Smashing WordPress: Beyond the Blog

This is
Thord Daniel Hedengren

You know, editors are lazy some times. Rather, they are whenever they can afford to be, which isn’t because they have low standards or are nasty little buggers. No, it’s a lot easier than that, they are busy busy busy running the publication, making sure it works out in any possible way. Online editors usually have more than just content in mind, they need to make sure that the traffic is decent enough, otherwise the site will falter as will the cash flow, and with no money to spend on good writers, well, there’s just not much to do then, right? Read more →

This week has been crazy, and this is catching up with me right now. I’ll have to break my rule and pull some workhours this weekend, probably on Sunday. This includes writing and revising freelance work for various sites, design work, theme packaging, and possibly some development with the Notes Blog theme, which I have been forced to neglect most of the week. I’m not happy with the current situation, and it shows in the lack of posts here, but hopefully I’ll be back on track by next week.

See you next week.

I made my debut post on GigaOM this week, which was fun. I’m doing some freelance work for them, and I’d reckon you’ll see my name pop up in the content every now and then from now on. Not on a daily basis or anything, but there’s some stuff lined up. Other than that, there’s been a lot of meetings and stuff to manage due to the fiscal year coming to a close for my company, and the fact that we signed a distributor’s agreement for Scandinavia for a certain product. Read more →

You might think this is a little premature, since WordPress 2.7 isn’t due out until in November this year, but I just couldn’t wait any longer. I’ve mentioned my Notes Blog WordPress theme previously, and I’ve promised to make it available for free.

And you know what, I intend to keep that promise!

My goal is to have the Notes Blog theme available for download by the time WordPress 2.7 is launched, with a possible beta version before that. Again, we’re talking November here, no sooner. And no, there won’t be support for previous versions of WordPress, although the theme might very well work in them anyway. Most likely, actually, but don’t come whining to me if it doesn’t.

So what’s the fuzz about, why WordPress 2.7 and why not now? Read more →

I’ve been working on some design stuff this week, it’ll probably be a blog post in the coming week. Some good news, and some bad, at least for me and my plans… I also pulled The Blog Herald out of the beta sphere, so now my version is up there. There are still plans, ideas, and whatnot, but due to several reasons, none of these will be realized anytime soon. That might be a good thing, though, since it means that we can focus on the content. Because of my behind the scenes work, most of this week’s Blog Herald stories have been news posts.

My shortest list yet! I did, however, just finish The Green Knight short story, so you could always read that.

Stiel felt weak, he was shivering, and his shoulder ached. The Knight-in-Waiting was nauseous, but he couldn’t tell if it was from his ordeal in Spikerock Chasm, or because of the knight who stood on the other side of the Windy Bridge.

“Stiel,” greeted the knight.

He was clad in chainmail and a brown hauberk, casually leaning on his shield, bearing the mark of the bear. Stiel had heard of him, he was his senior by some ten years or so, and of the Stemmel family. A sturdy man, square-faced, calm, and a renowned warrior. His black horse were tethered to a tree a few steps from the bridge. Read more →

I just can’t get used to the madness that is Windows Vista! Granted, it has gotten a lot better since SP1 was pushed out through Windows Update, but there are still things that annoy the crap out of me. Like the fact that it thinks it is a good idea to start searching the whole bloody computer for possible security issues, viruses, trojans, and whatnot, just like that. That’s great for stability, and for performance too, having the computer doing that while I’m playing an intense game of Age of Conan. I also absolutely hate the fact that the system keeps warning me that UAC is disabled. Well duh, how do you think that happened?!

The worst part of it all, however, is the default update routines for Windows Update. Downloading updates in the background is fine, it won’t take so much off my computer’s performance, but then installing them, rebooting the computer, without giving me a chance to say no, well, that’s not OK!

The fact that this can happen while I’m doing something else, like playing a game, is truly poor design. Sure, I can turn it off, but why was it on per default, and what if I lose data to this madness? So no, Windows Vista is not my ideal desktop…

Right this moment, I’m installing Debian in a virtual machine on my Mac Pro. Earlier today I installed Kubuntu, and managed to crash everything while installing Ubuntu, which was probably due to VMware Fusion (reviewed here) not getting a response from me, rather than an issue with Ubuntu itself. These are open source Linux distributions, free to use, and usually a lot more secure than the other operating systems. That would be Windows and OS X.

As I said, I’m playing around on my Mac Pro, so you’ve probably guessed I’m not entirely happy with OS X, Apple’s own OS. I used to run Windows, so I know what I’m comparing with. Read more →

Stiel stumbles out of the cave, soaked in sweat and shaking. He barely remembered his shield and helmet, something seemed to be following him, and he kept expecting one of those small rocks to hit him in the back. None came, although he heard something shuffling about in the tunnel. Probably that little hideous creature, that abomination from the darkness.

Now he sits with his back to a tree, a short distance from the cave, looking at the dark entrance. The cool evening air feels ever so sweet after the suffocating moist and terrible smells of Spikerock Chasm. He keeps his sword at hand, the shield and helmet lays thrown by his side, and he clutches the book intently. His shoulder aches from the hit, and the left arm feels numb.

For a while, he just watches how his panting turns to soft breathing, clearly visualized by his warm breath in the cool evening air. The sun has set, not long ago it seems, and the stars and the moon enlighten the world. Read more →

Another Friday, and I’m not behind my desk this week either. This time it is the end of the fiscal year of my company, so I’m needed at HQ for number crunching (not really, it is already done) and budgeting for the next year. Fun stuff. Anyway, here’s the highlight of this week’s freelance writing.

Also, don’t forget the interview with Collis Ta’eed over at BloggerTalks. We’re talking about the Envato network, paid content, their new theme marketplace, and branding, so you should definitely read it.