Geekery roundup, June 2009

It’s been a month since my last blog post, but a lot has been happening. So in Hugh style here’s a randomly ordered list of the things I’ve been up, and things that have run through my head, to over the last few weeks.

1. Plenty-o-plugins

   I’ve got a large handful of plugins for WordPress MU completed (or at least to a state where I can release them). The plugins are: statistics, sitewide newsletters, personal welcomes, demo data creator and secure invites.

   I’m also happy that they have been accepted for the official WordPress plugin repository, so keep an eye on my developer page to see when these plugins get updated and new ones get added. I have a few more ideas for plugins I’m going to try to do over the next couple of months.

2. I like quick development

   Writing those plugins has made something about myself quite clear to me. I enjoy quick development tasks much more than long ones. So writing a plugin that takes 8 – 24 hours is MUCH preferable to writing a full system that takes 100 hours or more. With WordPress’ plugin architecture I think I can do more of that quick development, leaving the fiddly slow bits (user management, templating, database manipulation) to the WordPress core.

3. myJournal updates

   Although most of the changes I’ve made on myJournal aren’t readily apparent to visitors, they have mae a big difference in how easy it is to manage your profile and site in the system. Especially the showrooms (for example this contemporary designer jewellery showroom).

   One very recent thing (completely done last night, in fact) was adding Twitter updates to profiles. You can keep up to date with me here. That was another of those quick development things.

4. Computers Unlimited

   One of the oldest serious sites I developed is currently entering version 8, so you’ll soon be able to buy printer cartridges, toner and more using a much nicer interface. Development has taken much longer than I hoped, and frankly I’ll be glad when it’s finished.

5. jQuery

   A lot has been said about this wonderful JavaScript library, so I won’t dwell on its finer points. Suffice to say it’s continuing to astound me with how easy it makes advanced JavaScript.

6. Performer

   And when you combine jQuery with Performer (JavaScript without the code) you’re on cloud nine. A couple of months ago I launched the new Performer website, which I’m really pleased with. As I tell people, my design skills are more miss than hit, but this time I think I got it right.

7. BeatsBase.com

   After increasing the upload limit for mixes to 1gb the other month, BeatsBase.com has been really unstable. Error all over the place. Rather than wade through the code to try to fix it, I’m taking the opportunity to upgrade to the latest version of WordPress MU and add in BuddyPress which will give some great new features. I’m also going to rewrite my own custom plugins so they are much better, and maybe those will even find their way into the public domain.

I’ve done a few other things (see my Twitter updates in the sidebar of my site, for example), and even some that don’t involved geekery. I’m planning on doing a similar round-up post to this about the new things happening in the busy world of web development (new browsers, new tools, new sites). Who knows, maybe I’ll get to do that before next month.