I’m pleased to finally release version 2 of bbPress KJG SEO.
One of the great things about bbPress is that when it works, it blows away other forums. It doesn’t get many things right, but I feel with this plugin you’ll see a huge difference in your site’s SEO. It has almost all of the features of it’s WordPress counterparts and many more. Definately it’s something I’m very proud of, and it’s seeing great results in the beta tests. In the past 6 months, I’ve come to regard this bbPress Plugin as a must have – something that rarely happens as an overly critical developer.
Dear Automattic,
My name is Kevinjohn Gallagher, and I’m one of the people to who contribute to bbPress.
I’ve mentioned this before, but after the announcement by Jane Well on the Official WordPress blog, and by Andrew Nacin on the WordPress development blog, I thought I’d take one last shot at a bit of sanity:
Please, stop calling the new forum plugin for WordPress the “bbPress plugin”.
Continue reading ‘An open letter to Automattic re: the bbPress plug-in’
Dear BackPress Team,
My name is Kevinjohn Gallagher, and I’m one of the people to who contribute to bbPress.
That is the standalone forum software available at bbpress.org, and not the BuddyPress plug-in called bbPress, nor the bbPress plug-in in the WordPress plug-in directory.
It is sometimes confusing as they all use the same name, so I find it’s best to be upfront about which one of the 3 pieces of software I am trying to help (even if I do sometimes feel like I’m saying that I’m the “People’s front of Judea” rather than the “Judean’s People’s Front” ).
With bbPress utterly reliant on BackPress for it’s next release, I am wondering if I could have 5 minutes of your time to discuss/asnwer the following questions:
New Client: Heriot-Watt University
bbpress, kevinjohngallagher.com, new client, purewebbrilliant.com, wordpressI am pleased to announce the signing of a new client: Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh.
Heriot-Watt are migrating their online information repository as part of the larger SAS Project, and today signed off on our pitch to create the web app on the WordPress platform. This will be the first time that Heriot-Watt have used WordPress for an externally facing website, and we’re very pleased that they have continued the trend of Scotland’s Top Universities (Edinburgh and Napier universities are previous clients) in choosing Kevinjohn Gallagher and PureWebBrilliant.com.
It had to happen eventually. At some stage in the last 2 weeks, some of my older wordpress installs on my old server appear to have become compromised in some form. I’ll bet dollars to donuts that it was over the Bank Holiday weekend at the end of the last month; right when I paused my server migration process.
If I’m honest with myself, I’ve been lucky with some of the sites that this hasn’t happened before. Ofcourse, I’ve taken every precaution availible and even being critical of myself I can hand on heart say that security on my WordPress installs has improved dramatically in the last 18 months; but a mixture of older WordPress versions, bbpress legacy code, custom code and the great unknown, the website user, have finally conspired against me.
Sounds simple, and obvious, given that WordPress has been my go-to platform of choice for website creation over the last 4 years; but as I upgrade the last of my client websites to the brand new WordPress3.0RC3 it occurred to me that this is what I do.
I build, from end to end, websites in WordPress.
- Are you a front-end developer or back-end developer?
- Are you a PHP person, or a .NET person?
- Are you pro-open-source or 100% against open-source?
Given how fluid and ever changing web based IT solutions have become, it still amazes me that people and companies attempt to label us and put us in these predefined boxes.
Steve Balmer once stood in front of me on a stage shouting “developers, developers, developers”. It was an oddly impassioned call to arms that delivered his point, but missed the end goal.
The goal in software design ( be it desktop, mobile or web based ) must be improved Usability. I state this not to jump on the latest bandwagon, but because I am often asked how I can be so evangelistic about new web based technologies and yet rarely do you see any code normally associated with other front or back end developers.
This weekend marks 4 month since bbPress received any official update on it’s blog, or has any of it’s “weekly” IRC triages; Matt has thrown his toys out of the pram, and publicly talked down the project at this year’s WordCamp, no-one knows if we’re meant to be working on the 1.0.3 trac or the 1.1 trac, and this version of the software is going to be it’s last.
So the question I want to ask is, where now for bbPress? Here are my thoughts…
Space Shuttle Atlantis, the only space shuttle who’s launch I’ve seen live from “The Cape”, flies it’s final scheduled mission today. It will be joined later in the year by it’s sisters Discovery and Endeavour. And then the space shuttle program that put man on the moon will be no more…
I enjoy politics, and I especially enjoy how these folks portray politics: Yes, Minister; In the loop; Daily Show; Colbert Report
But in discussing it with my friends over the weekend, I found out a shocking lack of knowledge of these rather basic facts. So I’ve knocked up a little table to show how messed up the current electoral system is.
The polls have opened for the 2010 UK General Election, and I’d like to strongly suggest that you take advantage of this and vote.
- Polling stations are open from 7am and close at 10pm on Thursday 6 May ONLY.
- You do NOT need a polling card to vote – simply turn up to your local polling station and give them your name and address (in Northern Ireland only, you must provide official with photographic ID)
- If you’re unsure of who to vote for, may I suggest this rather wonderful independant website: http://www.votematch.org.uk/
- If you are unsure of where your polling station is, contact your council’s Electoral Registration Office. You can find their contact details by visiting the About My Vote website, run by the Electoral Commission: http://www.aboutmyvote.co.uk/
Democracy is a wonderful thing, a priviledge so few in the world have, and it’s an incredibly shame to waste it. So regardless of which candidate you vote for, please make sure you cast your ballot!
A new version of my website has been pushed live over this bank holiday weekend. Hopefully you won’t notice any real changes, as this was more an update for myself. That said, it’s taken quite a bit of tinkering under the hood:
As of today, 1st May 2010, I have decided to officially end my sabbatical from the IT industry.
In other words, I’m actively looking for work.
Matt + holiday = bbPress – Matt = Matt – Fanboys = Toys – Pram = bbpress – Automattic
http://bbpress.org/forums/topic/whats-happening-with-bbpress/page/5#post-64410
I don’t think I’ve ever been so shocked at an adult’s childishness.
Neither word is ideal in it’s definition of pre-packaged functionality, but lately I’ve seen far too many people confuse the two as interchangeable. It’s not just a case of semantics either, it’s a statement of what we can aim to achieve against public perception.
Continue reading ‘Basic versus Standard’
CelticFansite.com launches as Beta today on the final day of the January transfer window.
Following the sudden removal of BBshowcase.org earlier in the week, it appears that BBprogress.com has decided to call time on the BBpress project as well.
After 6 months of silence from Automattic regarding BBpress, the most (only?) prolific developer, _ck_, has abandoned the project and closed her website. She was the driving force in keeping the project alive through the the last 2 years, and the slow uptake of BBpress 1.02 is almost entirely down to lack of support from her plugins.
A quick one, and goes against my pricipal of the year.
I agreed to help out Edinburgh based firm Whitespacers on a very short term basis with one of their websites on a tight deadline. Considering how short a time scale we were looking at, i’m happy with the results:
