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WordPress Wednesday News: WordPress at 50, WordPress Tweeters, Tracking WordPress 2.6, WordPress.com Stats, and Hot WordPress Plugins
The Blog Herald
The Blog Herald

WordPress Wednesday News: WordPress at 50, WordPress Tweeters, Tracking WordPress 2.6, WordPress.com Stats, and Hot WordPress Plugins

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June 5, 2008

WordPress at 50. WordPress Twitter experts listed. Tracking WordPress 2.6 development. WordPress.com releases big monthly stats. Updated patch to the Popularity Contest WordPress Plugin. New WordPress Comment Panel Plugin improves comment functionality. More WordPress Plugins updated. Check out the WordPress calendar of events, and the hot technical articles for using WordPress.

WordPress News

50 Years with WordPress: Donncha O’Caoimh looks back on fifty years with WordPress in this delightful tongue-in-check fun for the fifth birthday of WordPress:

That there Matt fella is still the youngster he always was. He may not be quite as fast on his feet but that embedded camera in his skull sure takes some snazzy photos. My camera gives me a headache, especially when the lens doesn’t focus fast enough. Great to see that mind blog integration stuff working out for him though. I can’t believe blogging has come so far in such a short time.

I want to know which version number WordPress will be on in fifty years. :D

WordPress Twitters: Weblog Tools Collection has published a list of thirty one WordPress enthusiasts and experts on Twitter for you to add to your Twitter role.

WordPress 2.6 New Features: Work continues on WordPress 2.6 and beyond. The WordPress Development Updates announcements recently included changes and improvements to the new version of Press It, Google Gears integration continues, and an update to the TinyMCE/Visual Editor.

Bad Ass WordPress Logo in Photoshop: 3nhanced offers a Photoshop guide on how to make a bad ass WordPress Logo of your own for your blog.

How to Track New Features in WordPress 2.6: Quick Online Tips offers tips on tracking new features on the track to WordPress 2.6 due out in August, probably timed with WordCamp San Francisco.

WordPress Plugin Competition: Weblog Tools Collection’s WordPress Plugin Competition for WordPress 2.5+ is on. They’ve published WordPress Plugin Competition Q&A to help answer your specific questions about the competition. Have you checked out last year’s winners? These Plugins continue to be some of the best of the best this year!

WordPress Security Issues: The following are recent reports of security issues:

WordPress 2.5.1 Mandatory Security Release: WordPress 2.5.1 was released earlier this week and is a mandatory security release. It includes bug fixes, performance enhancements, along with the security fix. The corrected files are wp-includes/pluggable.php, wp-admin/includes/media.php and wp-admin/media.php, if you want to just replace the changed files. Theme Lab offers a simple upgrade guide for this upgrade. Included in the upgrade are fixes to Internet Explorer issues with the new Media Library.

WordPress Podcast: The WordPress Podcast: Episode 41 covered the release of WordPress 2.5.1, Sphere integration into WordPress.com blogs, Webware 100 award winners, and a lot more WordPress and WordPress.com news.

WP Weekly Podcast: Jeffro’s WordPress Weekly Episode 18 is out with discussions about some premium WordPress services, WordPress Plugins, Google Gears and WordPress 2.6, removing the width and height from the image loader, user roles in WordPress, and more.

Give Something Back to WordPress: Jeff Chandler of Weblog Tools Collection has written “24 Ways To Contribute To WordPress” with suggestions on how to get involved in helping WordPress development. If you would like to help with the , the official online user manual for WordPress users, we need you. If you would like to contribute to WordPress as a volunteer in the WordPress Support Forums, testing, coding, and more, see Contributing to WordPress. If you would like to help improve WordPress by reporting bugs, please report them via the WordPress Bug Report form. Your help is needed to ensure WordPress works.

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: WordPress 5 Years Old, WordCamps International, WordPress 2.6 On Track, Plugin Competition is Hot, Genko Updated.

WordPress on Your Calendar

WordPress Events CalendarWordPress 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: Minneapolis is going to have a WordCamp. Boston and Los Angeles now have WordPress Meetups. What’s the difference? A WordPress Meetup is a social gathering that happens on a regular basis, usually monthly, where WordPress fans can get together and talk WordPress and blogging. There are sometimes special speakers or a topic for discussion, and the focus is on the social.

WordCamps are fairly structured events that happen annually and encompass a lot of speakers and coordination. They also offer a great opportunity for bloggers and WordPress fans to meet and share their WordPress expertise and experiences. It’s also a chance for sponsors to meet with bloggers and vise verse, so we all learn more about how all this blogging and WordPress stuff works.

If you would like to start a WordPress Meetup or WordCamp, just finding 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, and contact the new WordCamp Central to add your WordCamp event to their list.

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.

WordCamp San Francisco August 16: August 16, 2008 is the next WordCamp San Francisco, considered by many to be the premier WordCamp event. This year, it appears it will be only one day instead of two, but details are still coming. It will be at the Mission Bay Conference Center this year.

WordPress Plugins and Themes News

WordPress Plugins DatabaseNew Comment Panel WordPress Plugin: WP Comment Remix WordPress Plugin redesigns and empowers the WordPress Comments Panel with features such as a reply link, quote link, comment ordering, separating or removing trackbacks, comment tags, offers “In Need of Reply” notification, comment editing, mark as replied, and new comment widgets showing recent comments, recent trackbacks, most active discussions, and most active commenters. It includes a variety of percentage substitution tags, which the author calls “tokens” to customize how you want the Plugin to display information within your WordPress Theme template files.

Eric Meyer’s WordPress Plugins: Among the early adopters and WordPress Plugin authors was Eric Meyers of CSS, Web Standards, and Happy Cogs fame. While quiet on the WordPress development front for a while, he’s released two new Plugins for WordPress users. MW Adminimize WordPress Plugin changes the look of the WordPress Administration Panels and allows for customization. The MW Latest Tweet WordPress Plugin displays your latest Twitter tweet on your WordPress blog.

Fix for the Popularity Contest Plugin: The popular Popularity Contest WordPress Plugin by Alex King has not been updated to work with WordPress 2.5x, but Hack WordPress and Mr. Yellow have come up with patches to make it work with the new version of WordPress.

Lester Chan’s Plugins Updated: More of Lester Chan’s WordPress Plugins have been updated to work with the latest version of WordPress and include WP-Ban, WP-DBManager, WP-Download Manager, and WP-PostViews.

Interesting WordPress Plugins: With the Weblog Tools Collection Plugin Contest underway, combined with the many Plugin authors updating their Plugins to work with the latest versions of WordPress, a lot of Plugins have been announced and updated. Here are some I stumbled on recently:

  • WriteScroll WordPress Plugin automatically scrolls the Write Post Panel to bring the post content textarea box to the top of the browser window so you can get right to writing the post content.
  • Name Destiny Prediction WordPress Plugin is an interesting example of the power and flexibility of a WordPress Plugins. It uses the Pythagoras Method to display meanings of names and predicts someone’s characteristics and future to about 90% accuracy.
  • WP-Help WordPress Plugin adds a tab to the top level menus of the WordPress Administration Panels for a “help” page for users and contributors on how to use the program.
  • WP Easy Trade WordPress Plugin incorporates an ebay style trade system within your WordPress blog.
  • Google AJAX Libraries API WordPress Plugin makes it easy to use Google hosted libraries with WordPress without altering your WordPress Theme or Plugin files.

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

Here are some more interesting WordPress tips I’ve uncovered:

See Also
WordPress Builder Crash
Troubleshooting WordPress 6.4 Crash Issues with a Popular Page Builder

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 May 2008 Stats: WordPress.com released their May Wrap-up of stats and updates. The numbers are 221,343 new blogs, 245,156 new users, 2,638,958 file uploads, over 417 terabytes of content transferred from the WordPress.com data centers, and over 1 billion pageviews. Again, WordPress.com continues to have some of the highest numbers on the web – all run with the power of a single program, .

WordPress.com Admin Bar: WordPress.com reports that the newly redesigned Admin Bar for WordPress.com bloggers is better as it now is visible on your Administration Panels and includes a fast link to the Stats page, along with some other improvements.

WordPress.com Statistics: Every month or two, WordPress.com releases stats on how WordPress.com is doing, but did you know you can track stats on WordPress.com any time from their official WordPress.com Stats page? You can check the numbers for Signups, Posting activity, Pageviews, Embeds, and other Miscellaneous stats and numbers.

WordPress Community News

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

Get Your WordPress Mug: I love my new WordPress mug and shared my love with a lot of people recently. Go get yours at the along with t-shirts and hoodies.

Vote for WordPress Ideas: There is still time to get your vote in for ideas on upcoming versions of WordPress in the The section. Why not take advantage of it and add your voice to the vote.

Do You Need Help with WordPress? I’m finding a lot of people still asking for help with their WordPress and WordPress.com blog by blogging their request. This is really dumb, folks. You don’t know who is reading or how qualified they may be to help you. Or you might never get the help you need. Please, go to the for help with the full version of WordPress and the WordPress.com Forums for help with WordPress.com blogs. Get the help you need directly from those who can help you.

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).

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.

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 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

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.

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