Category Archives: WordPress

PodPress and WordPress 2.6 Update Two

So it now looks like the PodPress forum has over a dozen pages of spam where there should be information about the development of the PodPress plugin. The last message from the plugin author on the forum was nearly three weeks ago explaining why the release of the new version was already a week late, meaning that we are now four weeks late with a new version of the plugin.

Will we ever see a new PodPress plugin? If the current state of the forum is any indication, I wouldn’t hold my breath. If you are having any issues that can be fixed through the dozens of simple patches that people have come up with, that might be your only option unless Automattic puts out an interim release based on the fix that they’ve created. Though from what I’ve heard, they would only do such a thing if all other forms of communication broke down.

Originally posted on August 30, 2008 @ 3:48 pm

Binary Bonsai Transitions to Habari

For those of you that don’t know my history with blogging, you might not know that Michael Heilemann was the person that got me interested in WordPress thanks to his blog, Binary Bonsai.

It showed me what WordPress could do in a design sense, and how useful the software could be, and as a result, I have always followed his site, and kept tabs on the projects he has worked on.

Today, his feed let the world know that he is moving his site from WordPress to Habari, a new blogging platform that he has helped design and develop.

Alright, listen up. Binary Bonsai has been powered by WordPress literally since its very first release. And as a consequence, I’ve been pretty involved with the WordPress community over time, especially these last few years with K2 (which is still in production I might add). But, while it has served me well for all of that time, to kick the carcase of the dead horse that is the girlfriend metaphor; we’ve grown apart. And today, I’m moving out of the apartment. So it’s goodbye WordPress and…

Hello Habari.

I have tried out Habari, back when it first came out, and while I was impressed, it wasn’t mature enough for me to really take a keen interest in it, but with its recent 0.5 release, many people are jumping back on board to see if Habari has the new “it thing” that many bloggers are looking for.

Currently, his blog looks relatively basic, which has been the presentational direction he has been heading in for a while, but I hope he adds his own stylistic touch to the site over the coming days, and also blesses the world with his transition guide, helping those interested in taking the leap know how he managed to move his extensive archive over to Habari, and get his blogging work flow back on track.

Will others now take the leap and join Michael in trying out Habari on their own main blogs? It is too early to tell, but this is definitely an interesting development in my world.

Originally posted on August 11, 2008 @ 5:49 pm

How To Upgrade WordPress Using Subversion

I have been a huge fan of using Subversion to manage my WordPress installations, and thanks to Yan Fortin hiring me to write a post about it for his site, I have finally been able to get down most of my thoughts related to my experiences in upgrading a WordPress blog with Subversion.

From the post:

The folks that manage and distribute WordPress, Automattic Inc., currently run a Subversion server that we can connect to. It allows us to easily download the bleeding edge version of WordPress, the latest stable edition of WordPress, or even older releases of the CMS if we so choose.

In order to use Subversion with your web host, they must have Subversion properly installed on the web host’s server. Most shared hosting environments don’t provide access to Subversion, as it can only be utilized through SSH, a remote command line interface. If you are on a virtual private server (VPS), or your own dedicated server, you should have SSH access, and be able to install Subversion.

It is quite lengthy, topping out at nearly two thousand words, and contains a very short video relating to what you can expect to see in your terminal or SSH window if you are doing things right.

A very useful post for people looking to easily upgrade multiple installations of WordPress, and a huge thank you to Yan from Geeks are Sexy, for helping get me closer to my goal of owning an iPod Touch.

Originally posted on August 5, 2008 @ 4:41 pm

PodPress and WordPress 2.6: A Quick Update

For those of you wondering what is going on with PodPress like I am, so far it doesn’t look like the programmer was able to complete an update to the popular WordPress plugin in the ten days that he assumed it would take.

There are currently many issues with PodPress’ WordPress 2.6 compatibility, and Dan Kuykendall aka Seek3r seems to be taking his time to work on what should be a major release in version 8.9, despite everyone wishing he would push an interim release to fix the current issues.

Over the last few weeks, people have come up with all sorts of ideas on how to make PodPress 8.8 work with WordPress 2.6 as well as making the experimental version of PodPress 8.9 work with WordPress 2.6.

Andrew Ozz was one of the first to get the PodPress 8.9 experimental release working for many people, with a fix that should fix PodPress for those using WordPress 2.6 and having issues due to the post revisions feature that WordPress now includes.

In the comments of the Andrew Ozz post, there is a person named Otto who has instructions on making it work with PodPress 8.8, but not really any confirmation on if it does, in fact, work or not.

There are also people disabling post revisions, which is a great feature, either through plugins or through manually editing core files.

Some people started a small donation drive in order to try to fund development time of the plugin, and not much money was raised, from what I can tell.

It looks like the WordPress community really wants this plugin to work, but aren’t willing to wait for the final release, nor pay for its development. As I have said before, I think the biggest issue is that this is a hobby project for Dan, rather than an Automattic sponsored project. Automattic should be actively participating in the development of important plugins such as PodPress.

Will we see a new release of PodPress in the next week? And if a WordPress 2.6 compatible version of PodPress becomes a month or more away from being released, will people wait, or try to transition to something else?

Originally posted on August 4, 2008 @ 9:48 pm

WordPress in Review Podcast: Episode 2

It is still before midnight as I am getting this up, so I stuck to my own internal promise of getting this episode out within a week. I would love to continue to produce new episodes weekly, but I won’t promise that just yet.

This week I talk about WordPress 2.6, it is finally here and does it bring anything good to the table? I also talk about issues with WordPress 2.6, mention the theme of the week, and talk about the WordPress Weekly podcast. Stick around until the end for what might be a cool podcasting related announcement.

Download WordPress in Review: Episode Two

Mentioned in the Show

WordPress 2.6 has been released and there is a cool video to learn more about the new features.
WordPress

PodPress doesn’t work with WordPress 2.6 and there is no mention on when it will.
PodPress
Automattic

WordPress theme of the week: Tarski
Tarski

WordPress Weekly interviews Alex King, as its final episode
WordPress Weekly
Performancing
PerfCast

Originally posted on July 16, 2008 @ 11:32 pm