Want to change your WordPress sidebar but don’t wanna edit any code? The WordPress Widgets Plugin is just what you’re looking for.
It made it’s debut on WordPress.com a few months ago and is now being released for public consumption. If everything goes well, it might get included in the next WordPress release.
Widgets are an easy way for you to arrange and rearrange your sidebar to your hearts content without touching a line of code. We first launched WordPress Widgets (WPW) it on WordPress.com a month ago and the response was great. Now we’re ready to release the plugin to the world. If adoption goes well, we’ll consider rolling it into the next version of WordPress.
You can get the plugin here. WordPress Theme Park notes that theme developers will want to try to make their themes work out-of-the-box with this plugin. It’s apparently pretty easy.
Hosted Gmail, or “Gmail for your domain”, is sweet. It provides the ability to use the Gmail interface with your domains email. So, I go to my hosted Gmail and I can send/receive email at the longren.org domain.
I had to change my MX records at DreamHost over to Google’s, naturally. I didn’t include a priority when switching them over though, stupid. I guess I was expecting a seperate form field for those. Didn’t cause much of a delay though.
I really like the idea of “Gmail for your domain.” It serves it’s purpose very well. I could go for a few more features in the administration area. The “Advanced Tools” in the picture is really a “tool” for editing your accounts in bulk. Under “Domain Settings” you’ll have the opportunity to set a custom logo, edit the sign-in page, and enable/disable chat. The only thing you can currently edit on the sign-in page is the color of the username/password boxes. Click for a bigger picture.
I expect a whole slew of new customizable settings as the beta progresses. I believe the chat feature was just added today, although standard Gmail has had that for some time now. I’d really like to be able to edit the title used on pages. It seems to just use the domain as the title right now.
I noticed they’ve got an “Account Plan” indicator on the administration dashboard. Google will probably start charging for this service once it’s out of beta, which could be in like 15 years. I mean, Gmail itself is still in beta. They might even charge per user, I’ve got “Up to 200 users for free.” I’d actually expect a pricing schema very similar to that seen today in web hosting. But probably cheaper.
Hopefully that screenshot isn’t against the TOS or anything. I’m not gonna bother reading that 50 page psycho-babble though. Maybe I’ll post more screenshots later.
Information gathered at the Digital Hollywood pre-show suggests Google is holding an invitation only event for twenty top music industry executives this Thursday. This may suggest that Google is moving forward plans to compete with Apple and others in the downloadable music space.
The topic of this meeting isn’t known, but we can speculate that Google may be showing an early stage product that is in the making or trying to form partnerships like they have with CBS.
UPDATE:Science Addiction has a nice review of Gmail for your domain, along with screenshots. Site may be slow as it got slashdotted earlier today, seems to be recovering now.
Some news place in Australia claimed an inside source at Microsoft told them 60% of the existing Windows Vista code would have to be rewritten. This news had thetechiebloggers pretty excited today.
Up to 60% of the code in the new consumer version of Microsoft new Vista operating system is set to be rewritten as the Company “scrambles” to fix internal problems a Microsoft insider has confirmed to SHN.
Alec Saunders brings the obvious to light in his post. The “obvious” of course being the logistics of such a project.
What utter crap! 60% of Windows is millions and millions of lines of code. You can’t rewrite that much code, and ship in January. Maybe January 2009 if a 60% rewrite is needed, but not January 2007. Perhaps Microsoft is in denial, and Vista will never ship, or perhaps reporter Dave Richards is a tad too quick to jump on “the sky is falling” bandwagon.
There’s absolutely no way in hell they could ship Vista by Jan 2007 if they had to do 60% of the code again. They probably should do it though, just base it off Linux or BSD and they’d be good. heh.
Microsofts Robert Scoble says the 60% code rewrite claims are bogus. Thank you Robert, my mind is at ease.
Ben Domenech has had a rough few days. He started off taking shit for his new Red America blog over at WaPo. Then he’s called a bigot for some blog posts he made a while back at Red State.
Now, he’s been forced to resign from his position at WaPo due to plagiarism charges (also posted at official WaPo Blog). It was probably a good idea for him to step down. Lots of people from both sides wanted to see him go.
All-in-all, this sucks. Had there not been such a huge initial furor over Ben and WaPo, Red America would still be around. I understand peoples anger about Ben though. He did plagiarize, losing Red America are the consequences of his actions. Too bad.
I don’t really think I’ve got a conservative personality, my ideas are more conservative though. I’ve actually got an extremely liberal personality, I think. Although, I am whiny sometimes, and I wouldn’t say “I’m not crazy.” According to a recent study, I probably do have a conservative personality. Here’s a bit from the new Red America blog:
Apparently, this violent testosterone-fueled psychological imperitive – not a coherent and just strategy for defending America in response to the first major attack on our soil since Pearl Harbor – is the real reason for our war in Iraq. Oh, and Condi Rice? Don’t worry, women can have manly envy, too. Clearly, Maggie Thatcher did.
I guess I wasn’t aware there were many effective warfare strageties that don’t involve violence. I think I’m gonna enjoy reading Red America, a lot. Hopefully it’ll stay around for a while, I like Ben’s sense of humor, and his cool last name “Domenech.”
And while we’re at it, MacStansbury is loving our “new media”. He’s got a post that’s “Not a ‘sop to the paper’s right-wing critics’.” The “paper” being WaPo, of course.
