When Public Enemy released their classic hit Shut 'em down, they were criticizing authorities. Yet recently, Google has given the track's title a completely new meaning: without any prior warning, the company shut down at least six renowned music blogs hosted on Blogger/Blogspot. Or, as Paidcontent.org puts, it, “wiped them from the internet”: Read more
I'm very happy that the number of visitors is constantly increasing on my English blog; during the last weeks, the site's overall performance has drastically decreased, so I will move the blog to a new server this weekend. Expect a few hours of downtime – currently, my sys-admin is working on setting up the new server. Thanks for your patience – things will speed up here, starting tomorrow – I promise! :mrgreen:
Main bloggerilla topic of the week: the new WordPress aka 2.7. Matt and his team change a lot in the backend – it's like Obama said: “Change, we can do it!” What O did not mention though was the fact that change makes most folks rather uncomfortable. In that respect, it's more like TLC sang-rapped: “Don't go chasin' waterfalls / listen to the rivers and the lakes that you're used to.” In other words, I've heard a lot of user complaining about a so-called uglification of the CMS. My five cents: so far I've only updated half of my blogs, and I really dig the new look and all the new features.
A lot of hard programming work has gone into this release: every backend-screen is customizable, so it should be easier than ever to fit WP to your needs. Furthermore, this updating-round is the last manual one: from 2.7 or “Coltrane”, WP updates do happen on the fly without any ftp-uploads (just like the current plug-in update function). This new release is so full of features that you might want to take a look at the official WordPress Blog. This screencast sums up all the new blogging-goodness:
I really dig this guy, not just because he's funny and a good writer – I also learned a great deal from him. And I can only fully endorse this quote from an article about blogging and not selling out:
I get probably 10-20 solicitations a day to write about someone