Happy Anniversary with WordPress.com

Just had a notification on this blog:

“You registered on WordPress.com 6 years ago!

“Thanks for flying with us. Keep up the good blogging!”

I have to say in this time WordPress have continued to update their blogging platform with new features making it so easy to keep your sites up to date. Long may it continue.

Having had a presence online since the early 90s on various platforms, forums and message boards before running my own web business from 1998, I’ve been filling the search engines ever since!

New, Smaller Photos Section

There’s a nifty plug-in to bring a nice touch to a small photo-album page: the Slimbox WordPress plug-in.

To operate it, just use this format:

Single example:
<a href=”img1.jpg” rel=”lightbox” title=”my caption”>thumbnail1</a>
Image set example:
<a href=”img1.jpg” rel=”lightbox[roadtrip]”>thumbnail1</a>
<a href=”img2.jpg” rel=”lightbox[roadtrip]”>thumbnail2</a>
<a href=”img3.jpg” rel=”lightbox[roadtrip]”>thumbnail3</a>

I’m now using it to display sub-sets of my photos on Flickr on this site (in addition to the six latest photos over there in the sidebar).

The Trouble with Blogs…

Addictive things, these blogs.

But if, like me, you’re often out and about and between computers, you too may have suddenly thought of something you would like to share with the blogosphere. And, like me, you may have been frustrated that you couldn’t, because by the time you’ve made it to somewhere with a computer and an Internet connection you’ve forgotten what it was you were going to blog about.

Now I know I can blog by e-mail (or using Shozu) using my mobile phones, but when I’m hacking along the road in my car or on my bike, the last thing I should be doing is composing an e-mail using the tiny keyboard (even if the handset is in a cradle).

No, what would make a killer app. (or plug-in) for WordPress would be a voice to text posting facility, somewhat like the Voice Post feature on LiveJournal but with instant, automated transcription.

Now that would be cool (and remember where you saw the idea first!).

JavaScripted e-mail Links in WordPress Pages

You may want to include an e-mail link in your WordPress Blog’s “About” page or elsewhere, but no doubt you don’t want this harvested and you’ve found you can’t simply add the JavaScript to the post or page as it gets nuked.

So how about a workaround?

Firstly, you need to create an external Javascript file with this code (amended for your own needs, obviously):


function obfuscate() {
var ppclink = "Click here to e-mail us";
var ppcname = "nospamthanks";
var ppchost = "yourdomainnamegoeshere";
document.write("<a href=" + "mail" + "to:" + ppcname + "@" + ppchost + ">" + ppclink + "")
}

NB: the “@” sign is represented in the code as “& # 64 ;” with no spaces.

Save it as something like emailobfuscator.js and upload it to your server.

Then in the post or the page you want to include it in, add the following code:

<script type="text/javascript"
src="/scripts/emailobfuscator.js" mce_src="/scripts/emailobfuscator.js">
</script>
<script type="text/javascript">
<!--
obfuscate();
//-->
</script>

You will almost certainly want to uncheck the “Use visual editor when writing” checkbox in your User options before this will work.

And the finished result should look like this:

The Trouble with WordPress

Now I’m a great fan of WordPress – quelle surprise – using it for a number of blogs as well as some basic CMS based web sites.

But when it comes to posting new messages and restricting their publication, it’s a bit lacking. I have a LiveJournal and have been introduced to a number of good friends even if they are in some cases entirely virtual with no face to face or indeed voice contact … ever! And on LiveJournal I can quickly and easily restrict who can and cannot see individual posts on a per group basis.

With WordPress – at least as far as I can see – the only way to restrict access to a post is by way of password protection. Which is fine, providing the intended readers don’t forget that password, or don’t divulge it to someone else or indeed have the password guessed or hacked by A N Other.

Such a pity.

What a Difference a Day Makes

I looked at another commercial blog the other day and liked its look and feel before discovering its theme was K2 so I downloaded it, played with it and voila!

So I have temporarily (?) abandoned the rather fabby fspring theme from Fredrik Fahlstad (which I am still using as basis for a number of other blogs) and playing with this one for now.

You see, this is one of the great things about separating content from style: you can always modify the style without needing to recreate the content. WordPress and the themes people develop for it just make things easier.