Urban Giraffe

Icy Dock MB622US-2S RAID SATA Enclosure

John — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 19:43:29 +0000

Hard drives. From my first exciting 20MB drive to the monster 1TB beast now keeping my backups. And where you have drives you surely have drive enclosures. Here I'll be looking at the shiny silver and white Icy Dock MB662 RAID enclosure.

The MB662 is not a complicated NAS storage system. It has no web server, no iTunes software, no ethernet port or media server. It does however have a couple of flashing blue lights and this list of features:

Supports 2x3.5" SATA I/II drives
Up to 4TB capacity
USB 2.0 + eSATA (Silicon Image 5744 chipset)
Hardware RAID with six settings
No software required
Screwless design
40mm adjustable speed fan
Hot swappable
Compatible with Windows and Mac
Supplied with USB and eSATA cables

Guangzhou Theme - WordPress and bbPress

John — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 09:10:44 +0000

So finally, after an extended development period and many people asking 'are you ever releasing it', I've released the theme files for the Guangzhou WordPress and bbPress theme.

As I say elsewhere:

Guangzhou is a two-column fixed width theme for both WordPress and bbPress. It is highly configurable, with two widget areas (sidebar and bottom), as well as customisable skins and many other options. It supports threaded and paged comments, making for very flexible discussion pages, as well as separating pings and trackbacks from comments - essential to keep the flow of conversation consistent.

Redirection 2.1.15 - New Ajax and Japanese

John — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 07:57:21 +0000

Although lacking in new features, this release includes a rewrite of the administration Ajax to use the WordPress provided admin-ajax functions, as well as moving all JavaScript fully into the jQuery world. Hopefully this will solve any issues caused by strange server setups.

In addition, a Japanese translation has been provided by Naoko McCracken.

A Case of a Weak Escape

John — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 09:35:46 +0000

All of my plugins should now be WordPress 2.8 compatible. For the majority of them the only issues involved were based on the use of the WordPress SQL escaping function. Previously I was calling this statically:

wpdb::escape

A bad habit I probably picked up from somewhere back in the WordPress 1.5 days that has stuck around. In WordPress 2.8 this function no longer works statically. The simple fix is to change it into:

$wpdb->escape

All About Email

John — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 22:03:49 +0000

I've been doing a bit of work recently for Automattic, culminating in Post by Email. If you've not seen it yet it's a nifty way of publishing a post to WordPress.com by sending an email. Text and attachments are all converted into a WordPress post, and everything works just as if you'd typed it into a browser. All told a very quick and simple way of publishing.

Guangzhou Theme

John — Mon, 04 May 2009 19:27:29 +0000

I've had a lot of queries about the theme I'm using on this site and I've so far answered that it's a work-in-development and not quite ready yet. I've finally spent some time cleaning it up and before making it publicly available I thought it wise to give it a quick testing cycle. As such, if anyone wants to beta test the Guangzhou theme then drop me a line and I'll send it on over.

The theme requires WordPress 2.7 or 2.8, and there's sister theme for bbPress 1.0 (alpha). You will also need a login to this site so I can give you access to the private bug tracker. While the theme has been in use for the better part of year it has been targeted at my own requirements and I'm sure that there will be some changes needed to open it up. Saying that, it is very customisable and allows very tight integration between WordPress and bbPress, as well as Sniplets. It's fully localised, and if you use a plugin like WP Minify then it will also seamlessly allow you to reduce CSS and JavaScript overheads to a minimum.

WordPress CodeSniffer Standard

John — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 21:28:33 +0000

CodeSniffer is a PEAR package that checks PHP code for violations of coding standards. According to the developers:

It is an essential development tool that ensures your code remains clean and consistent. It can also help prevent some common semantic errors made by developers.

While it won't make you bug-free, it is another tool to help you produce better quality code, and is very useful when working with a team of developers. CodeSniffer thoughtfully comes with several standards to verify code against the PEAR, Zend, and Squiz coding standards. What follows is a CodeSniffer standard that adheres to the WordPress Coding Standard. Hurray for coding violations!

HeadSpace 3.6.21 - WordPress 2.3, 2.5, and 2.8

John — Sun, 19 Apr 2009 16:56:10 +0000

HeadSpace 3.6.21 has just been released and is in preparation for the upcoming WordPress 2.8, fixing several issues with tagging. In addition to this it also restores compatibility with WordPress 2.3 and 2.5. I'd be interested to know how many people are using older versions of WordPress (more than one major version) and whether this feature is of any use.

Also included in this version is a raw footer module that allows you to add anything to the wp_footer area of your theme.

HTML Purified - WordPress & bbPress

John — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 16:18:44 +0000

I've just released an update to HTML Purified, a plugin that replaces the standard WordPress KSES filters with the much more powerful HTML Purifier library. This release tidies up a few rough edges and is jointly compatible with both WordPress and bbPress.

That's right, the same plugin will work with both systems and allows you to fully protect yourself from any malignant comments that may be directed at your site. It should also ensure that your comments are valid XHTML.

Note that bbPress functionality is experimental. It works on the support forum here, running bbPress 1.0 alpha 6. Your mileage may of course vary.

WordPress SEO Plugin Comparison

John — Sun, 22 Mar 2009 17:26:31 +0000

I realised that I've added a lot of functionality to HeadSpace without actually making any kind of announcement about it. To make up for this this I decided to produce a comparison chart showing HeadSpace in relation to other popular SEO orientated plugins. This is not a chance to poke competitors in the eye but just an erstwhile attempt for me to show exactly what HeadSpace can do and how it stacks up to other plugins. It's also a good excuse to make sure I can tick as many boxes as possible - HeadSpace is now in its fourth year and although development is still going strong, it is easy to get stuck in your own world and not see what is happening outside.