Archive for the 'WordPress Weekly' Category

11/29/2008 ↓

WordPress In A Book 9comments

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Episode 31 of WordPress Weekly featured a special 1 hour 26 minute interview with none other than Lisa Sabin Wilson, the author of WordPress For Dummies. Keith and I grilled Lisa on the topics of:

  • Writing a book for a piece of software which has an extremely fast development cycle
  • How different versions affect the publishing of the book
  • WordPress For Dummies The Second Edition
  • Lisa’s thoughts on WordPress 2.7
  • Lisa’s explanation on permalinks and slugs
  • Lisa’s take on premium themes versus free themes
  • much, much, more.

Keith and I really enjoyed our time with Lisa and wish her the best for the second edition of WordPress For Dummies.

Announcements: The two lucky recipients who will each receive a signed copy of WordPess For Dummies 2nd Edition are Chris Thompson and Lenire.

WPWeekly Meta:

Next Episode: Friday December 5th, 2008 8P.M. EST

Subscribe To WPWeekly Via Itunes: Click here to subscribe

Length Of Episode: 1 Hour 26 Minutes

Download The Show: WordPressWeeklyEpisode31.mp3

Listen To Episode #31:

11/24/2008 ↓

WordPress For Dummies 2nd Ed. 6comments

This Friday at 8PM EST on WordPress Weekly, our special one hour guest will be Lisa Sabin Wilson who is the author of the book, WordPress For Dummies. During the show, we plan on discussing how hard it is to write about a piece of software that moves 100mph in print format, Lisa’s background in web design and what it is like to theme for WordPress, WordPress For Dummies The Second Edition and much more.

This Thursday is Thanksgiving here in the states. On Friday, I want to give my thanks to those of you who continue to show your support while telling your friends about the show and downloading it on a regular basis. On Friday, we will be giving away two signed copies of WordPress For Dummies 2nd Edition. Lisa will sign the copies and ship them once the new edition has been published. So how will we give these away?

One book will be given away to a lucky caller while the other copy will be given away to a lucky recipient in the chat room. So be sure to join us live this Friday, for a fun filled discussion related to the book as well as WordPress. (Special thanks to Lisa for donating the two signed copies.)

11/22/2008 ↓

How Many Cans Of Worms? 13comments

Keith, Andrew, Jacob and I discussed the news of the week. In fact, I tried to break the world record by opening up as many cans of worms as possible within a 60 minute period. You’ll have to listen to the show to hear if I was successful.

Ad Copy:

WordPress Weekly is brought to you by the fine advertisers on WeblogToolsCollection.com. Without their continued support, this show would not be possible. If you are interested in advertising on WordPress Weekly, please contact me at wpweekly at gmail dot com..

Stories Discussed:

WordPress 2.7 Beta 3 Released

Why 2.7 Is Not 3.0

The Icons Have Been Chosen

Integrating Plugins - Is This Bad For WordPress?

Adding A Twitter ID Field To Comments

Listing Pages The 2.7 Way

10 Best WordPress Web Hosts Compared

Feedback:

We encourage you to leave a comment whether it be feedback, questions, rants, or corrections then tune in and see if your comment made it on the air! To send us feedback via email, conect us at wpweekly at gmail dot com.

Plugin Of The Week:

Jeff - WPTuner – WP Tuner for WordPress is a powerful and easy way to answer hard questions about why your blog is slow or cranky. What’s causing the slowdown? Is it a plugin? Is it your host? This plugin will help you find out. Used with a bit of common sense, this powerful plugin helps blog administrators as well as software developers improve their WordPress blog performance - One caveat with this particular plugin is that it’s not for the faint of heart. While I was able to understand what the plugin was showing me, it may not be that obvious to you. Be sure to read the plugins readme file and the associated help documents before using it.

Keith - Comment Approval Notification - This WordPress plugin will send an email to comment authors once their held-for-moderation comment is approved.

The WolfHound Segment:

Bill needs some help working with WordPress. He came away from WordCamp Dallas excited to use the software but has run into a few roadblocks and thus, needs our help. So to help Bill out, we have created the WolfHound segment because we know that not everything we cover on the show is addressed to a specific audience. I’ve been told numerous times by new comers who listen to the show that the content flies over their head. If this sounds familiar, this segment is for you.

The Short History Of The Blog And Near Term Goals:
Here is a quick history of Bills blog. - Installed a late 1.x version and have been updating along the way and experimenting with themes. Just recently I finally installed Akismet after I starting get hit with spam. Being that I still considered it to be “in work” I never really let the world know it was out there. I guess you could say that I have two sets of goals. One being near term and the other long term.

First, the near term goals.

1) Get my logo to work on my chosen theme (Chameleon 1.0 by Ainslie Johnson)
2) Only have most recent articles (2 max) appear on front page
3) Settle on what should be considered “must-have” plug-ins

Listen to the show to hear our responses. If you disagree and feel you can help Bill out better than we did, leave a comment with your tips and suggestions.

Announcements: Lisa Sabin Wilson, Author of the WordPress For Dummies book is scheduled to appear on November 28th.

WPWeekly Meta:

Next Episode: Friday November 28th, 2008 8P.M. EST

Subscribe To WPWeekly Via Itunes: Click here to subscribe

Length Of Episode: 1 Hour 6 Minutes

Download The Show: WordPressWeeklyEpisode30.mp3

Listen To Episode #30:

11/15/2008 ↓

WordPress - An Icon Of Its Time 3comments

Keith, Andrew, Mark and I discussed the news of the week. With guest contributions to the show, we went in-depth on a number of topics including the icon survey and much more. Don’t forget to tune in to hear our plugin picks of the week. Come back next week for more action packed WordPress discussions!

Ad Copy:

WordPress Weekly is brought to you by the fine advertisers on WeblogToolsCollection.com. Without their continued support, this show would not be possible. If you are interested in advertising on WordPress Weekly, please contact me at wpweekly at gmail dot com..

Stories Discussed:

Project Icon

IntenseDebate Reopens

Drag And Drop Tutorial

Guide To Sticky Posts

10 Tip Optimization Guide

Cool Way To Display Archived Posts

Feedback:

We encourage you to leave a comment whether it be feedback, questions, rants, or corrections then tune in and see if your comment made it on the air! To send us feedback via email, conect us at wpweekly at gmail dot com. In this weeks episode, we covered a comment that was submitted to the blog on a previous episode. We also answer a listener question regarding how to let visitors submit stories to a website without being a registered user.

Plugin Of The Week:

Jeff - WP Advanced Code Editor – Integrates the EasyArea advanced code editor into WordPress. This adds real time syntax highlighting, line numbering, full screen editing, and more to the code editor to the “Add New Post” and “Add New Page” screens. After installation, make sure that the WYSIWYG editor is disabled. WP Advanced Code Editor is not compatible with the WYSIWYG editor. The entire syntax code editor (called EasyArea) was written entirely by Christophe Dolivet.

Keith - Ultimage Google Analytics - Automatically enables the use of GoogleAnalytics’ urchin tracking technology to pull together web stats

WordPress Job Of The Week:

Job published on November 12th 2008. The job description is as follows:

Hello, My name is Dave and I write a pop culture blog called NineDaves.com, out of the NYC area (Flatiron District). My server is Yahoo, and I’ve been with WordPress since I started the blog in July 2008. Since then, I’ve had the same WordPress version. I’m interested in upgrading to a more current version, but I’m nervous. Despite the fact that WordPRess offers detailed “how to’s,” I’m still worried that I don’t understand things properly. Rather than have someone just do it for me, I would like a WordPress expert to teach me to fish.

So - would you be interested in showing me how to upgrade my WordPress before I mess something up and lose all my work? I’d prefer someone to meet me in person and show me how to do it, so if you live in the NYC area, that’s perfect! If not, I can set up a WebEx and phone call.

Visit the job posting for contact information.

WPWeekly Meta:

Next Episode: Friday November 21st, 2008 8P.M. EST

Subscribe To WPWeekly Via Itunes: Click here to subscribe

Length Of Episode: 1 Hour 23 Minutes

Download The Show: WordPressWeeklyEpisode29.mp3

Listen To Episode #29:

11/8/2008 ↓

2.7 Overdose 7comments

As you can probably tell from the title, this episode features quite a bit of discussion surrounding WordPress 2.7. Not to worry though as there are plenty of other things that Keith and I discuss such as our favorite feature in WordPress 2.7 Beta 1, the WordPress showcase, whether or not Drupal can beat WordPress, and near the end of the show, Anthony Cole called in and gave us the 411 on WordCamp Australia which is taking place on November 29th and November 30th.

Ad Copy:

WordPress Weekly is brought to you by the fine advertisers on WeblogToolsCollection.com. Without their continued support, this show would not be possible. Those of you who continue to download the show and share it with friends, your continued support is appreciated. If you are interested in advertising on WordPress Weekly, please contact Mark Ghosh via this contact form.

Stories Discussed:

Your Favorite Feature In 2.7 Beta 1

Comment Remix Vulnerability

Good Enough To Be ShowCased?

Can Drupal Beat WordPress

WordPress 2.7 Beta 2 Released

Feedback:

We encourage you to leave a comment whether it be feedback, questions, rants, or corrections then tune in and see if your comment made it on the air!

Plugin Of The Week:

Jeff - Custom Permalinks – Custom Permalinks is a Wordpress plugin that gives you ultimate control over your site structure. Lay out your site the way you want it. Set the URL of any post, tag or category to anything you want. Old permalinks will redirect properly to the new address.

Keith - Feed Entry Header - FeedEntryHeader provides you the ability to protect your content online. Many of us have had the experience of seeing our content posted mysteriously on someone else’s website word-for-word. It usually happens by having someone grab content from your RSS feed and slap it into their blog. (Bloody splogs!) This plugin provides you the ability to customize a header to be placed at the start of each article in your feed to help ensure that sploggers are pointed out, and links back to your original post are included in the splog’s repost.

WordPress Job Of The Week:

Job was posted on October 30th, 2008 by Mark Ghosh. The job description is as follows:

We are looking for a web and graphics designer for a popular blog. Ideal candidates include artists and designers with experience in working on WordPress, who have a fair amount of experience in designing graphics with a flair for modern colors and styles and the ability to conceptualize and produce web experiences from the ground up. Experience with SEO, web usability, semantics and

ethical and effective marketing also required. PHP programming experience not as important. If you want to work with us, you need to wow us with your portfolio. Individuals and design houses welcome. Our promise is to give you the ability to flex your design muscles, provide outlets for your creativity and a lot of exposure for your work. If we like your work, we will get back with you and talk about costs and timelines under NDA.

If interested please contact mark at wltc dot net

WPWeekly Meta:

Next Episode: Friday November 14th, 2008 8P.M. EST

Subscribe To WPWeekly Via Itunes: Click here to subscribe

Length Of Episode: 57 Minutes

Download The Show: WordPressWeeklyEpisode28.mp3

Listen To Episode #28:

11/1/2008 ↓

Usability, WordPress 2.7 And More 6comments

Our special guest on Halloween night was Jane Wells of Automattic. On this episode, Keith, Jane and I discussed a wide assortment of topics and issues surrounding WordPress and usability. Here is a short list:

  • The Definition Of Usability
  • WordPress 2.7 And Usability
  • The Usability Testing Centers/Environment
  • How WordPress 2.7 Came To Be
  • Is WordPress Bloated?
  • Lessons Learned After WordPress 2.5 Was Released
  • The Status Of WordPress 2.7 And Whether Or Not It Is Delayed
  • In Depth Discussion Of Many Of The New Features And Enhancements In 2.7

And much much more. Be sure to download the show and give it a listen and then come back here to leave a comment letting us know your thoughts regarding what was discussed. I easily consider this episode to be another classic WordPress Weekly.

Ad Copy:

If you are interested in advertising on WordPress Weekly, please contact Mark Ghosh via this contact form.

WPWeekly Meta:

Next Episode: Friday November 7th, 2008 8P.M. EST

Subscribe To WPWeekly Via Itunes: Click here to subscribe

Length Of Episode: 1 Hour 34 Minutes

Download The Show: WordPressWeeklyEpisode27.mp3

Listen To Episode #27:

10/25/2008 ↓

Homemade Yummy Pie! 7comments

In this episode of WordPress Weekly, Keith and I dissect the news of the week. We discuss why commenter’s and bloggers should use Gravatar, our thoughts and opinions on the new 2.7 dashboard mock up, Akismet 2.2.1 with stats and much more. We try to solve a problem which was submitted to us by Nicolas and before the end of the show, we give you our plugin picks of the week along with the job of the week. Don’t forget that next Friday, (Halloween) our special one hour guest will be Jane Wells who works for Automattic in the usability/experience department. As you can imagine, we’ll be focusing the conversation on WordPress and usability.

Ad Copy:

WordPress Weekly is brought to you by the fine advertisers on WeblogToolsCollection.com. Without their continued support, this show would not be possible. Those of you who continue to download the show and share it with friends, your continued support is appreciated. If you are interested in advertising on WordPress Weekly, please contact Mark Ghosh via this contact form.

Stories Discussed:

Why commenters and bloggers should use Gravatar

The New 2.7 Dashboard

Akismet 2.2.1 With Stats

WordPress Ranked #33

Alex King Releases Carrington

Feedback:

Tune in to see if your comment or email made it on the air!

We encourage any feedback you might have whether it be a question, a suggestion or a rant. You can either email us at feedback@jeffro2pt0.com or you can simply leave us a comment on the blog.

Plugin Of The Week:

Jeff - Slayers Custom Widgets – Slayers custom widgets enables users to select which widgets appear on specific posts, pages, categories, and tag pages. By default, all widgets appear wherever the sidebar is loaded within your theme. With this plugin, you can configure where widgets are displayed on a per post basis. I’d like to see the ability to control which widgets appear on which template such as configuring a widget to appear on pages that utilize the single.php template while hiding that same widget from other templates.

Keith - Pluginstaller - This plugin allows you to control all aspects of plugin management far more effectively than the default behaviour in WP. It allows for the installation and management of plugins directly from the admin interface with no need for FTP or SSH access to your server’s file system. This is the kind of plugin I use on and off. When I’m installing a new WP instance and have a whole bunch of plugins to configure, I’ll use pluginstaller to handle the download, unzip and activate processes, and then sometimes I’ll turn it off. Pluginstaller also organizes the interface in a much more aesthetically pleasing way.

WordPress Job Of The Week:

Job was posted on October 22nd, 2008 by a company called Zidalgo. The job description is as follows:

I am in need of altering my loop display options on my index.php file. I currently have everything laid out the way I want it, but the page navigation does not work properly, since I’m utilizing multiple loops. I want four posts normally displayed, then four under them (hopefully in the same loop) that have different layouts. I want the page navigation to work according to all 8 posts.

More details await.

Project should be relatively easy for a PHP/WP experienced coder. Please contact asap for job. Thank you

If you’re interested you can contact numethod at gmail.com

WPWeekly Meta:

Next Episode: Friday October 31st, 2008 8P.M. EST

Subscribe To WPWeekly Via Itunes: Click here to subscribe

Length Of Episode: 59 Minutes

Download The Show: WordPressWeeklyEpisode26.mp3

Listen To Episode #26:

10/18/2008 ↓

Configure This 3comments

In this action packed episode of WordPress Weekly, Keith and I dissect the news of the week. Jacob Santos was cool enough to call in to confirm that Andrew Rickmanns idea of placing a configure link inside of the plugin management panel would be included in the core. Also, he gave us an update as to how far he and others have come with in line documentation. Stay tuned for our plugin picks of the week and our job of the week.

Ad Copy:

WordPress Weekly is brought to you by the fine advertisers on WeblogToolsCollection.com. Without their continued support, this show would not be possible. Those of you who continue to download the show and share it with friends, your continued support is appreciated. If you are interested in advertising on WordPress Weekly, please contact Mark Ghosh via this contact form.

Stories Discussed:

Happy Birthday Gravatar

Polldaddy Acquired By Automattic

Microsoftpress

WordPress 2.7 Feature Frozen

Menu Renaming/Sorting

HackWordPress.com Re brands as WPHacks.com

Feedback:

Tune in to see if your comment or email made it on the air!

We encourage any feedback you might have whether it be a question, a suggestion or a rant. You can either email us at feedback@jeffro2pt0.com or you can simply leave us a comment on the blog.

Plugin Of The Week:

Jeff - Quick Configuration Links For Plugins – It’s a plugin that will scan the WordPress menu structure and attempt to locate the configuration page for each of the active plugins, and add a “Settings” link to the plugin’s row - right besides the “Deactivate” and “Edit” links. The plugin is also smart enough to skip this for plugins that have already added the configuration link on their own (in most cases).

Keith - Wordpress Mobile Edition - Slim down your site for WAP browsers.

WordPress Job Of The Week:

Job was posted on October 15th, 2008 for the company RxHealthQuotes.com Inc. My site is increasing in traffic. Time to transfer from local hosting company to a more robust solution. I’d like to work with a pro who can (a) recommend an appropriate host (b) oversee a seamless transition of the database and php files (c) provide ongoing support for a fee.

You can apply for this job by contacting william at rxhealthquotes dot com or by reading the detailed job post information.

Announcements:

Jane Wells who works for Automattic in the user experience/usability department will be our special one hour guest on Halloween night. That is Friday, October 31st, 2008. So if you’re interested in talking usability in WordPress, definitely mark this date on your calendar.

WPWeekly Meta:

Next Episode: Friday October 24th, 2008 8P.M. EST

Subscribe To WPWeekly Via Itunes: Click here to subscribe

Length Of Episode: 58 Minutes

Download The Show: WordPressWeeklyEpisode25.mp3

Listen To Episode #25:

10/11/2008 ↓

All In One SEO To Go 17comments

In this highly optimized episode of WordPress Weekly, I interviewed Michael Torbert who is more commonly known as hallsofmontezuma throughout the WordPress community. He is now the developer of the most popular plugin in the plugin repository, theAll In One SEO pack. We discuss what it’s like to maintain an insanely popular plugin, how difficult it has been to work with the WordPress code, thoughts on SEO in general, and the question of the night went to David Peralty for asking if SEO could be damaged by mis configuring the plugin. You’ll have to listen to the show to get the answer. On top of that, I give my plugin pick of the week, the WordPress job of the week and much more on episode 24 of WordPress weekly.

Ad Copy:

WordPress Weekly is brought to you by the fine advertisers on WeblogToolsCollection.com. Without their continued support, this show would not be possible. I would also like to personally thank each and every one of you who download and listen to this show. Your continued support is greatly appreciated. If you are interested in advertising on WordPress Weekly, please contact Mark Ghosh via this contact form.

News:

WordPress 2.7 is nearing feature freeze. Once that happens, we should start to see announcements in the dashboard regarding beta releases. Based on everything I have read, 2.7 is on schedule to be released on November 10th. If something major is discovered during the beta trials, the date of release will obviously be changed.

Didn’t get the chance to mention this on the show but I wanted to pass along a happy birthday to HackWordPress.com as they have turned 1 year old.

Feedback:

I cover feedback related to last weeks episode. We encourage any feedback you may have with regards to the show. You can either email me via jeffro at jeffro2pt0.com or you can simply leave us a comment on the blog.

Plugin Of The Week:

Jeff - Exclude Pages – This plugin adds a checkbox, “include this page in menus”, which is checked by default. If you uncheck it, the page will not appear in any listings of pages (which includes, and is usually limited to, your page navigation menus). Pages which are children of excluded pages also do not show up in menu listings. (An alert in the editing screen, underneath the “include” checkbox allows you to track down which ancestor page is affecting child pages in this way.) You could do this just as easily by adding exclusion arguments to the WP_LIST_PAGES function but this plugin takes those steps out of the process.

WordPress Job Of The Week:

This job was published on October 10th on the WeblogToolsCollection.com Job board. Sure Foods Living is looking for someone who can upgrade WordPress 2.1 to the current version. The individual at one point had someone to help them customize their site but that person is no longer available. Also, because of the upgrade, this person needs to change templates since the current one is not compatible with the latest version of WordPress. The potential client is asking for people who are qualified and for quotes on how much this project would cost. If you are interested in this job, please contact alison at surefoodsliving.com

Announcements:

Jane Wells who works for Automattic in the user experience/usability department will be our special one hour guest on Halloween night. That is Friday, October 31st, 2008. So if you’re interested in talking usability in WordPress, definitely mark this date on your calendar.

WPWeekly Meta:

Next Episode: Friday October 17th, 2008 8P.M. EST

Subscribe To WPWeekly Via Itunes: Click here to subscribe

Length Of Episode: 58 Minutes

Download The Show: WordPressWeeklyEpisode24.mp3

Listen To Episode #24:

While not broadly advertised, I happened to catch Brian Gardner for about an hour to discuss his announcement regarding going open source. During the interview, we discuss topics such as the grey area of the GPL, his new business model, his new approach to themes, how similar his business model is to the WordPress.com model, the state of themes in WordPress and much more.

Listen To The Brian Gardner Interview:

10/4/2008 ↓

WordPress Weekly Episode 23 4comments

Episode 23 of WordPress Weekly is now ready for your consumption. In this episode, Keith and I discuss the IntenseDebate acquisition and what that means for both WordPress.com and WordPress.org while also discussing the business aspects of the deal. We also give our thoughts on the developmental version of WordPress 2.7 thus far. We highlight the fact that there has been at least two differen UI surveys available to the public highlighting the increased awareness as well as end user participation into the final product. There is a major difference between the way the UI is being handled in terms of end user feedback between WordPress 2.5 and WordPress 2.7. Last but not least, Keith and I give you our plugin picks up the week.

Stories Discussed On The Show:

Automattic acquires IntenseDebate

Wordpress 2.7 - Tentatively Scheduled For Release On November 10th

WordPress Usability Surveys: / Navigation Options / Where To Put That Search Box 

WordPress 2.7 Comment Enhancements

Didn’t get the chance to mention this on the show but I wanted to pass along a happy birthday to WPCandy.com as they have turned 1 year old.

Plugins Of The Week:

Jeff - Insights by Vladimir Prelovac

Keith - Progressive License v1.0 (Alex King / Crowd Favorite)

Announcements:

Hallsofmontezuma otherwise known as Michael Torbert will be appearing on the first half hour of WordPress Weekly episode 24 Friday October 10th, 2008 at 8 P.M. EST. During this interview, we’ll be covering what it takes to write plugins for WordPress, what it’s like to maintain a plugin used by plenty of WordPress users and much more. If you have questions for this plugin author, be sure to show up during the live stream and ask them in the chatroom or, you can ask them here in the comments.

Also, pay attention to the podcast feed as later this week, you’ll receive a dose of extra content that is not directly related to the podcast.

Thanks to Ryan Mccue, we now have an IRC room setup for the show for those who are technically savvy and who don’t enjoy the Talkshoe interface. Once I receive the IRC information, I’ll pass it along.

WPWeekly Meta:

Next Episode: Friday October 10th, 2008 8P.M. EST

Subscribe To WPWeekly Via Itunes: Click here to subscribe

Length Of Episode: 1 Hour 3 Minutes

Download The Show: WordPressWeeklyEpisode23.mp3

Listen To Episode #23:

9/21/2008 ↓

WordPress Weekly Is Back 13comments

Many of you may or may not remember a WordPress podcast that was hosted and produced by yours truly called WordPress Weekly. The show made it through 22 episodes. Some of those included staple interviews with Matt Mullenweg, Lorelle Van Fossen, and Alex King. Because I took on more work, it became increasingly difficult to produce the show on a weekly basis for no pay. Don’t get me wrong, I had a blast doing it but I have to pay the bills. Therefor, I opted to concentrate on the work that would pay me versus doing the show for nothing. After I stopped producing the show, comments, emails and feedback through instant messaging started coming in, letting me know how much you enjoyed the show. Many people who had just discovered the show let me know that they were disappointed there would be no more episodes after 22.

I’ve taken all of your feedback to heart and have decided to bring the show back. Mark and I have decided to produce the show for WeblogToolsCollection as part of our content on this blog.

Little Bit Of History:

WordPress Weekly was a weekly podcast that discussed what happened within the past week within the world of WordPress. Generally every show was an open round table discussion. I had a number of people who would call in and chime in on stories I discussed during the show. Sometimes, this would be anywhere between 3-7 people on the phone at once, talking over each other but generally, having a good time. This time around, I plan on changing things up a bit. For starters, the show will now have a co-host. If there is anything I’ve learned while doing WordPress Weekly for 22 episodes, it is that having someone to talk to, to bounce stories off of is much better than facing the possibility of talking to myself, or a room of empty people. Two people engaging in a conversation is much better than what I can do single handedly. Also, I don’t have to worry if whether or not people will call in to the show to be part of the round table.

Introducing My Co Host:

My co host is more than qualified for the job. His name is Keith Murray and resides in Canada. He has been working with WordPress for a little while now. He is the author of the Admin Links Sidebar Widget plugin. He works as a systems administrator at his place of employment and his role on the podcast will be to discuss the development side of WordPress. I take things from an end users perspective, so we should match up pretty well in discussions.

WordPress Weekly Information:

WordPress Weekly is a weekly oriented podcast that takes place every Friday evening at 8PM EST starting on October 3rd, 2008 on Talkshoe.com. The format of the show will remain close to what it has been in the past. The co-host and I will discuss the WordPress news of the week. This could be plugin updates, releases, themes, version releases, development updates, a tutorial written by someone in the community, could be anything as long as it relates to WordPress. At the end of each show, Keith and I will give out our plugin of the week. This plugin is picked individually by us and is tested prior to the show.

I am aiming for a relaxing atmosphere where WordPress Users can gather around for 1 hour every Friday evening and discuss the latest happenings with everything WordPress. You could almost consider the show a virtual WordCamp.

Listener Participation:

So how can you be a part of the show? The easiest way is to create an account on Talkshoe.com. Then, download and install their client software (Talkshoe Pro). The Talkshoe software serves as a bridge of communication between the host, and his/her listeners. The software contains a chat room as well as phone number information to call into the show.

However, you do not need to install the software in order to listen to the show live. Friday October 3rd, at 8PM EST, look on the front page of Talkshoe.com or click on the LIVE NOW button and look for the Wordpress Weekly show. Instead of clicking on the JOIN IN button, click underneath where it says LISTEN ONLY. This will tune you into the live stream.

If you want to call in to the show via telephone, Skype, payphone landline, etc, dial 724-444-7444 and follow the audio instructions. *Note* In one of the recent updates to Talkshoe, anonymous calling is now supported. This means you can call in and participate without the need to create a Talkshoe account. However, if you have a Talkshoe account, your registered name will show up within the Talkshoe client letting others know who is speaking. I also want to let you know that Talkshoe has had problems with people calling in anonymously, trying to crash peoples shows or prank call hosts. Having a registered user account will give you a better chance of being on the air. When you dial into the show and you want to speak on the air, press *8 on your dial pad. This is the request to talk feature and will let me know you want to chime in on the discussion.

You can also use SIP clients such as ProjectGizmo or X-Lite. For example, when I use X-Lite to dial in, I type in 123@66.212.134.192 and then follow the audio directions. If you would like to use X-Lite but are unsure in how to configure the software, I highly advise you to check out my in depth tutorial (Installing And Configuring X-Lite)which explains everything you need to know.

Remember this information as it will be required when you want to dial into the show.

Talkcast Name: WordPress Weekly

Talkcast ID: 34224

Phone Number: 724-444-7444

This would also be a good time to remind you that Talkshoe now has a web client that you can access without the need to download or install any software. The web client makes it as easy as pie to participate in the show.

Subscribing To WordPress Weekly:

The first is by listening to the live stream. Every Friday at 8PM EST starting on October 3rd, a live stream of the show is enabled, allowing you to listen to the show LIVE as it is being recorded. You can listen to the live stream via the web application which allows you to chat, or you can listen to the stream only. It’s your choice.

The second option is to wait until the final show notes are published on WeblogToolsCollection. When the show notes for WordPress Weekly are finalized, I always embed a talkshoe player at the end of the post which allows you to listen to the show on the website.

The third option is to subscribe to the Talkcast RSS feed. Each Talkshoe player that is displayed on the website has a small RSS icon near the top right corner of the player. Clicking this icon will allow you to subscribe to the feed, and will download the latest episodes into your Feed Reader.

The fourth option is to subscribe to the show via Itunes. Talkshoe provides a link you can use to subscribe to a Talkshoe show through Itunes. If you want to subscribe via Itunes or RSS, the best thing to do is to visit THIS PAGE and click on the Itunes button or the RSS button.

The fifth option is to manually browse to the talkcast homepage and manually download each episode as an mp3 file. When you visit the homepage, click on the DOWNLOAD button and that will download the appropriate episode in an mp3 format that has no DRM attached to it.

Last but not least, if you would like to be reminded of the show via email, please create an account on Talkshoe.com and then visit my Talkcast page. After you create an account, you’ll be able to click on the FOLLOW THIS button, which will add your email automatically to the mailing list. Each time I send out a reminder of when the show will air, an email will be sent to the email address you configured when you created your Talkshoe account.

Things To Consider:

Unlike the other WordPress centric podcasts that are available, this one is not pre recorded and thus, the audio is not studio grade quality. With that said, my audio has always sounded great with my X-Lite/Talkshoe combination. But, I can only control the audio quality for myself and no one else. So while Keith and I may sound great, someone who calls into the show with a crappy cell phone may sound terrible and there will be nothing I can do about it. The show is produced as is. If you partake in the discussions, I prefer that you please refrain from using expletives during the show. I believe points can be made without using these types of words. I’d also like to keep the clean rating for the show on iTunes.

Do You Have Ideas:

I have a renewed sense as to how I want the show to be from here on out but I am open to ideas and suggestions to improve the show. At this point, I’d like to know from you, what are you looking for out of a WordPress centric podcast? Do you want more interviews rather than commentary on news? Do you want to know about themes and plugins more than anything else? Would you like us to do a roundtable show once a month or more? Would you like us to cover WordPress only or should we sometimes branch out and discuss topics that are related to blogging and not just WordPress?

If you can’t answer those, simply tell me in the comments what your expectations are for an excellent podcast centered on WordPress that you would listen to every week.

Thank you for taking the time to read this mile long manual. Keith and I will see you on Friday, October 3rd at 8PM EST.

Listen To Past Episodes:

By the way, if you would like a sample of WordPress Weekly before our relaunch, listen to some of my past episodes via the Talkshoe player. Pressing the play button will initiate episode 22 where I interviewed Alex King.

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