WordPress Plugin: Order by Popularity
Ever wanted to have a blog ordered by the number of visits, comments, and such? It would seem to me that this might be useful. So I wrote a plugin to accommodate just that.
To be honest, I really shouldn’t take that much credit for it, since Alex King wrote most of the functionality for determining popularity as his plugin is required for mine to work. All I really did, was stand upon his giantness and make it so people could sort their blogs by popularity.
Feel free to Download It
Cheers,
Herlo
A New Job and WordPress Plugins
Over the past little while, I’ve lost my job, hunted for (and found) a new job, consulted to fill in the gaps and a bunch of Fedora projects over Christmas. What did this entail? Well, sit back and relax and I’ll tell you!
New Job
Well my new job is setting up nicely as a Web Developer/System Administrator at StoryRock.com. We do yearbook and scrapbooking software. I’m in charge of the website and infrastructure here, and so far there are a lot of good problems to solve. I’ve been introduced to Ruby on Rails and am getting the hang of it as well. I’ve implemented a new Firewall and OpenVPN tunnel, configured a new staging server and dealt with a disk space issue on our web server, all in about a week and a half. I still have plans to finish implementing an openfire jabber server (mostly complete thanks to help from another great Guru, Aaron Toponce).
Consulting
For the past few weeks, I’ve been working with a fellow by the name of Trevyn Meyer. He owns a little consulting firm in Orem called ESource, They have been giving me steady web work for the past few weeks. I’ve been able to do things from wordpress themes and plugins to migrating bugzilla. It has brought in a little cash I needed just to get me through. This has been a great experience. Because of ESource, I was able to publish a fairly useful plugin because of its benefits to the community. I plan to get it on wordpress’ codex at some point in the future.
Fedora
Over the Christmas break, and mostly because I am not overwhelmed at work (yet). I was able to spend some time creating a few tools to benefit the project. First was the Fedora Ambassador North America (FAmNA) Resource Requests Tracker. With the help of Jon Stanley, we now have a way of tracking requests from North American Fedora Contributors for things like T-Shirts, Media, AmbassadorKits, Stickers, etc. I anticipate this being a very busy site and that we’ll be getting more requests as the word gets out after the holidays and FUDCon.
I took the time this weekend to build a prototype of the Fedora Media Box. It’ll be part of what is to become the AmbassadorKit. We’re having a hackfest to design and finish the AmbassadorKit so we can start shipping it out. Look for this as a new option on the FAMNA Requests trac instance.
Speaking of FUDCon, along with Chris Tyler and probably a few other people, we are planning to stream and record audio and video for much of FUDCon F11 Boston. I was able to purchase a wireless lavalier (aka lapel) microphone this week and it should arrive in time for me to bring it along for presenters. I am seriously excited to get the audio and video out to more people than ever. If you have a camera, or recording devices, please bring them. If you don’t have equipment, but want to help, let us know.
Cheers,
Clint
Fedora Media for North America
The Fedora Live CDs arrived this past week, right in time for Christmas. They look great.
If you are interested in obtaining some pressed media to distribute at an event or Local User Group (LUG), please make a request on the new FAmNA Resource Request tracker. (Special thanks to Jon Stanley). Make sure to include the following information (at minimum):
- Name and Address
- The number of LiveCDs you’d like
- Currently, we only have 32-bit LiveCDs. The order has been placed for 32-bit and 64-bit install media, delivery is expected around mid-January. When this media arrives, I will announce the availability.
- A short explanation of your request and how it might promote Fedora
- Phone Number (optional)
- How you would like the shipped (Choose Ground unless you can justify faster shipping)
- Your region (shown as component)
- Do Not assign the task to anyone, it is automatically assigned to the correct person based upon region.
Check your email, you should receive a confirmation of the ticket, a great way to track progress.
If you are interested in who is getting your request, you may wish to head on over to the North America regional list: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Ambassadors/NA/Regions.
If you are an Event Owner for Q4 2009, please do not send requests. Events are handled by the FedoraEvents page. We are aware of the events and will coordinate with you individually.
In addition, at the upcoming FUDCon, we’ll be building an AmbassadorKit. The AmbassadorKit is designed to be a small package delivered to any Fedora contributor who wishes to spread Fedora. The AmbassadorKit will include the following (at minimum):
- Between 10 and 20 bits of Media (LiveCDs, DVDs)
- A display box for holding media
- One or Two Fedora t-shirts
- A few sheets of Fedora Stickers
- Fedora Buttons
Other items can be included in the AmbassadorKit, such as:
- Fedora Temporary Tattoos (while supplies last)
- Fedora LiveUSBs (in the future, or if some sponsor would like to donate them hint hint)
- Anything else you can think of that would be useful for promoting Fedora.
Once the AmbassadorKits are designed and can easily be built and delivered, we will add them to the FAmNA Resource Request tracker so they can also be requested.
I look forward to delivering massive amounts of media over the next few months to those who need it.
Cheers,
Clint
Reminder: Fedora 10 Installfest/Release Party Tomorrow 6pm
Some of you may have read this from twitter, apparently the twitter updater plugin is broken and alerts people of published content no matter the date.
Just a quick reminder about the upcoming Fedora 10 Installfest/Release Party previously announced. Fedora 10 has been released and it’s time to party. Alongside the party will be food, fun and of course an installfest, so bring those ‘puters and boxen to the ‘fest!
Cheers,
Herlo
Looking for work is hard work
Recently, I was laid off from Guru Labs. While I still think of them as a great company, I must forge on, looking for a new job. I really appreciate the 2.5 years I worked and all the friendships I made. I also enjoyed the work and it reinforced my desire to share my love of free software with the world.
While I am a pretty solid Linux Admin, what I really think I’d be good at, is Project Management. The problem being that I’ve little to no paid experience for such a thing. The reason, however, that I believe I’d be a good fit for something like this is the fact that I’ve been in charge of the Utah Open Source Conference and it’s successful rise to the largest community conference in Utah.
Last year, we had a successful conference after a year of planning. This year’s conference was much less work thanks to all the great volunteers, but it was still a big success, and a lot of work. I’m excited to say that this is my pride and joy, and why I think I would be a good fit for a Project Manager.
In addition, I’m looking into starting my own business, the only problem there is the timing. I’d like to launch it soon, but I don’t have enough capital to really get going anywhere. However, I may still do this as I think the ideas I have would work well and could really benefit an open source community as well as small/medium sized tech businesses. In fact, I have a meeting set up for tomorrow morning with someone who’s believed in me from the beginning on this endeavor. I’m excited to try my hand as an employer.
I do want to mention that while this isn’t a plea to help get me a job, but rather some thoughts I needed to scribble down, I am actively looking for work. If you have anything that might fit, here’s the latest version of my resume (in pdf form).
Guess we’ll see where the world takes me on this fun, fun ride I’ve been on for 30-some-odd years now. And I guess that’s the point, I’m really enjoying this ride called life and so while it’s a bit of a stressful time, I’m grateful to accept these challenges. I love solving problems, and this is just another small problem.
Reminder: Fedora Classroom this Saturday and Sunday
Hi all,
Just a quick reminder that this Saturday and Sunday from 12:00 UTC until 16:00 UTC will be the Fedora Classroom sessions. A few adjustments have been made to make things run smoother, but the sessions are still one hour, now with a 15 minute break in between. If you are unfamiliar with IRC, there’s a helpful guide to get you started.
We still need volunteers to cover 3 sessions on Sunday. If you have something to share, please sign up today. The sessions can be as simple as you wish, the idea being we want to help users understand more about how Fedora works. Maybe a session on the new features in Fedora 10?
Hope to see you all there. I’ll be doing a class on ‘Creating Logical Volumes’ and I’m excited to do it!
Cheers,
Herlo
Fedora 10 Release Party Details
Recently, I announced a Fedora 10 release party here on my blog, It turns out, that not only will it be a release party, with (hopefully) physical and electronic media available, but it will also be an installfest!!
SO BRING YOUR MACHINES AND GET THEM INSTALLED!
Victor Villa of the Utah PHP User Group (UPHPU) and a Utah Open Source Core Team Leader has offered his work as the location for the event. It’s large, easy to find and best of all, centrally located in Draper, Utah.
We’ll have food, fun and probably even some prizes. We’re working out the minor details but come on down and enjoy an evening of reverie with your Fedora friends!
Time to Fire It Up!
Clicking on the above poster will show the address and other details.
Here they are in print:
When: December 6, 2008, 6-8pm Where: Bill Good Marketing, 12393 Gateway Park Place, Suite 600, Draper, Utah 84020 MapSee you all there.
Cheers,
Herlo
Hear ye, hear ye, Fedora 10 has arrived
Get yours today.
Fedora 10 - Released
Available at mirrors everywhere. Also via bittorrent ? and jigdo ?.
Freedom, Friends, Features, First! That’s Fedora!
Cheers,
Herlo
Mind Maps: The Utah Open Source Foundation
The Utah Open Source Foundation “Mind Map”
After creating the Fedora Project Mind Map, I was better able to understand how UTOS was currently structured. I was able to put together the main pieces pretty quickly, although it seems there are several gaps in my thought process still. For that reason, I’m opening the UTOS structure up as well. It might not have as many contributors, but I’d like to see the structure grow.
Fedora 10 (Cambridge) coming soon - and a release party to boot!
And I am already running Fedora 10. It’s stable, powerful and most of all, built from free software! Also, I’m in charge of creating the Media for North America this release. We’ve already pre-purchased x86 live media and plan to produce similar amounts of x86_64 live CDs as well as both x86 and x86_64 install DVDs. It’s exciting because they should be to my house by early to mid-December! Distribution plans are commencing as well, so keep your ear to the ground.
Mark Your Calendars
I’m organizing a Fedora 10 release party, with a usb creation station, installfest and all that jazz. It will probably be held on December 6. There are a couple possible locations currently being discussed. More details to come in the near future.
Cheers,
Herlo
