How to Be Your Own OpenID Provider and Use Your blog’s URL for Identification

April 23rd • 1 Comment • Under: Understanding Web, WordPress • Tags: openid, Understanding Web, web, WordPress

If you have a self-hosted blog, meaning that you have the access to the files on the server, then implementing OpenID might be the greatest way to help your readers and yourself.

If you haven’t heard about the OpenID before, then in a nutshell it is your universal login name, which you can use to authenticate yourself on other blogs and websites without ever filling out those registration forms again. Read more »

Baltic Amber Themes & Schemes for Your WordPress 2.5 Administration Panel

April 20th • 84 Comments • Under: WordPress • Tags: plugin, WordPress

Update: now you have the possibility to specify your own admin colour scheme leaving the layout exactly like it is in WordPress 2.5 by default.

Matt Mullenweg recently asked if anybody has taken advantage of the new admin colour scheme switcher in WordPress 2.5, and the short answer is yes and no. There is the Fluency theme by Dean J. Robinson, which is more like a complete redesign of the administration panel.

Therefore I made the Baltic Amber Admin Themes & Schemes, which allow you:

• to create your own colour scheme by specifying only two base colours,
• to have the theme colours change randomly every time you reload the page, or at any time interval you choose,
• to use one of the administration themes which slightly alter/improve the positioning of different administration panel elements, like the main navigation, dashboard information and the plugin listing. There are eight basic colour options available or you can specify your own base colours by choosing ‘My Colour Theme’, or use the random colour generator.
• to place Tag and Category selection in two columns right after the text editor in the ‘Write Post’ panel. This option can be enabled for every admin theme, including the default ones.

Baltic Amber admin themes also improve the scanability of the Plugin Management screen by replacing the darker background colour for the activated plugins with a green ribbon on the side. Read more »

Sounds of typing

April 8th • 1 Comment • Under: Sidenotes

On Web Worker Daily I found this little article about CushyCMS. Watch the introductory screencast and listen to those keystrokes, especially enter. Aside from that, I actually think that CushyCMS is very useful for the work its meant to do (and its free).

Eclipse PHP Development Tools (PDT) Video Tutorials

April 3rd • No Comments • Under: Web Development • Tags: development, php

The authors of PHPDeveloperBlog.com (currently unavailable) have put up two introductory screencasts on how to get started with Eclipse PDT: Part 1 and Part 2. (via pup.lv)

Simple Fullscreen Text Editors for Students, Bloggers, Journalists and Writers

April 1st • No Comments • Under: Sidenotes • Tags: writing

Do you ever catch yourself changing the typeface, line spacing or the color of the text instead of actually writing? You might want to try one of these: Q10 — Finish that first draft. Now. (Windows only, no frameworks required); JDarkRoom — A simple full-screen text editor. (requires Java 1.4 or greater); Dark Room — Dark Room is a full screen, distraction free, writing environment. (requires .NET Framework 2.0).