An Interesting Name

Was browsing through some Wordpress plugins, when I found this one:

Next Of Kin will monitor your visits to your blog and will send you a warning email after a number of weeks (of your choice) without a visit. If you fail to visit your blog even after that, the system will send a mail you wrote to whoever you choose.

I can see the email now: If you are reading this email it means that I am either dead or lazy. Or both.

Obviously if you haven’t blogged, it means you have died. It reminds me of when I called Velius for some tech help and expected him to have gotten an email I had just sent. When he replied that he wasn’t at this computer, I knew instantly that the phone call had been intercepted by alien ninjas who were impersonating Velius.

If you go to the actual plugin’s URL, there are some answers to the FAQ. It would have been hilarious if the answer to the last question (How can I know this will work?) was “Kill yourself.”

Wordpress 2.1

Here’s a nice article about some of the changes to expect in the upcoming Wordpress update. I’ll definitely be updating, but I may not necessarily be updating immediately. I’m a few minor revisions behind, but I don’t like to have to update the code all the time, especially when sometimes a new patch comes out less than 2 weeks later. Unfortunately, while the process of updating Wordpress is considerably easier than it was in Wordpress 1.5 (thanks to the WP Content folder), some plugins still reference core code that must be recustomized with each install. Although KOLAAP doesn’t use much customization, the anime blog has changes because of various meta programs, the implementation of the spoiler tags, etc.

Because many of the features were tested on the guinea pigs at Wordpress.com, I’ve already tried some of the new features out at the Out of Monsters blog. Overall it seems like this is just a typical polish and bugsquash update, with some security updates. Here’s a few changes that caught my eye:
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Borked

Something went wrong with the Sea Slugs! login, as every login was said to not have sufficient privileges to access the dashboard (even though the comments still showed the user as logged in). I fired off an email to Surpass Hosting support, and figured (stupidly) that I would try to upgrade to Wordpress 2.0.4 in an attempt to fix the problem. Unfortunately, the site is now completely messed up, and I have no idea why.

Update: Deleted all the Wordpress files, and reinstalled from scratch. Everything works now; I rock.

Fish N Polls

The Good:

Although the Are You A Big Fish tool listed KOLAAP as a Tiny Little Guppy, Sea Slugs! managed to rank as a Medium Herring.

The Bad:

There is apparently a serious problem with the Democracy Plugin that is used on Sea Slugs! for the polling function. The fix should be out soon, and fortunately we’ve only ever had one poll.

Another Theme Contest?

Undersigned has announced another Wordpress Theme Competition (and an update). I know the last one was rather underwhelming, but this one will only feature unique and new themes! Plus now that theme writers have had a chance to play with WP2 and AJAX for a while now, perhaps we will see something truly inspiring.

In related news, ArenaWP has started showcasing some noteworthy themes as well.

Wordpress 2.0 Theme Competition Closed

So the competition is finally closed, and results are supposedly due by May 15th. You can see the themes that have been uploaded so far on the Theme Viewer. There are only a few up so far, and as the comment drama indicates, the going has been slow. But I, like everyone else, can’t help but be impatient to see what has been submitted!

I am eager to replace the theme here, because I’ve decided I don’t really like the Regulas theme. It looks ok, but the cross-browser functionality is poor and I don’t feel it adequately takes advantage of all that Wordpress 2.0+ has to offer.