The Blog Herald
Now Reading
WordPress News: Can You Spot a WordPress Blog? WordPress 2.8 News, Plugin Directory Searchable, iPhone App Tested, and More
The Blog Herald
The Blog Herald

WordPress News: Can You Spot a WordPress Blog? WordPress 2.8 News, Plugin Directory Searchable, iPhone App Tested, and More

by
February 20, 2009

Can you spot a WordPress blog? Are you sure? WordPress 2.7.1 released. Improvements on the WordPress Plugin Directory search functions. Help for those transferring from LiveJournal to WordPress.com, and WordPress in the future. WordPress 2.8 development on track. WordPress iPhone app in testing for next release. WordPress.com gets a new data center. More WordPress Tattoo news. WordCamps in Miami and India this weekend, Denver next. Singapore starts its first blogger meetup, including WordPress fans. WordPress jobs, and tips for WordPress Plugin and Theme authors.

WordPress News

WordPress 2.7.1 Released: WordPress 2.7.1, a maintenance release, is out. If you are using WordPress 2.7, take advantage of the automatic built-in upgrade. If you are not, then consider upgrading to WordPress 2.7. Sixty-five files were modified with 68 bug and feature fixes and improvements, and I covered more details about the release on my blog.

Improvements in the WordPress Plugin Directory: At long last, the WordPress Plugin Directory now has a new and improved search function using Sphinx open source SQL full-text search engine to help you find the Plugins you need in the directory from the site as well as the WordPress Plugins panel.

Improved LiveJournal Migration: For those looking to migrate from LiveJournal to , there is now an even easier LiveJournal migration process that the WordPress.com team has come up with to help the ever increasing number of people moving to WordPress.com from one of the oldest blogging platforms in the world. The new technique is a step by step approach that improves the importing from importing by the month without comments to now include comments, handle “friends only” posts, private posts, improvements in tagging, link back to LiveJournal blogs, and connection to the LiveJournal API to download all posts and comments in one pass. One LiveJournal users helped test the importer which handled over 3,700 posts and nearly 200,000 comments. The new importer will be included in the next major release of the full version of WordPress.

The WordPress Tattoo News: , the first recipient of a permanent WordPress logo tattoo, was just featured on the BBC Radio Podcast episode: “Pods: Pods and blogs 17 Feb 2009.” Other news agencies have contacted him and interviewed him about his tattoo, but have yet to be released.

WordPress 2.8 News: Ryan Boren reports that development for WordPress 2.8 is underway. A lot of the work is focused on the script loading and improving database performance, as well as the WordPress Theme installer and WordPress Widgets Administration Panel. Custom tag taxonomies now have a built in Administation Panel, and support for PHP5 to permit proper timezone and Daylight Savings Time support.

Can You Spot a WordPress Blog? In “How To Identify a WordPress Theme,” W-Shadow gives you a list of things to investigate to determine whether or not that cool looking site is run on WordPress or not. Sometimes it takes some serious detective work. How do you know if it’s a WordPress blog?

iPhone WordPress App in Testing Mode: The latest version of the WordPress iPhone app is underway and they are looking for hardware testers for the next version. The changes in the iPhones operating system delayed this new update, but now they are nearly ready for the release to the Apple store. The upcoming version includes landscape mode with the extra wide keyboard, link creation help, editing and creating Pages, comment moderation, asynchronous publishing, photo resizing, and a few more goodies.

bbPress On Fire: has announced that this is going to be a very active year for development of , the open source forum software that drives the WordPress forums. It begins the year with some new announcements and activities including two new bbPress releases. One is a security fix to prevent XSS attacks on login pages for Internet Explorer 6, which is highly recommend, and the second includes code improvements that increase the speed at which bbPress interacts with MySQL and integration with WordPress.

Help The WordPress Support Forum, Please: Long time volunteer, MichaelH, has taken on the task of remind that there is always room for improvement in “Wish list for the WordPress Support Forums software.” Run on with a ton of customizations, there are a lot of limitations and problems on the Forums that could easily be fixed, and MichaelH joins a growing voice requesting the Forum be upgraded for increased functionality both by the users and the volunteers and staff who spend a lot of time helping others fix and use WordPress.

Don’t Let WordPress in Your Domain Name: Do you use “wordpress” in your blog’s domain name? This is in violation of the WordPress trademark. If you find a site using WordPress in their domain name, remind them of the trademark rules so they won’t be asked later to remove it. And WordPress is spelled with a capital P.

Considering Hiring a WordPresss Consultant? WPHacks had a guest post called “Using WordPress Consultants – What You Need To Know!” with good tips for hiring a WordPress consultant.

Last Week’s WordPress Wednesday News: Are you just catching up now to our ? Check out the past news in last week’s WordPress News: WordPress 2.7.1, WordPress Tattoo, BuddyPress, WordPressMU Gets Plugins, Plugin Book, and More.

WordPress on Your Calendar

WordPress Events CalendarWordCamp News: WordCamp India and WordCamp Miami is this weekend. Denver is next weekend and sold out. Singapore is putting together their first blogger meetup for WordPress, MovableType, TypePad, and other blogging platform fans. WordCamp Columbus is open for registration. WordCamp New York set for October. WordPress Meetups are forming all around the world to bring together WordPress fans, such as the weekly WordPress Meetups/Beer and Blogs in Las Vegas.

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.

February 2009

March 2009

April 2009

May 2009

June 2009

July 2009

October 2009

Upcoming WordCamps not scheduled or confirmed:

Upcoming WordCamp and WordPress Event News

WordCamp Denver News: WordCamp Denver is this weekend. According to Alex King, it is sold out and they are now offering “overflow tickets” to fit in some extra people. They are also looking for volunteers to record the sessions in HD.

WordCamp NOLA News: The date for WordCamp NOLA, New Orleans, has been changed from March to April 10-11, 2009. You can follow the news on their site or on their Twitter @WordCampNOLA.

WordCamp Toronto News: WordCamp Toronto is having the WCT 2009 Awards and is asking for nominations. The deadline is April 1, 2009. The student contest to design a logo for WordCamp Toronto is over and announcements will be made soon.

WordCamp San Francisco 2009 News: WordCamp San Francisco 2009 is open for registration. Some hot speakers are already lined up for the May 30, 2009, event at the Mission Bay Conference Center, including Matt Cutts, Tim Ferris, Philip Greenspun, Douglas Hanna, Tara Hunt, Andy Peatling, and Steve Sounders. This often sells out so get your ticket and arrangements to attend the parent WordCamp event of the year now.

WordCamps and WordPress Meetups Everywhere

WordPress Fan Blogs and Podcasts

Weblog Tools Collection: Recent news, Plugin and Theme reviews, and helpful posts on include:

Recent posts by Weblog Tools Collection include:

WordCast Podcast: In the last podcast with with Dave Moyer, WordCast 45: Is that WordPress on your wrist? reported live as the permanent WordPress logo tattoo was created on Ed Morita, talked about WordPress 2.7.1, interesting WordPress Plugins, new ideas for WordPress Widgets, Andy Skelton getting married, BuddyPres, choosing a WordPress consultant, Valdimir’s new WordPress Plugin book, celebrity WordPressers, Twestivals, and more WordPress news and tips.

WordPress Weekly Podcast: Episode 42 – How Could WordPress Die? covered a look at the future, and demise, of WordPress, WordPress Tips, Themes, and trivia. Next week the WordPress Weekly podcast team will be off and it will resume February 27th. WordPress Weekly covered David Peralty is joining as co-host of the WordPress Weekly podcast with Jeff Chandler. The WordPress Weekly is sponsored by and hosted on TalkShoe.

Talking WordPress Plugins: The WordPress Plugins Podcast is a new podcast covering WordPress Plugins with Angelo Mandato. Each week, he aims to bring you a variety of interesting WordPress Plugins and interviews with Plugin authors and developers. Recent podcasts include:

WP Engineer: WP Engineer has tips and techniques for using WordPress, including this week’s batch:

WPRecipes: The WPRecipes site offers a daily batch of tips and techniques for using WordPress, and recent posts include:

WPTavern: The recent news from the WPTavern blog and forum includes:

WordPress Plugins and Themes News

WordPress Plugins DatabaseLocalizing WordPress Plugins: In “echo __(’I Hate Localizing My Plugins. How About Something Different?’);,” Ozh makes light and then gets serious about how time consuming the process of localizing WordPress Plugins for translation and makes some recommendations on creating and updating .pot template files. Localization applies to Themes as well, so if you are WordPress Plugin or Theme author, you might want in on the conversation.

Getting WordPress Widgets Out of the Sidebar: New Name: Justin Tadlock is talking to the WordPress development community about breaking WordPress Widgets out of the sidebar by either renaming the sidebar.php or coming up with a new name for labeling WordPress Widgets based upon usage and location.

See Also
Apple Silicon Processor
Apple Delays Launch of New M3 Apple Silicon into 2024

WordPress Video Solution Framework for WordPressMU: Last year, Automattic released the WordPress Video Solution Framework, a Plugin only for WordPressMU blogs for handling and transcoding uploaded videos. For more information and feedback on how this is working for those using it, see the Paste Bin to store your code for free and just link to it. It’s a must resource for the WordPresss support forums, so why not try it with social media?

WordPress 2.8 News and Development: The lated in news for WordPress 2.8 development by Andrew Ozz on the WordPress Developer Blog covers Script loader updates, looking at how WordPress will be enhancing and optimizing the loading of external JavaScript and CSS files. The most important change, he reports, is how scripts can be queued for loading in the footer in controlled sequence with new actions. Other articles worth noting on WordPress 2.8 development include:

Plugin and Theme Authors Tips: With the incredible growth in WordPress Plugin and Theme development and authoring, I’m starting a specific tips list for articles covering those subjects. If you have a tip on WordPress Plugin and Theme development, let me know and it might be included. These are developer specific, not user oriented, so expect a wide range of topics involving PHP, MySQL, JavaScript, and non-WordPress specific but related tips and techniques.

Interesting WordPress Plugins:

  • Subscribe To Comments allows readers to get email notification of comments from a specific post.
  • Shadowbox JS is a media viewer similar to Lightbox and Thickbox and supports multimedia.
  • Highlight Author Comments styles blog post author’s comments differently from the rest of the comments.
  • Comment Quicktags Reloaded adds a quicktag button toolbar for WordPress blog comments.
  • Pods is a CMS for WordPress
  • YARPP Yet Another Related Posts Plugin displays a list of related blog posts based upon an algorithm that includes titles, post content, tags, and categories, and includes feed support.
  • Manga+Press is for web comics to help manage posts, Pages, and categories to track comic posts.

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 Jobs: WordPress Jobs is a WordPress Job service hosted by . I thought I’d highlight some of the WordPress work and job requests that come into their service. If you are looking for a WordPress-related job to hire or for hire, check out the Automattic WordPress Consultants List, WordPress Jobs, and the WP-Pro mailing list.

WordPress.com News

WordPress.com W logoNew Theme on WordPress.com: WordPress.com announced the Vigilance WordPress Theme has been added to the collection which includes customizable colors, alert boxes that appear at the top of the page for announcements, hidden pages from the main menu, custom image header, and special sidebar WordPress Widget functions.

Comment Threading on WordPress.com: announced comment threading and other cool comment features for their free blog hosting service. All WordPress Themes are now set up to enable threaded comments (Settings > Discussion > Other Comment Settings), breaking comments into pages, and changing the comment order from the oldest comments on top to the newest comments at the top and the oldest ones at the bottom of the list. Comment threads are allowed up to ten levels.

WordPress.com Gets New Data Center: Barry Abrahamson reports that WordPress.com brought a new data center online at the end of 2008 to serve the more than 5.5 million blogs hosted by . They now have data centers in three locations in the United States and have decommissioned their Dallas, Texas, facility. He offers a video of a WordPress data center installation and provides some information on the hardware that runs WordPress.com.

Blog Design Contest on WordPress.com: The first blogging design contest has been announced for called “I <3 Blogging Design Contest” co-produced by Infectious. This isn’t a blog web design or WordPress Theme contest. It is a graphic design contest. Design a “why I love blogging and WordPress” graphic design and if yours wins, it could be printed and sold on laptop and iPhone skins around the world through the Infectious store. Let your creative self loose and show the world how you would design what blogging and WordPress mean to you.

WordPress Techniques and Tips

WordPress Shortcodes: Mashble covers Mastering WordPress Shortcodes with tips on various things you can do with WordPress shortcodes, bracketed shortcut pieces of code, and includes tips on customizing and creating your own.

Videos from WordPress.tv: has screencasting tips and resources to help you create WordPress screencasts for possible inclusion on the new WordPress resource site. Some recent WordPress tips and WordCamp videos include:

WordPress Tips and Techniques: Here are a few more WordPress tips from around the WordPress Community:

WordPress Tips on Twitter: I’ve started sharing WordPress Tips and Plugin suggestions I’ve collected over the past couple years on Twitter at @lorelleonwp. I’ll be posting one WordPress tip and one WordPress Plugin link every morning (PST) covering recent versions of WordPress and WordPress usages and features.

Want Your WordPress Tip Shared Here? The WordPress Community generates some of the best WordPress tips, techniques, and resources. 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 Community News

WordPress Community graphicThings You Need to Know in the WordPress Community:

Past WordPress Wednesday News Reports

WordPress News Sources

If You Are Reading This: If you are reading this blog post NOT on the or from within your feed reader, it is being used against the copyright policy of the copyright owners. Please report it immediately so action may be taken to break some heads and feed scraping blogs.

Each week, the features WordPress News, a weekly column by featuring the news around the WordPress Community. If you have a WordPress news item or tip to suggest, please contact her at this special email address: lorelleonwordpress@gmail.com

The author of Lorelle on WordPress and the fast-selling book, Blogging Tips: What Bloggers Won't Tell You About Blogging, as well as several other blogs, Lorelle VanFossen has been blogging for over 15 years, covering blogging, WordPress, travel, nature and travel photography, web design, web theory and development extensively as web technologies developed.

View Comments (6)
Scroll To Top