Published in the early afternoon of May 26, 2004
The default link manager in WordPress has always been feature–packed since the 1.0 release, though it could still use some hacking to do certain things. The blogroll import function has been something I’ve always wanted to work properly, but I couldn’t. Not that I tried or read the documentation that much, but I wanted it to do just one simple thing—display the 12 most recently updated weblogs in my blogroll. And with my reluctance to stop using blo.gs’s wonderful service, I decided to create a blogroll plugin instead; which queries blo.gs for my favorites.xml file every hour, caches the data, and displays my blogroll just the way I want it. I know it can be done using javascript, but I’d rather keep client–side scripting to a minimum and only if it cannot be done on the server end.
As a side note, I fixed some little nuances in wp–recent–links, taking us now to a 1.31 release. I’m planning to hack some nifty features soon, specifically to have links display like Photomatt’s asides and Jason Kottke’s inline remaindered links. I just realized this: using asides–styled links actually makes your site look like Dave Winer’s, but I’m not sure if it is a good thing or a bad thing. 
Just a tip: the $post array produced by WP can be run through PHP’s array_slice() to display the most recent entry prominently, with the rest styled differently.
15 Replies·
2004.05.26
Published mid-afternoon of May 25, 2004
Last Friday, my girlfriend Monch and I watched “Subtext”, a Palanca Award–winning play that deals with the Filipino’s favorite pastime—txting. Txting, or sending SMS messages for the uninitiated, is an integral part of the Filipino’s daily life. This medium of communication has witnessed real stories, messages of “I luv u”, “Hapi bday!”, even “Ur fired.” Real life drama—and comedy, like the mis–sent message of affection, sent to your best buddies. (That wasn’t me!)
This is what Subtext is all about—A short, funny, and sweet take on the Filipino life, as it happens with the aid of a cellular phone. That and a bit more.
Watching this production of the Koine Theater Foundation has been a unique experience. You get an intimate look at the story in front of you, with only around 20 to 30 people in the audience. You feel very “involved,” something that is frequently lacking in most large productions. The play itself is not a technical wonder, just plain and simple; the narrative itself takes center stage. The director, Niel De Mesa, has done a very good job. Even his introduction and closing remarks were performances themselves.
If you have time this week, you should catch Subtext. It’s on its last week, and the next chance you’ll get is probably a year from now! The venue is at Kamuning, QC; just a bus ride away from almost anywhere in Metro Manila. I don’t have tickets to sell, but I can point you to the right people. For less than 200 pesos (it was 120, right?), you get a good night of laughter, and some tears.
I think you need to make a reservation so you can be assured of getting a seat, with only a limited number available. I’m sure our friends Arvi and Dingdong (who sang very, very well—naiyak ako sa acting mo, ang galing!) can get some seats for you. Just post a comment with your email (and mobile number?) perhaps, and I’ll hook you up with them. I promise, you’ll enjoy the play. 
12 Replies·
2004.05.25
Published mid-afternoon of May 23, 2004
A digital camera and some spare time can turn friends (and a brother) to wonderful models. Right?
5 Replies·
2004.05.23
Published terribly early in the morning of May 20, 2004
The Philippine Star’s motoring section yesterday printed an article titled “A Rare SUV-ic Drive,” the writer’s story on SUVs and SUV tuning & customization. Nothing special, but rather misleading:
Xenon HID (High Intensity Discharge) Bulbs is the latest trend in headlamp technology. Employing a different way to produce light, it is also practical since it emits a very bright light while consuming less power. Differences are literally night and day, and awestruck approaching vehicles soon become dismayed as they engage their high beams to counteract with the Xenon HID bulbs — to no avail. That alone is a proven statement that Xenon HID bulbs are way brighter, safer, and is the practical choice.
Emphasis mine. I don’t know what the writer was thinking, but how can you be driving safely when oncoming drivers are blinded by your expensive and stupid HID lights? Yes you can see them, in fact you can stare at them trying to look away from your glaring lights. Maybe you can even see them hitting you straight on. In the next paragraph, he writes:
A night demonstration employing the different light temperatures that Xenon HID Headlamp Bulbs offer is a worthwhile sight, although not for long. It is so bright that the eye can’t focus on it for extended periods. Different light temperatures were sampled out during the event, and the HIDs were even compared to a "measly" halogen bulb to further reinforce that "They’ll love your headlights; they’ll hate your headlights" statement.
Now it makes less sense even more—He knows that it’s hard to look at HID lights for a long period of time, but still they are the “brighter, safer, and is the practical choice.”
An important note to Philstar.com’s designers: Stop using frames. It breaks the flow of information within the site, and it makes linking to pages very difficult.
11 Replies·
2004.05.20
Published in the early evening of May 19, 2004
I hardly noticed until I looked at my hosting stats—I was featured on CSS Vault! An honor to be listed with the best in CSS designs. Thanks Scrivs.
5 Replies·
2004.05.19
Published in the late afternoon of May 19, 2004
Yes, the title says it all: wp–recent–links is now a valid plugin for WordPress 1.2.
No need to copy the functions from my-hacks.php to a plugin file, now we have both files ready, for 1.0 and 1.2 users. Lots of fixes on this one, and rewritten functions are now more configurable. Of course the old functions will work, and won’t break what your current templates. But I strongly suggest you have a look at the new functions and play with them. wp–recent–links 1.3 is ready for 1.2’s final release.
We now have permalinks for each and every link, and the RSS 2 feed added in the previous release. More plugins for WP to come soon.
14 Replies·
2004.05.19
Published mid-afternoon of May 14, 2004
wp–recent–links has now reached version 1.2, with a new RSS 2 feed for syndicating your links. Grab the latest zip and try it. And post your comments if it breaks your site.
An update to 1.2 is now available: 1.21. Just fixed a copy-and-paste error that was causing the link captions to be not displayed in the title attribute.
6 Replies·
2004.05.14
Published terribly early in the morning of May 14, 2004
Matt has just written on some developments regarding the upcoming WorPress 1.2 release, expected next week. In another post, he notes the recently released pricing scheme for Movable Type, barely a few hours after SixApart announced the availability of MT 3.0 Developer Edition.
With these developments, the blogging scene will be very active in the next few weeks with two significant milestones forthcoming. SixApart appears to be focused on making money now, after giving away their software for some time while allowing bloggers to grow a strong dependence on it. They will still give out a free version, but it could probably have a more restrictive, more enforced license. Good thing you always have a choice.
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2004.05.14
Published in the wee hours of May 14, 2004
Just a quick note to MT users: please utilize google’s PageRank–stripping redirect page,as used in the new Blogger and described by Simon Willison. Do away with the redirection used in recent MT versions, it hides the URL from your users. I found this annoying while reading the comments on Scriv’s post on success and thinking big, which by the way is a very inspiring read. Just remember this: http://www.google.com/url?sa=D&q=URL
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2004.05.14
Published in the wee hours of May 10, 2004
Yearning to write about a lot of things; the Pacquiao–Marquez draw, today’s national elections, why I think Eddie Villanueva deserves to win (but wouldn’t), my soon to be released photo album publisher, some very new photos. And some more. Some other day, maybe.
9 Replies·
2004.05.10
