I’m so glad that I’ve found Wordpress; not only for my hobby of blogging but it really has been such an educational experience over the last few years for my development.
As far as personal web development; I’m not even close to what I want to know about web development or web programming, I’ll probably never get there, but developing for Wordpress or around Wordpress has led my progression of web development. Only 5 years ago I was using using Dreamweaver for everything, now it’s TextMate. That’s not a measurement of know-how, to me it shows that I’m comfortable.
For project development it’s what I use to development almost any site. It’s just too good of a platform not to develop around. The plugin system allows for such great extensibility and the community of great developers gives you almost everything you’ll need a a project or allow for you to extend another’s work.
The 2-3 plugins I use for the majority of freelance projects are to manage what the client sees on the backend or what s/he can do. I advise anyone using Wordpress to develop websites for clients for it hide the fact Wordpress was built initially for blogging. There are ways to get around with some of the terminology with plugins or localization, never ever edit the core system unless you don’t care about upgrades and eventually security. My favorite plugins and strategy will have to wait for another post, maybe part 2.
Current development: A few weeks ago I took took the task of getting Ventura DUI site online with the goal of it being at the top of Google for the search term “Ventura DUI” or “Ventura DUI Lawyer“. The development was easy, the design took a while and is still not complete but easy to implement because of Wordpress themes system. As expected getting the site to the top of Google will be tough but with plugins like WPSEO and WPsitemaps made/make the standard SEO tasks easy. It’s now just a waiting game for Google to rank the site above the others who have PRs of 0.
My other projects waiting in the wings will also get the Wordpress makeover and I can’t see myself ever using anything else for a client, even basic splash pages.
[Updated 10/5]
Version 2.0 was just released.
Version 2.0 – multiple mobile browsers supported
After a week and a half of hard work Jared and I committed Version 1.0.2 to Wordpress Extend. we lapsed and forgot to test the plugin on the 2.2 branch and now we’ll need to pull it back for a later release when we get everything straightened out for the majority of users.
Mobile Admin started it’s development shortly after Matt requested on the [wp-hackers] mailing for the community to create an iPhone Admin theme in response to the MovableType iPhone beta theme released just a days prior.
Jared did the majority of hard core coding and I centered around the interface and CSS. Since I was the one with the iPhone I was the lucky one to exhaustingly check in and test new CSS changes for testing on the phone, since there aren’t any good development tools for iPhone devs; iPhoney is phony before anyone suggests it.
Here’s the current trac project home for bugs and management.
Here’s the support and suggestion forums. If you have an iPhone we really need your suggestions so please throw them out to us there.
Or if you have any contributions or changes you’d like to make directly just contact us.
Created with Admarket’s flickrSLiDR.
Details:
iPhone / Mobile Admin UI for WordPress?
The plugin home page is on WordPress Extend.
Contributors
Jared Bangs and Dan Cameron
Gives a mobile-friendly admin UI to browsers by User Agent. The iPhone is the primary supported device for the first release.
Description
Mobile Admin adapts the WordPress? admin UI to be more friendly to mobile devices, specifically phones. The iPhone is the primary target (and only supported device) for version 1, with more to come in the future.
Most common WordPress admin features are supported:
… with more to come in later revisions.
Other resources
Please submit all usage questions to the support forums
The Trac server can be used for viewing changes and submitting tickets
SPECIAL NOTE – Testing and bug reporting is especially encouraged, as only one of us currently owns an iPhone.
It looks like Apple dropped the video out functionality for the iPhone. Last week the iPhone was clearly marked as a supported device for both the component and composite cables, now neither cables have the iPhone logo and the descriptions look to have been edited.
This is just another thorn in Apple’s side with new cable backlash the “community” is expressing across the blogosphere. The issue is the switch to requires these “special” cables for all new iPods, the old cables aren’t compatible. Unlike some others I’m not bothered by the switch, the cable should now provide better quality and you’ll be able to charge it without a separate dock connector and power cable. But the rub isn’t entirely the switch it’s that Apple is embedding an “authentic apple chip” that will hinder 3rd party makers for a short term.
So I planned on purchasing the cables for pre-order but with the apparent drop of iPhone support I can’t. Hopefully it was a recent mistake and the cables will end up being supported with or without a software update.
It’s a real bummer because if Video Out was supported by the iPhone I could get rid of my current video iPod instead of lugging it to work everyday.
One of the first things I did on my Media Tempe (dv) was install webmin because I’m a huge fan of easy it let’s you manage your web/server, e.g. web interface to quickly change config files or restart particular services without having to login through SSH.
A more official description:
Webmin is a web-based interface for system administration for Unix. Using any modern web browser, you can setup user accounts, Apache, DNS, file sharing and much more. Webmin removes the need to manually edit Unix configuration files like /etc/passwd, and lets you manage a system from the console or remotely.
Add the following section to /etc/yum.repos.d/CentOS-Base.repo
[dag]
name=Dag RPM Repository for Red Hat Enterprise Linux
baseurl=http://apt.sw.be/redhat/el$releasever/en/$basearch/dag
gpgcheck=1
enabled=1
Install GPG key/signature by running
# rpm –import http://dag.wieers.com/rpm/packages/RPM-GPG-KEY.dag.txt
Run
# yum install webmin
Your webmin should now be available at
http://your.ip.address:10000/
or
https://your.ip.address:10000/
and you can login using your root account.
I would highly recommend the stressfree theme for webmin, it makes it much easier to navigate. Also, Virtualmin is a must if you manage a lot of domains, it “supports the creation and management of Apache virtual hosts, BIND DNS domains, MySQL databases, and mailboxes and aliases with Sendmail or Postfix”.
I’ve been steadily moving towards this already but here are my blog goals:
“Actual Friends”
Pownce
General
I guess my overall goal is to post more and figure out something for my VTA family and friends because I know dancameron.org is boring my wife.
iWork 08
Yesterday I posted about Numbers and I shyed away from posting about the other two apps in iWork ‘08; Pages and Keynote because the only thing out of those two apps that’s worth mentioning is “action builds” for Keynote.
Action builds is a very cool feature and to have it in a presentation software makes me say “finally”. Keynote has had animations in previous versions but not like this. Instead of building the motion in another application like Flash or Final Cut you can just create simple paths for our objects and build it within Keynote. The video reminds me of the few hours I’ve spent in Flash.
iLife ‘08
I don’t have any first hand use because I’m going to wait a few months for Leopard (since it’s bundled for free). But from the demos and the Apple press conference the new features are needed and the overhaul of iMovie was necessary. iMovie (Pre-08 ) although very simple and clean was abandoned after I purchased Final Cut Pro even though I don’t like editing in Final Cut Pro for home movies or short clips iMovie was just not cutting it.
Until I get the new version I’m not going to decide whether it’s as phenomenal as the Apple’s presentation makes it out to be or the demos on their site provide. Especially since people are already revolting from the new app and going back to the old iMovie. From what I’ve seen it’s a drastic improvement. I love the exporting options including direct to YouTube.
What I’m really looking forward to in the new iMovie is how it’s an actual video library now. Before importing clips into the project prevented me from wanting to make videos at all and almost every movie production application works that way. Now I can just import all of my DV into the application, easily scan through all of that video and simply create what I’ve promised Sara for so long.
Another notable feature coming is event sorting. Found in iPhoto it’s going to make it so much easier for our family to sort through the thousands of photos and make it easier to organize. It’s an outstanding way to organization and it’s a shame we don’t see it in any other application including flickr.
This has got to be the best review/article on the age old debate of Linux vs. Mac. The article is extensive but the conclusions on the topic mimic my sentiments exactly.
In the following pages, they lead a guided tour of the two OSes, paying particular attention to eight important areas: Installation & Migration; Hardware Support & Power Management; Networking, Web & Wireless; Productivity; Entertainment; Security; Working With Windows (because we couldn’t completely ignore Microsoft); and Stability, Backup & Disaster Recovery.
Which is the better OS? Only you can decide –but you’ll make a more informed decision after you’ve taken this tour, and you’ll discover you have some companions on your journey.
I will admit I have not completed the entire article, I have skimmed and read the beginning and end but it is something I want to go back and finish. I also don’t think anyone can conclude that either writer is biased because from what I’ve read the entire article plainly exposes the downsides of each platform in almost every major factor of any OS. It’s really apparent within the conclusions which they make the reader decide what’s best for them.
The conclusion of the review that mimics my take exactly (spoiler alert):
Conclusions: Linux
Linux gives you freedom on many levels: the freedom to tinker, the freedom to work without arbitrary constraints on your system setup, and the freedom to make decisions about nearly every aspect of your system.That freedom does come at a cost, though — the cost of a certain degree of effort. I haven’t yet dealt with a single Linux install that didn’t require me to edit some configuration file somewhere. That said, the amount of effort required to get the Linux system you want (or need) has gone down enormously with time.
If the freedom to use your PC in as unhindered a way as possible is important to you, that’s what Linux delivers — although keep in mind it comes with a learning curve, one that is still flattening out rather slowly.
– Serdar Yegulalp
Conclusions: Mac
If you believe that open source is a moral choice — and many people do — then buying Apple is making a deal with the devil. Apple is arguably the most proprietary hardware / software company in the industry, despite Mac OS X’s origins in BSD Unix, and the products’ compliance with many industry standards.You think Microsoft locks users in? At least with Microsoft you can buy a PC from a huge number of big and small vendors, or build your own from components. With the Mac, you buy your PC from Apple, you buy your operating system from Apple, and you’re also encouraged to buy your mouse, keyboard, display, audio device, and smartphone from Apple, all at an Apple Store where you can get Apple service.
But if you’re willing to live with lock-in, Apple is a great choice for computing. Installation isn’t a problem — Apple does it for you. Networking is easy. Productivity is a dream. The Mac offers a broad variety of entertainment options. It’s a secure platform. It interoperates well with Windows. It’s highly stable, and offers solid backup choices for the data losses that are inevitable on any computing platform.
Right now, Apple is smokin’, and its customers are happy. But if the Apple gets rotten and starts coming out with inferior products — as it did in the ’90s — its customers will have the choice of suffering, or making the painful switch to another platform.
Until then, I’m sticking with the Mac. It’s a great computer.
– Mitch Wagner
Well said…most of you know where I stand but no platform is perfect and it’s up to the user to decide what they value the most.
After the comment on how I added additional RSS feeds for browser detection I went ahead and made the least necessary plugin I’ve ever released. Maybe Movable Anything is unnecessary for more users but this plugin might take the person longer to download and install than just modifying their header file in their template, even though it has an options panel.
For those who do not want to edit their header template I scraped this plugin together in 30 minutes. Add RSS is:
Add RSS Feeds to your template header for Firefox and other browsers to detect your additional RSS feeds. Feeds are not excluded to local RSS to your site. For example you can add your Twitter or Pownce feed just as easily as adding your comments feed.
Updated version just uploaded, 3pm PST.
One of my tasks this week was to setup a web server for some sites currently hosted on the tragedy of the grid. I don’t want to talk about the (mt) grid since I’ve said so much about it before but to answer “why?” I’m still on the grid for production sites is, I’ve been too busy to migrate them and at one point I was going to put them on a spry VPS but my DB was too large for their contrants, very weird indeed and I could made it work but I pushed it aside.
This week I couldn’t wait any longer I was getting so many CS calls about it “being down” or “Sooo Slow” that it became a big priority. I was planning to install Ubuntu server and setup the system in a few hours but I had so many issues with Ubuntu Server. I rather not go into details because I can’t remember them all but one major problem was webmin and gnome. I hate to rely on a UI to manage a server but it makes my tasks so much easier. Gnome installed fine after an apt-get command but there are so many dependencies that it took hours for it to download and install. At that point I was already frustrated with the install that the problems with webmin, configuration and installing some other server packages I had givin up and started the fedora core 6 downloads.
Today I had the time to finish the system but the installation was as easy as Ubuntu except for the 5 CDs it took to install everything. That was the only 
downside for fedora over Ubuntu. But at least it’s a complete web server after install. Without phpMyadmin and webmin installed I was able to serve up whatever I needed with just a few service starts. The management tool provided as well are perfectly suited and easy to use. I can’t remember the particulars but it seemed Ubuntu wanted me to configure way to much after install without any management tools, fedora can serve a test page from apache after install and if not the tools provided make it a few clicks away.
After a few yum installs and eventually remembering to edit my host file in order to get webmin to show (from the host machine) I had a production server ready.
fedora has some great advatages over Ubuntu IMO: First SELinux (security) and server management tools. Another feature over Ubuntu right now would be the Xen support and management tools built into core 6. The Xen management will definitely help me get a couple webservers (maybe one for myself) installed with the little time I already have instead of wasting time figuring out how to install and configure it for Ubuntu.
This post is not saying fedora is a better web server then Ubuntu but for ease of use it’s clearly better out of the box.
Plugin can be found here
I FINALLY have a working version of my UDASS plugin on my site. And I’ve replaced it with the theme switcher I just setup, I might bring the theme switcher back but I don’t want to distract from this nor confuse people.
So, UDASS.
The Unobtrusive Degradable Ajax Style Sheet Switcher combines the power of Server Side processing and DOM scripting to swap style sheets on the fly with the power of Ajax. If JavaScript is disabled – UDASSS degrades gracefully to improve your website accessibility. Needless to say, it is very sexy indeed.
To test it out just click the brown or white blocks to the right.
I’m calling it light on for now until I make it more obvious in the header. My goal is to create a cool little switch image to place in the header just like a light switch or similar. The white css is very basic and that’s another thng I need to change because it defintly needs to accents that tie it back tot he default brown theme.
The plugin works and is very simple right now so please be patient. I need to create an admin panel for it and think out the options so it’s easy for everyone to use. I just needed to post about this because I finally got around to getting a working version, although it shouldn’t have been this difficult to begin with.
To-Dos
