WP Photo Sphere Smooth is a fork of WP-Photo-Sphere that uses a faster Javascript library from Damien Sorel. Use it to embed photo spheres and panoramas like the ones linked below:
Site Changes for 2010
With the long 4th of July Weekend, I thought it was time for my yearly site refresh. After upgrading to WordPress 3.0 (which has a number of advanced features like Custom Post Types and Multiple Sites installations), I decided to make two major cosmetic changes to the site.
- I decided to change the site’s theme to Thirty Ten, a three-column version of the new WordPress default theme, Twenty Ten. Like all of the times I change themes, the old theme is still pretty good, but I just felt the need to experiment with a new design. I especially like that asides have been given their own style and that it’s easy to place my own header images (which I hope to do in the coming weeks).
- Since I recently joined up with an online advertising company, I wanted to understand more about the business. So I reactivated my Google Adsense account, and decided to place ads on my site and feed. I had resisted putting ads on my site since I first started it (which when I think about it seems odd, since I was making less money then I do now), but it felt right to try this out. We’ll see how this experiment goes.
So check feel free to check out my new web site at allen.alew.org.
This year's site change
With WordPress 2.7 came a lot of change that I am only now getting used too (still can’t believe threaded comments are built in now). So I decided to change themes to Carrington to better take advantage of these new features along with more plugins like Asideshop and the new WordPress Mobile Edition ( I still work on getting those two to be a little nicer to each other though).
I've changed OpenID plugins; Enabled Gravatars.
Los Angeles Urban League Job Board
Inspired by Recruitpress, a job board made with WordPress and a couple of packaged plugins, I’ve just deployed a job board for the Los Angeles Urban League. Basically, I’ve replaced the Secure Form Mailer Plugin For WordPress, used to apply for this job section of each job post, with the cforms plugin, which I felt was a bit more customizable.
Check out GMU's Center for History and New Media Web projects
George Mason University’s Center for History and New Media has been really putting out some great online academic tools. They’re the ones behind the Zotero research extension for Firefox. Now they are developing some software for web sites like Omeka, an open source content management system for museum collections and exhibits, and ScholarPress, plugins designed to make WordPress more usable for college classes.
ScholarPress has two plugins right now, Courseware, for adding syllabi and assignments, and WPBook, a way of converting your WordPress blog as a Facebook Application. The two developers, Jeremey Boggs and Dave Lester, also host a podcast called THAT podcast and have posted a tutorial on using the Scholarpress plugins along with an interview with Matt Mullenweg as the first episode. I certainly admire them for the impressive amount of work they have put in to all of these projects and look forward to trying their tools out in the future. (via Photo Matt)
Joe Biden’s WordPress Blog got hacked
Thanks for the free copy of Blogging Tips, Lorelle
Lorelle on WordPress, who gave the Kicking Ass Content Connections talk at Wordcamp, sent out a free copy of her book Blogging Tips: What bloggers won’t tell you about blogging to conference attendees. I got my copy this past weekend and of course I’ve been reading it for the past few days. I’ve been looking for a simple book that described the basics of blogging to present to others, as well as give me some ideas on how to improve my blog (got to find the right header images, among other things). However, while I know this book was meant to be general in terms of blogging (and thereby make it more for novices and help it stand up for the future), I couldn’t help but wonder if there couldn’t be more specific tips like plugins for WordPress, Movable Type, or Firefox to make some of the recommended things like XML sitemaps. The general approach works, though, and therefore makes Blogging Tips a recommendable tome for the would-be-blogger.
Photos from Wordcamp
The Wordcamp conference has come and gone (I know it was a couple of weeks ago and I just now blogged about it) and all I can say is I had a blast. It was nice to be able to meet the faces behind some of the blogs I follow like who this Matt guy who created WordPress or that Lorelle who gives so many tips are anyway. Thanks to my employers, Los Angeles Urban League, for paying the accommodation and travel fees.
What I saw at Wordcamp 2007
The Wordcamp conference has come and gone (I know it was a couple of weeks ago and I just now blogged about it) and all I can say is I had a blast. It was nice to be able to meet the faces behind some of the blogs I follow like who this Matt guy who created WordPress or that Lorelle who gives so many tips are anyway. Thanks to my employers, Los Angeles Urban League, for paying the accommodation and travel fees.
There were a number of great speakers. One session I liked in particular was the one by John Dvorak and Om Malik who talked about blogs and journalism (that talk can be seen on One Man’s Blog). I also liked the panel (and hanging out a little) with Jeremy Wright of b5media, who talked about blog monetization through finding your niche. Other great sessions include the Designing Massively Multiplayer Social Systems (her slides) and the Usability Analysis of WP, both of which got me to think a lot about the design of my own projects.
I met some very great people there like Enric Teller, Naoko McCracken, and Micah Johnson. Also many thanks to George Yang, who helped me with the pictures below of me with some prominent bloggers. I will be looking forward to attending Wordcamp next year. Continue reading “What I saw at Wordcamp 2007”