Pinoy WordPress Theme: Classique
Classique is a dark, 2-column, coffee-themed WordPress theme by Alex San Diego. No demo is available, but it’s fluid width, widget ready, and even contains PSD files to customize.
Customize acceptable upload file types
WordPress Garage points out that there’s a limited list of allowed file types that you can upload via the WP admin. For certain custom sites, since WordPress is being used for everything these days, that may need to be modified and Chris Meller shows us how.
As of WordPress 2.2, there are 35 allowed file types configured in the default install. While there’s no admin-based tool for editing this list (nor any plugins that I’m aware of), it’s not at all difficult to add your own…
The idea is to add a custom function inside your theme’s functions.php to be used as a filter. In that function you can then add specific file extensions and their corresponding mime types. On the other hand, to remove a file type that’s allowed by default, use the function unset().
Sounds simple and painless! Of course, keep in mind that limitations are put in place to keep WordPress secure, so tread carefully. Also, for reference, there’s a list of the accepted filetypes at the WordPress.com Support section, but that may vary on a self-hosted install.
WordPress admin cheatsheet proves it needs a sitemap of its own
Need to find your way around the WordPress administration interface? While the expanding/collapsing menus to the left may seem useful enough, perhaps you might want a view of all the pages you can visit at once. Enter the WordPress Cheatsheet by Andy Wibbels.
WordPress gets a bit more bloated with each new release and it can be overwhelming when you’re first diving in.
The existence of this cheatsheet indicates there’s something glaringly lacking from the WordPress back-end, and that’s a sitemap of its own. The developers should take note of this and add it to a future release.
Since it’s already feature freeze on WordPress 3.0 as of March 1, then the next one after that.
Sharpen your commenting skills too!
So you’ve learned the ropes of blogging, both the publishing and maintenance sides to it. But how are you doing on the commenting front, or have you put no thought to the way you interact on other people’s blogs? Good thing Quick Online Tips can answer why you should be honing your commenting skills as part of your blogging regimen.
Thousands of blogs are waiting for you to read. Many excellent bloggers are posting great content every day. It is easy to subscribe to far too many blogs, skim the posts and leave nothing of value behind. It is doubtful, no it is ridiculous that you would subscribe to hundreds of paper magazines. Consider, if you had to pay for all your blog subscriptions. Would you do that? Far better to read a few, become involved and comment with purpose and quality..
The post also mentions some of the cardinal rules of commenting: add substance, don’t spam, take a deep breath before resorting to flaming. Bottom line: commenting isn’t quite as refined an art as crafting posts, but with more discussions on them that could change.
WordPress Plugin: Favorites Menu Manager
Favorites Menu Manager lets you customize the drop-down menu located at the top right of the WordPress admin screen.
Favorites Menu Manager allows you unfettered customization of that dropdown menu. You can easily add your own links, remove existing ones, and put them in the order you desire. Customizations are stored on a per-user basis, so each user can have their own collection of frequently used links.
You can also customize the Favorites Menu with code depending on which page is loaded in the admin panel, but doing so using a plugin is of course more convenient.
Download Favorites Menu Manager
Tip: use shortcodes anywhere
Shortcodes are meant to be used for post and page content, but with a little custom code you can make them work elsewhere, as shown in this article:
- Text Widgets
- Template Files
- Comments
- Excerpts
- User Descriptions
- Category, Tag, and Taxonomy Descriptions
I think the most crucial piece of code to remember here is the one for theme files. Just add the line do_shortcode('[foo]'); and that will obey shortcode syntax. Super convenient! Also check out this list of custom shortcodes. For WordPress.com users, there are a bunch of media shortcodes already built in.
See also: how to use widgets anywhere.
Tip: add a widget anywhere with the_widget()
Here’s a very useful tip for everyone comfortable with customizing their WordPress themes: you can add any widget anywhere on your site, not just in your sidebar or widgetized areas, using the template tag the_widget.
Here’s the syntax:
<?php the_widget($widget, $instance, $args); ?>
This post by Shailan explains how to find the widget class name and arguments to use in the code. Refer to the Codex for the names of the default widgets. Want to create your own widget? Valums shows you how.
Ian Stewart & Viper007Bond join Automattic; “Theme Team” in the works
Aside from his theme Kirby becoming the basis for 2010, the next default WordPress theme, Ian Stewart has announced that he joined Automattic as its new Theme Wrangler. Aside from this, he shared news that a “Theme Team” is being formed and that his own site, ThemeShaper, will be its home.
ThemeShaper will become a public-facing blog for the Theme Team now assembling at Automattic. A place where we can help provide the best possible experience for everyone involved in WordPress theming; from the noobiest of beginners to the most powerful of WordPress wizards.
The state of WordPress theme development has made leaps and bounds in the past few years, so it’s great to see an even bolder step taken with Ian and the Theme Team.
Another prominent contributor to the WordPress community got picked up. Viper007Bond, known for his plugins like Viper’s Video Quicktags and YOURLS, also announced that he’s joining Automattic full-time. He didn’t, however, mention any special plans on the plugin development front, but it makes sense for that to come along later on.
WordPress ModGuide
DriftwoodCMS.com has a comprehensive compilation of resources called the WordPress ModGuide, which contains just about every tip, trick, hack, code snippet, or plugin to help customize your site.
WordPress is open source and the php code is free for all to use. And use I have giving credit where it is due whenever possible. Here is my gift back to the WordPress community. All of the links on the page are free resources. Spread the knowledge.
All the links can be found on a single page and even includes non WP-specific categories like SEO and social networking. You can also share a resource that isn’t on the list. A must bookmark!
WordPress.com goes real-time with PubSubHubbub
PubSubHubbub or PuSH is a new protocol that makes publishing go real-time: instead of readers like Google Reader or Netvibes checking a website RSS or Atom feed every so often for new content, PubSubHubbub “pushes” the new content into the stream as soon as it is published. That feature has been enabled on all WordPress.com blogs.
WordPress.org users can also enjoy PubSubHubbub with the PuSHPress plugin available in the Plugins Directory. This turns your WP blog into a hub of its own that can send updates directly, without going through another hub.
Google SEO Report Card
Grab the Google SEO Report Card and see how Google grades not your sites, Google SEO Report Card and see how Google grades not your sites, but its own sites in terms of a dozen different categories.
These optimizations are intended to not only help search engines understand the content of our pages better, but also to improve our users’ experience when visiting our sites. Simple steps such as fixing 404s and broken links, simplifying URL choice, and providing easier-to-understand titles and snippets for our pages can benefit both users and search engines. From the start of the project we also wanted to release the report card publicly so other companies and webmasters could learn from the report, which is filled with dozens of examples taken straight from our products’ pages.
The great thing about this is: first, Google is leading by example and is using its own products; second, Google is being transparent, as most of their sites don’t even make the passing mark. But whether it’s Google’s sites or yours, it’s not too late to try! Perhaps Google can also come out with an automated tool for checking these SEO criteria as part of Webmaster Tools.
WordPress Theme: Kirby
Kirby by Ian Stewart started out as an idea for the next default WordPress theme when version 3.0 comes out. It’s a white, gray, and black theme with large text, ample white space, and what looks like a modern retelling of the default theme Kubrick we’ve come to know and love. There are two sidebar areas and four widget areas in the footer.
So I made the Kirby Theme. Actions speak louder than words, right? In the same way, code speaks louder than ideas. What better way to show off your ideas for a new Default Theme than to actually code one up? I get a fun project and you get a new Theme.
It has indeed been adopted by the WP development team as the new default theme and is now called Twenty Ten. It’s going through several tweaks until it’s fit to be called the predecessor of the great Kubrick. If you don’t want to wait until WP 3.0 to come out to use this theme, it’s available right now in the Themes Directory.
WordPress Plugin: BuddyPress Template Pack
BuddyPress Template Pack transforms WordPress themes into BuddyPress-ready ones. This makes getting into BuddyPress a whole lot easier.
Now you can use BuddyPress with your single site installation of WordPress, and you can keep your existing theme. Seriously, could BuddyPress have made it any easier for you to add social networking to your site? I know I can’t wait to try it out this weekend, how about you?
Just follow the steps once the plugin is installed, and if you want to go back, rest assured that none of your theme files are modified. The plugin requires the BuddyPress add-on, which also comes as a plugin. Your WP install should be at least version 2.9.1 too.
Download BuddyPress Template Pack
More than a dozen useful WordPress database queries
Secure, clean up, and optimize your blog with 10 “life-saving” SQL queries from Cats Who Code. Most of them are short and should work by simply copying & pasting them into your database manager. Here’s what you can do:
- Manually change your password
- Transfer posts from one user to another
- Delete post revisions and meta associated to those revisions
- Batch delete spam comments
- Find unused tags
- Find and replace data
- Get a list of your commentators emails
- Disable all your plugins at once
- Delete all tags
- List unused post meta
- Disable comments on older posts
- Replace commentator url
- Replace commentator email adress
- Delete all comments with a specific url
The article also recommends an SQL WordPress plugin so you don’t have to go anywhere else to execute the queries. If you’re not familiar with SQL, the best way to learn is by example! As a precautionary measure, however, make sure to have a database backup ready before doing any database manipulation.
New features in WordPress 3.0
WP Beginner digs into the new features coming in the big WordPress 3.0 release. Also recently, Jane Wells posted a report on the latest developments with the current cycle. Third, WP 3.0 is set to enter feature freeze mode on March 1.
What do these all mean? Now is the best time to get familiar with the new features. As we all know, we’ve got some big ones coming:
- WordPress and WordPress MU merging
- Custom post types
- Menu management
- New default theme, 2010
- Welcome guide upon installation
- Canonical plugins
WordPress Theme Directory submissions require 100% GPL support
WordPress theme authors looking to submit their works to the official theme repository should take note of some specific guidelines with regard to the GPL. While it’s a given that your theme should have a GPL license, your website should also be in full support of the license. Matt Dunn shares that when he submitted a theme and got rejected, this was the message he recevied:
Thank you for submitting the Elegant Blog theme, however it has not been selected to be part of the theme directory. Themes from sites that offer or support non-GPL themes (matthewlyle.com) are not included in the directory.
His post serves as ample warning:
You must either create a separate website to house them, or remove any “support” of non-GPL themes from your website. This would include advertisements for something like the Thesis theme, ThemeForest, and also any paid themes that you’ve created in the past that are not GPL compatible.
It seems the folks behind WordPress want WP designers and developers to embrace the spirit of GPL completely, not just during the occasion that they create themes for the platform. That sounds like a fair price to pay to earn inclusion into the directory, though I wonder if using a “separate website” is a proper solution if promoting the GPL is the goal.
Blog Action Day on Feb. 25: The Real Heroes of EDSA
The Kabataan Partylist is inviting everyone to participate in the Blog Action Day this February 25, in commemoration of the EDSA Revolution that took place 24 years ago. More specifically, it celebrates the people who participated and made it happen, hence the title “The Real Heroes of EDSA”.
We may have been too young then or were not even born yet, but we can ask them to recount their tales of real-life heroism to us. What prompted them to join the uprising? What were their thoughts and feelings? What did they wear, eat, chant? How did it feel to be able to be surrounded by overwhelming unity and patriotism among millions of other heroes marching in the streets on those three historic days.
Blog Action Day posts linking to the announcement will be posted as early as 12 noon on Thursday. It’s interesting to see a partylist spearheading an online mass action this time.
Plugin Readme files now support video
A new feature that will benefit WordPress plugin authors and plugin users alike: you can now add video in the readme.txt file of a plugin. This information will be displayed in the WordPress Just like WordPress posts & pages support shortcodes and oEmbed, so do plugin readme files now. There are two ways of doing this: oEmbed, by entering the URL of the video in its own line, and shortcodes, by entering the type of video and the URL in between square brackets, e.g.:
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7EiKx_WSesk][vimeo http://vimeo.com/173714][wpvideo OO4thna8]
The feature currently supports three video providers: YouTube, Vimeo, and VideoPress. It must also be noted that object embed codes (the usual way of embedding videos on websites) is not supported, just the two methods above. View the test example here.
Filter out political ads from Google AdSense
As the 2010 presidential election on May 10 draws near, candidates are campaigning more aggressively than ever, including online. However, as much as Filipino bloggers enjoy making money from advertisements on their websites, inadvertently endorsing politicians doesn’t sit well with a lot of people. Carlo Ople’s tutorial on removing political ads from Google AdSense should help out with that. He also cites another reason to do this:
Here’s a more compelling reason to filter ads though – adsense earnings. I noticed that the CTR of my various sites went down over the past few months. I decided to observe for a week and I noticed that my blogs are being flooded by political ads. Not just from Manny Villar, but also from Bayani Fernando and Mark Jimenez. It looks like my site visitors are sick and tired already of politics to the point that they refuse to click them at all, hahaha!
If you’ve tinkered with AdSense long enough, you probably know how to do this already. If you don’t, the instructions are straightforward: go to AdSense Setup > Competitive Filter and enter the URLs of the sites you’d rather not advertise on your blog.
What the tutorial is missing is a complete list of political candidates’ websites, which would make the filtering process even more convenient.
iBlog6 schedule posted & registration open
iBlog6 has opened its doors for online registration, on this page. The 2-day event is completely free, so there’s absolutely no reason not to sign up now. The schedule has also been posted, which indicates the difference between the talks on April 16 and 17:
The first day (April 16) is targeted for businesses and entrepreneurs wanting to understand how to tap blogs as a medium to promote their products and services. The second day (April 17) is meant to everyone interested about blogging.
Edit: No word yet on there will be an afterparty this year. Keep up with all the updates at the iBlog site.
WordPress Plugin: Zen: Distraction-Free Writing
Zen is a WordPress plugin that lets you focus on writing by eliminating all the unnecessary elements in the WordPress admin.
If you’re a fan of WriteRoom, OmmWriter, or similar tools that help you focus on your words instead of the tools you’re using, this plugin will soon make your wildest dreams come true (and give you a simple clean environment within WordPress to write to your heart’s content)! While Zen does not replace the existing Edit Post/Page screen, it provides a layer on top that will help you focus more on the quality of your words and less on the distracting fine-tuning of minuscule details.
The plugin comes with different themes from light to dark, and can be toggled with shortcut keys. Compose blog posts as you normally would in the text editor, with or without HTML. Autosaving also works with Zen.
BuddyPress 1.2 installs on WordPress
The biggest roadblocks to adopting social network software BuddyPress have finally been eliminated. With the latest version 1.2 coming out, you can now install BuddyPress on WordPress and not just WordPress MU. That goes for any WP version. Consider this the official way to run BP following this one.
Another highlight of this release is a quicker, simpler installation process: just 3 steps detailed in the download page. Simply add BuddyPress from your plugins page and activate a theme for it.
Probably the most exciting part of this release is a new default theme, which you can see running on the official site and the BuddyPress Test Drive site. BP is looking cleaner and more flexible than ever—you can create child themes with BP too.
WordPress 2.9.2
WordPress 2.9.2 fixes a bug that lets logged in users see trashed posts created by other authors. It’s not a very urgent update, only to whose who find the Trash bug an inconvenience, but it’s still wise to download the latest version whenever you can. This should give you ample time to backup first.
Haven’t used the new Trash feature before? Here’s a walkthrough on it and here’s how to customize it.
Add Google Buzz to WordPress & BuddyPress
WPMU.org lists 5 different ways you can integrate Google Buzz into your WordPress and BuddyPress site. Aside from a the Buzz This WP plugin and the Digg-like button, you can also display your Buzz stream and share BP profiles to Buzz.
- “Buzz This” Plugin for WordPress
- Make Your Own Button to Add Anywhere in Your Template
- Share Your Google Buzz Posts on Your Site with Google Buzz ER Plugin
- Add the Ability to Share BuddyPress Profile Links With a “Buzz This” Button
- Add “Buzz This” to Individual BuddyPress Activity Stream Posts
Although Google Buzz is facing controversy right now for privacy issues, it could become a huge social network overnight since it’s built right inside Gmail, and bloggers will definitely want to take advantage of that audience.
Update: see also this post by Mashable.
WordPress Theme: Motion
Motion by 85ideas is a dark, 2-column blue and green theme with a watercolor-on-paper texture and transparency. It contains 5 widget areas in the header, sidebar, and footer. This theme is also available for WordPress.com users.
The Missing Google Analytics Manual
For those of you haven’t poked around Google Analytics, it’s not as scary or complicated as it looks. The Missing Google Analytics Manual is a compilation of tutorials to maximize use of this website statistics tool. It’s a long list of articles and videos covering setup, goal tracking, filters, reports, and more.
This article by Smashing Magazine seems a little more organized so you might want to bookmark that too, but what I’d really like is an easy to read wiki slash eBook like the Complete Guide to Google Wave.
Either way, the key to running a successful website and growing as a blogger is taking a step back and figuring out how to improve. For those who aren’t fond of numbers and charts, these guides should make that process a little easier.
DigitalFilipino Social Networking Awards 2010 call for nominations
The call for nominations for the DigitalFilipino Social Networking Awards have opened. The competition, which is part of the 2010 Social Networking Conference, recognizes the Philippines’ best efforts in social media and social network marketing & advertising. Here are the categories:
- Social Network
- Virtual Worlds / Games
- Social News, Bookmarking, Media Voting
- Photo / Video / Media Sharing
- Ratings / Reviews
- Forums
- Micro-blogs
- Blogs
- Search engine marketing
View the last year’s winners here. The social campaigns must have occurred from April 1, 2009 to March 10, 2010. Judging criteria will be equally divided among the following: design, creativity, copywriting, impact. Deadline for nominations is on March 13.
Ask and earn at WP Questions
Do you have an important WordPress question that you’re willing to pay money for it? Or are you so confident with your WordPress knowledge that you deserve to earn from it? Try WP Questions.
It’s not official, but looks like an interesting premise. It fills in the gap between answering common problems and hiring for full-blown WordPress projects. Need a template tweak here or a bug fix there? If it’s a very specific task or problem, and you’re running out of time, this should do the trick.
Questions close automatically after 3 days and the asker has to pick the winning answer. The asker is also in charge of setting the price for the question. Listing fee is 9%; payments go through PayPal. Read more about the rules here.
11 WordPress One Minute Podcasts
Tris Hussey has compiled all the episodes of his show, the WordPress One Minute Podcast, in one page. It’s perfect for WordPress users who are just starting out, covering some of the most popular tips in blogging with the platform. The current list so far:
- Ep 1: Pasting from Word
- Ep 2: Disable the default admin account
- Ep 3: Turbo-charge admin panels
- Ep 4: WP.com vs WP.org
- Ep 5: Press this bookmarklet
- Ep 6: Sidebar widgets
- Ep 7: CPanel file manager
- Ep 8: Pretty Permalinks
- Ep 9: Upgrading plugins
- Ep 10: WP to Twitter
- Ep 11: All In One SEO Pack
From dealing with Word-formatted text to acquainting onself with the All in One SEO Pack, consider the list a virtual pocket guide for WP, if not for you then for a friend or loved one who just got into ‘Pressing. It’s an interesting take on the podcast format, which normally contains several different topics and long-winded discussions on each.
It’s also worth noting that Tris is currently writing the book Using WordPress, so keep your eyes peeled for developments on that.
Pinoy WordPress Theme: Dark Folio Dimensional
Dark Folio Dimensional is a black and gray 3-column theme with support for TimThumb, WP-PageNavi, Sociable, a contact form, and a theme options page.
Can be use in both personal and blogging websites with a Dark background that is created with a three dimensional columns and a widget ready. It works in all major types of browsers.
View Demo | Download Dark Folio Dimensional
Alex Villafania on Libel and Copyright in Blogging
Juned Sonido interviews Alex Villafania, former online at Inquirer.net, to discuss two of the most important legal issues in the contest of blogging and online media: copyright and libel. The latter is a hotter topic these days because of the libel complaint filed against blogger “Ella Rose” by the National Bureau of Investigation and Department of Social Welfare and Development. She previously claimed that the DSWD was not distributing relief goods during the Ondoy disaster. Here’s Alex’s comment on such a case:
Baratillo.net: Is the blogger or on-line media practitioner liable for comments said/posted on his blog, forum or website?
Alex: If the law is to be strictly followed, to the last word, yes. Because blogs and online media are public communiques, and are read by more than two people (libel requires 3 people or so — the 2 parties involved and a third-party to actually hear it), they can put under the libel clause.
Article 355 states that “a libel committed by means of writing, printing, lithography, engraving, radio, phonograph, painting, theatrical exhibition, cinematographic exhibition, or any similar means, shall be punished by prision correccional….in addition to the civil action which may be brought by the offended party.” That also includes articles written in forums, email and yes, online stories and blogs.
Year in and year out, legal issues are one of the biggest topics at the iBlog Summit, and with yet another blogger making mainstream news, this will surely be tackled again. Alex Villafania’s interview is a glimpse into that discussion, so consider this an early look into that.
Catch the complete, must-read interview here.
Get WordPress for Android
It was only a matter of time before WordPress released an official app for the Android platform, and now it’s here. WordPress for Android is based on wpToGo, and now version 1.0 is available in the Android Market. It works for both WordPress.org and WordPress.com blogs and lets you work with posts, pages, and comments on the go.
Features include the ability to:
- Configure and manage multiple blogs
- Comment moderation including the ability to reply to comments
- Create and Edit Posts including categories, tags and photos
- Create and Edit Pages
- Get notified of new comments in the Android notification bar
More detailed development info on the Android app can be found here. Download WordPress for Android here.
WordPress Plugin: Zopim Live Chat
Zopim Live Chat lets you add a live chat box to better interact with one’s website visitors. Get live statistics, secure chat, the ability to reply via your IM client, and more.
The service is free for 2 concurrent chats and 1 IM chat bot, but the paid plains give you more access. This also means you’ll need to create an account with Zopim, but you can do that from within the plugin options page.
Complete features are listed here. Download Zopim Live Chat
iBlog6 Video Contest
Aside from a logo design contest, iBlog6 is also running a video contest to “capture what blogging means to you, or highlight how blogging has changed your life, helped you earn, promote a project or cause, or some other similar theme.” This is a great opportunity for bloggers to express how this hobby, profession, art has impacted their lives, hopefully also in the context of the Philippine blogging scene.
This contest is organized as a means to celebrate how blogs and the bloggers behind it are:
- Changing lives – their own and/or of those around them;
- The way blogs allow them to communicate their ideas and thoughts;
- The way establishments, whether profit or non-profit, use blogs and bloggers to reach out;
- and many more..
Entries will be judged according to concept, visual artistry, editing, production value, and overall impact. You need to be at least eighteen to be eligible. The winner will be announced during the iBlog event and will receive an 8GB iPod Nano.
Deadline is on March 7. Read the full mechanics here.
Early look at the WordPress 3.0 Menu Management interface
Over at the WordPress Development Updates blog, there’s an alpha preview of the Menu Management user interface that will be included in WordPress 3.0. Here’s the video:
Here’s a quick preview of the new menu management admin page (still alpha stage).
It highlights the dropdown section, which is the only unfamiliar element. All the rest are borrowed from the widget management screen.
Feedback on the UI is very welcome, either here, or on the dedicated ticket: #11817.
As mentioned in the post by Scribu, the interface is similar to the Widgets page. You can select either a page or a category from its respective dropdown menus, and when clicked it gets sent to the active menu panel on the right. There you can reorder the items. You can also add specific links and the Home link.
This feature can’t come soon enough! People tend to “hack” together site navigation menus in WP themes and for ordinary users editing them is a pain. Making WordPress features more usable through new interfaces like this is always a good thing.
Got feedback or want to keep up with this upcoming WP feature? Bookmark this Trac page.
New in WP 2.9: Transform URLs to embed codes
A very useful new feature in WordPress 2.9 is oEmbed support, which lets you display video and other embed objects with less hassle: all you need to do paste the URL and you’re all set.
First, make sure this feature is enabled under Settings > Media > Attempt to automatically embed all plain text URLs. There’s also an option to set a maximum width and height for the embed objects. Next, create or edit posts like you normally would, and enter the URL in its own line. Save your post and hit the Preview button to check if it’s working.
For example, pasting a YouTube URL (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mKtdTJP_GUI) automatically generates this:
If you don’t want WordPress to create embed codes from URLs automatically, use the shortcode.
WordPress has a list of sites you can do this with, which includes sites like YouTube, Flickr, and WordPress.tv. More information about adding support can be found at the Codex page.
Philippines Top 100 blogs in 2009 according to Alexa.com
Pinoy Money Talk has compiled a list of the top 100 Filipino blogs for 2009, ranked according to traffic using statistics from Alexa.com. Also listed were the biggest gainers, losers, and newcomers to the list.
Finally, we bring you our listing of the Top 50 Blogs in the Philippines for the year 2009, ranked based on each blog’s 3-month Alexa.com traffic rank.
We started monitoring blogs in 2008 (see our 2008 Top 50 Philippine Blogs list) and, in 2009, we see a diverse collection of old and new blogs alike.
In this list, 19 blogs or 20% of the Top 50 entered the list for the first time in 2009. They either became popular or started only in 2009. This means the length of time a person has been blogging does not necessarily translate to higher traffic rank.
PMT itself, which is 6th on the list in 2009, admits that the ranking is flawed (the traffic stats are only for 3 months; it also removed porn and warez sites from the list), but still gives people a good grasp of the biggest names in the Philippine blogosphere. View the complete top 100 list here.
WordPress Personas for Firefox
Firefox Personas, which let you skin your whole browser according to your own tastes, now has WordPress ones made by Automattic itself. As of writing there are two personas: WordPress Inkwell and WordPress Vintage Press.
WordPress and Firefox are both open source projects with great communities, so it’s not surprising to see their worlds colliding every now and then. In fact if you’ll Google just a bit, Firefox add-ons for WordPress will turn up—and vice versa.
In the Philippines, the 2009 WordCamp also saw Mozilla and Automattic present both at the event and after, with Beau Lebens and Seth Bindernagel eating balut!
Grab the WordPress Persona for Firefox now.
WordPress Plugin: WordPress Loop widget
The WordPress Loop is a special widget that lets you create custom loops using over 35 different options, from post types and categories to custom fields and taxonomies.
The widget has over 35 options to choose from. Customize your WordPress loop by one or more post types, categories, tags, custom taxonomies, authors, dates, custom fields, and a whole lot more!
In addition, it has support for post thumbnails, sticky posts, pagination, offsetting, customizable content length (by word count), and you can change the ordering from a variety of options.
While this widget was created with non-PHP users in mind, it also comes with 4 action hooks using the WP_Query class. More details here.
The widget requires version WordPress 2.9 and higher. Once installed, you can configure the settings in the Widgets area. Download WordPress Loop
EFF Bloggers’ Legal Guide
The Electronic Frontier Foundation has posted a Legal Guide for Bloggers that will hopefully clear many issues bloggers may face with regard to intellectual property, anonymity, access to media, protection from government seizure, and more.
You Have the Right to Make Fair Use of Intellectual Property. In OPG v. Diebold, Diebold, Inc., a manufacturer of electronic voting machines, had sent out copyright cease-and-desist letters to ISPs after internal documents indicating flaws in their systems were published on the Internet. EFF established the publication was a fair use. With your support, EFF can help fight to protect bloggers from frivolous or abusive threats and lawsuits.
The EFF disclaims that the guide is not a substitute for legal advice, nor is it applicable to bloggers outside the United States, but it’s a good to keep in mind nonetheless. We can never have too many guides, especially ones that keep can help get us out of serious trouble. Also visit this page for more resources like news articles, whitepapers, and other documents.
WordPress Foundation established
The WordPress Foundation has just been launched. It’s inspired by the likes of the Mozilla Foundation, and aims to preserve, protect, and educate with the WordPress platform and related projects.
The WordPress Foundation is a charitable organization founded by Matt Mullenweg to further the mission of the WordPress open source project: to democratize publishing through Open Source, GPL software.
Aside from this great milestone for WordPress and its community, it’s worth noting that the new site runs on a develoment version of WP 3.0 and the next default theme, 2010. Check it out!
iBlog6 call for speakers/topics and logo contest
iBlog6: the 6th Philipping Blogging Summit is happening on April 16 and 17 at the Malcolm Theater, UP College of Law, UP Diliman, QC. Here’s what to expect in this two-day event:
iBlog6 is targeted to take place on April 16 and 17. The first day will focus on Blogging for Business (entrepreneurs, corporation, non-government organization, and the likes). We would like to receive proposals that can help businesses understand better on how blogs can be tapped as a tool for promotion and how to work effectively with bloggers (through events, contests, advertising, and the likes).
The second day will focus on topics for Bloggers that includes introduction to blogging, use of photos and videos, policies, and promotion. We also want to look at political blogging, election coverage, and building offline blogging communities.
Interested speakers may now submit topic proposals before the January 31 deadline here.
iBlog is also launching a contest for the redesign of its logo. The mechanics are listed here. Submission of entries runs from February 1 to 15 and the winner will win an 8 GB iPod Nano.
Try CMP.ly for blogging and social media disclosure
CMP.ly is a new solution to promote transparency and honesty in blogging and social media. With the recently announced revised guidelines by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) on endorsements and testimonials in blog posts, word of mouth campaign, and even microblogging messages, CMP.ly has created short, easy ways to indicate disclosures with their 7-way link system: Visit links CMP.ly/0 through CMP.ly/6 to find out more. For bloggers, you can download this PDF.
There are three simple ways to CMP.ly:
- Use our standard disclosures.
- Sign up for a CMP.ly account to use our unique disclosures – Add text, custom disclosures and manage your disclosures.
- Join an existing marketing campaign – Coming January 2010.
Although bloggers outside the U.S. won’t have to answer to the FTC for disclosing sponsored posts and similar works, transparency is one of the cornerstones of successful blogging. CMP.ly should make the process even easier, the same way Creative Commons did for sharing creative works and enforcing attribution.
Tips for speeding up WordPress
Michael Gray of Graywolf’s SEO Blog has compiled a comprehensive list of tips for optimizing load times with your WordPress site. Since Google has announced that it would include page loading time as a factor in its search results rankings, and launched its Let’s make the web faster microsite, site performance & optimization is now the hottest topic in the SEO world. (If you need something to blow up so everyone else follows suit, trust Google to get things done.)
The trick is to look at all the plugins and widgets you’ve added to your site and figure out which ones you can do without. Do you really need that fancy lightbox zooming script to display your larger images? How about opting for a more compact, all-in-one solution for your social media buttons? Or a lighter theme?
But whether or not you’re on WordPress, website analyzing tools and techniques such as gzipping and caching should come in handy. Yahoo! also has a great resource page on speeding up your website.
It seems this will be the year of optimized page loads, so don’t get left behind!
WordPress Theme: Herald
Herald is a three-column, dominantly gray WordPress theme originally created by Brian Gardner for The Blog Herald several years back. Now it’s being released as a free WP theme by Performancing Themes.
Sporting a grey-dominant color scheme, with red and blue highlights, the Herald Theme looks clean and crisp, with a wide main content area, and two sidebars to the right. The middle sidebar us wide enough to contain an ad block of 125×125 pixel buttons or a 250×250 banner, and supports featured posts, which will display only posts from a defined category or tag. Each sidebar block and footer column can be customized using widgets for easy drag-and-drop rearranging.
The theme was created with different ad dimensions and WordPress 2.8+ in mind. Download Herald
2010 is the year of open source design for WordPress
It’s no secret that a major design change is coming to this year’s WordPress development cycles in the form of a new default WordPress theme, but that’s not all. Jane Wells has announced plans for all things design—open source design, that is:
- Creation of the wp-ui mailing list for design-related updates
- Return of the design challenges that have determined the look and feel of the WordPress admin interface in the past
- Mobilization of a distributed Usability Testing group
- Creation of the #wordpress-ui chatroom on irc.freenode.com and setup of a weekly chat as with #wordpress-dev
- Launching of the WordPress UI/UX blog
While I’m surprised all these things haven’t been set up sooner, I’m excited that design and usability are finally getting the attention they deserve—makes you wonder how WordPress got to be so beautiful without all these in place yet.
Between this, WordPress 3.0, and WordPress Multi Site, it looks like 2010 is a packed year for WordPress! There are so many things to do and lots of volunteer work is needed, so if you can find your niche in the community, why not contribute?
Interview with Automattic CEO Toni Schneider
WPVibe has an exclusive interview with Automattic’s CEO, Toni Schneider. We get a look at how this telecommute-friendly company gets things done (P2, IRC, and Skype), a bit of WordPress.com talk, and Toni’s personal life.
What is one thing you’ve learned while being at Automattic that has made you a better CEO?
A brand new thing that I had never done before was figuring out how to build a distributed company, where team members work from places all over the world. That’s been a great learning experience for me. I love how much personal freedom the distributed model gives people. One of our “Automatticians” told us just yesterday that he is going to Chile for 40 days. He has rented an apartment and will work from there. That’s the kind of thing you can do in a distributed organization. The challenge is to create a sense of teamwork and common purpose despite being spread so far apart.
And here are some amazing figures for Automattic’s other services:
- 1 billion avatar requests on Gravatar every day
- 220 million visitors on WordPress.com every month
- 117 million people reached by PollDaddy every month
A lot of times we more closely associate the WordPress project with just-turned-26 Matt Mullenweg, and while is is the founder after all, it’s great to get to know other members of team Automattic.
3 backup plugins reviewed
Blogging Tips reviews three WordPress backup plugins, DBC Backup, WP-DBManager, and WP-DB-Backup. According to them DBC comes out on top, but go check out the review to see which one meets your specific needs. There’s always the WordPress plugins directory, too.
I prefer to do my backups from within my host’s cPanel so that all of my site gets backed up, not just my WordPress install, but using plugins makes things easier.
In any case, having a backup plan is better than none at all. If you haven’t started or need to brush up on your blog backup habit, there’s no time like the present. And it’s peanuts to install a WordPress plugin these days, so no excuses!
The Secret History of Kubrick
The Huffington Post has written a piece on Kubrick, the default WordPress theme since 2005. Tina Daunt interviewed its creator, Michael Heilemann, and tells how his theme “changed the internet”.
Perhaps Kubrick’s biggest contribution is that it has brought cyberspace closer to the realization of one of its earliest and most consistent ideals. Web designers and theorists have long talked about the democratization of publishing on the Internet, the fact that the web puts anyone with a computer on an equal footing with the elite that traditionally has owned the printing presses. In many ways, though, it was a meaningless democracy until the people with laptops had the ability to design and to package their work in the same way traditional media has always done.
No better time than now to take a look back at a fascinating part of WordPress history, especially since a new default theme this 2010 is being planned. When that day comes, we’ll definitely miss you, dear Kubrick!
WordPress Multi User becomes WordPress Multi Site
The road to the merger has begun. And the first step is a pretty major one: WordPress Multi User (WPMU) has now been renamed to WordPress Multi Site (WPMS). I mentioned in a previous post that the WPMU term “multi-user” in the context of a typical WordPress install could be confusing, so it’s great that they got this out of the way immediately. “Multi-site” is much better.
Another major change that’s been made: the old WPMU term “Site Admin” has also been renamed to “Super Admin”—again, to erase confusion between WordPress single-user and multi-site jargon.
These and other important topics were discussed in the January 7 WordPress Dev Chat on IRC, and WordPress Tavern has a fantastic report on it. Some tidbits:
- There is no ETA on WordPress 3.0 yet
- WordPress
MUMS 2.9.1 is just around the corner - Work on The Merge has begun
- Canonical plugins “need a community of developers like the core to survive”
- Priorities for WordPress 3.0 include: The Merge, menus, custom post types, the new default theme, core plugin integration; Media “will not happen” in said version
- WordPress.org will be redesigned starting “sometime in late February”
Exciting times for the future of WordPress, and it’s all happening this 2010!
