WordPress 2.7 was just released on WordPress.com! Congratulations Automattic!

I just logged into Gmail for the eight thousandth time today and just got a notice that Google had added themes to the Gmail settings. The Gmail Blog has some more information about this as well as screenshots of the various themes.

With the last release of Shadowbox JS I added the functionality to add Shadowbox to all image links automatically.

With the next release the following features will be added:

• Admin settings page for configuration.
• Advanced configuration options to tweak most Shadowbox initialization options.
• Automatically add Shadowbox to movie links.
• Automatically add Shadowbox to audio links.
• Automatically add Shadowbox to YouTube and Google Video links.
• WordPress 2.7 uninstall compatibility.
• Enqueue JavaScript and CSS files
• Move Initialization JavaScript to the footer

The admin page is something I have been debating for a while. And with the list of configuration options growing, I figured it best to give users an easier way to configure the plugin, rather than having to edit the variables in the source. The admin page will match the styling of the other pages by using the WordPress admin CSS which isn’t something many plugins do.

As for the additional automation, I had already written the code to add the rel attribute to image links so figured why not re-use it and give users an easy way to show all of their media using Shadowbox.

Anyway…I have some testing to do. Hopefully should be releasing within the next several weeks.

Anyone wishing to test out the development version can download it from the WordPress Plugins Repository.

For some time now I have been trying to manage support for my WordPress plugins in the comments here or via email. I have quickly found that it becomes unmanageable and the comments become overwhelming.

To alleviate the pain of supporting my plugins via this manner I have added a support forum. All WordPress plugin support discussions should be entered at the new support forum. I have enabled comment moderation here now so that support discussions no longer make it into the comments. These instructions are provided in the comment field on all pages.

So if you here to ask a support question for a WordPress plugin please head over to http://forum.sivel.net/.

A link to the forum also appears in the navigation bar on the upper right of this site.

Since launching FreeMyFeed on April 14th the service has really begun to gain momentum.

On April 17th Free My Feed was featured on http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/ and subsequently on Lifehacker.

Since all of the publicity beginning on April 17th from the aforementioned sites as well as many others, FreeMyFeed has been used to free over 800 feeds and has served up these feeds over 7000 times.

For some time now I have been using application based feed readers due to the lack of the ability to subscribe to authenticated feeds or to feeds that required the use of an invalid SSL certificate using a web based feed reader such as Google Reader. This has recently become really annoying as I have to use a different application based feed reader in Windows, Linux and Mac requiring me need to learn 3 different applications each of which act quite differently.

I was recently talking to a co-worker telling him that our developers would need to subscribe to our Trac RSS feed using an application based feed reader because web feed readers would not support authentication. His response was “yeah, they won’t work. the desktop ones/ff extensions suck.”

I made a decision later that day to determine a way to work around this. The solution actually came to me right away. Create a RSS proxy service where a user supplies a RSS URL, username, and password. From this information generate an alternate URL for the users use. When the user requests this alternate URL parse the URI to retrieve the original URL, username and password, then retrieve the feed on the fly and echo it back to the user.

As my co-worker stated on his web site, “It’s a crazy simple service and in hindsight I’m shocked that no one’s built such a thing before (to the best of my knowledge) - myself included.”

As I made the decision to not store any user data on my server due to security and privacy, I went with a solution that actually places the username and password in the URI. For those of you who may be concerned with this, please take comfort in knowing that the original URL, username and password are encoded in the new URI and the password is encrypted using a rotating cipher.

Without further adieu, I would like to introduce Free My Feed.

I normally try to not post news that I got off of a news site but in this event I just had to.

Article from:

**THE Right Brain vs Left Brain test … do you see the dancer turning clockwise or anti-clockwise?
**

If clockwise, then you use more of the right side of the brain and vice versa.

Most of us would see the dancer turning anti-clockwise though you can try to focus and change the direction; see if you can do it.

LEFT BRAIN FUNCTIONS
uses logic
detail oriented
facts rule
words and language
present and past
math and science
can comprehend
knowing
acknowledges
order/pattern perception
knows object name
reality based
forms strategies
practical
safe

RIGHT BRAIN FUNCTIONS
uses feeling
“big picture” oriented
imagination rules
symbols and images
present and future
philosophy & religion
can “get it” (i.e. meaning)
believes
appreciates
spatial perception
knows object function
fantasy based
presents possibilities
impetuous
risk taking

This just absolutely freaks me out. I see the dancer spinning clockwise and anti-clockwise. It switches while I am watching. I apparently use both the right and left side of my brain equally.