Update: Lorelle in the comments has a totally different interpretation on "merging". Much less exciting to be honest :) Update 2: Jeffro got some clues from Donncha. Bottom line: Merge, as anticipated at first. Yay! The hot scoop of the day is, as announced by Matt at WordCamp SF, that WordPress and its multi-blog flavor, […][...] → Read more

Something to watch: EasyWP is a one-file script that downloads and unzips latest WordPress build on your web server (so the average Joe doesn't have to download the archive, unzip on his computer, and then upload everything). The file is rather immature at the moment (using only fopen(), needing Zip PHP extension, these things) but […][...] → Read more

Encoding an array to JSON is dead easy on PHP 5.2+: you just use PHP's function json_encode(). The thing is, WordPress has pretty loose requirements and is designed to run on older PHP builds. For those, you need a third party library that will encode to (and decode from, if you need) JSON. The cool […][...] → Read more

I've just read on TechCrunch the announcement about awe.sm, a service that sells custom URL shorteners (a la TinyURL) for your own domain. That's funny: I've been using my own private URL shortener for about a week now (notice the "shorter link" mention at the top of this post). The script I'm using is based […][...] → Read more

In the upcoming WordPress 2.8 there's an interesting function set meant to help authors manage their plugin custom options. In a nutshell: whitelist your options, define how you want them to be validated, and just lean back and rely on the API to handle everything for you. Your new best friend is function register_setting(), and […][...] → Read more

If you're a WordPress freelancer, you already probably have your regular web sources for your gigs (and if you don't, do read How to find a WordPress job right now). Did you know that Twitter was also a fine potential source of information for your next project ? Here are three Twitter users that you […][...] → Read more

Using PHP's HTTP Authentication is a simple way to protect scripts behind a login/password prompt. There's one little problem: it's supposed to work only on PHP as an Apache module, not the CGI version. It took me a while, hair pulling and some googling to get a basic HTTP Auth system working on Dreamhost's PHP […][...] → Read more

A few minutes ago, Mark from WebLog Tools Collection announced the 2009 Edition of the totally cool WordPress Plugin Competition. As I've written several times already, this is the best moment in the plugin year. Awesome ideas and awesome plugins popping, that's a truly exciting moment. This year, Mark introduced a new rule: winners from […][...] → Read more

Filed in the "I hate SEO plugins" category (why), and tagged as "but some are better than others", there's an article on Urban Giraffe that gives a comparison of WordPress SEO Plugins. The article is factual and tends to prove that HeadSpace is the most comprehensive and featured pack plugin, particularly compared with All In […][...] → Read more

If you're a Twitter user, got a WordPress blog, and would like to throw in some interactions between those two, don't miss this plugin: Twitter Connect. Using the brand new Twitter's OAuth API, this plugin lets you identify yourself using your Twitter account. I like it for several reasons: it's cool, it's quick, and it […][...] → Read more