Being Sociable, It’s a Nice Thing

Have finally thrown down the gauntlet, to myself, and gotten into some of the code that drives the blog.

So the site has undergone some "improvements". We’ll take some time to see if they really do enhance the site, or detract.

In my browsing of blogs, I found a post on Paul’s blog about Sociable, which led me to … Sociable. It’s a pretty simple, but very sweet, plugin. Satisfies, to me, the basic goodness of what plugins do. Enables me to have cool functionality without me having to create that functionality from scratch (no matter to what degree I understand said functionality).

Anyway, as soon as you click on an article, you’ll see it in action. Gives you the opportunity to bookmark the article/post in a few of the different Social Bookmarking (for want of a better description) sites around.

Also, there are a couple of cosmetic changes to the layout. I am falling particularly in love, lately, with big headings. Not sure how this came about, I thought I was pretty minimalist at my design heart, but apparently not at the moment.

Anyway, more coming. In lots of different directions.

p.s. Sorry for anyone who visited hoping for a repeat of last Friday night’s actions. I was very very excited about doing another Quick Dev … but a number of factors cancelled that out.

Suffice to say, I’ve almost finished the initial touches on a sub-domain that will be the hub for my Quick Dev stuff. Not sure on that name though … it’s more about becoming a better developer, by practicing the art. The more you push yourself, the more you learn.

Anyway, enough for the moment.

2. Engine

There are quite a few blogging engines available today. It’s important to choose the one that will give you the best shot at doing what we are about … Blogging. Writing your own, or getting into a very complicated blogging tool, is all well and good, but when the purpose is blogging, being able to post without trouble, then it’s very important to look at what you are going to use.

I began my blogging by writing my own engine. At the time, I had no idea what I was doing. I didn’t know the word "blog", and didn’t realise what a "content management system" was.

But now I’ve progressed. This blog was the first on the road to enlightenment.

WordPress. It’s the engine of choice for many people. Myself included. It’s got the power I need with the simplicity I need. It’s moddable. This is a big selling point. In fact, it’s a point all in itself.

  • Modability.

Modability is vital because … a single mind comes up with a good idea … but a community, coming up with one idea each, gives a massive increase in functionality. This is the reason why I continue to use WordPress. There are a wealth of mods (plugins/themes) available. Plugins and Themes. There’s even Themes that are more mods than plugins.

To clarify, a Theme changes the way your blog looks, and a Plugin adds/changes the functionality of your blog.

But then there’s K2 which is a Theme that’s so much more than a theme. Dev Dawn uses the K2 theme, along with Paul’s Style for that Theme. Confused yet … my mind is whirring with excitement :).

Holiday Cheer

Well,

Spend a few days away from the internet world, and you’re liable for a return to a few surprises.

I had a bundle of emails waiting, some spam, some legit … and scarily, a few "fake" bank ones. Westpac and National to be exact. They weren’t addressed exactly to my email address, but something close to it. And they had instructions for going to the website and entering in your bank details. Crazy. Christmas Cheer.

WordPress 2.0 is released! Nice work to the hard-working team.

I’ve got a couple of blog ideas that might be good for it. I’m a little hesitant pushing Dev Dawn across, but a new idea is the perfect opportunity to see how it works.

Happy New Year to all and sundry. Development To The Fore!

The Smelly Winds Of Change

Dev Dawn has had a massive visual overhaul.

Big shouts out to the following:

Paul Stamatiou really opened my eyes to just what can be done in the world of the interweb, blogs, and ‘net stuff. Plus, it’s his mod on the K2 theme that i’m using. Deviance.

The K2 Theme rocks. Simple. It’s very cool. Thankyou to the Binary Bonsai boys.

Lastly, I’m using a few new plugins. They are:

Brian’s Latest CommentsFeedburner PluginGravatarWP-ContactForm Ha ha, this was already plugged in. Silly me.

Thankyou very much. Everyone.

Especially WordPress. Without it, I’d still be beating my head against a wall trying to get Joomla to act like a simple blog. Heh.

‘Nuff Said.

Blog Software Smackdown

Site Point has an article up titled Blog Software Smackdown. It’s a pretty cool look at "the big 3". One of which is WordPress, the wonderful engine that runs this blog. So props up to WordPress. It’s an awesome tool, easy to use, and here’s to many years of pushing the blog envelope.

Simple news post.