Technology

What Was Your First WordPress Version?

James Huff of Weblog Tools Collection asks the questions: what was your first WordPress version? Since I’ve been using WordPress for a few years now, my memory got hazy and I didn’t quite remember. It took me a couple of minutes to dig the truth out.

According to my archives, I’ve migrated this site from NucleusCMS to WordPress on April 9, 2005. A quick check with WordPress versions history suggests that my first WordPress version was 1.5. It was released on February 17, 2005. Version 1.5.1 was released on May 9, 2005 and I’ve upgraded to it, not migrated.

So, for six and a half years I’m using WordPress and I’ve never regretted it even once. That’s quite an achievement, I think. Huge thanks to WordPress folks. I hope that you will continue to bring us more WordPress awesomeness for years to come.

What was your first WordPress version?

Google Map Maker – wisdom of a crowd

Official Google Blog shares yet another milestone in the life of Google Map Maker. Google Map Maker is the tool that allows anyone in the world add and correct information on Google Maps. Google might know more about famous places, but there are millions and millions of neighborhoods in the world with local businesses and other tiny little features that only the locals know. Google Map Maker makes sharing and accessing this knowledge possible and easy.

Yes, it is yet another one of those “wisdom of a crowd” things. But no matter how skeptical you are about the approach, it is hard to argue with the success Google had in utilizing the masses. Have a look at this before and after comparison of Tbilisi, Georgia map and you’ll be amazed as to how much “after” has improved.

As with anything that humans do, there might be mistakes and inaccuracies there. But given the will and the right tools, these are getting fixed and corrected. Have you tried it? If no, please do. You’ll be amazed as to how easy and intuitive it is. And as they say in the video, try adding your local coffee shop. Share the knowledge.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=znCPgldRWTc]

Office snapshots

The Web is full of inspiration office snapshots from the companies that care about their people – Google, Yahoo, and a few others. However, until now, I’ve never thought of finding an index of such office designs. Wouldn’t it be nice to have a location-based and company-based indexes with pictures from all such office around the world? I thought it would. And, apparently, there is such a collection already. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Office Snapshots. Have a look around the world and, for what it’s worth, don’t get too depressed about your own office. You are in the majority here.

On the future of jobs

GigaOm covers the release of the new book by Seth Godin, which, this time instead of marketing talks more about the future of work. And jobs.

Why do we believe that jobs where we are paid really good money to do work that can be systemized, written in a manual and/or exported are going to come back ever? The internet has squeezed inefficiencies out of many systems, and the ability to move work around, coordinate activity and digitize data all combine to eliminate a wide swath of the jobs the industrial age created….

The industrial age, the one that started with the industrial revolution, is fading away. It is no longer the growth engine of the economy and it seems absurd to imagine that great pay for replaceable work is on the horizon.

Seth Godin is a visionary. And whether you agree with him or not, his thoughts are worth knowing about and considering. I only started thinking in the same direction, spending more of my focus on education. But I see where he goes and why. The change is coming. And it’s coming fast.

Ubuntu naming permutations

Even though I don’t use Ubuntu myself, I think nothing stops me from sharing the fun those guys have these days. But first, if you are anything like me, you need a little bit of context. Here is a wiki page that explains Ubuntu code names and lists some of the previous ones:

The official name of an Ubuntu release is “Ubuntu X.YY” with X representing the year (minus 2000) and YY representing the month of eventual release within in that year. Ubuntu’s first release, made in 2004 October (10th month) was Ubuntu 4.10. Since the actual release date is not known until it’s ready and humans tend to prefer names rather than numbers, a set of codenames are used by developers and testers during the buildup to a release

[…]

The development codename of a release takes the form “Adjective Animal”. So for example: Warty Warthog (Ubuntu 4.10), Hoary Hedgehog (Ubuntu 5.04), Breezy Badger (Ubuntu 5.10), are the first three releases of Ubuntu. In general, people refer to the release using the adjective, like “warty” or “breezy”.

Well, now that we do have a context, here come the naming permutation from Mark Shuttleworth – a leader of the Ubuntu community. Choosing the release name is not easy, especially with the help of the dictionary and all those enthusiastic contributors. Read the whole thing to get a better idea.

The letter P is pretty perfect. It’s also plentiful – my inbox has been rather full of suggestions – and we have options ranging from pacific to purposeful, via puckish and prudent. We’ll steer clear of the posh and the poncey, much as some would revel in the Portentious Palomino or the Principled Paca, those aren’t the winning names. Having spent the last six months elucidating the meaning of “oneiric” I think it might also be worth skipping the parenthetical or paralogical options too; so sadly I had to exclude the Perspicacious Panda and Porangi Packhorse (though being an LTS, that Packhorse was a near thing).

Being generally of a cheerful nature, I thought we’d avoid the Predatory Panther and Primeval Possum. Neither sounds like great company for a seven year journey, really. Same goes for the Peccable Peccary, Pawky Python and Perfidious Puku. So many bullets to dodge round here!