The latter part of this decade was when I finally started blogging regularly. I recently took a look at my site analytics to discover which journal entries had been most well-received since their publication.
Most Popular Entries
- TweetDeck Replacement Icons
- Remember the Milk Favicon Redesign
- WordPress-Powered Portfolios: Slides & Snippets
- cufón vs sIFR (A Visual Comparison)
- New TweetDeck Replacement Icons
The WordPress-Powered Portfolios entry also received the most comments. My least popular entry? This
WebVisions workshop reminder from May of 2008.
When I pushed an earlier iteration of this design live almost a year ago, one of the features I was most excited to introduce was the ability to comment on journal entries. I want to thank, in chronological order, each and every commenter who volunteered their thoughts, opinions, ideas and time to this space. I am humbled by your involvement, and I hope to hear from you again soon.
Names are taken from each comment author’s “name” or “URL” field and not from their email, out of respect for their privacy. If you’d like your name changed in this list, please comment or contact me. Each name links to the author’s first comment on this site.
Thank you Jason Grlicky, Matt Lohkamp, Bruce Colthart, John Brown, Erik Jung, Kristy, Amber Case, Michael Sigler, Terra, Matt Youell, Bryan, Peter Wooley, Vin Thomas, Mallory, Joshua Barton, Sandi Wooley, Michael Reese, Jordan Thompson, Noah Murphy, David Stewart, chimpchampion, Mason, yanblah, Jim Gray, Matt, Aaron Hockley, David Frey, Jeremy Meyers, Chris Kalani, Tac Anderson, J-P Voilleque, Jason Griffith, Frosty Goodness, Koes, Eric, Jacob Golden, Joey Yax, Martha Koenig, Justin Anderson, David Martschinske, Dennis Gutierrez, David Carroll and Fujilives.
It is truly an honor to continue to design, write and speak for an audience that appears to be growing steadily. I’ll continue to push myself to justify your enthusiasm.
Have a wonderful twenty-ten!
WordPress 2.9 was unleashed upon the world last evening with a pile of killer features (image editing, anyone?). Perhaps my favorite new feature is built-in support for thumbnails associated with a page or post.
When I discussed building WordPress-Powered Portfolios earlier this year at WordCamp Portland, you may recall my rather obtuse solution for supporting thumbnails. Basically, you were required to upload an image, copy its filename, close the media browser, create a new custom field called “tn,” and paste the filename into it.
No longer!
With support in your theme for 2.9′s post thumbnails, simply upload an image and assign it as the thumbnail with a single click (or through the handy new “Page Image” box in the lower-right corner). No custom fields to mess with, no copying and pasting filenames.
Implementing this feature in a portfolio already using my WordCamp functions is a three-step process.
- Tell WordPress that the feature is supported by adding
addthemesupport('post-thumbnails'); somewhere in your theme’s functions.php file.
- Log in to WordPress and assign each of your portfolio items an image. If you’ve already used the “Upload/Insert” tool to add them prior to 2.9, just click the “Add an Image” button, then “Gallery,” “Show” the image you want to use and click the “Use as thumbnail” link toward the bottom.
- Adjust your functions to support the new feature. Refer to my updated list_work function snippet as an example.
Your mileage may vary depending on the volume of portfolio items you’ll need to switch over, but it took me roughly an hour to support the feature on this very site.
I recommend reading Justin Tadlock’s excellent blog post on the subject, which details the post thumbnails in much greater detail than WordPress’ documentation and was of great help to me in supporting them.
I do have one bit of extra theme development knowledge to bestow on other developers which I was unable to find elsewhere online. To echo only the URL of the thumbnail image file, use the following:
<?php echo get_post(get_post_thumbnail_id())->guid; ?>
Fun fact: Pixies frontman Black Francis and I share a birthday. Whether this is mere coincidence or evidence of a divine orchestration responsible for my ongoing love of this band I’ll leave for believers and skeptics to debate.
I vividly remember putting the Pixies’ Doolittle on for the first time and listening to it in the car on the way to school. Predictably, “Debaser” remains my favorite song, etched into my brain as soon as I heard that predatory bass guitar. Hearing Black Francis’s scream for the first time was like getting a punch in the stomach that shakes out all your dust and cobwebs. It was exhilarating and dangerous, and it changed the way I felt about rock and roll.
You can imagine my excitement as Mallory and I shuffled into the Hult Center in Eugene to see them perform their seminal album in sequence, in its entirety. To the possible chagrin of my fellow concert-goers’ indie hipster pretenses, I couldn’t suppress my smile. Neither could bassist Kim Deal or drummer David Lovering for the entirety of their set.
The band played the best I’ve ever heard to one of the most enthusiastic crowds I’ve ever been a part of. Doolittle was impressively solid, accompanied by some unique and appropriately atmospheric visuals (possibly a first for the band). Hearing the collective audience’s voices swell with the lyrics of “Hey” as they echoed throughout the beautiful concert hall was one of many highlights. The set was book-ended with a selection of b-sides, both oft-heard (“Dancing the Manta Ray”) and rarely performed (“Bailey’s Walk”).
The house lights came on as the Pixies took the stage for their final encore of the night, a visual indication that the Doolittle theme had been discarded in favor of roaring through songs like “Isla De Encanta” and “Where Is My Mind?” We exited the theater completely exhilarated and in disbelief. Despite having seen a Pixies performance in some form or another four times prior, they had outdone themselves almost effortlessly. Simply a stunning display.
Pixies are offering a four-track sampler of their live set for free. While I don’t think it matches the primal splendor of their live experience, it might be just the taste you need to seek them out.
Read the rest of this entry…
