Posted by Boone Gorges on 10th December 2009
Rodney Blevins and Marius Ooms wrote a fantastic plugin for BuddyPress called Groupblog, which allows BP groups to easily create a blog associated with their group. The killer feature of the plugin is the ability to add all group members to the blog (as authors, editors, subscribers, whatever you’d like) in a more or less automatic fashion – a far, far easier task than adding users manually through Dashboard > Add User.
I found, though, that the process wasn’t quite as automatic as I’d like. They’d based the code for adding users on a plugin by Burt Adsit called Community Blogs. Community Blogs only triggered the user adding process on a one-by-one basis: members of a group weren’t added to the group’s blog until they visited the blog. This is problematic for a few reasons. First, it’s an added step that creates some confusion among group admins and members, who assume that community blog membership should be automatic. Second, we’ve enabled various levels of privacy for blogs at the CUNY Academic Commons, and group members who were not yet members of a private group blog couldn’t really visit the blog to kick start the process. (Strictly speaking, that’s not true: the add user process was hooked to a process that took place when the blog’s login screen popped up, which happens when you persistently try to visit a blog to which you don’t have access. But this is extremely confusing.)
I took a bit of time today to rework how Groupblog handles the add user process. With the new setup, every member of a group is added to the group blog at once. The process is put into motion when the blog’s administrator updates and saves the group’s Group Blog settings. Other members of the BP community who join the group after the initial blog setup are added automatically to the blog as well, in accordance with the settings that the admin has determined for member permissions.
All the changes I made to the plugin are found in the main plugin file, bp-groupblog.php. You can download the modified file here: bp-groupblog.php.txt (don’t forget to make sure that the file is named bp-groupblog.php to make the plugin work). Just replace the stock version of the file with this one to make the changes. I intentionally did not clean up the plugin – all the original code is deactivated but still present beside the new code – because I wanted users to be able to differentiate what I had written from what the original authors had written (at least for now).
Posted in BuddyPress, Plugins and Extensions, WordPress, blog, group blog, plugin, wpmu | Comments Off
Posted by Randy on 27th October 2009
I am finding the open source NetBeans development tool really great for my PHP programming work. It really saves time by catching the simple typo and syntax mistakes I commonly make. Please to code suggestions and other elements are helpful too. Part of what makes it so great is the connection that the project developers have with the programming community — as an example of that read this post. It is exactly this type of close connection to a user community that makes open source so powerful.
NetBeans for PHP : weblog
I spent talking about PHP development in NetBeans almost whole session. After the session there was a long discussion (more than 1 hour) and some people complained about formatting…As a result I have decided to look at this and to try to fix as many bugs as possible. Because there is not much time for NetBeans 6.8, I would like to ask you for help.
NetBeans 6.8 Beta Coming; Does Oracle Care? | NetBeans Zone
PHP
* PHP 5.3 support including syntax highlighting, code completion, code folding, and navigator
* Symfony Framework support
* FTP/SFTP improvements
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Posted in Open Source, PHP, PLE, Technology, Web, blog, project | Comments Off
Posted by Randy on 26th October 2009
The WordPress Exploit Scanner plugin scans system files, posts/comments and plug-ins for suspicious stuff. If you have a blog site that you think may have been compromised it can’t hurt to give it a try. I ran it on a couple of blogs I administer and I’m happy to report that everything looks fine. One of the things the plug-in looks for is hidden code in your site, especially hidden style elements. This is a way that spammers can insert code into your site — but there are lots of legitimate reasons for these elements too. So the report can look a little alarming or overwhelming at first, so run it when you have some time to scan over the output report. A good tool to keep handy for when needed.
WordPress Exploit Scanner
This plugin searches the files and database of your website for signs of suspicious activity. It will not stop someone hacking into your site, but it may help you find any uploaded or compromised files left by the hacker.
WordPress › Blog » WordPress 2.8.5: Hardening Release
We recommend that all sites are upgraded to this new version of WordPress to ensure that you have the best available protection…If you think your site may have been hit by one of the recent exploits and you would like to make sure that you have cleared out all traces of the exploit then we would recommend that you take a look at the WordPress Exploit Scanner.
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Posted in Data, PLE, Technology, Web, WordPress, blog, database, plugin | Comments Off
Posted by Randy on 21st October 2009
What is OpenCalais, and what is this semantic web stuff all about? Sure I watched the video on their site, and read through the documentation. Somehow this all will make web content in general, and these blog posts in particular, easier to find and link with other relevant information. Which all sounds good, but I want to see it in action. So I installed their Tagaroo WordPress plug-in.
The most immediate change is the addtion of the tagaroo tag area, which suggest tags based on the post content. It is pretty cool too, as it dynamically updates and suggest new tags as you add content. It also has a Flickr image suggestion bar, which isn’t working at the moment, but also doesn’t hold any interest for me — I don’t see how random Flickr image additions enhance this content. I went back to a recently published post and added in all of the suggest semantic tags. When looking at the page mark-up I don’t see any indication of tagaroo/opencalais’ presence. Maybe it is posting information back to the OpenCalais servers? I did need to register for an API key. I’ll play with it a little more, but if it helps make this content more semantic, then why not?
How Does Calais Work? | OpenCalais
We want to make all the world’s content more accessible, interoperable and valuable. Some call it Web 2.0, Web 3.0, the Semantic Web or the Giant Global Graph – we call our piece of it Calais.
Oracle Database integrates OpenCalais | OpenCalais
Tight integration empowers Oracle Spatial 11g Release 2 users to deploy production-strength semantic solutions with unprecedented speed.
wordpress | OpenCalais
Tagaroo provides automated tag generation and image location for WordPress bloggers. We like Tagaroo so much that we gave him his own website. If you’re a WordPress blogger and would like to integrate Calais functionality directly within your blogging life then hop on over to Tagaroo.
Tagaroo » Make blogging better!
Tagaroo is designed to make your WordPress blog better for you, better for your readers and more accessible to search engines. As you’re writing, Tagaroo analyzes the text in your post and suggests intelligent tags for the things and events you’re writing about.
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Posted in Data, Design, Technology, Web, Web 2.0, WordPress, access, blog, blogging, content, database | Comments Off
Posted by Randy on 19th October 2009
“Email-this” type links on articles or blog posts are so old-fashioned. Face it, nobody uses email anymore — or perhaps it is a matter of “nobody goes there anymore, it’s too crowded” (salute to Yogi Berra). Twitter is the hot property of the moment, so why not Tweet-this. And of course there is a WordPress plug-in that does exactly that. I’m giving it a spin on the blog — go ahead and tweet on of the posts and let me know how it works for you. I saw this technique used on a ComputerWorld article, although their implementation wasn’t quite a neat (not WordPress!).
WordPress › Tweet This « WordPress Plugins
Adds a “Tweet This Post” link to every post and page. Shortens URLs. Can automatically tweet new and scheduled blog posts. Customizable (check screenshots). Also included: Plurk, Yahoo Buzz, Delicious, Digg, Facebook, MySpace, Ping.fm, Reddit, and StumbleUpon support.
New secure password rules
Bottom line: The “absolute” security of the password matters less than the “applied” security of the password once you consider all the threats and use patterns. Sometimes you have to come up with new rules to address new threats and changing work patterns, even if that means getting flamed for challenging the “rules”.
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Posted in Design, Security, Twitter, WordPress, Yahoo!, blog, email, facebook, plugin, plugins | Comments Off
Posted by Randy on 19th October 2009
Website Magazine’s listing of top sites for web pro’s has WordPress.com in the top ten — and twitter only number 12. Not sure what it means, if anything, but it is interesting to see what their “proprietary method” thinks is important.
Top 50 Websites for ‘Net Professionals – Website Magazine – Website Magazine
Website Magazine’sTop 50 rankings are a measure of a website’s popularity. Ranks are calculated using a proprietary method that focuses on average daily unique visitors and page views over a specified period of time as reported by multiple data sources. The sites with the highest combination of factors are ranked in the first position.
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Posted in Data, Lifestyle, PLE, Twitter, Web, WordPress, blog, content | Comments Off
Posted by Randy on 14th October 2009
I have been a big fan of the Firefox extension ScribeFire for some time. It makes it really easy in Firefox to comment on web pages you are viewing. I really like to include references to the resources used in writing a post, and ScribeFire has become an essential tool for my blogging. In fact I rarely write a post directly in the WordPress admin interface. But in editing some posts today I noticed a little invisible bit of tracking code — and of course, wondered “where is that coming from?” It turns out that since February 2009 ScribeFire has a new feature/integration with Zemanta, and the code started showing up then. You can turn this tracking off (see the screen shot below) but it is on by default. What are they tracking? Beats me, but I don’t like my tools inserting tracking code for who knows what. Not that I’m paranoid, but it is my content. I will go on using Scribefire, but I do feel a little used. I guess nothing is truly free.
Here is the screen shot:
Is Zemanta a feature? Maybe for some people, but even after reading through their site it doesn’t interest me. It pays to watch “free” tools closely and carefully question their motives for providing the tool, and testing for any hidden “features.”
ScribeFire and Zemanta Team Up To Create a Smarter Blog Editor
After installing ScribeFire (ScribeFire), you can launch Zemanta from its toolbar. As you write posts, it’ll provide recommendations for related articles and images, based on the content you’re working on.
Zemanta – Scribefire: Fire up your blogging
Version 3.2 contains a few bugfixes and new features. You can read the full changelog at What’s New in ScribeFire 3.2., but the biggest new feature is ScribeFire’s integration with Zemanta.
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Posted in Firefox, Technology, Web, WordPress, blog, blogging, content | Comments Off
Posted by Randy on 12th October 2009
If Google Wave lives up to even half of the hype surrounding its closed beta release it still will be an awesome product. Some are raising the notion that is could bring a number of web 2.0 concepts together and become a new tool for personal learning systems — and replacing the traditional course management system. But then again moving things to the Google cloud is not without its concerns, as recent outages highlight. And it may be that Wave doesn’t live up to its hype — time will tell.
The Wired Campus – Could Google Wave Replace Course-Management Systems? – The Chronicle of Higher Education
Google argues that its new Google Wave system could replace e-mail by blending instant messaging, wikis, and image and document sharing into one seamless communication interface. But some college professors and administrators are more excited about Wave’s potential to be a course-management-system killer.
Amazon Web Services Gets DDoS Attack and the Client Waits – ReadWriteEnterprise
An apparent DDoS attack on Amazon Web Services (AWS) over the weekend left a web-hosting code service down for about 20 hours before the problem became resolved.
Geeks Try Google Wave, Have Mixed Feelings
Google Wave is one of the most-hyped new product launches in recent memory, but now that thousands of lucky people are getting to try it out – early reactions are mixed. If the hard-core geeks aren’t sure if they like it, that could spell serious trouble for mainstream adoption.
First impressions of Google Wave ~ Stephen’s Web ~ by Stephen Downes
So, for now, it’s just a glorified content editing tool – and as that, not a very good one. Hoping for better down the line. This, meanwhile, is Liam Green-Hughes’s response: “Hype aside, as this is often no more than a distraction, my first impression is that this potentially is a very useful tool. I am looking forward to the system being opened up so anybody can register on it and use it, then being able to try it out on an actual project with many other people.”
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Posted in Learn, PHP, PLE, Web, Web 2.0, blog, campus, education, higher education, management, systems | Comments Off
Posted by Randy on 7th October 2009
I have been following the Bates Online Media blog for about a year. They have been blogging as they’ve worked through a pretty dramatic redesign of the college web site. The fact that is built on WordPress is probably the least important feature (but the WordPress geek in me does thrill just a bit at the news.) With my eldest now a freshman at Springfield college, we all spent a lot of time as consumers on college sites — and from the user perspective the Bates site is very smartly laid out, and is easy to use. Nice to see such a great end-result after a careful and productive planning process.
Bates College goes beyond the usual homepage redesign with Home 4 running on WordPress | collegewebeditor.com
We have been managing the site in WordPress since the beginning, first as a proof-of-concept with student assistants at WordPress.com, then as a working prototype with WP 2.8 software on an external hosting service, and now hosted on a campus Web server…The slideshows are handled with NextGenGallery, with the overlays via Thickbox and jquery. We’re using a number of plugins to enable shortcodes for editors along with WP-Table Reloaded for organization of tabular data originating in DabbleDB. We had over 30,000 views on launch day — about double the load of an average day — all served by WP-SuperCache.
Bates College
Bates Views is a site of thoughtful text, images, audio and video. Click a category below to expand
One Bates. Many Journeys. « Bates Online Media
I’m sharing the current draft of a vision paper on ways such an education might be expanded through online collaboration.
It’s 12-pages long, so here is a PDF version (2.1 MB download). It’s an evolving draft, so please send comments and suggestions for improvements.
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Posted in Data, Design, PHP, PLE, Web, WordPress, audio, blog, blogging, campus, education, planning, plugin, plugins, student, video | Comments Off
Posted by Randy on 7th October 2009
Casey Bisson at Plymouth State University up in central New Hampshire is working to make PSU an all WordPress environment. Casey was a speaker at the WordPress Education I helped put together last year, speaking on his Scriblio library project (built on WordPress). He recently sent an email on his latest work to move the school’s web content management to a WordPress MU installation, along with links to posts on his blog. Hopefully Casey will have time to take a spot on the program for the April 2010 WordPress University workshop — in the meantime check out his blog posts for all sorts of good information and inspiration.
Casey wrote:
As part of our CMS replacement we’re working on a theme that’s based on the 960 Grid System CSS framework and entirely widget driven — the post loop and everything else is a widget that can be put anywhere. The page is broken up into a number of horizontal widget areas (including header and footer), and you can choose one, two, three, or four columns in the body (each is its own widget area). We plan to release it publicly, but need to develop a baseline CSS file (one that doesn’t look like our PSU template). You can watch our progress here:http://code.google.com/p/9spot/source/list
» Hacking WordPress Login and Password Reset Processes For My University Environment MaisonBisson.com
And that’s how we replaced our authentication system with WordPress, gained self-service password resets, and built the foundation to invite new users into our system.
» WordPress Hacks: Serving Multiple Domains MaisonBisson.com
WordPress MU makes it easy to host both blogs.site.org and www.site.org within a single implementation, but there’s little documentation for how to do it.
» WordPress Hacks: Nested Paths For WPMU Blogs MaisonBisson.com
Situation: you’ve got WordPress Multi-User setup to host one or more domains in sub-directory mode (as in site.org/blogname), but you want a deeper directory structure than WPMU allows…
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Posted in PLE, Technology, WordPress, blog, cms, content, css | Comments Off
