I’m currently writing this blog post on an iPod touch at my local Apple Store, thanks to the WordPress App for the iPhone/iPod touch. Writing on this onscreen keyboard is still a little bit clunky, but I’m certainly doing it faster now than I was doing when I first picked up an iPhone here a year ago.

As i’m sure many of my readers are aware, I’ve been a very longtime holdout when it comes to iPods and iPhones. In fact, as I described in a recent blog post (boy, I wish this thing had a way to let me copy and paste links), my opinion of the iPods (including the touch) has been that they pretty much didn’t do anything that I couldn’t already do on my laptop. True, these things ate more mobile, but just how many of the mobile features that these things offered did I really need to have with me when my laptop was not handy?

But now this darned thing called the App Store is out. Not only has it wowed certain influential tech reviewers like David Pogue (if you haven’t seen his latest video about the App Store, you’re missing out on something GREAT), but it’s even making me take another look at these pocket-sized wonders.

Twitterriffic is certainly one of those Mac apps that has ported over very nicely to the iPhone/iPod touch, but it actually extends the ability of Twitter to reflect what you are actually doing. After all, most if us certainly don’t spend every moment of the day doing things just in the computer, so for Twitter to realize its full potential, it has to be the kind of service that can go mobile. I’ve had the chance to try Twitterrific on the iPod touch, and it has really felt like a nice transformation from its beautifully-simplistic interface on the Mac to an equally beautiful and simplistic interface on the touch. I could easily see it making me 50% more active on Twitter.

WordPress, the app that I am using right now to write this blog post, is also a very interesting examplenof what’s possible. After downloading this app onto here, all I had to do was enter the URL of my blog along with the username and password for my WordPress admin panel and boom, I was in my admin via the app with the ability to edit my past posts or write a new one, like I’m doing now. I could totally see using this to write a brief blog post from somewhere, although maybe not a really long one like I’m doing now.

1Password has not yet gotten their iPhone version out yet, but after seeing the preview that they posted on their blog, it’s another app I’m quite interested in. One of it’s abilities is supposed to be allowing you to generate super-tough and super-safe passwords, but I’ve been a bit slow at getting many of my passwords safe because I wouldn’t remember them if I needed to login from somewhere else and didn’t have 1Password there to autofill the info for me. Between having 1Passworf on the iPhone/iPod touch and the my1Password service, however, both of which are coming up soon, I could really have a nice solution for keeping track of my passwords and keeping them secure.

OmniFocus for the iPhone/iPod touch, however, has GOT to be the deal-clincher for me. Since I bought the Mac version at Macworld in January, I’ve been working on adopting OmniFocus and getting used to using it to help me organize the various tasks surrounding my life (and try to reduce stress as well). The problem, however, is that it lives on my computer, which I don’t have with me at places like school and other places where I really need to have it handy to add actions to (as well as reminding me of what actions I need to get done). OmniFocus for iPhone/iPod touch, however, would eliminate that problem by letting me have my OmniFocus lists with me to get to, and let me sync them with the ones on my computer. Add in those awesome mobile-only features like location-aware contexts, and it’s about time to put the “Slippery With Drool” signs out.

While I’m still not interested in the iPhone (unless someone wants to donate the $70/month AT&T plan to me, since I doubt I’ll ever be able to afford that and don’t like AT&T anyway), I’m starting to show a bit of interest in the iPod touch for the first time. It may have just been a touchscreen wifi media player when it first came out, but now, thanks to the App Store, I’m convinced that it’s the best PDA out there, and one that I’m really getting interested in. However, I’ll keep waliting until Apple releases their next line of iPods (likely this fall) until I start saving.

P.S. Do yourself a favor to maintain your sanity. Don’t write a post as long as this on an iPhone or iPod touch. It takes too much patience.

Tags: 1Password, App Store, Apple, applications, iPhone, iPod touch, OmniFocus, Twitter, Twitterriffic, WordPress

More than a couple of times, I’ve been asked to share some WordPress plugins that I would recommend. I do have a number of plugins that I use on all of my WordPress-powered sites, and I consider them essential for any WordPress-based blog, and so I thought that I’d take the opportunity to share these plugins with you, including talking about what they do and why I use them.
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Tags: favorites, features, plugins, recommendations, review, WordPress

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Well, WordPress 2.5 has been released for about a week now, and I’ve been able to grace Webmacster87.info with its presence after spending some time last night doing an update. I’ve had some opportunities to play around with the new admin interface and some of the other changes, and since this is such a significant update to WordPress, what better time to do a review of the update? So, I’m going to take the time now to discuss some of the things that I like about the update, some of the things that I don’t like, as well as talking about some of the things that I’ve done to Webmacster87.info during last night’s update.
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Tags: 2.5, administration, Dashboard, features, interface, review, update, widgets, WordPress

I must say that I am. Granted, WordPress does have the best admin layout of any blog/CMS platform that I’ve ever used, but I have had my share of picky points to complain about here and there. But yesterday, the folks at Automattic released WordPress 2.5, which they have deemed to be the biggest UI change since 1.5 came out three years ago. The main attraction of 2.5 is a brand new administration layout that is much more user-oriented. It has a much nicer, better-flowing layout that also permits a nice amount of customization. (And the Dashboard is actually useful now, woo hoo!)

So, the good news with WordPress 2.5 is that it’s got a lot of great new features. However, the bad news with WordPress 2.5 is that it’s got a lot of great new features. That means that if you’ve heavily customized your WordPress installation with plugins or theme tweaks, you may need to think a couple of times before you begin the 2.5 honeymoon. A wide number of incompatible plugins have been listed by the community, and if you use some of the more popular plugins listed at the bottom of the page, you may need to hold your horses for a week or two until the authors start rolling out some updates. I know that I’m going to be holding off for awhile until I have a significant amount of time to dedicate to updating. Also, due to the size of this upgrade, doing a very comprehensive backup will be HIGHLY recommended.

However, congratulations to Automattic on this release, and I look forward to examining it in more detail.

Tags: 2.5, administration, Automattic, backup, blog, Dashboard, layout, release, upgrading, user interface, WordPress

You know that when you listen to PreviewCast, you hear me mention that the show is a part of the Tech Podcast Network and the Teen Podcasters Network. The former is a very vibrant, well-known network that features 91 excellent shows. The latter is a lesser-known network that has kind of been in a slump recently, such that a few months ago I posted a topic asking if there was anything I could do to help them get going, because the idea of having a network just for teen podcasters sounded like a great idea.

Well, the Teen Podcasters Network is making a comeback, and I’m going to be helping out. Beginning today, I have been given the position of “Lead Developer” on the board of Teen Media Productions, which heads the Teen Podcasters Network. That intimidating title means that I will essentially be working along with President/CEO Matt Pippen to work on the website, first of all, and then pursuing other ideas to achieve the goal of building up a good sized community of teen podcasters, with the ultimate goal of hopefully rivaling the other TPN that I’m associated with.

If you’re a teen podcaster and are interested in helping build up the community, be sure to check out the Teen Podcasters Network, and I’m looking forward to being able to do good work with them in the future!

Tags: community, development, job, PHP, Podcasts, staff, Teen Podcasters Network, teens, WordPress

You know that WordPress is really getting popular when government uses it. Indeed, the elections office for my own San Mateo County recently (as in a few months ago) launched a blog right on WordPress.com, called Inside Elections: The Blog Behind the San Mateo County Vote, which offers a number of insights behind everything that happens behind the scenes before voting day (which was today, by the way; the polls just closed a few minutes ago). Want to get inside tips on how those new eSlate voting machines work? Want to learn how all those sample ballots and voter by mail ballots are processed? Did you know that if you’re voting by mail, you can track & confirm the receipt and processing of your ballot, or that in San Mateo County, you could have voted on Saturdays October 27 and November 3 as well as today?

Bravo to our County Elections Office for adopting blogging, which can help us, as citizens, understand the process better. It’s one of those things that makes me more proud to be from San Mateo. Now I’m off to start tracking the election results…

Tags: ballots, Blogging, elections, eSlate, Mail, San Mateo County, tips, voting, WordPress

It’s Wednesday, which means that the release of Mac OS X Leopard is now less than 60 hours away! Today, I continue with part 3 of my award-winning Tiger-to-Leopard series (well, okay, it hasn’t really won anything, yet), where I take a look at everything that has happened during the 130-week interim between the releases of Mac OS X Tiger and Mac OS X Leopard. Today, I begin my focus on the Web 2.0, which has grown and matured exponentially since early 2005. Now, don’t get confused with the whole “part within a part thing,” but since I have quite a bit of Web 2.0 coverage to, well, cover, I’ll be stretching my Web 2.0 TTL coverage over today and tomorrow. Shall we take a look? (And yes, I promise that this post won’t be the laundry list you saw yesterday.)
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Tags: Digg, Facebook, Flickr, Last.fm, Mac OS X Leopard, MySpace, phpBB, Tiger-to-Leopard, Twitter, Web 2.0, WordPress, YouTube

The title is a pun on the classic joke “Why does a fireman wear red suspenders? To hold his pants up!”. Except that the only problem with the joke, “Why does WordPress.com wear red suspenders?” is that I don’t know the punch line, and it’s apparently going to take me awhile to find out.

I woke up this morning, about a half hour ago, actually, wanting to update one of the blogs that I host on WordPress.com, when to my surprise, I wasn’t logged in. I went to try to login, and got a thing saying “Error: Account suspended.”

WHAT? WHY?!?

Now, I’m trying to figure out on my own why on earth my account on WordPress.com could have been suspended. The only blogs that I have on WordPress.com are Aragon Peace Club, which hasn’t been updated since August 30th (I was about to update it this morning, actually) and The Neglected Former Existence of Webmacster87 which hasn’t been updated since July 2nd! I’m also an admin on the Don Havis 4 SMUHSD Board site since I function as the webmaster, although the blog actually “belongs” to another user. Even then, that hasn’t had much updating in awhile. The only other blogs accredited to my WordPress.com username are my self-hosted blogs that plug into the WordPress.com Stats plugin.

Frankly, the only real recent activity that I’ve had on my WordPress.com username are the couple of guest blog articles that I’ve done recently on Lorelle on WordPress. I’ve even read all of the legalese on the fascinating terms of service and haven’t seen anything listed there that I’ve done that could prompt me to be suspended. Did someone hack into my account and do bad things? I haven’t seen any evidence of that, especially considering that all of my blogs are still intact. What is going on?

Well, I’d just love to send an e-mail to WordPress.com’s support to find out what the heck is going on around here, but check out their lovely support page which says that “Support is currently closed.” Now forgive me folks, but almost every website keeps a website contact form open 24/7 (as opposed to having limited hours for, say, telephone support). Is there anything wrong with keeping a contact form available, and then when support “opens up” on Monday, you can go through the queue of support requests that have been piling up through the weekend?

Apparently not. But do you know how inconvenient Monday-Friday, 9 AM-5 PM is for me? I have a little, minor activity I do every Monday-Friday called school which makes it really difficult for me to have to try to send in a support request during your limited hours. And I can only imagine what it must be like for people in other areas of the globe to try to get support, if they can only fill out the form during a working hours in the Pacific time zone. There’s 168 hours in the week, and WordPress.com only lets you TYPE in the contact support box during 40 of them–that’s less than 1/4 of the week!

So here’s my current situation. My account on WordPress.com has been mysteriously suspended. I can’t find out why it has been suspended for a few days at the least. And now I’m unable to post important, time-sensitive information on one of my WordPress.com blogs, which is going to be very bad news for something that I’m trying to get organized within my school this week. So, what does that mean that I’m doing about it? What any good WordPress blogger would do if he was cut off from any other means of action. Blog and rant about it! Which I’ve just done.

Please WordPress.com people, why is my account suspended, and could you please allow people to leave a message in your contact support box 24/7?

Tags: Automattic, Blogging, contact, Personal, rants, support, suspended, WordPress, WordPress.com

Lorelle VanFossen presented an amazingly excellent session at WordCamp about connecting with your readers when you blog. This was an excellent conference which I’m so sorry that I missed, due to my stupidity of scheduling something at the same time as her session. Nevertheless, if you’re a blogger and you’re at all interested in really having your blog mean something to your readers, you HAVE to check out this session. I’m now rating it the best session of the whole weekend at WordCamp.
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Tags: Blogging, Connections, Lorelle VanFossen, Revver, San Francisco, Video, WordCamp, WordPress

WordPress superstar Lorelle VanFossen is spending the months of August and September featuring guest bloggers on her blog to celebrate the 2 year anniversary of her blog and of WordPress.com. (By the way, you might see me do an entry on there later on this month…) Today’s guest-blogged article is a very interesting article by Edrei Zahari all about personal blogging, including how personal blogging has been under-appreciated, along with tips for what really makes a personal blog one that readers would be interested in. He really emphasizes how it’s a blog about yourself and your personal life, but it’s written with an audience in mind–not so that you cater your posts to what the audience wants, but that you write in a style that the audience can relate to. This article really strikes a chord with many of the philosophies that I’ve had behind the production of this blog, and it’s really good to see my ideas written down in this article. I highly recommend that you go check it out.

Tags: article, Blogging, Connections, Lorelle VanFossen, Personal, tips, WordPress