In no particular order, my favorite and most useful WordPress plugins.

Advanced Blogroll- For links to other sites or other online presence (Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, etc.) you create links in what’s called a blogroll (The name is a holdover from the early days of WordPress.)y The default WordPress configuration displays them in alphabetical order. This plugin allows you to arrange them as you see fit. You can see how “Latest” comes before “Elsewhere” on the navigation to the right. ->

Jetpack – What once was a gathering of separate plugins is now a super kung-fu collection of some great features. Two of my favorite features are the Wordpress stats and After the Deadline. The stats gives you near real-time feedback on traffic to and from your site. Popular pages, keywords and links displayed automatically in your dashboard. After the Deadline is a super grammar, style and spell checker that uses artificial intelligence to make you sound more-than artificially intelligent. That’ just two of the many features of Jetpack.

Akismet - Comment spam blocking magic. Spammers target popular content management systems like WordPress in an attempt to trick site owners into allowing spammy comments. Akismet sits in the background and filters these fake comments without any interaction. According to my stats it’s blocked over 17,000 spam comments with a 99.87% accuracy over 6 years. Not too bad.

Google Analytics – Google Analytics is the most powerful web tracking tool out there. Coupled with WordPress and a good email campaign tool (like MailChimp) you can track your readership with great detail. I could hours just going over how useful good web metrics are!

WP Super Cache – This is just incase you suddenly get hit with a million visitors. Normally, WordPress dynamically generates each page and post which causes a lot of requests for information in the database and all the pictures and styles in  your theme. This plugin uses a complex set of rules to create a static version of your page, making the load on the server much less. There by allowing for many more visitors at the same time.

One last recommendation is not a WordPress plugin but a web service called if this then that. ifttt allows me to glue things I do online together. For example, when I post a photo to Instagram ifttt automatically creates a new post on my site and posts the picture. It can greatly help in automating posting to a lot of other web services, which allows you to spend more time writing content and growing your business than messing with tech stuff.

I hope this helps you firm up your WordPress site and please leave a comment if you have a suggestion of your own.

From Apple,

“When you use earphones or a headset, Siri reads back text messages and email messages that you’ve dictated before you send them, and it reads back the subjects of reminders before you create them. This is especially helpful when you’re driving and can’t see the iPhone 4S screen.”

I wish this option was the default behavior. There have been numerous times when I’m walking between buildings or to the car and want to send a note without looking at the screen and I’m not wearing headphones.

¹In my case my phone was plugged into the aux jack in my car.

–

There been this idea floating around that computers should have scalable modes. An “easy” or beginners mode for people new to the environment. As their skills and comforts develop the software would somehow adjust to open new interfaces like advanced menus or shortcuts.

Well, this isn’t coming to fruition. It’s nearly impossible to predict and implement. But you know what is close? Familiarity and simplicity – both things OS X has been trying for years to do and (In my humble opinion) iOS excels at.

As for the worry that Apple devices will become nerfed consumption machines where no one can produce anything of value (the written word, art, programs) is a bit dramatic. Things in life are rarely black and white.

As someone who could be considered a power user, I’m not in the least bit worried. The command line is still there, a plethora of 3rd-party apps that aren’t “dumbed down” still (and will continue to) exist and frankly most of the design decisions have been positive for users of all types. (Unified conventions, consistent app names, gestures, etc.)

iOS-ification sounds scary because certain mindsets see that as a negative thing. What isn’t being discussed or recognized is the judicial use of iOS ideas. If Apple wanted to make OS X just like iOS they could in a second. They chose however, to select the best ideas and are starting to integrate them across their product line. No longer is the iOS devices over here and the OS X devices over there similar in little ways, but in big ways.

Click to see full size

That’s a lot of pixels. You could watch a full resolution HD movie and still have some space for content. On a 9.7 inch screen!

In an attempt to make more things and become a better <whatever I’m trying at the moment>, I look to inspiration from other smart people. Mike Monteiro’s words this morning struck me as sound advice. Particularly this passage:

“We have more processing power, affordable tools, and combined intelligence right this very minute than at any point in the history of design. We are using it to build shit. It’s time to aim higher. Let’s find problems to solve that actually improve people’s lives. Whether it’s figuring out a better way to access medical records, figuring out how 14 year olds can stop carrying forty pounds of textbooks back and forth to school every day, or a reservation system for the communal rooftop farm in your building, there has got to be something more beneficial to society than the next Facebook clone.”

While it may be a new year, ripe with new opportunities, it’s still the same job. Keep working, better yourself and better your community.

I was curious to find out where it appears and discovered this thread on reddit.

I discovered at least 4 different shades.

Dock.app – backgroundTile.png

Dock.app – defaultdesktop.png

AppKit.framework – NSLinenBackgroundPattern.png

Safari.framework – ReadingList-BGLinen.png

It’s interesting that the Reading List variant isn’t 256px by 256px, but rather 300px by 300px – a non base-two size. It’s also worth noting that the iPad uses the darkest texture for the canvas in Safari, while Lion uses the second lightest version.

Update: George mentions in the comments, as of 10.7.3 backgroundTile.png from the Dock.app bundle was renamed to ecsb_background_tile.png. The files appear to be exactly the same.

Update 2: The new beta of Messages for Mountain Lion includes a new addition to the linen family.

/Applications/iChat.app/Contents/Resources/linen.tiff

No, I’m not being sarcastic. You see, this email came from an iPad/iPhone game called Pocket Frogs. In this game you breed and nurture tiny frogs. You can feed them and race with them with the goal to create new generations of offspring with new combinations of colors and designs. To encourage new users the developers have a messaging feature baked in. You can message your friends to let them know about the app in hopes they’ll download it.

So why do I love emails like this? Because they’re from my daughter. At the ripe old age of five, she’s discovered how to use the in-game messaging – she taps on the frog, then the “Share”, then “Email” and sends a message to my name, stored in her Grandmother’s iPad.

So while I’m staring at code, sitting in a meeting or editing video for 8 hours a day, my daughter sometimes thinks about sending her newest frog to her old man. I’ll never tell her she’s doing it wrong.

Nearly a year ago I hired a bright young man by the name of Will Sutton. Over the course of the following months Will and I made this – the official Saint Louis University iPhone App. (Which you are most welcome to download at iphone.slu.edu)

Will initially started from scratch, learning Objective-C and his way around XCode. Even more impressive was the fact that he really never used a Mac much before.

Like a fish to water he quickly had a rough prototype up and running. It was serviceable, but very, shall we say, rickety.

Then we were alerted to the existence of a great open-source app framework created at West Virgina University by then student Jared Crawford.

Will set about updating the framework with SLU specific data sources. We had to meet with legal, create icons and vet our data sources for reliability. With Jared’s awesome framework we were able to quickly turn around a tight first release of what I’m sure will be a vital asset to any SLU student.

Meanwhile the IT department was preparing to launch a mobile portal for some of the very same services. Like some superhero wonder group we joined forces and released our apps simultaneously. Being web-based their app has a much larger reach, but our app allows us to perform some hardware specific feats.

Our next step is to squash a few 1.0 bugs, update the app for the new Retina display and start adding additional features like dining information and athletic reports.

You can read more about the apps from this nice press release.

I’m totally digging the Hipstamatic app for the iPhone. It’s a recreation of a camera developed in the great wilderness of Wisconsin in the early 80s by two brothers. The whole story is being kept alive by the older brother of the two Hipstamatic creators.

The app is very slick and plays a great homage to the cheap all-plastic cameras of yore. With the tiny viewfinder, different films and lenses and the always different results it’s a blast to watch your photos ‘develop’.

The best thing about the app for me is the high-pitched whirring of the flash when you turn it on. Perfect.

Gruber:

It’s a demo of a concept. I’d wager money that we’ll never see an actual product from Microsoft that works like this.

I think the Courier demo is really, really neat. Watching that video makes me want one, now. Unfortunately it will never be as cool as what we’re seeing in these videos.

That’s a big difference between Apple and other tech companies. They demo a product a few months before it ships, in it’s near final form. Microsoft announces products years beforehand and by the time it arrives it’s behind the curve.