Lisa Sabin-Wilson

post_class(); … Take advantage of the new “Sticky Post” feature in WordPress 2.7

Lisa — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 06:52:18 +0000

Of the many excellent new features coming in WordPress 2.7, some are applauding the arrival of sticky posts.

First - what are they? Sticky posts are posts that you can “stick” to your front page. For instance, if you have a post that you published a year ago and would like to republish it to the front page of your site for a time - you can edit that post and select “Stick this post to the front page” in the Edit Post page in your WordPress admin panel. Just doing that will stick it to your front page, ahead of all the other posts on your site.

You can use CSS to style those sticky posts, as well. All you need is this markup:

id="post-">

That will insert a class=”sticky” above your post and you can use CSS to style .sticky. Cool, eh?

More? Yes, there is more. That same tag will insert special classes for your categories and tags, as well. An example?? I’m glad you asked! Hypothetically, I have a sticky post that I’ve filed in the Misc category and tagged with News, WordPress and Markup. With me so far? With all of that, plus the post_class(); tag in my template - my source code for that particular post looks like this:

Now, I can use CSS to create special styles for the following classes:
- .post
- .hentry
- .sticky
- .category-misc
- .tag-news
- .tag-wordpress
- .tag-markup

As an example, the code in your index template (and/or single/archive templates) may look like this:

id="post-">

'.__('Read More »').''); ?>

I forsee lots of people having lots of fun with this! I am doing some custom work for some clients 2.7 (beta) right now, with the intention to launch them once 2.7-final is released. I’m having good fun working with the new post_class(); tag and the new features of sticky posts, threaded and paged comments. I’m excited for WordPress to release 2.7-final into the wild!

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Update for WordPress For Dummies, Second Edition

Lisa — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 03:44:22 +0000

I’m getting LOTS and lots of e-mail about WordPress For Dummies, Second Edition. I’m really excited to see so much anticipation about it - - mostly because I’m super excited about the book. But when is it coming out?? Originally, I had announced it was being released in Fall ‘08. Amazon says November 2008 and so does Barnes and Noble. So, when is it really?

The publish date for the book has been pushed back to December 2008. We’re not intentionally dragging our feet with it. The book is actually written, and I submitted 100% of the content in mid-October. And then? I had a peek at WordPress 2.7 and had a mini-heart attack! haha

Seriously, when I looked at WordPress 2.7 and started installing the pre-pre-beta updates via SVN, I realized that the Second Edition simply could not be published in it’s current state. I wrote to my editor and told her that it didn’t make sense to publish a 2.6 book in a 2.7 world. She agreed and we decided to push the publish date off until December. I’m really excited about the new development that WordPress is putting out with the 2.7 release - I think you will be too!

At the time of this post, the book is roughly 80% *there*. I’m just waiting for the 2.7 dashboard design to hit its final iteration so I can include all necessary screencaps and such. Can I take a moment and gush about how fantasticaly helpful the Automattic team has been - particularly Jane Wells, whose updates I find in my e-mail to be invaluable. Jane, I cannot say thank you enough for keeping me in the loop. (haha - - the LOOP - - get it?) Mark Jaquith, as well - has been a gem, as always. He lets me bug him with little things and he’s always prompt with a helpful response. Thank you, Mark!

Throughout this entire project, since the beginning of the First Edition to wrapping up the Second Edition, my team at Wiley Publishing has been fully committed to making absolute sure that WordPress For Dummies is as up to date as humanly possible. Deciding to push the publish date back on the book probably wasn’t an easy decision to make from a publishing standpoint - - but I had no doubt they would, and they did! Let me tell you - keeping up with WordPress development in print is NO small task!

Also, thanks for everyone who has emailed and have left messages on my blog, Twitter, Facebook, Amazon blog and Linked in accounts.

For those interested - I will be appearing on Jeff’s WordPress Weekly internet radio program on November 28th and will be discussing the book and the great new changes coming with 2.7.

Hang tight - we’re almost there!

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Obsession

Lisa — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 11:08:46 +0000

Overall, I’m glad it’s finally over. Congrats to Obama and his supporters. Sympathies to McCain and his supporters.
This is via The Onion - enjoy:

Obama Win Causes Obsessive Supporters To Realize How Empty Their Lives Are

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Happy Halloween, Weenies.

Lisa — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 17:52:09 +0000

Halloween is not a “holiday” around here. Not for any religious reasons or other moral convictions; truth be told - my kids are way past Trick O’ Treating age and we live way too far outside city limits for any parent to drag their kid to our doorstep for candy treats. Seriously, the middle of nowhere. So for those of you who celebrate - enjoy! Be safe with your Trick O’ Treating and take the candy into be examined before you eat it - lots of local hospitals offer free Candy X-Ray services on Halloween. Our does!

My friend Carol, who I’ve written about in the past - sent me a personal Halloween message today. I can’t say enough about Carol.. she has this uncanny ability to pop into my life and say the right things, at the right time and it’s (usually) what I need to hear, whether I like it or not. This time around, she sent my horoscope for today - I’m a Tarurus:

You don’t have to be anything you don’t want to be, Taurus. Please read that last sentence again, drinking it in as if it were an elixir you’ve been longing for since you were 13 years old. Here are some corollaries: You don’t have to live up to anyone’s expectations. There’s no need to strive for a kind of perfection that’s not very interesting to you. You don’t have to believe in ideas that make you sad or tormented, and you don’t have to feel emotions that others try to manipulate you into feeling. In short, you are free to be exactly who you want to be. Celebrate that this Halloween season. Costume yourself as the person you’ve been hiding.

Amen to that, my friend.

She also sent me an update on a mutual friend of ours who recently became a grandmother - - and shortly after that happy news, heard the news that her new granddaughter, who is only 18 months old, pushed the screen out of their second story window on a warm October day and fell out. She’s in the ICU at the moment and they are hoping she’s able to come home for Thanksgiving.

Small, insignificant little life problems I may think are important over here just kind of paled when I heard the news. My heart aches for her and her family. The good news is.. sounds like the little trooper will live to tell the tale.

Hug ‘em tight - that’s all I have to say!

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I love Wells Fargo

Lisa — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 18:22:01 +0000

It’s Monday - start of a new business week. I started out getting myself organized for the week, and was doing pretty good. That is, until I visited the website of my favorite paper supplier to purchase more paper stock for some upcoming print work I need to get done. I went through their process of ordering - and then hit the checkout. I figured, in a few minutes, I’d have ordered what I needed - - and then check that off my list so I could move on to the next order of business for the day.

That is - until my card, which is tied to my bank account, was declined. Don’t you hate that feeling? Though, I have to say - it’s much better to have that happen when shopping online, rather than standing in line at the local grocery when there are 20 people waiting in line behind you. Either way, though, it really bites. Problem is. . I know what my balance is in that account, so I knew it wasn’t a balance issue. It had to be something else. I tried the checkout again - making sure I typed all the numbers and information in correctly this time and hit Submit.

Declined. Thanks for playing . . .

I immediately got on the phone with a rep. from Wells Fargo to find out what was going on. They pulled up my account and told me that there have been at least 50 transactions on that card - - all originating from France. All 50 of those transactions were for $0.03 (3 cents). The rep. said that whenever they see transactions like that - - they assume that someone has gotten ahold of my card and are trying different security codes until they find the one that works. Except, Wells Fargo shut down the card after the very FIRST 3 cent transaction from France. They didn’t wait for a second one - - they figured I would call when I found that I was unable to use my card.

Call, I did. Within 5 minutes - the card was cancelled and they are issuing me a new one that I should have in 4-5 days. While having to change all of my accounts that use that card will be a pain in the butt - - I am forever grateful that Wells Fargo is so tight with their banking security.

This isn’t the first time I’ve had that card shut down. The first time was in 2006 when Chris and I were in New York - the week of our wedding. I was using that card to pay for the caterer, tuxedo rentals, wedding cake and other various odds and ends. Because the amount of the purchases were so high, originating from a state I don’t normally use the card in - - it triggered Wells Fargo’s security and they suspended the card. A quick phone call to them was all it took to release it. It happened again when were were out of the country (in Bonaire) on our honeymoon…because the purchases were originating from outside the US - again, it triggered the security and the card got suspended.

Now, in those last two cases - I will admit it was really a pain. Especially during the week of wedding preparation - - we were on very limited time to get ready for the wedding, and running around New York City trying to get everything done wasn’t very easy. So, to have my card declined at the bakery when I had a meeting with the caterer in less than 20 minutes across town….yea, pain in the butt!

However - I would much, much rather Wells Fargo have a very tight secure system. I would much rather they err on the side of caution each and every single time there is a question - - rather than to find out that my account has been drained by some lowlife.

So - thank you, Wells Fargo. Happy Monday!

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I have a problem that needs fixin’ - can you help?

Lisa — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 00:27:22 +0000

I hate, hate, hate the term ‘multitasking’. I can’t tell you why I hate it - it just doesn’t sit well with me. When someone tells me that they are multitasking - I get the impression that they aren’t really paying 100% attention to one particular task - - but, rather, some attention to several tasks. If that person happens to be performing a task for me - I feel like my task is maybe getting 60-80% of their attention, instead of 100%. If I’m a client who has paid this person to perform this task - then I get increasingly irked because if I paid for it, then I want 100% of your attention. Am I wrong here?

That being said - I multitask. Who doesn’t, really? Can we really get anything done in a day without some of our attentions spread out across several areas?

I do more than multitask, however - and here is where I think that perhaps some of you have some advice that could help me. Maybe some of you have the same issue and have found ways that help you deal with the problem - and you are neighborly enough to share your wisdom with me. It’s the change season, after all, isn’t it? Time for a change. Ready for a change. That kind of thing? Well, I’m all about recognizing some of my more troublesome character traits and habits and trying to change.

Here’s the deal - yes, I multitask. More than that - I get distracted very easily. Not in ways you would think. Social media outlets like Twitter, Plurk, Facebook and the like don’t distract me much at all. I love using those tools - and wish I had the time to use them more! But I do know where my priorities are - so if you see me Twittering - it’s because I have a moment in the day where I’m taking a coffee break or just taking 5 minutes between projects to take a breath. I’m the same with email. If I have shit to do and I have a deadline - I shut down my email program for an hour or two. I’m always good about turning it back on and checking in - but I find email to be incredibly distracting when I have shit to do. So, I schedule email breaks, coffee breaks, lunch breaks - - I try to be judicial with my time as much as possible.

But, I still get distracted - and it doesn’t take much! Here’s a perfect scenario….

I’m working on a client site project. I’m either designing or coding their site and it needs to get done …. yesterday. I’m trying hard to accommodate. I’m really rocking and rolling and making progress and the time comes that I need to upload several files to my test bed in order to continue working on their project. Great, right? I’m moving right along! In the time it takes to upload those files - - we’re talking MINUTES here, people..minutes - - I’m waiting for the files to upload and decide to flip over to my browser window and have a look at the notes from another clients project. I do this because my mind needs to be occupied with something other than ~~watching water boil~~ waiting for the files to upload. Plus - I say to myself - if I can take a minute to look over notes for the next project I need to work on - - I can have it in the back of my mind to start prioritizing tasks and time for that project.

Minutes, I say! That file upload took all of 2.5 minutes - - and in that span of time, I’m checking notes for the other project and happen to notice a question that client had, or a file that I need to go find and download…. or a development piece that I need to research in order to determine the best way to help this client meet their goals.

Instead of returning to my file upload, now that its finished, and proceeding along with my project - - I’m not off on the net researching, downloading, responding to the other client project and before I know it an HOUR has gone by, and I’m back to feeling stressed and pressured because I’ve now let an hour go by on my other project.

Perhaps I spread myself too thin and need to revisit the word “No” ? Or maybe I have a true ADD situation going over here. I mean, I can’t be the only one who finds 2.5 minutes of file uploads a complete bore, can I?? To the point of absolutely HAVING to fill my brain with something else in those 2.5 minutes because I cannot POSSIBLY be idle for that amount of time (god forbid!).

Its not that I don’t get anything done. Quite the contrary - I get an amazing amount of stuff done in a day, if I do say so myself. It just seems a little chaotic sometimes and I think I need an intervention! lol Plus, I’m pretty decent with organization — I would give myself an A- in that area…. although, at times, I do fall a bit behind due to distractions, such as I’ve mentioned.

I have Lindsey - my assistant, whom I absolutely adore! She helps keep me organized and on task, as much as she possibly can. I would bet that girl sits over there in her office and just shakes her head at me - wondering WHAT she could do to help…and I know I don’t pay her enough to put up with me, sometimes - - but she is wonderful and I’m almost…. almost hopeless - but not totally!

I do what I can to manage and organize my time, and yet some days I still feel chaotic. Not everyday — but the days that it does happen can be pretty stressful. So. . .

Time management practices - what helps you?
Time tracking tools - think it would help if I tracked my time and kept a ‘time diary’ to help me understand where my weaknesses are?
Do you have issues with distraction? Have you found methods that help you out in that area?

This week - I think I’m being pretty hard on myself, actually. We were gone for 10 days and upon return, I became very ill with a bad case of bronchitis, our pet died, my father had major surgery and was hospitalized for a week — this week has been one of catch up, fall behind, catch up, fall behind, catch up! So, maybe I’m being more hard on myself this week than I should be - - though, I do recognize a pattern of behavior with the distraction thing - - its not new to me, and I’m lookin to fix it, using whatever tools available - physical, mental or metaphysical

Have a suggestion?? I’m all ears!

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WordCamp Chicago 2009

Lisa — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 16:02:45 +0000

Things have been a little hectic over here, to say the least. Blog World Expo was great and I’ll blog more about it in the coming week. Our travels after that, though, were not so great. Nothing serious, in the midst of our “vacation” (and I use that term very very lightly) - I came down with the WORST case of bronchitis and ended up spending the entire time in a Nyquil haze in the hotel room. I have to call Jammie and beg her for forgiveness, as I was supposed to meet up with her and her husband while in SoCal I feel awful about missing that opportunity - but we will return to the LA area in May for a wedding. We got home from the trip and found that our beloved conure parrot had died while we were gone and then found out that my dad was having major surgery the same week! It’s been a whirlwind and I’ve been a bit nuts trying to catch up over here. It took us some time to get over losing Kiwi (our parrot) - we loved that little sweetheart so much! And my Dad is doing well today - he had his surgery last week Wednesday..I’ve not been home a whole lot.. lots of back and forth to the hospital over the past week…but things look good today!

As if all of that, plus work and last-minute book updates, weren’t enough to make me a little nuts - - why not add another project in the mix to cement the deal? Last week, Brian Garnder (of the insanely popular Revolution Theme) contacted myself and Wendy Piersall (of Sparkplugging.com fame) and asked if we’d join him in co-organizing a WordCamp Chicago. All of us being passionate WordPress users - how could we say no?? The three of us, along with Cory Miller (of the fabulous iThemes), will be organizing the event. You can check out Brian’s WordCamp Chicago announcement post on his site, as well.

Before we spend too much time working out the details, we want to get an idea as to how many people would be interested in attending a WordCamp in Chicago. (What is WordCamp, anyways??). We have the early stages of the WordCamp Chicago site completed with some early information. You can follow WordCampChicago on Twitter and subscribe to the WordCampChicago RSS Feed to receive updates as we make them to the site.

So, what do you think? Would you attend a WordCamp in Chicago? We’re really looking forward to putting together an amazing event - I hope to see many of you there!

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A little planned time out

Lisa — Sat, 13 Sep 2008 03:22:28 +0000

We are making preparations to travel to Las Vegas next week to attend Blog World Expo. Looking forward to running into some old friends, and making new ones - - if you are planning on being there, please let me know! Would love to catch up with you and shake your hand, or share some words over coffee! Chris and I are looking forward to it. We’re staying at the MGM Grand - so hopefully I’ll be able to hang on to my hard earned money while I’m there (cha ching!).

Chris and I fly outta here on Thursday, Sept 18 and are in Vegas until Sunday, Sept. 21.

On Sunday, we fly from Vegas to Los Angeles, CA to attend a conference for his business, Interact2008 in Marina del Rey. Chris’s company, Mosaic Consulting is one of the main sponsors of the event - and we’re pretty excited about that.

It’ll be quite a difference! The BlogWorld Expo conference in Vegas is very causal, where the conference in California is very business-like during the day, and cocktail parties and galas in the evenings. Followed by the very very casual vacation time in San Diego — this will be a challenging trip to pack for! I have problems packing, normally…. with this trip, it’ll be a mish mash of shorts, jeans, flip flops, sneakers, strappy heels, cocktail dresses, business casual and everything in between. I hope the airline doesn’t charge me too much for the extra baggage weight!

We’ll be in Marina del Rey until Thursday, Sept. 25 - that’s when we rent a car and make the drive down to San Diego where it’s alllllllllllll personal vacation from there - - well, at least until Sunday, Sept 28th, when we’ll be flying back to Milwaukee and headed back to the reality of every day living. While in San Diego, we’re going to relax and spend a few days visiting the San Diego Zoo and the Wild Animal Park. I just adore the San Diego Zoo and can’t wait to revisit it again this month.

It’ll be good for me to get away for a piece of time, really. Things have been so entirely hectic around here lately that I need to step back and do a little relaxing ‘me’ stuff! The next trip I have planned isn’t until March - when I’ll be attending the SXSW Interactive Festival in Austin Texas. I have some really exciting things brewing for my trip to SXSW and will be making an announcement here in the near future about it all - - I can’t wait to tell you all about it!

Not sure I’ll be posting here until we get back from our trip - - so have a GREAT weekend! I’ll be sure to have some great photos to share of my experience at BlogWorld, Interact2008 and the Zoo.

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WordPress MU Plugin Competition

Lisa — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 07:28:21 +0000

I just donated to the prize pool for the WordPress MU Plugin Competition. REALLY looking forward to the great MU plugins they come up with! What a great idea! Are you a plugin developer? Well get over there and enter…and win!

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Do what you love . . love what you do

Lisa — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 04:45:42 +0000

When I submitted the final, final edits for the second edition of WordPress For Dummies today - I breathed a tremendously huge sigh of relief. There is nothing like that feeling of accomplishment to carry you through to the next day. This was a big project - - just as it was the first time around, and having it finished, finally not only lifts a great big weight off the ol’ shoulders…but it made me reflect a bit. As I’m uploading the last and final files..I could feel myself physically relax. I sat back and thought - - I really do love what I do.

I’ve held several jobs in my lifetime. Some I liked, some I didn’t. Jobs like:

McDonalds (would you like fries with that? yea, that was me)
Disc Jockey for a local, polka radio station (yep. Polka)
Lead singer in a local R&B band
Waitress at a local greasy spoon
Bartender at a local night club… a local bowling alley..and a local 5-star restaurant - - simultaneously!
Secretary…receptionist…data entry clerk
Community organizer for the local Chamber of Commerce
Nursing Assistant
Registered Nurse (my longest… that career spanned 10 years, or so)
Web and graphic designer and web host (current)
Author (also current)

Some of those jobs were held out of neccessity. I didn’t really like them - but they paid the bills, so I tolerated them.
Some of those jobs were stepping stones to other jobs (nursing assistant - to - registered nurse, for example).

Growing up, I was always told to do what I love. Find something you’re good at and make a living out of it.. you’ll be happier. Unfortunately, starting out as a young adult - - the job that I loved didn’t pay the bills (the R&B singer gig). So I had to move on to a job that DID pay the bills . . leaving me absolutely NO time to do the job that I love.

Sigh.

At the age of 24, I graduated from nursing school with a degree in nursing and sat for the board exams to obtain my Registered Nurse licensure. I was pretty much set for life in an industry that paid well and offered a great deal of job security. I pretty much thought I would be a nurse until the day I retire.

Until I started tinkering around with graphic design and CSS and began to dabble in code. I found a great hobby that allowed me to de-stress and blow off steam after long, hard days of work in the hospital. It was a creative outlet that I soon began to realize was soothing the savage beast. Design satisfied the creative side of me… something I had lost when I walked away from music, so many years ago. It would be many years before I began to make a few bucks at it - - and several more years before I could make a living from it.

Although, I never once thought I would make a living with it - - always assuming that nursing would be where I would stay for my entire working life. Nursing was one of those ok jobs. I didn’t love it. I didn’t hate it. It was . . . fine. I was good at it - - excelled in it, really - and took pride in that fact. But I wasn’t doing what I loved… nor was I loving what I did.

I am a true believer that if you do not love what you do - - it shows through at the end of the day. People can start to see it in your work, no matter what it is. For me? I didn’t want to get to that point in nursing - - nothing worse than being cared for by a nurse who doesn’t like what she’s doing, eh?

Today, with my design career and, most recently, book writing gig — I can truly say that I finally love what I do.. and am doing what I love. I make a decent living at it, and I’m very thankful for that….and grateful that I don’t have to focus my attentions and time on other side jobs in order to make ends meet, like I used to. I can really focus on what I enjoy doing and what I’m good at.

Are you doing what you love…and loving what you do? If not - are you working towards that end? It’s not an easy thing, no doubt. First priorities are putting food on the table and paying those bills - which, like me, forced you into jobs that you don’t really like - - but become a necessary evil as a means to and end. When I opted to quit my nursing career to pursue design, I really had to spend a lot of time to take a real, long hard look at where I was at, and where I wanted to be. If the day comes that I’m no longer happy with design — I will take a similar look and, hopefully, will be able to make changes where I can pursue that lofty goal of loving what I do..and doing what I love.

For me, it took a great deal of time, struggle, sleepless nights and endless days . . but I got there. And yet, I still wonder if I’ll be doing the same thing next year? If I’m lucky enough, I will be.

And on that note - I shall finally sleep. ‘Nite!

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What to Expect When You’re Expecting WordPress Upgrades?

Lisa — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 12:15:49 +0000

I get this question a lot: How do you always know what’s coming with the next WordPress release??. I can tell you that I’m not a member of some secret society. I don’t have an exclusive inside track into WordPress Development. I don’t talk to the core WordPress developers on a regular basis (quite actually, our paths cross every so often..ever so briefly…every once in a great while). It’s not super secret information that only a few are privvy to.

Basically to answer the question: I make it my business to know.

Up and coming changes to the WordPress core is publicly available information. . . available to anyone and everyone who really wants to know. Although, not everyone is like me. I upgrade my WordPress installation with the latest and greatest and am already looking forward to the next. I’m a consumer of WordPress — well, gobbler, really, if you want to get technical. I gorge myself on WordPress - - which is why I have taken it upon myself to find out where to find out! Of course, it helps that I am the author of the WordPress For Dummies book project, as the author of that book, there is a lot of pressure to stay current and always keep myself constantly looking forward… but even without the book, I’d inquire and dig and find out. ‘Cause I’m nosy like that

You can make it your business to know, too - if you really want to. That’s what this post is for .. to give you all those little nooks and cranny’s on the web that you can bookmark, subscribe to and pour over in order to get the latest scoop! If I’ve missed a resource (and I’m SURE I will) - feel free to add ‘em in the comments!

**Disclaimer!!! The information found within these sites is NOT all-inclusive, exhaustive… NOR is it a guarantee that the features you read about on these sites are set in stone for future releases! (This disclaimer is so that you can’t come back to me at a later date and say “HEY LISA! That site you sent me to said WordPress version 10 would wash my dishes and mow my lawn…but it doesn’t!” — don’t say I didn’t warn you.)

Finding future WordPress Features

Where to find information on future WordPress features

WordPress Roadmap - want to know the approximate schedule for future WordPress releases? Check this out.
WordPress Trac - a lot of people have a difficult time reading the Trac, and I don’t really blame them, if you’re not used to it, it can be somewhat confusing. But, if you spend some time to browse through it - you can find gems of information. For example:
- The WordPress 2.7 Milestones; including development tickets that have been resolved for 2.7 and active tickets that remain unresolved for 2.7.
- You can find the milestones for 2.8, 2.9, and 3.0… if you really wanted to. Chances are, LOTS of things will change between now and 3.0 - - but feel free to nose around if you want to.
- If you feel bold enough, you can contribute to the WordPress Trac by submitting a bug report, if you find a true bug in WordPress (first, do yourself a favor and be sure that it’s a true bug and not something jiggy with your set up or hosting service.) - - If you’re a developer/programmer/coder and think you’d like to submit a patch or two for consideration - check out Mark Jaquith’s Unix WordPress Toolbox and/or Peter Westwood’s Windows WordPress Toolbox.
- If you find all the terminology a bit daunting in the Trac - check out their glossary of keywords they use to familiarize yourself with the lingo
WordPress Mailing Lists are a great place to stay up to date on what’s going on with current and future WordPress Development. Funny little anecdote on this - - back in 2006 when I accepted and signed the contract to write WordPress For Dummies - I was a bit overwhelmed with the amount of information I needed to compile. On top of that, knowing that by the time I was done compiling it - - it would change… not once, but TWICE during the course of writing the book. I (very naively) send an e-mail to Matt Mullenweg asking him what huge changes I could expect with the next version (at that time, it was 2.3). He must have read that and thought, “What a dork.” (or something like that). He wrote back and simply said “Subscribe to the WP Testers mailing list and follow it.” I’ll give him credit - - he could have written back and said something akin to “RTFM, dipshit” But, he didn’t - - he’s nice like that.
Did I mention WordPress Mailing Lists??? That’s probably where I get the bulk of info on future features.
The WordPress Codex has nice page on what to expect in 2.7
Here’s an obscure little resource - - every once in awhile I can garner some good information by subscribing to the feed for the WordPress Developers Blog on WordPress.com. This is a great use of the Prologue theme, by the way. Haven’t heard of it - - check it out! Anyways - this site is a running dialogue from the WordPress developers - updated with snippets of information about features, bug fixes, etc. I’ve subscribed to the full RSS feed for updates. (Note: this is not to be confused with the WordPress Development Blog - which is where you can nab information and news about WordPress, overall.)
There are a few bloggers that I subscribe to who I can usually count on to make informative posts on what to expect in future versions of WordPress. These folks are: Aaron Brazell @ Technosailor (he usually does a ‘What You Should Know About WordPress version X.X’ post a few weeks before it’s release date - like this one he did for WordPress 2.6.), Weblog Tools Collection (check out their most recent post: Features Planned for WordPress 2.7).
Want to download every single version of WordPress ever made???? Yea, me neither - but you can if you want to because WordPress.Org keeps a release archive - - this archive INCLUDES release candidates and beta releases, if you are brave enough to live on the edge

So

….don’t know what to expect in the upcoming version of WordPress 2.7?? I’m not going to tell you - - you have all you need to find out and keep yourself updated!

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Brett Favre. I can’t get over it. I think I need therapy.

Lisa — Sun, 17 Aug 2008 03:43:35 +0000

Sounds like Brett had a good opener with the New York Jets…..even though the Jets eventually lost to the Redskins today in the pre-season game. We saw Favre’s first season TD pass — a 4 yarder to TE Dustin Keller…as a Jet - not a Packer.

Favre playing for the Jets

Seeing Brett Favre in a New York Jets jersey?? Surreal! Like it’s all some strange dream.. or alternate universe. I’m not sure how long this will take - - or if it’s even possible for me - to get over. I really do like Brett Favre and I do really hope he’s happy playing for the Jets. Honest. But.. I’m feeling a bit like a jilted lover over here…like the guy who says “I just can’t handle a relationship right now..can we just be friends??”… then, BAM! The very next week you’re seeing him with someone new…and not only handling a relationship - - but HAPPY about it too. I’m feeling pangs of jealousy over hearing reports from the object of Brett Favre’s attentions..and how happy and excited they are at the prospect of a new season with the NFL’s best quarterback…meanwhile, we’re back here in Wisconsin trying to get to know, and eventually come to love this new guy - - what’s his name? Aaron….something.

I think I need therapy.

#4 in Green and......White?

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