It’s become pretty standard for WordCamps to have a hack day, or a developer day, following a day or two of conference activity. The most notable of these is the Developer Hack Day that follows WordCamp San Francisco. The idea is that WordPress people get together to work on WordPress core – this could be on tickets, bugs, or developing features. Developers hang out with their laptops, drink coffee, eat, and hack. [Read more…] about What’s in a Name? Moving Beyond Hack Days
WordPress 3.5 “Elvin” is Alive!
We’ve been expecting WordPress 3.5 since 5th December, and finally, it’s out: WordPress 3.5 “Elvin” ! The past week has seen the core team working furiously to get it ready. Just take a look at the IRC logs to see how hard they have worked.
The latest version of WordPress has loads of new features:
- Gallery management module for better image and gallery management
- Better image upload
- All media is ready for retina displays
- Core now ships with the default Twenty Twelve theme
- The Link manager has been hidden
- Major improvements to accessibility
You can check out all of the changes on the Codex Version 3.5 page.
Congrats to Nacin and Koop, and the rest of the core team, all of whom have worked so hard over the past few months.
The Very First WordPress Mid-Week Codex Sprint
One of the many great things about having a date for a WordPress release in advance, is that other teams can plan activities around it. On the Support blog, Mika has started discussions around her ZOMG! WordPress Updates Broke Me! post. And on the docs blog we’re planning a Codex updating sprint after the launch of WordPress 3.5.
A Codex Sprint?
A documentation sprint is basically when a bunch of people get together to update documentation. Here are some examples of other doc sprints:
- Confluence
- Mozilla
- Web Platform
- Start: Thursday 6th December – 3pm UTC
- End: Friday 7th December – 5pm UTC
- Where: IRC freenode #wordpress-sfd (web chat)
They can be focused on specific areas, or just a general push to get documentation out or updated. For the first WordPress Codex sprint we’ll be updating the Codex to get everything in line with WordPress 3.5.
When, Where and How?
You can find the details on the docs blog, but the important things to remember are:
You can get involved at any point during those times – no one needs to be there for 26 hours!
Automattic goes head-to-head with happytables
We’ve all noticed Automattic launch its recent sites targeted at verticals such as cities, weddings and music, so it’s no surprise to anyone that they just launched WordPress.com Restaurants. This puts them in direct competition with happytables, the restaurant web app created by our own Noel Tock. WordPress.com restaurants offers menus, maps, and reservations, provides users with a mobile version of the website, as well as all of the usual good stuff from WordPress.com. [Read more…] about Automattic goes head-to-head with happytables
A Tale of Two WordPresses: WPCS & Pressnomics
Over the past few weeks I’ve been exceptionally lucky to have attended two of the most unique WordPress events of this year: the WordPress Community Summit and Pressnomics. I’ve already attended four WordCamps (!!!) in Utrecht, Edinburgh, New York, and Lisbon, each of which had its own character and cultural flavour. I tend to go to WordCamps with a few things in mind – hang out with my WordPress friends, meet current clients, pick up new clients, share knowledge, get do a bit of partying. I’m usually successful at all of these things.
WordCamps are usually focused on doing things with WordPress, whether that’s as a user or as a developer. However, in Georgia and Arizona over the past few weeks, I’ve been involved in two quite different faces of WordPress: Community and Commercialisation.
[Read more…] about A Tale of Two WordPresses: WPCS & Pressnomics
From WP Startup to Hiring Your First Employee
Mailpoet is hiring its first employee to help out with their support forums and some coding. Mailpoet is a newsletter plugin which has been downloaded over a hundred thousand times on the WordPress repository. It’s run by an awesome team of four guys from across Europe, all of whom we had the pleasure of hanging out with at WordCamp Lisbon.
If you’re a WordPress expert and would like to be the first employee of a growing business with a fun and smart team, you should take a look. From my perspective, I just love to see fledgling WordPress businesses start to grow.
Now on WordPress: The oldest continuously published magazine in the English language
Interconnect/IT have launched the latest iteration of The Spectator on WordPress. It looks gorgeous and, most important, it’s on WordPress. Why should anyone care? The Spectator is the oldest running continuous publication in the English language. It’s been in production since 1828. So it’s great to see the oldest running English pubication finally land on the world’s best blogging platform. Go check them out..