WordPress Smart Archives Reloaded… with added Fancy!

September 28, 2009 By 6 Comments

I was working on a WordPress theme recently, for a site with a not insignificant volume of posts, and found myself needing a fancy, more user friendly way of presenting the archives.

After a search of the WordPress extend repository I came across Smart Archives Reloaded by Scribu, an evolution of the original Smart Archives by Justin Blanton and while it didn’t quite achieve what I was aiming for I could see the potential to get where I was going… so I rolled up my sleeves, put my php hat and started coding.

The new fancy archive is built using a multi-level implementation of the jQuery.Tools tab control and also adds post categories and dates to the list of output tags available. After a couple of days of tweaking and testing I got in touch with Scribu to present “Super” Smart Archives Reloaded. Needless to say he loved it and offered to roll it into the core plugin.

So from version 1.7 of Smart Archives Reloaded you too can now take advantage of the “fancy” archives option and enjoy the smartest archives on the web!

You can see the archive in action here or go download it and try it for yourself… it’s as simple as upload, activate and view, and it even comes with a simple default style!

This is only my second WordPress plugin and my first to see the light of day and it feels great to give something back to the WordPress community. Thanks to Scribu for including my work in the plugin.

Filed Under: WordPress

Apple’s New iPods: Why I’m not buying…

September 15, 2009 By Leave a Comment

apple

A couple months ago during a two week period I’d really rather forget (that started with my car being stolen!) my 1st gen iPod Nano, that has served me faithfully for over 5 years, decided it was going to have a bit of a melt down. It still  “kinda” works but only 40% of the screen is visibible and it now has frequent memory loss issues, forgetting both where it was in podcasts and music tracks as well as sometime what it has stored in it’s memory.

Being pretty close to the expected September iPod announcements I figured it made sense to wait to replace it with a next generation model. So after struggling on with my disabled little friend for two more months I was, to say the least, pretty dissappointed with what Apple rolled out last week, and it seems I’m not the only one.

I am stunned that Apple would decided to roll out not one but two pieces of much anticipated and, in the case of FM radio, for me pretty desireable functionality in it’s now low-end Nano range and not make that same upgrade to the high-end iPod Touch.

Having been thinking that I would go for the mid-sized iTouch when the new models were announced my initial reaction was that this made that purchase decision much harder. Having thought about it over the past few days however I have actually come to the conclusion that it makes the choice easy. I’m not going to buy either… If, as has been suggested by numerous sources, the camera upgrade to the iPod Touch was held back for technical reasons one could also suggest that perhaps other functionality was also held back as part of that same upgrade, such as the FM radio feature, and that those features might be rolled out a few months down the road. Either way, as long as my trusty crippled iPod Nano continues to “Kinda” work I saw no compelling upgrade path with last weeks announcements so sorry Apple, “I’m not buyin’ it!”

Filed Under: Apple

WordCamp NZ

August 4, 2009 By 1 Comment

I’m heading to WordCamp New Zealand this coming weekend, the 8th and 9th of August, at the Mt. Victoria Bowling Club right here in Sunny Windy Wellington.

Xero, the company I work for, is a Premium sponsor and while it sux to be giving up my weekend with the family I am looking forward to hearing all the latest news in the WordPress world and attending some of the unconference activities on offer. It’s going to be a great opportunity to hear from Ma.tt, who is doing a “Town Hall” style Q&A after lunch on Saturday (although I was a little disappointed to hear he wouldn’t be doing his stock State of the Word speech) and others on subjects such as bbPress forum integration, building community and e-commerce. I was hoping for some BuddyPress related presentations but I guess we’ll have to wait until next year when I think that will really have become HUGE!

If you’re not already coming, take a look at the schedule and get your tickets here.

Filed Under: WordPress

Lot’s of Shiney Ma.tt

June 22, 2009 By 1 Comment

Checking through my feeds and WordPress dashboard today it seems like Mr Mullenweg is everywhere!

The most interesting take home I got from the Inc interview was this:

Music helps me when I’m coding, which is still my priority. When you’re coding, you really have to be in the zone. I’ll listen to a single song, over and over on repeat, like a hundred times.

I’ve found myself doing this a lot lately and was starting to think I was a bit weird, so it’s good to know that at least I’m in good company!

Filed Under: WordPress

CTRL+Shift “N”… and it only took 24 F#@!in’ years!

June 18, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Having moved from a MAC around 10 years ago (yes I know… I moved too Windows) one of the few things I missed, actually probably one of the ONLY things I really missed, was the ability to create a new folder in the file system with a keyboard shortcut. It stuns me that until now this has not been a core feature of Windows. I’m sure it has previously been acheivable via macro editors and OS scripty magic, but seriously…. not a standard feature?!?!

So as you can imagine, I was so frikin’ happy when I stumbled upon CTRL+Shift “N” in Windows 7! I’ve been using the RC since it’s release, and the Beta prior to that and while I cannot speak highly enough of the OS generally this is, by far, the single best feature in my mind.

Another features in I’m loving is window snapping. The ability to snap windows to various parts of the screen, eg. left and right  halves for file copying. You can also cycle through all available positions via keyboard shortcuts (Windows key + arrow keys).

While some may consider Vista to have been an abject failure, Windows 7 is in my mind the polar opposite, a well thought out, fast, stable and get this “Mature” operating system…  arguably the most compelling upgrade in Windows almost 25 year history.

Filed Under: Microsoft, Misc
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