Matt,
Given that you seem to be abusing your PageRank to increase revenue for wordpress.org, I would like for you to share to the world:
a) how much money you have received (google revenue and donations)
and b) where all that money has gone.
Have you at least shared it with the WordPress contributors? All of them? Any of them?
I must say that you just might not make it in the business world, since you have to have deep pockets to play this dirty and win. I can now understand why you don’t play well with others, and use NIH personally to scrub out good ideas and ‘create’ new software instead of enhancing the existing.
Scott Sanders
Popularity: 11%
Third Update: Google dropped wordpress.org like a hot rock (good for them), then Matt dropped -9000px like a bad date, and then Google gave the love back. To remember this occasion, why don’t you buy the t-shirt?
Second update: Slashdot picked up the story, but there is at least one fair and balanced comment.
I really wish that Matt wouldn’t have taken this into his own hands, screwing several developers along with himself.
Update: It seems the articles are 404′ing now, but the source on the front page is still there. I have captured a PDF screenshot of one of the articles for the world to see what Matt was doing, packaged in a google bomb: WordPress Page Rank Abuse and WordPress Search Engine Cloaking.
So, Matt has decided that the only way to pay for wordpress.org is by deceiving the search engines into beleiving that he knows everything about insurance/home buying/etc. According to the following, he has over 120,000 ‘articles’ published, purely for drving in the google revenue. This in itself is not bad. The bad part is hiding it from the actual users of the wordpress.org site, by positioning the content 9000 pixels to the left. Simply view source on the wordpress.org site, and look at the bottom.
So many people are on top of this, I really don’t have any more to add, other than if Matt wants to continue this practice, Google is probably going to forget about him and wordpress.org. Is Matt abusing his PageRank? My opinion: ABSOLUTELY!
Links:
Popularity: 11%
This idea is simple and straightforward. What if there were a protocol-compatible Microsoft Windows version of SubEthaEdit? This is a perfect chance to start a small software shop in the ‘Decade of the MicroISV’.
For those not familiar, SubEthaEdit allows any number of Mac OS X users to collaboratively edit files from anywhere in the world. Someone ‘hosts’ an editing session, and others login to that session. Everyone has their own cursor to run around the file and make changes in real-time, that everyone can see. It may sound geeky, but when you are trying to debug some config file, or working on a project together, this is invaluable. I have used it on countless occasions, along with iChat AV, to work on something with someone in another state. It is almost like being there!
Alas, SubEthaEdit is Mac only, although the Rendezvous protocol that they use is cross-platform. This leaves out a large portion of the population of computer users. Now, you could go make a clone of SubEthaEdit that did the same thing without interop, but I think the power is in the integration of the two, allowing all platforms to communicate with each other. You could even write one for Gnome/KDE if you wanted to.
I have contacted the codingmonkeys team, let’s see what they have to say about it.
SubEthaEdit allows location-independent collaboration, a Windows/Linux version would add cross-platform to the mix, a win-win-win for everyone (new business, SubEthaEdit crew, and all users).
Popularity: 29%
When I am sitting with any of my friends, we tend to come up with umpteen brilliant business ideas, if we only had time….
I created the ‘business ideas’ category here so that I can share these ideas with the world. These ideas are, in my opinion, valid and profitable, if only I had the time and money to pursue them all. I will post new business ideas here from time to time, and if it goes well, I might just spin this little idea off into a community blog, where everyone can share the ideas that they don’t have time to pursue, but still believe to be worthwhile.
Popularity: 18%
Started at the end of the WordPress upgrade (20 minutes ago), and I am now finished. Thank you Alex for making it this easy:
- Download TasksPro 1.5 and untar
- Edit database.inc.php to point to your database
- Navigate to Tasks Pro and run the upgrade that you are prompted to do
- Login and save your Preferences
Software upgrades really can be this easy.
Popularity: 18%
I just spent the last 1.5 hours upgrading to the new WordPress ‘Strayhorn’ 1.5 release. The database upgrade actually went OK this time, and the customizations upgrade was a bit trickier. The upgrade instructions could have been a little more clear, as I have always used my main sites CSS file to serve styling info for the blog as well. Note that when you ‘make’ a theme, you MUST create an index.php as well as a style.css, and that style.css MUST contain a comment header that Wordpress then parses to list the themes in the admin screens. Just an FYI.
I must say that the WordPress team is starting to get the hang of this whole upgrade thing, but they still have a ways to go before they catch up with the upgrade sweetness that Alex has in Tasks Pro.
Popularity: 15%
Alex tells me that this is the current best way to bold ordered list items (the actual list item numbers, not the data in the list item):
<ol>
<li><span>list item</span></li>
<li><span>list item</span></li>
<li><span>list item</span></li>
</ol>
And the css:
ol {font-weight: bold;}
ol span {font-weight: normal;}
And here is an example:
- Item 1
- Item 2
- Item 3
- Item 4
And without it:
- I am boring
- Where is the emphasis?
- No one will notice
Popularity: 19%
Cowboy Mulligan (D. T. Moore)
Summary: This is the mulligan stew Daddy used to “build” in a small bake skillet when he would be out on the range overnight. He often made it for our supper at home, and sometimes for breakfast. It smells and tastes wonderful. As an added bonus, it is super simple.
Ingredients:
- 4 or 5 thick slices of bacon diced
- 1 medium onion, finely diced
- 3 large potatoes, sliced into shoestrings
- Salt and pepper to taste
- 1 fresh tomato (optional)
- Water to cover all ingredients
Directions:
Sprinkle pepper in skillet. Add diced bacon and diced onion. Cook until bacon is slightly crisp and onions clear but not burned, over low-medium heat. Drain off excess bacon grease, add potatoes cut into fine showstrings. add salt to taste. If desired, dice tomato and add to potatoes. Add just enough water to cover potatoes. Turn heat to low or simmer, cover pan and let ingredients simmer until potatoes are tender. The juice will thicken like gravy from the starch in the potatoes. Serve with green vegetable or salad, or just by itself. Homemade bread adds a good touch. Especially good cooked over a campfire or coals.
Number Of Servings:Three large potatoes will make six generous servings. Increase ingredients to serve more.
Preparation Time:At sea level, about 30 minutes. In the higher elevations, about 45 minutes.
Variations: I personally use a block of salt pork instead of bacon, and just slice the potatoes about 1/8 - 1/4 of an inch thick, just like Grandma Lawson used to make it. Then when it is finished, slice the skin off of the salt pork and toss it, chop up the salt pork and add it back into the stew and serve.
Popularity: 14%
Alex has released new versions of Tasks (2.5) and Tasks Pro (1.5). Shiny new features include: recurring tasks, task templates, favorites, new themes and PHP 5 compatibility.
I use Tasks Pro for myself, my company, as well as with several clients, and I find it to be absolutely necessary for organizing all of my project related things. It is not too heavy, web-based (great since I run multiple computers), and very efficient and easy to use.
Check it out: Tasks Pro: Web based Task Management Software
Popularity: 9%
I saw a blog this morning with a blogmap on it by feedmap.net, and I was mildly intrigued. So I cruise on over to feedmap.net, and try to get my own blog on the map, no pun intended.
After trying all possbile combinations of URLs for my site and all of my feeds, feedmap seems to not like me. I keep getting the same error every time: ‘Unable to extract feed from the url’.
This sucks. I tried IE 6, Firefox, and Safari to no avail. What else can I do?
Update: I emailed Chandu, and it turns out that I am using a version of WordPress that sends out invalid HTTP headers. Modifying wp-blog-header.php as below solved the problem:
Index: wp-blog-header.php
===================================================================
— wp-blog-header.php (revision 33)
+++ wp-blog-header.php (working copy)
@@ -84,7 +84,7 @@
// We’re showing a feed, so WP is indeed the only thing that last changed
$wp_last_modified = mysql2date(’D, d M Y H:i:s’, get_lastpostmodified(’GMT’), 0).’ GMT’;
$wp_etag = ‘”‘.md5($wp_last_modified).’”‘;
- @header(’Last Modified: ‘.$wp_last_modified);
+ @header(’Last-Modified: ‘.$wp_last_modified);
@header(’ETag: ‘.$wp_etag);
@header (’X-Pingback: ‘ . get_settings(’siteurl’) . ‘/xmlrpc.php’);
Now, if only the browse functionality worked in Firefox…
Popularity: 10%
All my iPod Shuffle kit finally came today. I have the 1GB Shuffle, the USB Dock, and the arm band. Now I can work in the yard or the shop without worrying about my big iPod falling out of my pocket, getting dirt all over it, or banging against other objects.
I know all those OSHA peeps out there will tell me that I am crazy, but listening to music with my in-ear earphones, I think it is actually better than earplugs, and I can sing along 
Just loaded up 216 songs, leaving 64MB free for that quick file sharing need (perhaps I should just leave no free space, and just delete songs when I need to transfer a file). Will update this post with more information as I use it.
Update: I have been using it most of the day, and I like it. The armband is comfortable, but small. Not that I need an excuse, but if I were to start working out, I would grow out of it in 3-4 weeks. It may already be too small for you, Jason. Wearing the Shuffle and the headphone wires under the shirt gets a lot of gawks out here in the country, people must think I am an FBI agent or something.
Popularity: 10%
Rule of thumb: Don’t schedule a conference call with an engineer at 8 AM his time. Second Rule of Thumb: Don’t cancel said call at 7 AM his time. These things just don’t make for a productive day, since the coffee lag is just too great to overcome for the first half of the day.
Popularity: 9%
Paul Graham has an idea that makes me so green with envy, I only wish I had it first.
I might have to consider doing something like this next year. The idea is to do the least amount of work possible, to stay out of someone’s way and let them “just do it”. I think this will weed out the “blue sky” people, since you have to actually produce something in a summer.
Popularity: 9%
I now have MySQL 3 and 4 side by side on the Linux server, but unfortunately it still will not work with Apache2. I have to compile PHP to use the v3 libs, and I want mod_python using the v4 libs, but it will not work.
Real bummer. Now what do I do? Switch to Postgres? Drop mod_python for something like fastcgi? Try and upgrade the v3 apps to v4?
Popularity: 11%
This will be updated as I go through the process. First, download the distribution from postgresql.org. Then expand it somewhere. The only prereq that I know of is readline, which fink installs really early.
Then, configure:
./configure –with-python –with-rendezvous –enable-thread-safety –with-libs=/sw/lib –with-includes=/sw/include –bindir=/usr/local/bin –mandir=/usr/local/share/man –enable-recode –enable-syslog –enable-unicode-conversion –enable-multibyte
Then make.
Then sudo make install.
Then create a user called postgres.
Then give the installation to that user:
sudo chown -R postgres /usr/local/pgsql
Popularity: 9%
Title says it all. Now, if only I could teach the reader to know which entries I cared about (sorry, but anything talking about baseball is just not relevant use for the miniscule free space left in my brain). If only…
Popularity: 9%
I am intrigued by the announcement by Novell of the Hula Project. I think it is great that they are open-sourcing all this great code, and they have someone enthusiastic to sheperd it through the community-building phase.
My real conundrum is this: What is Novell thinking? Why do they have 3 groupware solutions now? Is this the spray-and-pray marketing style? I would have thought they would be trying to combine the 2 they have, instead of adding a third option to the mix. What the hell am I talking about?, you ask. Let me ’splain it to you:
When you go to the main Novell web site, and you choose the menu at the top entitled Products, and then the subitem collaboration, you are then given 3 choices: GroupWise (the ‘flagship’ product in the category), NetMail (now Hula), and SUSE Linux Openexchange Server. So we now have 2 open source choices and one propietary choice, as opposed to vice-versa.
It seems the marketing engine for NetMail seemed to loose steam about mid-2003, and now the ‘only way out’ seems to be the open source tack. The buzz around Hula seems to be pretty strong, and I think because of this Novell will ultimately cannabalize their Groupwise product because of it. While I applaud the decision to open source, I really wish that Novell could understand that more products does not necessarily mean more opportunities, but definetly means more cost. I want Novell to ’stick around’, but this seems a lot like the marketing missteps of a Borland, than the ownership and vision of a leader.
Thoughts?
Popularity: 16%
Update: In working with Alex on trying to ’sell’ this cool product to him, I told him that I oould fax, and he asked a few questions like ‘Does it pull phone numbers from the address book?’. I told him that I would check, and indeed it does, it pulls EVERY phone number in from the address book, not just fax numbers! That would have been too easy for the user. Also, the Windows user experience is actually worse than the Mac, because you can send the fax at anytime, without being forced to put in a phone number, or worse, if you add the phone number, but do not click add to recepients, the fax is never sent either. Pure Genius!!!!
I just installed my 7310xi on the network (wired, not wireless), and everything seems to be working. I used it standalone as a fax/copier, and that was great. Then I moved on to installing the software on a PC, and that worked fine. I was able to print and fax, no problems.
I then moved onto installing it on my OS X laptop. I like that HP ‘gets’ Rendevous (mDNS), and the device immediately showed up in the list of available printers (everything should work this way, I am surprised that we are this far into the computer age and still not there yet). I then attempted to install the software on the provided CD. The CD had issues reading (it sounded like a DJ scratching a record, then stopping for a second, then doing it again after a spin-up.), but did install the software, at a snail’s pace. Next issue, the installer REQUIRES you to close ALL applications on the Mac. This is just insane! What kind of brain-dead nitwit decided that was a good idea? It even required me to close my Finder replacement Pathfinder. So, after EVERYTHING was closed, installation continued. It finally finished, and then stepped me through some very ugly dialogs that only an engineer would understand.
After all of this, I added the printer, and printed a test page. Great. Now I try to print it to the fax machine that was installed. The only problem there is that it keeps asking me for which modem I should use… I don’t need to use a modem, you piece of crap… Anyhoo, googled for answers, found almost nothing, although the standard ‘re-install the software’ theme keeps pooping up for any problems with HP and OS X related issues. I tried HP online chat support, and after fully describing the problem, they tell me that I can’t be helped, and I need to call the customer support line. WHAT??? How can a company with a decent product have such a terrible end-user experience, and then top it off with useless customer support? I wasn’t trying anything out of the ordinary. It says on the box the unit came in that Windows and Max are supported. I am calling customer support now, and I will update this post with my (mis)adventure.
Update: I call 1-800-HP-INVENT for tech support, go through an automated process that correctly identified my voice request for OfficeJet All-in-One support, then told me to say Macintosh if this is for Macintosh support. I then say ‘Macintosh’, and promptly get the phone answered by the Windows support team. I kindly tell her I am using a Macintosh, and she kindly transfers me, telling me I will hear a few beeps. Minor bump in the road, but so far so good. The phone is answered fairly promptly, and I start talking with Jodi(sp?). He begins asking me the standard info (serial number, OS and verison, machine make and model, network setup, etc. I then tell him that I cannot fax, because the OfficeJet is not in the list of choices for the modem to use. He does a quick search, finds nothing, but thinks that this machine may be one of ‘the ones’ that cannot fax over Wireless. What the? Jodi comes back, and walks me through the non-intuitve way you have to follow to send a fax. The solution is:
- Attempt to print something.
- DO NOT choose the Fax… button. That would be sane.
- Choose the fax machine entry from the list of printers. This will change the Print button to a disabled ‘Send Fax Now’ button.
- From the options drop down, currently at ‘Copies and Pages’, select ‘Fax Recipients’.
- Enter the details and choose ‘Add to Recipients’. Voila! The Send Fax Now button is enabled.
I just love to live with counter-intuitive software. There are 2 reasons I switched to the Mac. First, Unix underneath, since I am a command line junkie. Second was my friends’ recommendations that everything ‘just works’ in an intuitive sort of way. HP does not understand this at all. They just figured the easiest way to port the Windows crap to the Mac platform, including all the memory hogging monitoring apps that are the HP signature.
The only upside is that Jodi, the last person I talked to, was intelligent, articulate, and patient. He hepled me through the issue, and even offered to call me back, and then actually did call me back! Thanks Jodi.
Popularity: 21%
