The Blog Herald

Hello, folks! I m Billy Mabray, and I ll be providing this week s Movable Type update. I hope no one minds, but I went back a bit farther then a week there s been some really interesting things going on in the community that I wanted to share. On with the show! Plugins Linked Entry Custom Fields: This is a deceptively named plugin from Six Apart. Yes, it does extend Custom Fields with a type of field that links entries together. But more than that, it will migrate your data from the popular Right Fields plugin to the Custom Fields that s built into MT. This is huge, because although there have been various tutorials published on how to migrate, there s never been an official, recommended way before now. Sandbox: Originally a WordPress theme, Sandbox has been migrated to MT as a template set. This theme is designed to be customized, but looks good out of the box. Sandbox includes the latest version of StyleCatcher, which can be used to download custom Sandbox-compatible designs. iPhone Template Set: Speaking of template sets, this plugin by Taichi Kaminogoya gives your blog that shiny, iPhone-site look. WordPress Styles for Movable Type: Mike T. has created his own style repository for WordPress themes he s converted to MT. The WordPress Styles for Movable Type plugin allows StyleCatcher to access that repository. Forums Utilities: Movable Type Product Manager Byrne Reese released two plugins recently. The first is Forums Utilities, which provides additional functionality to forums created using the MT Community Solution. This includes promoting comments to entries, flagging comments as featured, and closing discussions. Super Page: Byrne s other plugin, Super Page, allows you to, convert a single, massive page into a set of paginated, easy to navigate pages broken up by chapter/section. MT as a CMS Ok, bit of self-promotion here. Over on Devlounge, I recently wrote about the ups and downs I ve had using MT as a CMS. Hopefully some of the information was useful to people considering powering an entire site with MT. Be sure to check out the comments for other people s experiences with MT. Virtual Movable Type Recently, Six Apart partnered with JumpBox to create Virtual Movable Type, a downloadable virtual server pre-built with MT. Virtual MT works with many popular virtualization software packages including VMWare, Parallels, and Xen. You can download it and have a complete server with MT installed and ready to use up and running in a few minutes. I tried it under Parallels and it worked great. This can be useful as a testing system, or for data centers that need to be able to create additional servers on demand. Movable Type Europe Webinars Finally, Tim Appnel let us know that Six Apart Europe will be hosting a series of webinars to help people learn how to make use of MT within their companies. Be sure to take advantage of that if you can. Possibly Related PostsMovable Type Monday: Movable Type 4.2, Pro, Mid Century Theme, Tutorials Galore!Using WordPress or Movable Type as a CMSMovable Type Monday: Poll Position, Photo Galleries and TinyMCE

WordPress 2.7 features are now announced and set. Weblog Tools Collection announced their WordPress Plugin Contest winners. WordPress wants your input on the the new WordPress 2.7 interface. Smashing Magazine toasts WordPress development resources. And there are so many WordCamps, you can plan vacations around them. Why not? WordPress News What s Really Going to be in WordPress 2.7? No more beating around the bush. Ryan Boren has pulled the curtain off WordPress 2.7 features to prepare us all for the upcoming release. They include the new crazyhorse WordPress Administration Panels interface, a new Write Post Panel that allows dragging and dropping of meta boxes so you can rearrange your writing surface, the ability to hide columns on the content index pages, inline editing of posts and Pages on the new content index pages, comments XMLRPC API, sticky posts, automatic WordPress Plugin installation and integrated Plugin browser, HTTPOnly auth cookies, and much more. The MOST exciting features are the ability to automatically upgrade WordPress and the total revamping of the Comments Panel to include replying to comments, keyboard shortcuts (hot keys) for managing comments, and threaded comments to help you keep track of the conversation. Expect an announcement any day on the Development Updates and other WordPress development sources that major testing of these core features will commence as WordPress developers move closer to the release candidates (alpha versions). Want a Say in the WordPress 2.7 Administration Panels Interface? In announcements on the WordPress Development Blog and on WordPress.com, WordPress users are invited to participate in a survey to have your say on how the navigation options on the WordPress 2.7 Administration Panels interface (UI) should look and work. Weblog Tools Collection Plugin Winners Announced: The Weblog Tools Collection WordPress Plugin Competition Winners have been announced. WP Comment Remix is the winner of $2,000 and a ton of goodies. Second prize goes to the author of the Manageable WordPress Plugin, followed by third prize, WP Easy Uploader. Consolation prize goes to Prelovac for his amazing work on WordPress Plugins recently. Check out these powerful WordPress Plugin on your own blog and congrats to all the entrants who each win USD $10 just for entering! WordPress 2.6.2 Upgrade Now: Many people are not taking the latest announcement about the WordPress 2.6.2 upgrade seriously. The security flaw this update repairs applies to all PHP applications, not just WordPress, and specifically targets those with open registration, which includes multiple blogger blogs and registration for comments. All are seriously recommended to has been released and WordPress users are required to download WordPress 2.6.2 and upgrade immediately. WordPress 2.6.2 was released with the fix five hours after the critical security flaw had been filed. Smashing Magazine Does WordPress Toolbox for Developers: Smashing Magazine offers the WordPress Developers’ Toolbox, a huge collection of tips, tricks, resources, WordPress Themes, WordPress Theme design help, documentation, and tutorials for WordPress users. It s overwhelming but there is a ton of great information in there. Please make sure that the article you are reading covers the version of WordPress you are using as some of the information is version-specific. WordCast Podcast: The latest WordCast Podcast featured Liz Strauss and should be out soon. Last week s podcast was WordCast 27: The National Floor League. 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: 4 WordCamps, WordPress 2.6.2, Bad Themes, Count Twitterers, Threaded Comments, and Sticky Posts. WordPress on Your Calendar Exploring WordCamps on The WordCamp Report: The WordCamp Report is dedicated to WordCamp events and is looking for volunteers to live blog or report on WordCamp events around the world. The site is covering WordCamp news, events, and WordPress events, and includes tips for those who want to bring a WordCamp to their area. Recent articles include: WordCamp Hawaii Speaker Explores Chinese Tourism and Social Media WordCamp Utah in September Speakers Announced WordCamp Vancouver September 27, 2008 WordCamp Tokyo September 23, 2008 WordCamp China - We Need Volunteers to Cover the Event Blog World Expo in Las Vegas Boston WordPress Meetup for September WordCamp Portland Sold Out Latest News from WordCamp Portland - New Logo WordCamp Hawaii and PodCamp Speakers Confirmed Do You Have All the Information on Your WordCamp Blog? Using Your WordCamp Blog to Generate Interest All Year Long WordCamp Charlotte Announces Mark Jaquith as Keynote Speaker WordCamp T-Shirts Speak Out WordCamp New York Finds Venue WordCamp Denver Starts a Facebook Page WordCamp Indiana Looking For Help 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). WordPress UK Northern Bloggers Meetup (Get-Together Type Thing) - September 19, 2008 The Boston WordPress September Meetup - September 18, 2008 Blog World Expo, Vegas - September 20-21, 2008 WordCamp China - Beijing and Shanghai - September 20-21, 2008 WordCamp Tokyo 2008 - Tokyo, Japan - September 23, 2008 WordCamp Utah - Provo, Utah - September 27, 2008 WordCamp Birmingham - Alabama - September 27, 2008 WordCamp Portland, Oregon - September 27, 2008 WordCamp Vancouver 2008 - Canada - September 27th, 2008 The Dallas/Ft. Worth Area WordPress September Meetup - September 27, 2008 WordCamp RDU - Raleigh/Durham, North Carolina - Oct 4, 2008 WordCamp New York - New York - October 5, 2008 WordCamp Toronto - October 4-5, 2008 Atlanta Web Design with WordPress Group - Atlanta, Georgia - October 18, 2008 WordCamp Bangkok 2008 - Bangkok, Thailand - October 19, 2008 Podcamp and WordCamp Hawaii - Oct 24, 2008 MinneWordCamp - Minneapolis - November 15, 2008 WordCamp Australia - Sydney - November 29-30, 2008 Date change! WordCamp Las Vegas 2009 - Las Vegas, Nevada - January 10-11, 2009 Upcoming WordCamps not scheduled or confirmed: Wordcamp Ed(ucation) Twitter for Educators using WordPress WordCamp Washington D.C. 2008 WordCamp Denver 2008 WordCamp Indiana WordCamp Augusta WordCamp Miami WordCamp Israel - November 2008 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. Also, check out the latest WordCamp news from The WordCamp Report. WordPress Plugins and Themes News WordPress 2.6.2 Brings New WordPress Plugin: Peter of Peter s Useful Crap released his Redirect WordPress Users Plugin with a new filter found in WordPress 2.6.2 which allows redirection of users to different locations after they log into a WordPress blog. For example, you can have a custom login landing page in the WordPress Administration Panels for editors with feeds and information they need to know. Authors and/or Contributors could be redirected to a page of assignments, reminders, or straight to the Write Post Panel, rather than the traditional WordPress dashboard panel. Expect to see more Plugins and uses of this new login redirection filter. Woopra WordPress Plugin Updated: The Woopra WordPress Plugin for the popular Woopra web analytics program, which incorporates Woopra statistics into your WordPress blog, has been updated again. Check out the WordPress Plugin Directory for the latest version. Still Using the Ultimate Tag Warrior WordPress Plugin? John Pozadzides of One Man s Blog recommends you clean up your database after upgrading from WordPress 2.3 to the latest version if you were using the Ultimate Tag Warrior WordPress Plugin. Upgrading is mandatory, but a lot of people so loved the Ultimate Tag Warrior WordPress Plugin, they weren t willing to make the change. The latest versions of WordPress now include tags built-in and UTW is no longer supported by the author and WordPress. If you are having trouble, follow John s tips and clean out or delete the old UTW table in your WordPress database. And remember, the upgrades are also for security purposes. Don t leave your blog vulnerable. Interesting WordPress Plugins: Interactive Video WordPress Plugin adds basic and advanced video capabilities to upload, record, and import videos to your blog post. It also includes video responses, remixing, and managing your video content. Gorsel Koru WordPress Plugin (Turkish site) prevents hotlinking of images if someone tries to link to an image on your site. Archives by Selected Categories WordPress Plugin generates a list of posts separated by categories with customization features on which categories and how they are to be sorted. This would make a good site map Page for your blog. Amazon Wishlists WordPress Plugin shows the contents of any Amazon Wishlist in the sidebar of your blog. Daily Top 10 Posts WordPress Plugin tracks your most popular blog posts for the day and for all time. 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 interesting WordPress tips I ve uncovered: Functions.php WordPress Child Themes WP Contact Manager Techtites - Upgrading WordPress via shell Stylized Web - WordPress Tricks How to: Create an Archive Page for your WordPress blog 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 . WordPress.com News SSL Now Available for WordPress.com Bloggers: WordPress.com announced the ability for their bloggers to protect blogs with SSL. If you are blogging on a public access point, blogjackers can prey on security vulnerabilities and possibly collect sensitive information. By adding SSL protection, you will automatically be logged onto your blog with an HTTPS connection (secure). You ve always had the option, but few WordPress.com bloggers understood how it worked. To activate this new feature, go to My Account > Edit Profile in the WordPress Administration Panels and check of Always use HTTPS when visiting Administration pages under Browser Connection. Another New WordPress Theme: WordPress.com announced the addition of the DePo Masthead WordPress Theme by Derek Powazek. It features a minimalist magazine design with dynamic features such as header font size changes depending upon the length of the blog title, column heights for front page articles will always be equal, interesting navigation options, and hidden, unfolding comments. WordPress.com FAQ Gets Screencasts: The WordPress.com FAQ now has screencasts on their guide posts helping WordPress.com users learn more about how to use specific WordPress.com features. WordPress Community News Things You Need to Know in the WordPress Community: WordPress Facebook Community: WordPress on Facebook WordPress Schwag for Sale: WordPress Shop WordPress Bugs: Reporting Bugs in WordPress Online WordPress Manual: WordPress Codex Have Your Say: WordPress Ideas WordPress Experts Found: Automattic WordPress Consultants List, WordPress Jobs, and the WP-Pro mailing list Help Installing WordPress: Installing WordPress for Free WordPress is Trademarked: You are not allowed to use WordPress in your domain name WordPress is WordPress: 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 Wednesday News: 4 WordCamps, WordPress 2.6.2, Bad Themes, Count Twitterers, Threaded Comments, and Sticky Posts WordPress Wednesday News: World WordCamps, WordPress 2.7 Dangers, Martha Stewart, WordPressMU Updated WordPress Wednesday News: WordCamp 2008, Copy and Paste in WordPress iPhone, Count Your Comments, WordCamp South Africa WordPress Wednesday News: WordCamp 2008, WordPress Rules the UK, and WordPress Plugin News WordPress Wednesday News: WordPress 2.7, WordCamp News, 2.6.1 Beta Released WordPress Wednesday News: WordPress iPhone Upgraded, WordCamp San Francisco Registration, Simon Dickson Rocked the UK, WordPress Theme Directory, and 201,000 Blogs Using WordPress 2.6 WordPress News Sources WordPress Planet WordPress Development Blog WordPress.com Blog Weblog Tools Collection The WordPress Podcast Lorelle on WordPress Planet WordPress from Planet Ozh WordPress Publisher Blog Planet WordPress Canada The WordCamp Report If You Are Reading This: If you are reading this blog post NOT on the Blog Herald 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 Blog Herald 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: Possibly Related PostsWordPress Wednesday News: WordCamp 2008, WordPress Rules the UK, and WordPress Plugin NewsWordPress Wednesday News: WordCamp South Africa, World of WordCamps, Blaming WordPress, and Crazyhorse GallopsWordPress Wednesday News: WordCamp 2008, Copy and Paste in WordPress iPhone, Count Your Comments, WordCamp South Africa

Despite providing powerful platforms for their users, both Blogger.com (owned by Google) and Six Apart seem to be rather slow when it comes to creating apps for the iPhone.  While SixApart has provided an iPhone app for Typepad, they have yet to develop anything for MovableType, leaving the field wide open for third parties. One company from China however is taking advantage of this opening, by creating a powerful iPhone app for not only the big three (Blogger, MovableType/Typepad, WordPress) but for MSN Live Spaces as well. Called BlogPress (which was previously highlighted by Andy), this app was developed by CoolLittle Things, who ironically encountered some resistance (note: english translation over here) submitting their app to the iTunes store. But with BlogPress costing a whopping 999 pennies (or about $10 USD), BlogSpot and MovableType fans may wonder whether purchasing this app is worth it. So instead of spending potential gas money (or even lunch), you might want to check out the review below to see if this iPhone app is worth spending money on. The Good There were a lot of things I enjoyed about this app, the first being able to publish both images and text together on a single post. I could even insert multiple images together, with text either above or below the image, a feature that will excite Blogger fans (as the mail-to-blogger feature only posted text below the single image on the iPhone). Users can also edit previous entries, as well as save drafts (a deal breaker for mobile blogging if you ask me). Even better, if you are interupted by a call, your post is automatically saved (note: unfortunately there is no pop-up confirmation informing you that your post was saved, although it did pass with flying colors after I tested it). The other cool feature was the ability to post to multiple blogs at the same time even on different platforms! (a useful feature if you have want to post a quick message across all of your blogs). Last but not least, Blogger users will appreciate the fact that BlogPress uploads their images to their Picasa Web Album account, with the option of selecting which album the images will be uploaded to (as each Blogger blog has its own album). The Bad While this app was very powerful, it did encounter a few bugs/problems. When one scrolls down to the bottom of the screen (after typing in a post), it is hard to scroll back up at the top. Second, images posted to Picasa had a tendency to flip upside down. This may be an error on Picasa s end (as you can easily fix them by flipping them right side up), but either way some users may find that to be a bit irritating. There is also no way to resize the images posted, although that may have something to do with Picasa s settings (and not via BlogPress). Last but not least, BlogPress only uploads images to Picasa Web Albums, which may not please those wishing for the images to remain on their servers (or on another platform, like WordPress.com or MSN Live Spaces). Conclusion So, is this app worth purchasing? If you are a blogger fan, then the answer is yes! The only thing missing from this app is the ability to add labels and adjust the posting date, but aside from that this app is probably what most BlogSpot users have been waiting for. As far as MovableType goes, this app may hold you over until Six Apart develops an official iPhone app, unless you do not mind your images being hosted (for free) by the search engine king. Note: For some strange reason Apple has not included BlogPress in its search index (as of this post), although you can download it by clicking here (link will open up iTunes). Possibly Related PostsBlog Press cross-platform blogging app released for iPhoneWordPress Vs. BlogWriter (Battle Of The iPhone Apps!)CellSpin: All Your Mobile Blogging Should Belong To Us

Movable Type has announced that its Sandbox for Movable Type plugin is now available, allowing the many Sandbox themes to be used on the MT blogging platform. Beau Smith writes: Ever thought about radically changing the look of your blog without much design work? Are you a designer who likes to work in semantic HTML and do amazing things with CSS? Maybe you’re moving from WordPress to Movable Type and want to keep your current design. Sandbox for Movable Type may just be what you’re looking for. To install the plugin in Movable Type 4.2, it requires PHP set up on the server (pretty common) in order to generate dynamic CSS classes. The plugin is available to download now. Possibly Related PostsMovable Type Monday: Cumulus, Action Streams and MTOS Proposals Microsoft breaks standards compatibility promise with IE8 Beta 2Scribd launches a redesign

Many say, It s about time. Others are saying, We told you. Either way, it s as official as it gets. Bye-bye WTF blog cluttering CAPTCHAs. According to the Guardian in How Captcha was foiled: Are you a man or a mouse? , the CAPTCHA has been proven to not work. While most of this ongoing series on WTF Blog Clutter has been focused on the blog sidebar and design elements, a big clutter element is the continued use of the CAPTCHA with comments with the misguided belief that it would stop comment spammers. NOT. CAPTCHA stands for Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart, created to ensure that humans can read the letters and numbers in a way that computers can t, so automated scripts and bots can t leave a comment on your blog. Pass the test and you ve earned the right to comment. Except that the CAPTCHA techniques have been broken and bypassed easily by computers for years. Websites use Captchas in an attempt to disrupt the spam and malware economy - but they are not working. Spammers and malware authors are able to break Captcha process, says Carl Leonard, a threat research manager at Websense Security Labs. As a result, we ve seen an increase in the amount of mail sent out from reputable mail services such as Gmail, Hotmail and Windows Live Mail, and an increase in the number of blogs that host malicious content, or content that the spammers wish to advertise. Email accounts on such services are particularly valuable because spam filters cannot block them without also blocking genuine mail. Techniques to break Captcha are nothing new. First, if a human can read an image then the chances are that software can do the same thing. In 2005, a software developer, Casey Chesnut, wrote a Captcha-breaking algorithm and demonstrated it by posting automated comments to nearly 100 blogs to demonstrate their vulnerability. In response to this kind of attack, Captcha authors have devised tests that are harder to solve. Images may be more squiggly than they used to be, making them harder to break but also more troublesome for legitimate users. Other ideas include 3D Captcha, relying on object recognition rather than character recognition; or framing questions that are trivial for humans to answer but hard for software to parse. Some approaches work better than others, but there are a number of inherent problems. One is that many Captchas are inaccessible to the visually impaired, and will fall foul of accessibility legislation unless there is an alternative. Another snag is that spammers may play their trump card, using humans. Ah, yes, the human element. Human comment spammers have been around for a while. Spammers found out they could cheaply hire third world workers to spam blogs with very little training. Combined with comment spam bots which can create incredibly legitimate looking comments using your name or blog name and content from within your blog post and other comments to make the comment look real, it s become harder than ever to really tell what is a real comment and what is comment spam. So much so that Matt Mullenweg told attendees at the recent WordCamp 2008 in San Francisco that Akismet has a lot of trouble with known comment spammers getting back out into the comment queue because people pull them out of the comment spam queue thinking they are legitimate. WTF CAPTCHAs When I talked about comment spam fighting techniques with WordPress at WordCamp Dallas this year, I loved the reaction to some images I displayed of WTF CAPTCHAs I ve collected over the years. The crowd laughed and applauded, having experienced their own WTF moments facing these ridiculous combination of letters and numbers before you can leave a comment or take the next step. I ve found these ugly images on some of the most beautiful blog designs ever. Designs that have me swooning with envy at their clean, clear colors and design elements. Combined with great content, these are nearly orgasmic creations, until the phone rings, there s a knock at the door, and everything screeches to a hault when I scroll down to leave a comment and find one of those blotchy, out-of-focus, clunky CAPTCHA scripts. CAPTCHA interuptus. I ve tried to stare down many a CAPTCHA trying to solve its mystery. I ll tilt my head to the side, the other side, and even consider flipping my monitor or myself upside down to figure them out. I ve spent so much time trying to figure out the CAPTCHA message I m supposed to solve that I ve often forgotten when I wanted to say in the first place. When I haven t been able to clearly see what it is asking me to do, out of desperation I ve clicked the If you can t see this, click here link only to have the entire page reload - and lose my comment! ARGH. WTF! Don t insult our intelligence with one of those dumb torture test quizzes, either. How much is 4+6? What is my name? What is the name of this blog? Are you a spammer? Come on, folks! These are CAPTCHAs in disguise and they have been broken for ages. Any decent comment spam attacker can bypass these, and if they haven t, they probably will by tomorrow. You can t keep these updated fast enough to outwit the comment spammers. Let nothing come between a reader and their comment. If you do, you risk losing their comment. I ve talked to a lot of bloggers and blog readers about CAPTCHAs and torture tests. A lot of them say that they won t comment on blogs with those features installed. For those that do, many are often faced with the unfriendly white page with only another version of the CAPTCHA that says, Wrong Answer. Please try again. Or Thank you for your comment with no way to get back to get back to the blog unless you hit the Back button on your browser, and you probably won t see your comment or know if it is acceptable, in moderation, or anything until you refresh the page. Do you have that much time and familiarity with your browser to do that? CAPTCHAs and torture test quizzes are painful to users, and to the inexperienced blog reader, they can be exceptionally frustrating. Why bother when they don t work? Is There Hope for CAPTCHAs? While I believe that CAPTCHAs have no place on blogs in the comment box, there is still a great need to improve security when it comes to logins and registration. These are highly sensitive areas. You don t want just anyone to log into your blog or website and create havoc. There have been improvements in this area, but when it comes to the comment box - let comments come without a ticket to the dance. Everyone s welcome to join in. The article goes on to explain that while some, like Microsoft, are continuing to invest in improving their CAPTCHA systems, even while attackers are working harder at breaking them, community-based protect such as Akismet and Defensio Anti-Spam are actually working better at keeping comment spammers at bay. That said, the internet is a long way from adopting this level of security, and there is always a danger that whatever steps the industry takes to improve authentication, the scammers will keep up with innovations of their own. Mullenweg s answer is to focus on the content rather than the user. His Akismet system for preventing spam comments relies on a combination of secret algorithms and community reports, and has proved remarkably effective. Ultimately Captchas are useless for spam because they re designed to tell you if someone is human or not, but not whether something is spam or not. Just because something came from a real human being doesn t mean it isn t spam, which is why content-based solutions like Akismet are the only long-term solution to the spam problem. If you are really worried about comment spam on your blog, I ve long recommended a multi-layered approach, though I m finding that Akismet does the job alone extremely well on my WordPress.com blog. By working together I believe we can protect each other from comment spam, but we also need to do more. Work hard to keep your blog comment spam free so your readers don t have to be assaulted by comment spam, or waste time dealing with friendly readers who point them out to you. Be aware of the games spammers and sploggers play with your comments and content and report splogs and spammers when you find them. If you recognize a company that is comment spamming, don t do business with them. And lastly, don t torture your blog readers with WTF CAPTCHAs. NOTE: Special thanks to all who have commented and blogged about this series, and a special thank you to the WordCast Podcast and the fun they ve been having with this series. WTF Blog Design Clutter Articles Series WTF Blog Design Elements: Are Blog Archives Working for Your Blog WTF Blog Design Clutter WTF Blog Clutter: Pictures of Our Bloggy Friends WTF Blog Design Elements: Most Recent Comments and Shout Boxes WTF Blog Design Elements: Twitter, Tumbler, and Microblog Babble WTF Blog Clutter: Unrelated Ads Angst WTF Blog Clutter: Feed Clutter WTF Blog Design Clutter: Incoming Feed Clutter WTF Blog Clutter Design: How Many Feed Icons Do You Need? WTF Blog Clutter: How’s the Weather on Your Blog? WTF Blog Clutter: Where Are You? WTF Blog Clutter: Video and Pictures WTF Blog Clutter: What to Call Your Feeds and Ads WTF Blog Clutter: Are You Ignoring Your Uncategorized Category? Possibly Related PostsWTF Blog Clutter: How s the Weather on Your Blog?WTF Blog Clutter: Are You Ignoring Your Uncategorized Category?WTF Blog Clutter: What to Call Your Feeds and Ads

WordCamps are popping up everywhere, in China, Japan, Australia, Israel, Utah, Toronto, Vancouver, Portland, and more. Are you tracking WordPress 2.7 development? Martha Stewart now does WordPress and windows. Super Cache updated. WordPressMU upgraded. Ozh wants your input on the next version of WordPress Theme Toolkit. And more WordPress news. WordPress News Tracking WordPress Development: Did you know you can track the development of WordPress and WordPress related applications? Here is a list: WordPress Development Updates Blog WPDevel Twitter WordPress Development Trac Timeline WordPress iPhone App Trac Timeline Martha Does WordPress: Matt Mullenweg announced that Martha Stewart us upgraded from a TypePad blog to WordPress after careful research and the desire to switch to a platform offering more programming options. WordPress 2.7 Development News: The following are some of the news items and information about WordPress 2.7 development which includes a new updated interface for the WordPress Administration Panels. Ability for the Administrator to reply directly from the Comments Panel has been added to the WordPress 2.7 trunk. Comment moderation and management now has keyboard shortcuts. Weblog Tools Collection offers a first look at WordPress 2.7 with a warning that while there are some very exciting new features in the Administration Panels, this is all subject to change. Live on the Bleeding Edge of WordPress with SVN by Techtites reminds you that using the latest build of WordPress means risking your blog s life. These versions are for testing purposes only. Not for the uninitiated. Ryan Boren announced that the Ryan Boren Warns WordPress 2.7 is Experimental so take care running the test version. Inline Documentation almost completed by Jacob Santos for WordPress 2.7, helping developers, Plugin authors and hackers. Jacob Santos - Don’t Use WordPress 2.7 Trunk on a Live Blog is another warning that those who are running their blogs with the latest trunk alpha testing versions should stop whining when it breaks their blogs. The trunk versions are stable but they are test data and likely to break when combined with various Plugins and Themes and systems. Joseph Scott on WordPress Performance and Scalability: Joseph Scott presented the program WordPress Performance and Scalability (slides) at the Utah Open Source Conference recently. Super Cache Updated: Some bugs were found in the Super Cache WordPress Plugin and it s been updated and a fix is also available. WordPressMU Updated: WordPress MU 2.6.1 is now available for WordPressMU, the multiple user version of WordPress which runs WordPress.com. This is a mandatory upgrade as it fixes critical bugs in the program. WordCast Podcast: WordCast 25: WordPress Normal covered WordCamp San Francisco, WordPress 2.6.1 release, the WordPressMU Plugin competition, Olympic WordPress bloggers, and favorite WordPress Plugin picks. WordCast 26: It’s Jeff’s Fault! featured Jeff Chandler, Kym Huynh, Beth Skinner, and Dave Moyer talking about WTF Blog Design Clutter, writing code in posts, a blogger arrested for leaking songs from Guns n Roses, Magazine Themes, interview with Jeff Chandler about blaming WordPress, and some great WordPress Plugins. WordPress Weekly Returns: Jeffro2pt0 announced that his WordPress Weekly Podcast is coming back due to popular demand. It will be now a part of Weblog Tools Collection and he s looking for co-hosts and more. 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, Copy and Paste in WordPress iPhone, Count Your Comments, WordCamp South Africa. WordPress on Your Calendar WordCamp 2008 San Francisco Videos: John Pozadzides of One Man s Blog was the official video guy at WordCamp 2008 and here are the videos he s released so far from the event: Chuck Lewis - The SEO Rapper at WordCamp SanFrancisco WordCamp 2008: Matt Mullenweg’s State of the Word WordCamp 2008 San Fran: Kathy Sierra - Kicking Ass and Creating Passionate Users WordCamp 2008 San Fran: Stephan Spencer - SEO Mistakes Most Bloggers Make WordCamp 2008 San Fran: Alan Levine - It’s All You Can WordPress at the EduBlog Diner WordCamp 2008 San Fran: Andy Skelton Sings ‘Deserve’ WordCamp 2008 San Fran: Ben Huh - LOLcats and the Secret of Virality WordCamp 2008 San Fran: Lloyd Budd - Switching to WordPress Painlessly WordCamp 2008 San Fran: Stephen O’Grady - Open Source Business Models For more tweets, videos, live blogging, and more coverage, see WordCamp 2008 - Snapshot of the Changing Social of Conferences. Matt Videos from WordCamp South Africa: A week ago was WordCamp SA 2008 and here are some videos of Matt Mullenweg, founder of WordPress, speaking at the event: Matt Mullenweg - WordCamp South Africa - Part 1 Matt Mullenweg - WordCamp South Africa - Part 2 Matt Mullenweg - WordCamp South Africa - Part 3 Matt Mullenweg - WordCamp South Africa - Part 4 WordCamp Utah: WordCamp Utah - Provo, Utah - September 27, 2008 is scheduled for September 27, 2008, in Provo, Utah, and the speakers list is now up and registration is now open for $20 a ticket which includes lunch, stickers, t-shirts, and the full day event activities. WordCamp Australia Date Change: The new WordCamp Australia dates are November 29-30, 2008, and the venue has now been confirmed to be at The Red Box in the Suburb of Lilyfield. Registration is now open so get your tickets as soon as possible as the price will rise as the event gets closer. Matt Mullenweg has confirmed that he will be a speaker. A WordPress Meetup is scheduled for September 11 in Sydney for volunteers and WordPress fans. WordCamp Augusta: cdharrison has twittered about a WordCamp Augusta in 2009? Interested? WordCamp Israel: Tal Galili, the man behind the first WordCamp event in the Middle East, is working on WordCamp Israel 2009 (Hebrew) and looking for help. You can reach him (in Hebrew or in English) through his site or through his Twitter account at @talgalili. WordCamp for Educators: Wordcamp Ed(ucation) is a Twitter account just set up for a WordPress WordCamp event specifically geared towards educators. Oh, how I would love to be part of that. Twitter @wordcamped if you are interested. WordCamp Birmingham: Dougal Campbell will be speaking at WordCamp Birmingham on The Future of WordPress and would love your input. He is just one of the many top speakers at this WordCamp event in Alabama. They are still looking for more speakers, sponsorship opportunities, and volunteers. WordCamp Indiana: WordCamp Indiana is looking for volunteers, sponsors, and participants to put together their event. See Watershed Studios to let them know if you are interested. WordCamp New York Taking Registration: WordCamp New York in New York on October 5, 2008, is now accepting registrations. The location is set for Sun Microsystems Office at 101 Park Avenue, New York, and is now set for Sunday, not Saturday. WordCamp Charlotte, North Carolina, Coming Soon: There is a new WordCamp site up on WordPress.com for WordCamp Charlotte. They don t have a location or date, but they do have a Participants page you can sign up for to volunteer, sponsor, speak or attend. That s great faith. WordCamp RDU is scheduled for October 4, 2008, in Raleigh/Durham, North Carolina, which is exciting. This could be the first time there are two WordCamps in one state. 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). WordCamp Philippines - September 6, 2008 The Boston WordPress September Meetup - September 18, 2008 Blog World Expo, Vegas - September 20-21, 2008 WordCamp China - Beijing and Shanghai - September 20-21, 2008 WordCamp Tokyo 2008 - Tokyo, Japan - September 23, 2008 WordCamp Utah - Provo, Utah - September 27, 2008 WordCamp Birmingham - Alabama - September 27, 2008 WordCamp Portland, Oregon - September 27, 2008 WordCamp Vancouver 2008 - Canada - September 27th, 2008 The Dallas/Ft. Worth Area WordPress September Meetup - September 27, 2008 WordCamp RDU - Raleigh/Durham, North Carolina - Oct 4, 2008 WordCamp New York - New York - October 5, 2008 WordCamp Toronto - October 4-5, 2008 WordCamp Bangkok 2008 - Bangkok, Thailand - October 19, 2008 Podcamp and WordCamp Hawaii - Oct 24, 2008 MinneWordCamp - Minneapolis - November 15, 2008 WordCamp Australia - Sydney - November 29-30, 2008 Date change! WordCamp Las Vegas 2009 - Las Vegas, Nevada - January 10-11, 2009 Upcoming WordCamps not scheduled or confirmed: Wordcamp Ed(ucation) Twitter for Educators using WordPress WordCamp Washington D.C. 2008 WordCamp Denver 2008 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 Still Using the Ultimate Tag Warrior WordPress Plugin? John Pozadzides of One Man s Blog recommends you clean up your database after upgrading from WordPress 2.3 to the latest version if you were using the Ultimate Tag Warrior WordPress Plugin. Upgrading is mandatory, but a lot of people so loved the Ultimate Tag Warrior WordPress Plugin, they weren t willing to make the change. The latest versions of WordPress now include tags built-in and UTW is no longer supported by the author and WordPress. If you are having trouble, follow John s tips and clean out or delete the old UTW table in your WordPress database. And remember, the upgrades are also for security purposes. Don t leave your blog vulnerable. Should You Use a Magazine WordPress Theme? Smashing Magazine explores when, and when not, to use a Magazine-style Theme for your blog and makes some very good points worth considering. For the past year, Magazine WordPress Themes have been all the rage, but they do have some limitations. A lot of the emphasis is put on the front page of your blog, a page that few people may see as they arrive from search engines and click directly through to single pages, categories, and tags. Some magazine designs put so much work into the front page, they ignored the intricacies of designing for all the various dynamic pageviews found on a WordPress blog. Before you choose, look at all the pros and cons. Adding Boxes to the Write Post Panel Inconsistencies: Vladimir Prelovac discusses adding boxes to WordPress 2.5+ Write Panels and some inconsistencies between versions. If you are adding any boxes to the Write Post Panel, and having trouble, this might be your solution. Viper Quicktags Updated: The popular Viper’s Video Quicktags WordPress Plugin has just been updated after almost two months and 3,200 lines of code, and a total code rewrite. There are a ton of new features. Compatibility Issues with Libraries and Plugins: Weblog Tools Collection covers WordPress Plugin compatibility issues with popular libraries which could cause fatal PHP errors between Plugins. WordPress Plugin Models Set an Example: Jacob Santos contemplates Plugin models using WordPress Plugin models as an example of good functionality and a simple and easy-to-use method. PlanetOzh Wants Input On WordPress Theme Toolkit: Ozh of Planet Ozh is asking for input on the next version of the WordPress Theme Toolkit, an amazing tool that allows WordPress Theme authors to add an panel to the WordPress Administration Panels simple and easy. It is used by many WordPress Theme back ends. He wants to update it and is looking for suggestions from those experienced using this or if your Theme is using the Toolkit. Interesting WordPress Plugins: Most Popular Posts WordPress Plugin displays links to your top commented blog posts. MarkItUp WordPress Plugin replaces the old Quicktags toolbar on the Write Post panel with a lightweight jQuery WordPress Plugin which turns any textarea into a customizable markup editor for code syntax writing. PhotoJAR: Post Thumbnail WordPress Plugin requires PhotoJAR: Base to work. It displays a post thumbnail for posts with galleries automatically. 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 interesting WordPress tips I ve uncovered: How to Add Google Reader Subscriptions to a WordPress Page Finding Your CSS Styles in WordPress Opening Links in New Windows Author Description Outside the WordPress Main Loop 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 . WordPress.com News WordPress.com August 2008 Stats: The August Wrap-Up for statistics on WordPress.com included 286,860 blogs created, 298,655 new users, 3,442,638 file uploads, 439 terabytes of content transferred from our datacenters, 6,750,960 comments, and 1,196,661 active blogs and 14,056,683 active posts. WordPress.com also crossed four million blogs this past week. They are anticipating the 5 million mark coming up very soon at this rate. New Theme for WordPress.com Members: WordPress.com announced the Albeo Theme for WordPress.com bloggers designed by Elena at Design Disease. WordPress Community News Hack WordPress Looking for Guest Bloggers: Hack WordPress is looking for guest bloggers to write technical articles on using WordPress. WordPress 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 WordPress Shop 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 WordPress Codex, 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 WordPress Ideas section. Looking for a WordPress Expert? If you are looking for a WordPress expert, try the WordPress Consultants list from Automattic, 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 Automattic and WordPress. 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 Wednesday News: WordCamp 2008, Copy and Paste in WordPress iPhone, Count Your Comments, WordCamp South Africa WordPress Wednesday News: WordCamp 2008, WordPress Rules the UK, and WordPress Plugin News WordPress Wednesday News: WordPress 2.7, WordCamp News, 2.6.1 Beta Released WordPress Wednesday News: WordPress iPhone Upgraded, WordCamp San Francisco Registration, Simon Dickson Rocked the UK, WordPress Theme Directory, and 201,000 Blogs Using WordPress 2.6 WordPress Wednesday News: iPhone, 10 Downing Street, WordCamp UK, WordPress 2.6 Rocks, WordPress International, and WordPress Themes Directory WordPress News Sources WordPress Planet WordPress Development Blog WordPress.com Blog Weblog Tools Collection The WordPress Podcast Lorelle on WordPress Planet WordPress from Planet Ozh WordPress Publisher Blog Planet WordPress Canada If You Are Reading This: If you are reading this blog post NOT on the Blog Herald 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 Blog Herald 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: Possibly Related PostsWordPress Wednesday News: WordCamp South Africa, World of WordCamps, Blaming WordPress, and Crazyhorse GallopsWordPress Wednesday News: WordCamp 2008, Copy and Paste in WordPress iPhone, Count Your Comments, WordCamp South AfricaWordPress Wednesday News: WordCamp 2008, WordPress Rules the UK, and WordPress Plugin News

The release of Movable Type 4.2 seems to have breathed new life into the Movable Type community as today s post will reveal. The past week gave us a series of new proposals from the open source community (covering topics from new and deprecated templates tags to major code refactors), a number of new plugins (including several Action Stream plugins) and a slew of tutorials! Welcome to Movable Type Monday! Plugins Cumulus: Cumulus displays tags in a rotating sphere with a user being able to control the direction and speed of the sphere. This looks like a really cool new take on the traditional, sometimes boring, tag clouds! Kudos to Steve Springett who ported Roy Tanck s original Cumulus plugin. Praized: From Praized Media, their namesake plugin calls itself local search in a box and comes pre-loaded with over 17 million US and Canadian local business listings. The plugin comes in two parts - the first dubbed Community allows you to add these local search functionality to your blog while the second, named Publishing Tool, allows you to tie your blog posts back to the local search. WidgetSetLoop: A new plugin from Hajime Fujimoto began as a proposal on the wiki and gives you a new block/container template tag that allows you to loop over the widgets that make up a widget set (as opposed to the WidgetSet tag which simply displays the entire widget set). Action Stream Plugins: What would a Movable Type Monday post be without new Action Stream plugins. This week we have plugins from Mike T and Yves Luther: Rejaw - creates an action stream of the latest shouts from Rejaw Disqus - creates a stream of comments you ve posted on blogs that use Disqus coComment - like the Disqus action stream plugin, this plugin creates a stream of comments you ve posted on blogs that use coComment Slashdot - aggregates comments posted on Slashdot 12seconds.tv - creates an action stream from video updates posted to 12seconds.tv and also stores the thumbnail and video URL to allow you to actually display the video in your stream Reddit - extends the built in Reddit support to add support for action streaming. Thanks Yves and Mike! This is the reason that Action Streams has quickly become my favourite plugin! Tutorials Over the last couple of weeks, there have also been a number of great tutorials to tricking out your action streams: Action Streams Grouping: Yves Luther tackled the problem of repetitive action streams (for example if you ve uploaded a large number of photos to Flickr, you don t want each photo to be presented in a separate stream). In his tutorial, Yves has a snippet of code that allows you to group together streams that have extremely close timestamps. Richard Benson followed this with his own take on collating action streams. Hot! Custom Display Based on Stream/Service: Richard also wrote a tutorial describing how to change what the action stream displays based on the content or from which service it originates (for example displaying a thumbnail of videos from YouTube, or images from flickr). Action Streams Field List: I wish I had this tutorial a few weeks back! Action Streams provides a StreamActionVar template tag but it s very hard to find the names of the variables this template tag can output. Richard stepped in which his article, listing the variables available with all the action stream services! Thank you Richard!! Proposals With the launch of the open source version of Movable Type, one of the ways the community began to play a much larger role in the direction of the product was by writing proposals on the wiki. The last week gave rise to a number of exciting new proposals: Major Code Refactoring: Mark Stosberg and Tim Appnel renewed a discussion on the MTOS-dev mailing list about refactoring Movable Type s core infrastructure to use more of the open source code found on CPAN. The discussion highlighted the pros - amongst others, getting more Perl developers interested in Movable Type - and the cons - how do we maintain compatibility for plugins - which led to the creation of two proposals: The first is the Project Roadmap which attempts to better define, at a high level, the direction of the code (with the objective being a leaner code base that is less reliant on homegrown code). The project plan details how such a large refactoring could occur and also discusses the effects on existing and future users. As part of the first step, Mark proposed the QueryObjectRefactor. Defining Prerequistes in the Registry: As a developer, one of my favourite new features of Movable Type 4 was a new registry - a central location to store configuration properties. Byrne Reese proposed updating the registry to allow plugins to define prerequisites (as some plugins only work under specific versions of Movable Type, or rely on another plugin e.g. Action Streams). FogBugz Reorg: Early last week, Chris Hall announced a reorganization of the public bug tracker to streamline the bumps Six Apart and the community experienced with bug reporting during the MT 4.2 cycle (in particular with the fact that it was hard for the community to get an insight into bugs with the non-open-source part of Movable Type). Possibly Related PostsMovable Type Monday: Movable Type 4.2, Pro, Mid Century Theme, Tutorials Galore!Movable Type Monday: Considering Security and Beta Test UpdatesMovable Type gets social with Pro version, built on MT 4.2

It s been a while since I last posted a Movable Type Monday (and during that time, I ve been in three different countries!) and there s been a lot of Movable Type activity! Most importantly, Movable Type 4.2 was released and introduced one of the largest licensing changes since the MT 3.0 debacle - the introduction of Movable Type Pro, what used to be two separate products (the professional pack and community solution) is now one, and is free for bloggers (which is another way of saying unincorporated entities ). Movable Type Pro lets you turn any site into a full social publishing platform, combining all of Movable Type s abilities as a blogging and CMS with social networking features like profiles, ratings, user registration, forums, following, and more. Another, less obvious, change was with the open source side - the name Movable Type Open Source seemed to generate a lot of confusion for new users and so, in an attempt to make things simpler, has been renamed to simply Movable Type. Movable Type 4.2 was shortly followed by 4.21 after the community found and helped patch two important bugs that surfaced with 4.2. None-the-less, the response from the community has been overwhelmingly positive! Community Updates Aggregating Content Screencast: With the popularity of the Action Streams plugin, one frequent question is How do I aggregate/collate action streams with entries from all my blogs? Last week, Nick O Neill published a screencast that gives us an answer to this question by using Mark Paschal s new Order plugin DevLounge Tutorials: Billy Mabray has been posting a number of Movable Type articles on The Blog Herald s sister site, DevLounge: Making an entry sticky - an often requested feature is the ability to make an entry sticky - i.e. to keep it at the top of your blog. With some sample code, Billy shows you how to go about this. Evergreen Blogs - using Kevin Shay s DateTags plugin, Billy shows you how to place less emphasis on the dates entries were posted on (something ProBlogger discussed the benefits of). Thumbnails in Search - with this tutorial, Billy shows you how to modify the search results template to display a thumbnail of an image you may have used in your entry. Mid Century Theme: Last week, Jim Ramsey released one of the most gorgeous themes ( template sets in Movable Type language) I ve ever seen, Mid Century. Not only does it look stunning but, as a template set, it is also heavy on features with ajax commenting, a jQuery gallery widget, and a refreshingly unique way of displaying (otherwise boring) archives. On his personal blog, Jim has also been posting code snippets that guide you through things like adding a top-nav, changing the logo and the gallery widget. mixiComment: As Dave Recordon explains, mixi is Japan s most popular social network and with the new mixiComment plugin, allows mixi users to sign in with their mixi account to comment on Movable Type blogs. This closely follows a similar announcements made last month to allow Facebook integration with Movable Type (a plugin I can t wait for!). Templets: Movable Type developer extraordinaire Hirotaka Ogawa released a new plugin called Templets which seems to be an interesting new take on managing and installing templates. Until now, installing and updating templates have been a bothersome task with a lot of cut-and-paste. But from now, Templets provides a turn-key solution to install any templates into your blogs. Entry Image: A new plugin from Mike T gives you a way of associating an image asset with an entry. Mike also gives us a template tag recipe that illustrates how he uses it on his themes blog Possibly Related PostsMovable Type Monday: Poll Position, Photo Galleries and TinyMCEMovable Type Monday: Action Streams, FriendFeed, Greyhound, RC3Movable Type Monday: MTOS Security, Seesmic and Plurk integration

I m still reeling and processing all the exciting events associated with WordCamp 2008 in San Francisco. Saturday was packed with so many of the best speakers - the best of the best in blogging, SEO, WordPress, PHP, Theme and Plugin development - it was blogging and WordPress overload. Today s conferences and events are true definitions of information overload and blogs and social media play important roles in the over-abundance of input. They are also part of the new online social networking surge, allowing attendees to share their experience of the event with the world through various media and social networks. While attending the conference and afterward, there was so much information being shared on different services - it was difficult to keep up. Many were live blogging the WordCamp event on their blogs while others were using Twitter, Tumblr, and other microblog services to share the event. Many were also discussing the event on Twitter, Pounce, Plurk, and other social services. It used to be that event coordinators would put most of their energies into the event specifics, corrdinating speakers, attendees, social functions, and logistics. Today s events must also prepare and monitor the online world to help coordinate and track discussions, news, and feedback before, during, and after the event. Here are some of the coverage from different services about WordCamp 2008 in San Francisco, a mere sampling of all the coverage. WordCamp 2008 Live Blogging and Blog Reports Scavenger Hunt Team for WordCamp 2008 in San Francisco The WordCamp Report with Patrick Havens Andrew Mager from ZDNet.com Live Blogging of WordCamp 2008 TechCrunch reported on The State of WordPress 2008 CNet Live Blogging of WordCamp 2008 by Dan Farber Matt Mullenweg - WordCamp and Scavenger Hunt Photos Stewtopia - Wordcamp SF 2008 Follow Up Stewtopia - Wordcamp SF 2008 Pictures duane storey - WordPress 2008 Live Blog In San Francisco WordCamp 2008 : WordPress SEO Mistakes We All Make AllThingsD - WordCamp 2008 San Francisco CN Reviews - WordCamp 2008: WordPress SEO Mistakes We All Make David Fiedler: Infobahn Warrior - LiveBlogging at WordCamp 2008! Earth 911 - WordCamp 2008 EduBloggin’ The Crowd at WordCamp Raanan Bar-Cohen - WordCamp SF 2008 Coverage WordPress Philippines - WordCamp 2008 live coverage Alan Levine aka CogDog - WordCamp Takeaways WordCamp 2008 San Francisco - Great Fun. Pictures Don’t Lie. Red Pill - Another Successful WordCamp Wraps Up Speakers Slide Shows and Presentation Notes The speakers at WordCamp helped attendees and lurkers experience their WordCamp talks by sharing their notes, slides, and video of their programs. Alan Levine speaking on The Future of Education and WP (Slides on Flickr) (blog post) (audio) Noel Jackson speaking on Color Theory and the Making of Monotone (Slides) Lorelle VanFossen speaking on 260 Ways to Break WordPress (Slides) Tantek Çelik speaking on WordPress and Microformats: Past, Present, Future Aaron Brazell speaking on Search and Findability (Findability Abwc2008 Slides) Toni Schneider speaking on WordPress Consulting - getting paid for your WP skills Sam Bauers speaking on Hassle-free Upgrades Stephan Spencer speaking on SEO Mistakes Most Bloggers Make (PPT) Andy Peatling speaking on State of BuddyPress (Slides) Joseph Scott speaking on WordPress APIs — iPhone and Beyond! (Slides) Stephen O’Grady speaking on Open Source business models (slides) Will Norris speaking on DiSo, OAuth, and more (slides) Mark Jaquith speaking on Secure Coding with WordPress (Slides) (blog post) Emil Ong speaking on Quercus — PHP in Java (Slides) Jeremy Clarke speaking on Democratizing the Web through Global Voices Ben Huh Presentation on Virality (pdf) You can find more slides at SlideShare, and videos should soon be on Viddler. WordCamp 2008 on Twitter During Matt Mullenweg s State of the Word presentation, I blogged it live on Twitter, which stirred up a lot of interest in the event from around the world. I wasn t alone. Many had WordCamp discussions about the conference, about the speakers, and between themselves throughout the course of the day. Some even tweeted asking where I was in the room and asking questions, which meant my attention was constantly torn between the speakers, the attendees, my responsibilities at the event, and my computer s announcements of Twitter activity all day long. Nathan Rice even uploaded a twitpic of me giving my presentation on Twitter. To track WordCamp discussions on Twitter, try these: Live Twitter Updates Twitter Search for WordCamp and SF TweetScan for WordCamp Twitag for #wordcamp Some of those covering WordCamp on Twitter included: Andrew Mager Lorelle on WordPress (lorelleonwp) AntonioCapo laughingsquid acnatta Andy Peatling billerickson byrnereese daveman692 drumgit emily chang geodog nathanrice numberless olivermarks photomatt stewtopia technosailor thorpus Justin Thorp acnatta hollyhagen marianne_m melattree morganb secretsushi SocialTNT speedenglish thePuck cogdog Flickr Images of WordCamp 2008 Matt Mullenweg at WordCamp 2008 in San FranciscoFlickr was working overtime for WordCamp 2008. Between Friday night s pre-conference social events, the day long conference, and the WordPress Charity Scavenger Hunt, Flickr was on fire from WordPress Community uploads. Here are some of the tags with images of WordCamp 2008 in San Francisco on Flickr that I found: scavengerhunt wordcamp wordcamp08 wordcampsf2008 wordpress wpscavengerhunt wordcamp08 wordcamp2008 Here are some of the many WordPress fans with WordCamp 2008 photographs uploaded to Flickr: borkazoid Daniel Brusilovsky Dennis Goedegebuure dotben Duane Storey itselea foreverdigital gohlkus Patrick Havens Heather R. laughinglizard misterbisson Mark Jaquith photorealizm niallkennedy cpugsley seanosh sheilaellen Randy Stewart sukibean Technosailor Cogdog WordCamp 2008 on Technorati While many aren t using tags as often as was hoped, Technorati still found some WordCamp tags to index, including videos from YouTube tags. Technorati Tag for wordcamp2008 Technorati Tag for wordcampsf2008 Technorati Tag for wordcamp Technorati Video Tags for wordcamp Technorati Video Tags for wordcampsf2008 WordCamp on YouTube Chuck Lewis, the SEO Rapper continues to get a lot of attention and he was the hit of WordCamp 2008. Many uploaded video of his SEO and WordPress raps to YouTube: SEO Rapper At WordCamp SF 2008 Chuck Lewis, SEO Rapper at WordCamp 2008 WordCamp SF 2008 intro SEO Rapper at WordCamp SF 2008 New Wordpress Rap SEO Rapper at WordCamp SF 2008 Social Media Rap Matt Mullenweg and Chuck the SEO Rapper WordCamp 2008 Interview with SEO Rapper at WordCamp SF 2008 SEO Rapper 2 SEO Rapper Some other speakers and activities at WordCamp 2008 were also uploaded to YouTube: WordCamp , Kittens and Geeks in Parks! Matt Mullenweg gives WordCamp Philippines props Ma.tt (Matt Mullenweg) WordCamp SF 2008 Welcome Finding WordCamp 2008 All Over the Web WordCamp 2008 in San Francisco was everywhere around the web. I just couldn t keep up. There were so many tags to track the event, though wordcampsf2008 and wordcamp2008 were the most popular. Did you find some favorite social networks or services that helped you track what was going on with WordCamp? Next time you plan your next event, or attend one, make sure you add all the various social networks and services by keyword and tag for your event to your feed reader so you can keep up with all the online discussions. Possibly Related PostsWordPress Wednesday News: WordCamp 2008, Copy and Paste in WordPress iPhone, Count Your Comments, WordCamp South AfricaWordCamp 2008 CoverageWordPress Wednesday News: WordCamp 2008, WordPress Rules the UK, and WordPress Plugin News

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 Weblog Tools Collection 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, Liz Strauss, 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 WordCamp 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: Global Voices - Democratising the Web with WordPress Lorelle at WordCamp 2008 - 260 Ways to Break WordPress WordPress APIs Color Theory and the Making of Monotone Quercus WordCamp 2008 Secure Coding with WordPress - WordCamp SF 2008 (blog post) BuddyPress @ WordCamp WordPress + OAuth Make Cash. Using Open Source. And WordPress. Findability Abwc2008 (blog post) 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). The Dallas/Ft. Worth Area WordPress August Meetup - August 23, 2008 WordCamp South Africa - Cape Town - August 23, 2008 Copenhagen, Hovedstaden WordPress Meetup - August 24, 2008 The New York City WordPress August Meetup - New York - August 26, 2008 Central Coast WordPress Meetup - Pismo Beach, California - Aug 30, 2008 WordCamp Philippines - September 6, 2008 The Boston WordPress September Meetup - September 18, 2008 Blog World Expo, Vegas - September 20-21, 2008 WordCamp China - Beijing - September 20-21, 2008 WordCamp Utah - Provo, Utah - September 27, 2008 WordCamp Birmingham - Alabama - September 27, 2008 WordCamp Portland, Oregon - September 27, 2008 WordCamp New York - New York - October 4, 2008 WordCampRDU - Raleigh/Durham, North Carolina - Oct 4, 2008 WordCamp Toronto - October 4-5, 2008 Podcamp and WordCamp Hawaii - Oct 24, 2008 MinneWordCamp - Minneapolis - November 15, 2008 WordCamp Australia - Sydney - December 6-7, 2008 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 List of Links of Where Did They Go From Here Updated: Where Did They Go From Here WordPress Plugin by Weblog Tools Collection 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: Atahualpa deLight WP-Andreas01 Journalist Dum-Dum 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. 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? Weblog Tools Collection 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. Here are some interesting WordPress tips I ve uncovered: How You Can Use WordPress Functions to Run a Smarter Blog Quick Online Tips: How to Add Gravatars to WordPress Themes Making Better Use of Your Error “404? Page Inserting images full-sized in WordPress.com Recover WordPress Password When You Have Forgotten It 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 . WordPress.com News WordPress.com Press This Added: The Press This Bookmarklet has been added to WordPress.com 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 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 WordPress Shop 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 WordPress Codex, 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 WordPress Ideas section. Looking for a WordPress Expert? If you are looking for a WordPress expert, try the WordPress Consultants list from Automattic, 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 Automattic and WordPress. 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 Wednesday News: WordCamp 2008, WordPress Rules the UK, and WordPress Plugin News WordPress Wednesday News: WordPress 2.7, WordCamp News, 2.6.1 Beta Released WordPress Wednesday News: WordPress iPhone Upgraded, WordCamp San Francisco Registration, Simon Dickson Rocked the UK, WordPress Theme Directory, and 201,000 Blogs Using WordPress 2.6 WordPress Wednesday News: iPhone, 10 Downing Street, WordCamp UK, WordPress 2.6 Rocks, WordPress International, and WordPress Themes Directory WordPress Wednesday News: WordCamps in Africa and China, WordPress 2.6, WordPress Plugin Contest Ready for Votes, WordCamp UK, and More WordPress News WordPress News Sources WordPress Planet WordPress Development Blog WordPress.com Blog Weblog Tools Collection The WordPress Podcast Lorelle on WordPress Planet WordPress from Planet Ozh WordPress Publisher Blog Planet WordPress Canada If You Are Reading This: If you are reading this blog post NOT on the Blog Herald 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 Blog Herald 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: Possibly Related PostsWordPress Wednesday News: WordCamp 2008, WordPress Rules the UK, and WordPress Plugin NewsWordPress Wednesday News: iPhone, 10 Downing Street, WordCamp UK, WordPress 2.6 Rocks, WordPress International, and WordPress Themes DirectoryWordPress Wednesday News: WordPress 2.7, WordCamp News, 2.6.1 Beta Released

WordCamp 2008 in San Francisco is this weekend and WordPressers are flying in from around the world to attend the big event. Look for them prowling around San Francisco in a fundraising Scavenger Hunt on Sunday! WordPress is now running the British government, with WP Super Cache supporting it. Vote now for your favorite WordPress Plugin. Learn the secrets behind the new WordPress Theme Directory. WordCamp Utah speakers announced. Lots of news about WordPress Plugins. And more! WordPress News WordPress Rules the British Government: As has been widely reported, number10.gov.uk for Number 10 Downing Street, home of the British Primer Minister s office, is run with WordPress. Donncha is excited for that, but mostly because they are using his WP Super Cache WordPress Plugin to handle the traffic load smoothly fairly well. Weblog Tools Collection WordPress Plugin Competition - VOTE NOW! Have you voted yet? Get your vote in for your favorite in the WordPress Plugin Competition. There are some top notch Plugins included, and Ozh has written his review of the entrants in part one and part two of the competition, giving you insights into which are the ones he likes and why, and things WordPress Plugin authors can learn along the way to improve their Plugins. WordPress 2.6.1 Beta 2 Released: Last week, the beta 1 version of WordPress 2.6.1 was released, and WordPress 2.6.1 Beta 2 is out this week. Ryan Boren reports that the first draft of the automatic upgrade is in the truck for the next major release of WordPress: It is hairy, ill-tempered and eats kittens. You can use it to automatically upgrade to each nightly build if you are brave. Don’t use it on blogs you want to keep. WordPress Theme Directory Revealed: In an interview with Matt Mullenweg and Joseph Scott about the WordPress Themes Directory with Theme Shaper, they reveal some of the goodies coming up soon with the new repository for WordPress Themes, including the news that if you want to get exposure for your Theme in the upcoming WordPress 2.7 release that will access the directory through the Themes Panel, you better get your Theme in the directory! WordPress iPhone: The WordPress iPhone is now at version 1.1 with a lot of improvements and a couple bug fixes. You can learn more about it on the WordPress iPhone Development Blog and study the source code on the WordPress iPhone SVN. Got an Idea for a WordPress Plugin? Blue Fur is looking for WordPress Plugin requests from the WordPress Community of fans, collecting suggestions for Plugins they can develop. Some interesting Plugins have been mentioned, but be really specific in your requests so they and all of us watching know what your intension and usage is for the suggested Plugin. Any other Plugin experts taking requests? WP-Vote: WP-Vote is a new Digg-style site by Jean-Baptiste Jung to help support the WordPress Community by submitting WordPress-related stories and voting upon them. WordPressMU 2.6 Released: WordPressMU 2.6 has been released and Donncha offers details on the improvements, including bringing it up to WordPress 2.6 specs. 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: WordPress 2.7, WordCamp News, 2.6.1 Beta Released. WordPress Podcasts WordPress Podcast: The WordPress Podcast: Episode 44 includes news and information on the release of WordPress 2.6, the WordPress iPhone, XML-RPC controversy, and an exclusive interview with Woopra co-founders, Elie Khoury and Jad Younan and their Woopra WordPress Plugin. WordCast Podcast: WordCast 24: Non-blog Blog with Beth Skinner, Kym Huynh and Dave Moyer featured WordPress 2.7 news, tag clouds, WordPress.com 24/7 support, using WordPress as a CMS, what defines a blog, delicious, and more WordPress news, Plugins, and tips. WordPress on Your Calendar WordPressers Invade San Francisco: WordCamp 2008 is bringing WordPress fans from around the world to San Francisco. The line up of speakers for the one-day event includes the best of the best. There will also be a WordPress Genius Bar to get personal one-on-one WordPress help and advice, and a special fundraising charity event on Sunday called the WordPress Charity Scavenger Hunt. There are a few spaces left, so register now for WordCamp 2008. Hope to see you there. WordCamp Utah: WordCamp Utah is now open for registration for the September 27, 2008, event. The speaker schedule is out with some top speakers including Matt Mullenweg, Richard Miller, Cameron Moll, Thom Allen, Ash Buckles and Alex King. The rest of the WordPress pros will be at WordCamp Portland the same weekend. :D Okay, I ll be at WordCamp Portland. 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). WordPress Meetup UK North Northern Bloggers - Leeds Met - Aug 15, 2008 WordCamp San Francisco 2008 at Mission Bay Conference Center at UCSF - August 16, 2008 WordPress Charity Scavenger Hunt - San Francisco - Aug 17, 2008 The New York City WordPress August Meetup - August 16, 2008 The Boston WordPress August Meetup - August 21, 2008 The Dallas/Ft. Worth Area WordPress August Meetup - August 23, 2008 WordCamp South Africa - Cape Town - August 23, 2008 The New York City WordPress August Meetup - New York - August 26, 2008 Central Coast WordPress Meetup - Pismo Beach, California - Aug 30, 2008 WordCamp Philippines - September 6, 2008 Blog World Expo, Vegas - September 20-21, 2008 WordCamp China - Beijing - September 20-21, 2008 WordCamp Utah - Provo, Utah - September 27, 2008 WordCamp Birmingham - Alabama - September 27, 2008 WordCamp Portland, Oregon - September 27, 2008 WordCamp New York - New York - October 4, 2008 WordCampRDU - Raleigh/Durham, North Carolina - Oct 4, 2008 WordCamp Toronto - October 4-5, 2008 Podcamp and WordCamp Hawaii - Oct 24, 2008 MinneWordCamp - Minneapolis - November 15, 2008 WordCamp Australia - Sydney - December 6-7, 2008 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 Security News WP Contact Form: BlogSecurity reports vulnerabilities in the popular WP Contact Form. Recommended deactivate the Plugin until it is fixed and updated. WP Downloads Manager Security Vulnerability: BlogSecurity also reported that the WP Downloads Manager WordPress Plugin has a security vulnerability and should be discontinued until a fix is published. WordPress Plugins and Themes News 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. Jacob Santos Finishes the WP-Admin Directory Inline Documentation: A long but worthwhile project, Jacob Santos is finishing the WP-Admin Directory Inline Documentation for the WordPress core programing, helping current and future WordPress users, coders, Plugin and Theme authors figure out what all this means under the hood. Thanks, Jacob, to you and your team. Well done! Also see WordPress Inline Documentation site with PHPdocumentor and the WordPress Codex Function Reference for more inline documentation resources. Custom Actions in WordPress Plugins: Nerdaphernalia writes about how to use custom actions in your WordPress Plugins that go beyond hiding the Plugin if it is deactivated. Have you explored all the custom actions your Plugin can take to make it even more powerful and flexible? Admin Drop Down Menus Updated: planetOzh reports an update to his popular Admin Drop Down Menu WordPress Plugin, one of my favorites. The Plugin converts all the Administration Panels into drop down menus. Instead of clicking one tab at a time to drill down to the various panels, move your mouse across the menus and select the subpage panel tab of your choice. It works with the latest version of WordPress. Fixing the Pagination of Query Posts: Kafkaesqui helped StylizedWeb fix a problem with the query_posts() pagination feature which puts bak the page navigation when using the function for customization of your various multi-post page views. If you are having a problem, check out the post for some great tips on this aspect of the function. WordPress Meets Disqus: DISQUS WordPress Plugin has been updated for handling comments with Disqus, an external comment system. The new version will allow importing of old comments and moderation from within the WordPress Administration Panels, and synchronization between Disqus and WordPress. Interesting WordPress Plugins: WP Microsummary Comment Track WordPress Plugin displays the number of approved, pending, and spam comments on your WordPress blog. Scheduled Post Shift Plugin for WordPress automatically updates your oldest post and regenerates it as the latest post on your WordPress blog to shine new light on your old posts. Customization includes setting the schedule between rotating periods. Breadcrumb Titles For Pages WordPress Plugin modifies the wp_title() function which creates the title of your web page to output all parent Pages when viewing a Page on a WordPress blog. It doesn t impact the rest of the pageviews. 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 interesting WordPress tips I ve uncovered: Perishable Press: WordPress Tip: Link Author Comments to the Home Page Create a Flash Arcade site using WordPress WordPress Hacks: Build a Web Directory How To Display Most Popular Tags In WordPress Using the WP_TAG_CLOUD Function 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 . WordPress.com News WordPress.com Members Invited to WordCamp San Francisco: Matt Mullenweg made a invitation to all WordPress.com members to join other WordPress fans at WordCamp San Francisco 2008 on August 16 and for the WordPress Charity Scavenger Hunt. WordPress.com Gets Improved Stats Charts: WordPress.com reports improvement in their stats charts, fixing a bug long past due which allows charts to display days with zero pageviews. They ve also added similar charts for the Referrers, Search Terms, and Clicks. WordPress.com Now 24/7 Support: WordPress.com announced full-time 24-7 member support. You got a problem, they are there for you, no matter what time zone or time. Response time is about 24 hours, though usually it is less than that. The WordPress.com Forums continues to provide help and support for members by members and staff, and is also a great place to meet fellow WordPress.com members. WordPress Community News WordPress Facebook: Fan of WordPress? Check out the WordPress on Facebook fan page and join the fun! Looking Back Into the History of WordPress: Keith Dsouza of Weblog Tools Collection shares Evolution of WordPress: B2/Cafelog to WordPress 1.0 , a history lesson on how WordPress grew out of B2/Cafelog in the early days. Get Your WordPress Mug: I love my new WordPress mug. Go get yours at the WordPress Shop along with t-shirts and hoodies. Don t want to buy one? Enter the WordCast Mugshot Contest and you could win one, alone with some other fun schwag. A lot of blogs are offering WordPress mugs for prizes. Why not you? Found a Bug in WordPress? If you find a bug in WordPress, report it by following the instructions in Reporting Bugs on the WordPress Codex, 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 WordPress Ideas section. Looking for a WordPress Expert? If you are looking for a WordPress expert, try the WordPress Consultants list from Automattic, 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 Automattic and WordPress. 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 Wednesday News: WordPress 2.7, WordCamp News, 2.6.1 Beta Released WordPress Wednesday News: WordPress iPhone Upgraded, WordCamp San Francisco Registration, Simon Dickson Rocked the UK, WordPress Theme Directory, and 201,000 Blogs Using WordPress 2.6 WordPress Wednesday News: iPhone, 10 Downing Street, WordCamp UK, WordPress 2.6 Rocks, WordPress International, and WordPress Themes Directory WordPress Wednesday News: WordCamps in Africa and China, WordPress 2.6, WordPress Plugin Contest Ready for Votes, WordCamp UK, and More WordPress News WordPress Wednesday News: WordCamps in Australia and Hawaii, Security Check Plugin, Google Gears, Lots of Plugin News and Tips, WordPress 2.6 News, and If Not WordPress, What? WordPress News Sources WordPress Planet WordPress Development Blog WordPress.com Blog Weblog Tools Collection The WordPress Podcast Lorelle on WordPress Planet WordPress from Planet Ozh WordPress Publisher Blog Planet WordPress Canada If You Are Reading This: If you are reading this blog post NOT on the Blog Herald 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 Blog Herald 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: Possibly Related PostsWordPress Wednesday News: WordPress 2.7, WordCamp News, 2.6.1 Beta ReleasedWordPress Wednesday News: iPhone, 10 Downing Street, WordCamp UK, WordPress 2.6 Rocks, WordPress International, and WordPress Themes DirectoryWordPress Wednesday News: WordCamps in Africa and China, WordPress 2.6, WordPress Plugin Contest Ready for Votes, WordCamp UK, and More WordPress News

WordPress 2.6.1 Beta released for testing. Rumors fly about WordPress 2.7. Go vote for your favorite in the WordPress Plugin Competition. Lots of news for WordPress.com members including iPhone access, tags, Theme updates, image captioning, and statistics. Tons of WordCamps and WordPress Meetups around the world announced. September will be a record breaker for WordCamps. WordCamp San Francisco features hot speakers and a scavenger hunt for charity. WordPress News WordPress Mailing List: For those on the WordPress Announcement Mailing List, Matt Mullenweg sent out an announcement about WordPress 2.6, WordPressMU s latest update, WordPress for iPhone, the new WordPress Theme Directory, and WordCamp San Francisco, among other WordPress news. Weblog Tools Collection WordPress Plugin Competition - VOTE NOW! Have you voted yet? Get your vote in for your favorite in the WordPress Plugin Competition. There are some top notch Plugins included, and Ozh has written his review of the entrants in the competition, giving you insights into which are the ones he likes and why. WordPress 2.6.1 Beta 1 Released: The beta 1 version of WordPress 2.6.1 has been released with more than 50 fixes, including a fix for IE users for Press This. Testers are encouraged to put it through its paces as the goal is to release WordPress 2.6.1 in time for WordCamp 2008 on August 16. New features and fixes include allowing password disabling reset per user, WordPress authentication of the Atom API, the post_status now allows query functions for values separated by commas, and more security improvements. WordPress 2.7 Talk: There have been a few posts offering first looks at WordPress 2.7 due to the publishing of the WordPress Codex page for WordPress 2.7 which lists a want list of features as well as features being developed for the next major version of WordPress. Hack WordPress, Weblog Tools Collection, Quick Online Tips, and many others jumped on the band wagon. The list will evolve over time, so stay tuned for more specifics from the WordPress development team. WordPress 2.7 Real News: While there are a lot of rumors flying around about what features will be in WordPress 2.7, Jacob Santos shares some insights into the Plugin installer/uninstall methods now in the trunk of WordPress 2.7. The need to cleanly uninstall WordPress Plugins has been discussed a lot over the past year and hopefully that will be the version to embrace this feature. Also, work has started on the XML-RPC Comments API development. WordPress Facebook: Fan of WordPress? Check out the WordPress on Facebook fan page and join the fun! WordPress iPhone: The WordPress iPhone is now at version 1.1 with a lot of improvements and a couple bug fixes. You can learn more about it on the WordPress iPhone Development Blog and study the source code on the WordPress iPhone SVN. WordPress 2.6 Released: WordPress 2.6 was released a couple weeks ago. Make sure you upgrade immediately as this version includes security improvements and great new features. ATTENTION WordPress 2.5 Branch No Longer Supported: The announcement of the release of WordPress 2.6 came with the news that WordPress 2.5 will no longer be supported. It is nearly identical to the new version and has little impact on Themes and Plugins. WordPress Theme Directory Submissions: Matt Mullenweg reports that more than 300 WordPress Themes have been added to the new WordPress Theme Directory in the first 6 days. Jeff Chandler of Performancing offers a guided tour of the new WordPress Theme Directory. WordPressMU 2.6 Released: WordPressMU 2.6 has been released and Donncha offers details on the improvements, including bringing it up to WordPress 2.6 specs. 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: WordPress iPhone Upgraded, WordCamp San Francisco Registration, Simon Dickson Rocked the UK, WordPress Theme Directory, and 201,000 Blogs Using WordPress 2.6. WordPress Podcasts WordPress Podcast: The WordPress Podcast: Episode 44 includes news and information on the release of WordPress 2.6, the WordPress iPhone, XML-RPC controversy, and an exclusive interview with Woopra co-founders, Elie Khoury and Jad Younan and their Woopra WordPress Plugin. WordCast Podcast: WordCast 24: Non-blog Blog with Beth Skinner, Kym Huynh and Dave Moyer featured WordPress 2.7 news, tag clouds, WordPress.com 24/7 support, using WordPress as a CMS, what defines a blog, delicious, and more WordPress news, Plugins, and tips. WordPress on Your Calendar WordCamp San Francisco Next Weekend: WordCamp San Francisco has announced the line up of speakers for next weekend s one-day event. Using Gravatar in a new way for the first time, Andy Peatling is putting your Gravatar on the WordCamp badges for all the attendees. There will also be a WordPress Genius Bar to get personal one-on-one WordPress help and advice, and a special fundraising charity event on Sunday called the WordPress Charity Scavenger Hunt. There is still time to register for WordCamp 2008. Hope to see you there. WordCamp Utah: WordCamp Utah is now open for registration for the September 27, 2008, event. The speaker schedule is still being developed, and so far includes Matt Mullenweg, Richard Miller, Cameron Moll, Thom Allen, Ash Buckles and Alex King. The rest of the WordPress pros will be at WordCamp Portland the same weekend. :D Okay, I ll be at WordCamp Portland. 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). WordPress Meetup - London, England - Aug 13, 2008 WordPress Meetup UK North Northern Bloggers - Leeds Met - Aug 15, 2008 WordCamp San Francisco 2008 at Mission Bay Conference Center at UCSF - August 16, 2008 WordPress Charity Scavenger Hunt - San Francisco - Aug 17, 2008 The New York City WordPress August Meetup - August 16, 2008 The Boston WordPress August Meetup - August 21, 2008 The Dallas/Ft. Worth Area WordPress August Meetup - August 23, 2008 WordCamp South Africa - Cape Town - August 23, 2008 The New York City WordPress August Meetup - New York - August 26, 2008 Central Coast WordPress Meetup - Pismo Beach, California - Aug 30, 2008 WordCamp Philippines - September 6, 2008 Blog World Expo, Vegas - September 20-21, 2008 WordCamp China - Beijing - September 20-21, 2008 WordCamp Utah - Provo, Utah - September 27, 2008 WordCamp Birmingham - Alabama - September 27, 2008 WordCamp Portland, Oregon - September 27, 2008 WordCamp New York - New York - October 4, 2008 WordCampRDU - Raleigh/Durham, North Carolina - Oct 4, 2008 WordCamp Toronto - October 4-5, 2008 Podcamp and WordCamp Hawaii - Oct 24, 2008 MinneWordCamp - Minneapolis - November 15, 2008 WordCamp Australia - Sydney - December 6-7, 2008 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 Security News AskApache WordPress Hardening Plugin: BlogSecurity covered the new AskApache WordPress Hardening Plugin, a Plugin not for the average user but someone serious about keeping their WordPress blog protected from the server level up. WP Downloads Manager Security Vulnerability: BlogSecurity also reported that the WP Downloads Manager WordPress Plugin has a security vulnerability and should be discontinued until a fix is published. WordPress Plugins and Themes News Creating a WordPress Theme from Scratch With Help: Max Limpag has published an interesting tutorial on creating a WordPress Theme from scratch with Yahoo UI and Aptana to create the lovely and unusual web design at Tugkaran.com. This is an example of how you can build your own Theme from the ground up, with a little help from some powerful tools. Why reinvent the wheel? Don t Like the WordPress Theme Preview? Viper007bond has created the Disable Theme Preview WordPress Plugin so you can turn off the new feature in your WordPress 2.6+ Administration Panels. Nathan Rice s News WordPress Theme: Nathan Rice has written released the Proximity News Theme, premium Theme with some very innovative features to create a news style blog. He has put hundreds of hours into this design with interesting customization features like a smart home page, highly customizable sidebar, custom author Page templates, story thumbnails, clean search results Page, breadcrumb navigation, good category archives Pages, built-in Feedburner option, ability to exclude Pages from the blog navigation, post by category without duplication, easily embedded video code capability, ad space, and more. Premium Themes are starting to earn their premium qualification as designers like Rice push the boundaries of WordPress as a CMS. Inline Documentation for WordPress: Peter Westwood has created the WordPress Inline Documentation site with PHPdocumentor which outlines all the classes, functions, and more in WordPress. This is excellent for Theme and Plugin authors. This joins the ranks of other core programming functions and resources such as the WordPress Codex Function Reference. Peter Westwood also has a good guide on how to track deprecated functions for WordPress coders and extenders. Using Classes in WordPress Plugins: Stephen Rider of Nerdaphernalia wrote about how to use