Just upgraded to version 2.7.1 and enabled Google Gears support. Can’t see much improvement on speed. I wonder what can be done on the front-end with Gears…

 Well it was bound to happen sooner or later. I’ve been published in the latest issue of php|architect¹ of the magazine… I suggest you all go out and buy a copy now. Several copies. (I’ll be holding an autograph session at Yorkdale Mall, Saturday Aug…)

The article itself is a little feature that explains how to write a WordPress plugin and gives full demonstration code. Give it a read and feel free to ask any questions regarding the implementation if you wish. The code is pretty tight but should have some more security if it is to be used in a production environment. It is really a project starter. If you need to modify WordPress, this is a great place to start looking to learn how your code should interact with WordPress.

Not a dig at Yangaroo, but it is nice to be now working for a company who doesn’t deter this type of creativity.

Automattic released it’s iPhone blogging tool for WordPress.

This is my first attempt to post using it and I’ll keep my judgement to myself until later.

Of note however, it seems that there isn’t anyway to upload a photo from my phone to the blog. (At least I haven’t really looked all that hard yet..)

Edit: Found the photos uploader… Can’t change the size or the thumbnail type but not bad for a 1.0 release. Also they’ve released the source code!

I’ve released¹ (finally) a version of what I consider a ‘starter’ WordPress² plugin.

This little baby is a simple text replacement thingy. The nice thing is that is easily demonstrates a clean plugin that won’t trip over other plugins, creates proper administration pages utilizing AJAX and uses 2.5′s shortcodes.

It’s not production level code as there isn’t any real data validation on the admin form (altho if someone has gotten that far, you are toast anyway…), and it doesn’t check to make sure that it is being called from the admin pages either.

Beyond that, it is easy to read as an example for starting your own WordPress plugin.

Enjoy.

EDIT: Looks like I’ve done something horribly wrong and the readme.txt file isn’t being parsed correctly… Thus the download isn’t working. Will update when this is fixed.

EDIT: (June 17, ’08) It is fixed. I just ran the plugin auto-updater and it worked perfectly from this copy of WordPress. Go download!

A lot has happened since I put this blog on hiatus a couple of years ago. I’ve changed positions at my place of work, I’ve completed a bunch of interesting projects, my wife and I have welcomed our first child into our lives and I’ve been given my freedom!

That’s right, I’m a free agent at the moment and am in the process of scouting out my next opportunity. Until that time comes, I’ll keep everyone updated as to my status here.

In addition, now that I’ve got a little free time on my hands, it’s back to the developmental grindstone. I’ve not had opportunity in the last few years to get anything out of me that wasn’t tied to my employer of record and I’m near to burst with ideas. This website will become home to all of them.

Most notably I’ve become a WordPress fiend and have a bunch of plug-ins I’m writing as we speak. I’ve joined Facebook and have more than a few ideas for applications for their platform. I’ve made a few improvements to my template class now known as tmpl and will be bringing those online shortly. And lastly, but not least(ly), I’ve an iPhone and am geared up to write a few apps for it as well.