WordPress Report For The Week Of October 31st 2008

October 31, 2008 by Jeffro
Filed under Featured, Wordpress Weekly News

WordPress 2.7 Delayed – Earlier this week, I sent an email to the WordPress hackers mailing list explaining how it was getting close to the beginning of November and we have yet to see a beta release of 2.7. Considering everything that has changed in the backend added with the features that have been implemented, I suggested that the new version will need at least a week in the publics hands in order to bake and have as many bugs discovered as possible. Ryan Boren, one of the lead developers of the WordPress project agrees which means WordPress 2.7 will be delayed from its scheduled November 10^th release date. As of right now, it looks like the release will be pushed back a week but no dates have been set in stone.

WordPess Meets LinkedIn –Those of you who have Linked In accounts will now have access to a WordPress application that is available from the LinkedIn Application directory. This app will allow your network of people to be notified of when you publish a new post. You can even opt to display your WordPress blog on your LinkedIn profile and your homepage where it will appear as a drag and drop module in the right-hand column. Like everything WordPress does, this application is open source. - http://publisherblog.automattic.com/2008/10/28/wordpress-for-linkedin/

Revolution 2 Launches – Brian Gardner who acclaimed success in the WordPress premium theme market has launched his new project called Revolution 2. These new themes are released under GPL and are open source meaning you can download and use them for free. So far, Brian has released 10 themes which range from a simple two column style design to a full blown magazine style. However, if you need theme support, you’ll have to purchase a support plan. If you’re in the market for a new theme, definitely give these ten a look through. - http://www.briangardner.com/blog/revolution-two-launches-early.htm

Plugin Of The Week – Moderator – Moderator is a combination of an Adobe Air application that can be run on your desktop and a WordPress plugin. Moderator enables users to moderate comments from their desktop instead of having to login to their WordPress administration area to handle that task. After installation, minimizing the desktop application will display a number in the Windows Taskbar which is the number of comments that are in the moderation queue. This is a very cool plugin and I think this is only the tip of the iceberg in terms of doing administrative tasks to your WordPress blog from the desktop. - http://www.danieldura.com/code/moderator

Popularity: 93% [?]

Tags: chandler, jeff, News, plugins, weekly, wordpress

Wordpress Plugins: Twitter Tools - Tweetburner Edition

October 26, 2008 by Rob White
Filed under Featured, New Media Pro

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Image via CrunchBase

I was searching around today for a way to use Tweetburner more with my blog posts and came across this plugin for Wordpress that takes Twitter Tools by Alex King and adds the Tweetburner support to it.

This plugin is a modified version of the Twitter-tools plugin, written by Alex King. Twitter Tools is a plugin that creates a complete integration between your WordPress blog and your Twitter account. One of those features is tweeting you’re blogposts to Twitter. The URL’s of your blog posts are translated to TinyURL’s by Twitter, to stay within 140 characters. This modified plugin uses Tweetburner.com to shorten the URL’s.

What is Tweetburner.com?

Tweetburner.com lets you track what happens with the links you share on Twitter, and shortens it on the way too. For example http://trebel.nl/blog/2008/03/28/wordpress-plugin-voor-tweetburnercom/is translated into http://twurl.nl/ybetg8 and they offer personal statistics for tracking the clicks and shares of your ‘twurls’.

This is a modified version of Twitter Tools, so if you already have Twitter Tools installed, you will want to uninstall it first before installing and activating this plugin. It will replace your current version of Twitter Tools and also give you the Tweetburner capability.

You can pickup this modified plugin at http://rebelic.nl/tweetburnercom-plugin/

Popularity: 68% [?]

Tags: Alex King, Feature, TinyURL, Twitter, wordpress

When Video Just Doesn’t Work Out Right

October 26, 2008 by Rob White
Filed under Podcaster Training

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: Image via CrunchBase

Several months ago, I started simulcasting my Friday Night Shows on video services, such as uStream and Stickam. Over time, there have been a number of issues with these services and recently, I started simulcasting again after being off video for a time. What I have found, at least for my purposes, is that none of these video streaming services can handle 1 to 2 hour long sessions, reasonably.

Last week, I recorded my show using Stickam. The recording went well, or at least, seemed to, and it even let me save my recording. All was good until I went to look at the saved recording and oops! it was gone! Not even an archived copy, nothing, as though I had not even attempted a recording at all! At least with uStream, I had something I could look at, however, it was usually in segments and not a complete show.

Anyway, I have decided to drop the video all together for now and concentrate on the audio podcasting for the show. Making the audio better, more music beds, etc. and not worry about doing video, with the exception of the occasional YouTube video or screencast.

I will talk more about this on my next episode of Podcaster Training so that I can better explain exactly what is going on here, so that I don’t discourage someone from doing video. That is not my goal here. My goal here is to keep you informed as to what is happening on my show and I will continue to keep up with the video streaming services and when they are more up to par with what I am doing, then try it again!

How to Live Stream Your Life: 20+ Tools and Resources

Popularity: 68% [?]

Tags: stickam, Streaming media, ustream, video, YouTube

Wordpress Plugins: PingpressFM

October 26, 2008 by Rob White
Filed under New Media Pro

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Image representing WordPress as depicted in Cr...

Image via CrunchBase

I have been using Wordpress for some time now, and thought I would talk about just one of the plugins I use currently called PingpressFM. If you are familiar with the service called Ping.fm, and you use this service for microblogging updates to sites such as Twitter, Tumblr and others, and you also run a Wordpress blog, then this is the plugin for you!

Now, if you use Ping.fm, you know you can go there and input up to 140 characters, including links, and it will send out to the various services that you are subscribed to, automatically. PingpressFM works the same way by accessing Ping.fm and sending your blog post title to each of the services you subscribe to along with the permalink to the blog post. In this way, you don’t have to make a separate post to Ping.fm or your other microblogging services as this plugin does it for you as soon as you publish your post.

You can download this plugin from http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/pingpressfm/

Popularity: 59% [?]

Tags: blog, Blogging, Micro-blogging, Permalink, Plug-in, Twitter, wordpress

Sneek Peek: The Phases of Podcasting

October 26, 2008 by Rob White
Filed under Podcaster Training

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: Image via Wikipedia

Over the next few weeks, we will be discussing a new Podcasting 101 Series called “The Phases of Podcasting”. There are 6 phases we will go over during our training beginning with Phase 1 (I think that’s a great place to start, don’t you? ) labeled “The Basics”.

We will begin at the front of podcasting with the very basic equipment and software you will need to get started with this hobby. This phase may take two episodes to complete, we will have to see how it goes for time, as I will be going into depth on each phase to insure that the maximum amount of information can be given to the listeners.

Phase 2 is labeled “Prepping for your Podcast”. During this training, we will discuss the various prep that should be performed in order to have the best, most professional sounding, podcasts. Most novice podcasters think that prepping for their podcast consists of just turning on the PC and doing it. This is not always the case as you will see during this phase of training.

Phase 3 is labeled “Going Live the First Time”. Since podcasting can be pre-recorded in most cases, many podcasters and would be podcasters, aren’t sure about this new arena of Live, Interactive podcasting. We will discuss what you need to do to Go Live with your podcasting.

Phase 4 is labeled “What Happens After The Show Is Over?”. Do you just turn off the mic and wait until your next show or podcast or do you try and build community by taking a few extra minutes to be with your listeners. We will discuss what happens between show/podcast times and what you may want to do to help build your listener audience.

Phase 5 is labeled “Taking Note”. In this phase of training, we will discuss the importance of having show notes and publishing these notes after the show. Blogging plays a big role here, however, there are a few ways that you can use your show notes and we will discuss this further during this phase of training.

Phase 6 is labeled “What Happens Next?”. During this last phase of training in this series, we will discuss how your podcast can evolve and what you need to do to “take it to the next level” and help it to grow. This phase may take a couple of episodes to complete as there is a lot of important information that will be covered during this training.

So there you have it, a sneek peek at the Phases of Podcasting coming to Podcaster Training over the next few weeks. I put out a blog post several days ago asking for your storieds as to how and why you started podcasting. Please take a minute to leave a comment on that post or here and let me know if I can use your stories along with my training. Make sure to leave links in your comments as this is a great way to promote your shows, podcasts, blogs or web sites!