I’ve updated my ProgPress Plug-in. This version should (hopefully) solve the issue with php4 that recently came to light. It also uses an inline version of the default styles in feeds, which looks a lot nicer.
If it doesn’t seem to be working after upgrading/installing, please check the ProgPress settings page.
Popularity: 1%
Overall my WordPress 2.8 upgrade went fairly well, at least as far as any site visitors would see. The admin was a different story.1 After some poking around2 I was surprised to find out it was Rob Miller’s fabulous Now Reading WordPress plugin3 preventing me from editing posts.
I’m not sure exactly what changed in WordPress to trigger the issue, but after some poking I tracked down the problem, and I think I found a solution other than removing the plugin.
In the file wp-content/plugins/now-reading/url.php, look for the following:
function is_now_reading_page() {
global $wp;
$wp->parse_request();
I commented out the call to $wp->parse_request(); and it fixed the problems I was having with the site admin, and so far it seems Now Reading is unaffected by this change.
Popularity: 7%
I’ve updated my Use Google Libraries plugin to support WordPress 2.8.
If you’re using WordPress 2.8, you’ll want to upgrade ASAP. Download it from the Plugin Directory (or use the auto-update feature). If you find it useful, feel free to leave a tip.
Popularity: 1%
I’ve updated my Use Google Libraries plugin. This version implements a pair of suggestions from Peter Wilson.
What are you waiting for? Download it from the Plugin Directory (or use the auto-update feature in WordPress 2.7+). If you find it useful, feel free to leave a tip.
Popularity: 1%
In case you missed it, Amazon announced a new version of their Oprah approved Kindle e-book reader. One of the new features announced was the ability to have the device read aloud using text-to-speech. Pretty neat, huh?
The Author’s Guild released a statement claiming that Amazon was not within their rights to do any such thing, and calling for Amazon to add a feature where authors/publishers could disable such a feature. Science Fiction author Robert J. Sawyer posted his feelings on the subject on his blog. One of the follow up comments prompted a follow-up post about what people can and can’t legally do with things they “own”. For example;
You can buy a car, but there are countless regulations governing what you may do with it even though it’s your property. You can’t, for instance, drive it without a license, drive it recklessly, permanently export it to another country, drive it without insurance, allow children to drive it, park your car in my driveway, and so on.
The list got me thinking.1
The majority of items on the list can easily be used to do the illegal things mentioned and there is nothing else in place to prevent it. Those illegal acts have consequences to go along with them, and for the most part it seems this is enough.
The exception is pretty much any new technology. When new technology is involved then all consumers are criminals who can’t be trusted and there needs to be functionality cripling technological restrictions added. From where I sit the text-to-speech feature is merely a tool Amazon provides to the end user. That end user has to decide to use the tool, and perhaps they’ll use it to do things they don’t have a license to.
If you exclude DRM based restrictions, there’s nothing the Kindle 2 does that I can’t do with an electronic text and a desktop computer.
There is obviously fear that this will harm audiobook sales, and the value of audiobook rights. I just don’t see it. I can’t imagine there’s any real worry this would cannibalize the audiobook market.
I’ve played around with text-to-speech, and some of it is surprisingly good, and sure to keep getting better and better. Still I doubt the majority of folks who would happily sit through a text-to-speech reading of a book, would be likely to shell out the money for a commercially produced audiobook.
It’ll be a very long time before a computer simulation can come close to a Scott Brick or a Jonathan Davies. Not as long as it’s a passive act. Until computers can feel emotions, and be moved by what they are reading it won’t come close. And at that point what makes the act so different than an adult reading aloud to a child?
The Author’s Guild responded to criticisms that they weren’t taking visually impaired users into account:
Others suggest that challenging Amazon’s use of this software challenges accessibility to the visually impaired. It doesn’t: Kindle 2 isn’t designed for such use.
I see that comment, and I see a solution. Perhaps rather than cripple the device, Amazon should work towards making the remaining functionality accessible to the visually impaired. The text-to-speech engine is already there.
And just to be clear, I have no real interest in this feature. In
fact, until the Kindle does
ePub I’m not interested in it
at all. I just get antsy when I see content producers so
afraid of content consumers that the innovators in the content
delivery space are pressured to stop innovating, and start restricting
access. If this “burn the witch” mentality against innovation doesn’t
stop then one day the robotic nannies may start the uprising that destroys the
human race all because we wouldn’t let them read aloud.
Popularity: 1%
I’m happy to announce my new WordPress Plugin Use Google Libraries. This plugin loads a number of standard Javascript libraries used by WordPress from Google’s AJAX Libraries API CDN. What’s that?
The AJAX Libraries API is a content distribution network and loading architecture for the most popular, open source JavaScript libraries. [...] Google works directly with the key stake holders for each library effort and accepts the latest stable versions as they are released. Once we host a release of a given library, we are committed to hosting that release indefinitely. [...] We take the pain out of hosting the libraries, correctly setting cache headers, staying up to date with the most recent bug fixes, etc.
Or, in plain English, it should make your site load faster. It could also make other people’s sites load faster too, if they’re also using this plugin.
Any WordPress themes or plugins that load any of these libraries via enqueue_script() should automatically take advantage of Use Google Libraries.
There’s nothing earth shattering here, but my goal was do one thing and do it well. You can read the documentation and download the plugin from the Use Google Libraries page in the WordPress Plugin Directory.
Popularity: 1%
Apparently Amazon is making moves to drop any POD books not printed by their own BookSurge service. I’m not sure how long this was brewing, but stories are popping up all over.
I can see how this makes sense, from a certain point of view. Asking Amazon, who is now in the POD business, to sell POD books from LuLu (for example) could be seen as similar to asking Wendy’s to sell you a Whopper.
To me this sends a message to all other book sellers that it’s ok to not consider POD books as real products, and refuse to carry them. I can envision all the major chains having their own in-house POD setups at some point, and they’ll follow suit by refusing to carry anything “not printed here”. This will include those books printed by Amazon’s BookSurge service.
Maybe I’m missing something more obvious, but it really seems that Amazon has set back the legitimacy of a certain class of books based solely on how they were printed and bound. I’m fully aware that there’s a lot of junk out there, because with POD anyone can “publish” their own book, but at the same time there are some wonderful works that perhaps would not be available in print any other way.
As a consumer, books in this situation might as well be mythical creatures. If I like to shop at a big chain, and they tell me “We don’t have a listing for that. We can’t order it,” then that’s it. Anything more requires jumping through hoops, meanwhile there are thousands of other books I can walk home with right now. Online it’s even worse. If a book isn’t up for order at your preferred online book seller it might as well not exist at all. And to many consumers, it won’t.
I foresee a lot of gloom and doom while this shakes out. There’s a change it will come to nothing in the end. It’s also possible Amazon is hoping to use this to get more favorable agreements out of POD houses before letting them back in. As such I’m just speculating here.
What if things play out like I suggested earlier, with each book seller having their own POD house, and not taking books from other POD houses. Assuming that the different POD services don’t have exclusivity agreements, the best option would be to offer you book through all of them. It’s obvious. Then wherever folks are they can get your book.
Simple, right?
No, not really. Having put together one book for LuLu I know it can take a great deal of time to prep the book to look good when they print and bind it. I’m sure other services have their own pitfalls. The idea of learning them all fills me with dread. Who has time for that?
But what if a someone started up some sort of aggregated POD service, where you get them your manuscript and they go through the process of getting it up on all the POD services for you? Could such a thing work? If you’re a POD author, would you use such a thing?
I’d be interested to hear other folks thoughts, so please comment.
Popularity: 2%
I’ll keep this short1, because last time I rambled, and basically failed to make clear what I thought the problem was. In the end, my problem with the whole X-UA-Compatible concept was really in what IE8 planned to do when it was absent, which was to pretend it was IE7.
(more…)Popularity: 1%
Note: This post is quite a bit more technical than what I usually talk about.
Yesterday saw the release of A List Apart #251 which is causing quite a bit of discussion. It focuses on a proposal put forth my Microsoft and some members of the Web Standards Project for a new meta tag than will control the rendering mode of IE8.
The first article (Beyond DOCTYPE: Web Standards, Forward Compatibility, and IE8) covers the proposal, what it means and why it’s needed. The second (From Switches to Targets: A Standardista’s Journey) documents Eric Meyer’s shift in perspective from being opposed to, well, not opposed.
My initial thought is that it’s a horrible idea. After reading more about it, and seeing the arguments in favor I think it’s a bad idea.
(more…)Popularity: 2%
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E. C. Segar’s Popeye Vol. 3: Let’s You and Him Fight!
The Art of Happiness in a Troubled World
Paddington Takes the Test
Odd and the Frost Giants
The Lies of Locke Lamora
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Today was not a good day. I will drown it in the cheescake of defeat.