Wordpress 2.1 and Redoable
So it’s finally here Wordpress 2.1 has been released upon the blogging world. With is come many new features, and enhancments that will hopefully improve the Wordpress experience. A few of the new/updated features include, autosaving of posts, new tabbed editor so you can eaisly flip between WYSIWYG and code modes, spell checking, more AJAX bits to reduce the number of page reloads. A full run-down of 2.1 feaures can be found here.
Some of the changes to 2.1 will undoubtably affect existing plugins and themes. Some of the added developer benefits include, a javascript loader which makes it easier for plugins to include rich functionality and tons of new hooks and APIs. So its time to check to make sure all of your favourite plugins are up-to-date, and that they are Wordpress 2.1 compatible.
Speaking of compatibilty, thats about the only thing left to do as far as Redoable 1.1 is concerned. I’ve now got the release version of 2.1 running locally, and I will spend the next little while testing Redoable. I’ve already found that the changes to how the Blogrll/links are categorised will require some small changes. There are a few things that I have been unable to fix for this release, mainly because I can’t replicate the problem, making it very hard to solve, but I’ll cover that in the next few days when I release Redoable 1.1.
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2007 Autobarn Livery Concept
Yet another livery I’ve been working on for a while, it’s a concept for one of the smaller teams in the V8 Supercar series, Autobarn Racing.
2007 TeamVodafone Livery Concept
Here is another livery concept that I’ve been working on for a while in my spare time. Finally took the time tonight to finish it off. It’s a concept for TeamVodafone (formerly Team Betta Electrical), who will reveal their actual 2007 Livery at their team launch in Sydney early next week.
Habari: next generation blogging
There is a brand new blogging platform thats just starting to poke its head above the horizon. Habari which is the Swahili word for ‘news’, is being built from the ground up by some well known names in the blogosphere. This is how its described on the Habari Google code site:
Habari represents a fresh start to the idea of blogging. The system is fast, easy to use, and easy to modify. New users should have no problem using and enjoying Habari. Advanced users should have no problem tweaking Habari to do exactly what they need it to do.
Habari relies on PHP5 with PHP Data Objects (PDO), and your choice of SQL database (MySQL, PostgreSQL, SQLite). Habari is strongly object oriented, and implements the full suite of the Atom Publishing Protocol. User-created plugins make Habari do nearly anything imaginable, and a robust theme system permits the use of several popular templating solutions.
The first mention of Habari, at leas the first I saw about it, was by Chris J Davis early in the new year when he announced that his blog was now powered by Habari. They have also set up the beginnings of a wiki as well as a couple of Google groups for those who are keen on being involved in the project in anyway. The source is currently available via svn for those who want to give it whirl, simple installation instructions can be found in the wiki. I setup up a copy on my dev server this afternoon, only took a couple of minutes.
Obviously there is still alot of development to go, but if you think you might have something to offer then have a look at joining the Google groups. Thats what I did, and I hope that I can contribute in some way to the development, even if its just small thing like bug testing etc.
One of the running discussion is regarding a logo for Habari. Several people have put forward there own suggestions, and I just could resist, I had to try something for myself. This is the first thing that came to mind while looking at some of the other suggestions.
Initially I really liked this idea, but the more I looked at it the more I could see other logos within it. For example, the speech bubbles inside the letter ‘a’, is very much like the old Vodafone logo. And while unintentional, the black and white version of the logo is similar in idea to the Wordpress logo. Habari really needs something a little more unique. This was my second shot which I whipped up this afternoon. There are a few variations.
Trying to move away from the “letter inside a circle”, but still using the letter ‘h’. I also tried to think of some sort of generic icon/logo that could be used instead. The only one that I was really happy with was the ‘asteriks’ which I added a touch of colour too…very Web 2.0…I also played around with a few font faces for logos. This combination was my favourite.
So maybe you’re tired of your current blogging platformand looking to try something fresh and exciting, or maybe you are just curious, as I was, and want to know more about this exciting new project. Check out the Habari site for more info.
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Plugins I use - Part 2
Here are some details on a couple more of the plugins that I use on this blog.
Brian’s Latest Comments
This is a plugin that seems to be inuse in many blogs, and it powers the ‘latest comments’ module on my site. What it does is pretty simple, it outputs a list of posts that have been commented on recently, tells you how many comment in total there on the post and lists the last five people who commented. The commenteres names link to their respective comments. Its a useful little plugin to show vivistors where the recent action might have been since their last visit. You can get it from here.
WP-PostRatings
Want to give readers the ability to tell you what they think of your posts, without them leaving a comment. WP-PostRatings allows readers to rate your posts out of five with this neat plugin. It allows you to add rating stars (other alternatives such as a simple bar are also available in the options) to posts and pages. The ratings are applied using a touch of AJAX so no page reloading is required. You get a log of stats in you admin panel to see an overall view of who’s been rating what. You can get it here.
WP-PostViews
This plugin is also from GaMerZ (who also released WP-PostRatings), and gives you a simple way of tracking how many views each of your posts and pages gets. Its certainly not a replacment for tools such as Google Analytics, but if you just want something to keep track of, and display post/page views then this plugin is a must. You can get it here.
Photos as attachments
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Search Provider plugin
http://www.neilang.com/search-provider/
This plugin will allows users of your blog to add your site to the list of search providers in their web browser. It has been designed to work with Firefox 2 and Internet Explorer 7.
Support forum is online
I’ve just finished setting up some simple support forums for Redoable 1.0 as well as for my two plugins, Rechuked Buttons 1.0 and Ultimate Cloud Category 1.0-beta. So if you have any questions about these be sure to use the new support forums. If you find a bug, let me know. If you want to see an extra feature, let me know. If you’d like you’re favourite plugin to be supported, let me know. I’m open to suggestions, comments, and even constructive criticism.
The Redoable Support Forums are powered by Vanilla 1.0.3, which is a relatively new open source, standards compliant discussion forum. It takes a slightly different approach to the more widely used vBulletin and phpbb forums, but it perfect for a small scale application like my support forums. Well worth a look.
2007 GRM Livery Concept
Here’s something else that I do to occupy my time. I design liveries for race cars, well I design the liveries that I would like to see anyway. They are just concepts, I just like to get my ideas out and onto the screen. This one is a concept for a Garry Rogers Motorsport VE V8 Supercar. For those international readers, V8 Supercars are kind of like DTM or NASCAR, bascially it’s the touring car championship here in Australia. Enough talk.
For those interested, I created this livery in Adobe Illustrator. Up until late last year I had done all my livery work in Paintshop Pro (like Photoshop but cheaper), but after a couple of Uni courses involving Illustrator its hard to go back.
