Jake Goldman
home of web dev guru jacob m goldman
WordPress.tv Cameo: Intranets
Jan 10th
Back in November, I had the pleasure of attending WordCamp New York City. I spent about 10 minutes presenting my Google Reader plug-in, had a kick off WordCamp Boston planning meeting, had the pleasure of meeting inspiring folks like Raffi Mudge, and even had a great conversation in the hallway with Matt Mullenweg and Jeff Chandler (me in the middle with the shoulder bag, Matt sitting to my left, Jeff to my right – photo courtesy John Eckman) for about 40 minutes.
One of the sessions I attended was Ramil Teodosio’s WordPress Powered-Intranets. I’ve done a few Intranet implementations of my own and Ramil’s seminar was a bit more focused on SharePoint-like substitution than I expected. My own experience gave me an opportunity to pipe up a couple of times to offer suggestions and, among other things, plug my free Restricted Site Access plug-in, which was born out of an Intranet project, and I thought might be of interest to the audience. Judging by the post-presentation follow-up with a handful of attendees, at least a few found my comments useful.
That session has been posted on WordPress.tv. While I don’t have that much that’s interesting to say (and audio is iffy), you can see my chime in at about the 24:30 and 30:00 marks.
Speaking of Restricted Site Access, I need to get around to incorporating the fork / changes added by Eric Buth who contacted me recently. It’s always great to see others build on your own open-source projects!
Interviewed on Episode 81 of WordPress Weekly
Dec 16th
Last night I recorded the WordPress Weekly podcast with Jeff Chandler of WordPress Tavern. We chatted for about 90 minutes, and then want on to chat more during an after show chat that continued for over an hour. The podcast was published today, you can listen to it or get instructions for downloading it here. Here’s the iTunes link.
Topics included:
- General WordPress consulting services
- WordPress value perception as compared to other major CMS platforms
- Exciting developer features coming in WordPress 2.9 (RC1 out today!)
- What the near future holds for WordPress, with the MU merge and growth of BuddyPress, bbPress, et al
- My latest Smashing Magazine article
- WordCamp Boston (which I’m helping organize)
I really enjoyed participating in the podcast, and hope to participate again in the near future.
Smashing Magazine: Advanced Power Tips for WordPress Template Developers (Reloaded)
Dec 14th
On the heels of part 1, part 2 of my Advanced Power Tips for WordPress Template developers was published on Smashing Magazine this morning. The article made it up to #2 on the Delicious popular bookmarks list during the day. Part 2 reviews techniques for delivering a more elegant, customized administrative experience.
The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown
Dec 14th
I finished the unabridged audiobook version of Dan Brown’s latest mystery-thriller, The Lost Symbol, a few nights ago. Dan Brown seems to get a lot of ivory tower criticism these days for his less than Shakespearean prose measured against the commercial success of his books. While I understand the critique, I find it overstated. More importantly, it didn’t impact my enjoyment of the book in the least.
The story follows the same general formula Brown used in the other two Robert Langdon stories, The DaVinci Code and Angles & Demons – two favorites. Few authors can put me on the edge of my seat with the written (or spoken) word: certainly Stephen King tops that list, but Brown is not too far behind. Less terrifying, but nearly as riveting. Like its predecessors, the research apparent in the book is immensely impressive. I love the entire idea of Professor Langdon: a charismatic “hero” built on brains; a more authentic, believable Indiana Jones. And like all great fiction, the book sustains a feel of believability, and mixes it within enough smarts to leave the reader thinking.
