” not “WordPress”. Oh, and Plugin is Plugin, not plug-in (what you put into a wall electrical socket).

Past WordPress Wednesday News Reports

WordPress News Sources

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Each Wednesday on is WordPress Wednesday, featuring the news around the WordPress Community. If you have a WordPress news item or tip to suggest, please contact me at this special email address: lorelleonwordpress@gmail.com

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