Wordpress Archives - Page 2 of 3

Obox Design unveils a WordPress mobile theme framework
By Matt Cohen on 8 October, 2010
South African WordPress theme company, Obox Design, has recently made some significant developments in the area of theming for mobile devices. "Obox Mobile" is their new flagship offering, a mobile theme framework that "seamlessly converts your WordPress site into a mobile friendly experience when people visit it via their phones". I recently had the opportunity to work with Obox Mobile and put the framework through its paces. First off, it's important to note that the product is advertised as a "mobile theme framework" and not as a "mobile theme". This subtle difference embodies the true power and potential future of Obox...
Windows Live Spaces concedes defeat to WordPress
By Jacobus van Eeden on 1 October, 2010
Microsoft recently announced it will be shutting down its Windows Live Spaces blogging platform and partnering with dominant blogging platform, Wordpress. Essentially, this means that all new Windows Live account users will no longer get a Windows Live Space blog, but will instead receive a WordPress blog. In the long run it also means that the 30-million active Live Spaces users that Microsoft claims to have will be moved onto WordPress by March 2011, although new data claims that only 1% of Windows Live Spaces blogs are actually active. Still, the move seems an astonishing admission from Microsoft, which always...
Seven new features you can expect from WordPress 3.1
By Matt Cohen on 27 September, 2010
There have been a number of recent developments at WordPress which have proven that the company is as dynamic and fluid as it has ever been. Firstly, Matt Mullenweg, the co-founder of WordPress, announced the formal handing over of the WordPress trademark from Automattic (a for-profit company) to the WordPress Foundation, a non-profit organisation "dedicated to promoting and ensuring access to WordPress and related open source projects in perpetuity". This is in line with the ethos behind the WordPress brand of being an open and expressive community. The official WordPress blog announced that, "moving forward, the Foundation will be...
How to decide between Joomla and WordPress
By Thabo Ntai on 13 September, 2010
When creating your new website, you face three broad options: A choice between a static HTML site, a dynamic content management system-driven site (CMS) or a Flash site. Static HTML is old-fashioned and perhaps suitable for smaller, low budget sites. Flash is beautiful, but becomes inflexible when building large sites. This then leaves a CMS-powered site as your key choice. Once you've decided to go the CMS route, you face another significant choice between the two biggest players in this field: namely Joomla and Wordpress. I've developed using both, and in a nutshell, it can be summed up like this:...
What everyone should know about premium WordPress plugins
By Matt Cohen on 2 September, 2010
With virtually infinite scope for expandability, WordPress has become the platform of choice for many web developers and website owners. The development of sophisticated plugins has done wonders for enhancing bespoke functionality on the WordPress platform. Prior to WordPress version 1.2, users had to create "hacks" to extend WordPress, which involved modifying the core of WordPress itself. Since then, WordPress has introduced a plugin API that allows users to extend the system without directly editing core files. This addition has lead to the development of many third party plugins. Free plugins are hosted in the WordPress Extend Plugins Directory,...
DukaPress: A WordPress eCommerce system from Africa
By Erik Hersman: In Kenya on 19 August, 2010
DukaPress is a new customised WordPress eCommerce platform. It allows you to easily set up a fully featured online shop which can be used to sell digital or physical goods to customers all over the world. I’ve been using WordPress for many years, and am a huge fan. When I saw DukaPress last week, I was impressed to see that it was built in Nairobi, but I also wondered why another eCommerce WordPress build was needed, as there are already good ones available such as WP-ecommerce and Shopp. I interviewed Kelvin Jayanoris, from Nickel Pro, about DukaPress: ON WHY THEY DEVELOPED A...
Thesis vs WordPress resolved: A new era of collaboration beckons
By Matt Cohen on 23 July, 2010
The heated debate that has swirled around the WordPress community over the last few days appears to have been settled amicably with the news that the famous Wordpress theme or "search engine optimised framework" Thesis has agreed to a "split licence". By licensing their PHP code under the General Public License (GPL), Thesis can now more directly contribute to the growth of the WordPress code-base as a whole. It can also directly benefit from the many developers working with the framework (and WordPress), who are now able to fork or contribute to the project. The debate was sparked between WordPress...
6 ways to turn your WordPress blog into a web socialite
By Matt Cohen on 23 July, 2010
A blog is usually a place where individuals or groups publish thoughts and ideas on niche topics, current affairs or daily occurrences. But how do you make a WordPress blog more social and attractive to people wanting to interact and bring it to life? Can you turn your shy, introverted blog into a bubbling, web socialite? WordPress, the popular blogging platform, has a number of solutions that you can use. Here are six ideas that really work: 1. Enhance user commenting Start off by allowing users to login and comment with their Facebook or Twitter accounts. The Janrain Engage (formerly RPX) plug-in aims to...
It’s WordPress with a capital ‘P’, dangit!
By Matt Cohen on 12 July, 2010
WordPress, wordpress, Wordpress or wordPress? Which is it and what does it matter anyway? There seem to be so many ways of spelling the exact same name. Does it even matter? According to the team at Automattic (developers of WordPress), yes it does. With the release of WordPress 3.0 (and possibly long before on wordpress.com blogs) a filter exists entitled "capital_P_dangit()". While this function has a rather humorous name, its purpose is rather straightforward and important to the developers. This function is applied to titles, content and comments in order to transform all instances of the word "WordPress" where the "P"...
WordPress 3.0 arrives… with vuvuzela mention
By Nur Bremmen: Staff reporter on 18 June, 2010
Wordpress 3.0, the blogging software that runs millions of websites around the world, has officially launched. The official blog post about the launch starts: "Arm your vuvuzelas: WordPress 3.0, the thirteenth major release of WordPress and the culmination of half a year of work by 218 contributors, is now available for download." The Vuvuzela mention is in reference to the love-hate, noisy instrument of the Fifa Soccer world Cup in South Africa that has attracted rapid, world-wide attention. According to Wordpress founding developer Matt Mullenweg, the 3.0 release also includes a "sexy new" default theme called Twenty Ten. "Theme developers have new...
WordPress 3.0 – unpacking the new features
By Matt Cohen on 3 June, 2010
In recent years, WordPress has begun evolving into more than an extensive blogging platform. It is now robust enough to be used for non-blog centric websites consisting primarily of a series of pages or other non-blog post items. This year sees WordPress celebrate its seventh birthday with a new release -- version 3.0. The new version promises a vast array of updates as well as a few features to enhance WordPress in the generic content management vein, as well as enhance the user experience and functionality available to the 'Average Joe' installing the system. Let's take a look at a few...
Why WordPress isn’t for everyone
By Debby Hammond-Byrne on 11 May, 2010
There was a time not so long ago when I could dictate to businesses exactly what they needed, when they needed it, and at what cost, without even bothering to mention what else was available on the market. Not so anymore. Suddenly I find myself needing to defend my online solution with each new client that walks through the door -- and it's a good thing! Business people have become extremely web-savvy and are doing the right research before upgrading their sites or venturing online. They spurt out things like -- search engine optimisation, social-networking, video-sharing, wikis, blogs, mashups, ajax,...
WordPress – way more than just a blogging platform!
By Mark Forrester on 1 April, 2010
Since 2003 WordPress has grown to be the largest self-hosted "blogging tool in the world", with millions of sites being powered by this easy-to-use, extremely flexible, freely available content management system (CMS). The common perception by the vast majority though is that it is limited to being a blogging tool. And a blogging tool to many businesses sounds like something they don’t need and are not interested in. All they want is an online brochure, a simple web presence, a 5-page static website with a contact form. So they approach a web designer, a design agency or an employee's brother-in-law who...