What would you know, Microsoft is actually on the look-out for people tweeting about their abhorrent software…

Well, heck yeah. How about a virus that wipes out Internet Explorer altogether? Or better yet, wipes out Windows altogether?

Sorry Mick. I know you’re just doing your job, but you’re working for the Enemy.

The new Menus panel is really cool. It is the CMS feature I’ve been longing for the most in WordPress. Normally I’d use PageMash to order and rearrange the Pages and Page List Plus to alter the menu label (because Page Titles should be headlines, not menu labels).

Here’s a sneak peek at how it looks…

But when I wanted to use the new Menus panel on two different sites with different themes this morning, I got a rude message after switching from the new Default theme to the clients’ themes. The error message said:

The current theme does not support menus.

Well, that was frustrating. And a Google search on how to actually make a theme support menus was completely fruitless.

So I had to use my brain things and work out how to do it on my own. So, I checked the functions.php file of the default theme, and sure enough, there was this code:

// This theme uses wp_nav_menu()
add_theme_support( 'nav-menus' );

I pasted that line (and the comment) into my other themes, and the error message disappeared. I’ve been using the Menus panel on both themes today and they work great.

But there is another step you have to take as well. You need to change the code that calls the menu in your header.php file (or wherever it’s kept in your theme). Normally I’d use this PHP code:

wp_list_pages('title_li=');

But now you need to use this code instead:

wp_nav_menu( 'id=navbar' );

The id here refers to the fact that I named my menu navbar. You can create all the different menus you want, and they each have a unique id (menu name) that you give them. Very cool.

wp_nav_menu( 'id=navbar&menu_class=headermenu' );

There are more parameters (or whatever they’re called) as well as the id one. For instance, you can give the menu a CSS class right there in the code.

Here’s a list of what’s currently on offer, as far as I can tell:

• id – The menu id. Defaults to blank.
• slug – The menu slug. Defaults to blank.
• menu_class – CSS class to use for the div container of the menu list. Defaults to ‘menu’.
• format – Whether to format the ul. Defaults to ‘div’.
• fallback_cb – If the menu doesn’t exists, a callback function will fire. Defaults to ‘wp_page_menu’.
• before_link – Output text before the link.
• after_link – Output text after the link.
• before_title – Output text before the link text.
• before_title – Output text after the link text.
• echo – Whether to echo the menu or return it. Defaults to echo.

I don’t have a clue if this solution will be necessary or even work tomorrow, since this is an Alpha version and is still being developed, but since there doesn’t seem to be any documentation on this out there, I thought I’d post it myself.

Now it’s time for this blog to be born again. This time around, I’m using Web Design Watchdog for my geeky posts, while my posts at Blue Owl are aimed more at the non-geeks among us.

This site runs on WordPress (as do all my sites and my clients’ sites) and I just upgraded this blog to the latest version (WP2.9.2 at time of writing). I can’t believe it was still on version 2.7, but then this blog was just collecting dust while I decided what to do with it.

I still have 30 plugins to update… I’m sure many will break. And I hope to get rid of a whole lot of them. What can I say – I’m a plugin junkie. You know, at one stage I had 80 add-ons installed in Firefox, and I’m lucky I have less than that installed in this blog.

If a blog is reborn, does that mean I can celebrate its re-birthday?

When I get my eZine up and running, I’ll be publishing it using ‘WordBurner’. I’ve always planned to use WordPress and Feedburner to manage my eZine, but wasn’t sure exactly how to do it. Luckily I happened upon a tutorial from Nettuts that explains how it’s done:

Build a ‘WordBurner’ Email Newsletter Manager using WordPress and FeedBurner – NETTUTS

Negative headlines arouse curiosity

Here’s a great article about writing compelling headlines…

It’s the reason people love NASCAR and read National Enquirer.

We don’t want to admit it. We’re not supposed to feel that way. But secretly buried, deep down inside, we all want a front row seat to the wipe out of the season.

Read the whole story at copyblogger.com/train-wreck-blogging/

photo credit: hyperscholar