Read more about SOPA on Wikipedia, and find out why it’s not a good thing. Also, here’s NFS.net’s official stance on SOPA.

Update: I’ve modified the plugin to use a generic URL (.../1/jquery...) which loads the latest 1.x version. That way I don’t have to change the plugin everytime jQuery is updated.

The ZIP file has been updated, just overwrite your old googlejs.php file and everything will be gravy.

In an effort to save bandwidth, I made a quick plugin to modify WordPress to use Google’s Libraries API, which offers a Google-hosted jQuery. Here’s the code in question:

function radr_google_js( &$scripts ) {
    $scripts->remove( 'jquery' );
    
    $scripts->add(
        'jquery', // shortname
        'https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1/jquery.min.js', // url
        false // dependancies (none)
    );
}

add_action( 'wp_default_scripts', 'radr_google_js' );

If you’re interested in using this on your own site, you’re welcome to download this quick plugin. Just follow standard procedure — unzip, copy to wp-content/plugins, and activate.

It’s been a breeze to set up; took about 4 hours total to make the move (3.5 of which was waiting for DNS to propagate), and, as a plus, the site seems much faster in general.

Back to ignoring the site for now.

I’ve switched the site over from a very customized Grid Focus theme to Titan by the Theme Foundry. I found it after searching through many pages of the WordPress theme directory. What I especially like about it are the colors as well as the layout.

It also comes with extensive options for customizing what goes where, especially in the sidebar and the header, which was a nice surprise. I originally intended to design my own theme, but that is honestly too much work.

As for updating plugins, it was less than pleasant. I seem to remember WordPress directly downloading the plugin ZIP files (presumably with fopen and etc) and writing the files directly. In recent releases, however, installing with FTP seems to be the only option.

To say this doesn’t always end well would be an understatement. Sometimes it makes WordPress unusable for minutes, and I say only WordPress because everything else served from the same web server works fine in the meanwhile. And there seems to be a weird bug that causes a mdawaffe-test.zip file to download instead of the actual plugin, which caused some irritation too.

In the end I just opened SSH up and used wget and did it myself…

I’m not sure why they got rid of the original system, but I suppose the security risk of making all of wp-content writable could be part of it. Then again, I haven’t really kept up with WordPress at all since I left.

Surprisingly enough, I didn’t completely screw it up.

My new excuse of not blogging is so I don’t hurt my eyes straining to decipher the extremely non-contrasting colors in the new admin design. Ugh. I even have to turn down my screen’s brightness so I’m not blinded.

At least they got rid of the DBX boxes.

• Merry Christmas, Happy New Year. 2008 feels the same as 2007, so far.
• My main reason for lack of posting is that I’ve begun playing World of Warcraft. Gotta… level… to… 70… Only 39 more levels to go — this is worse than heroin.
• IPv6 may not be a pipe dream after all. Yippee, I guess. As long as it doesn’t bite me in the ass.

WordPress 2.5 Admin

(This is going to take a bit more space.)

Apparently parts of the admin, which is about 10% there, are being checked into the WordPress SVN repository. It makes no sense to me why they would commit them to the public (note, public) repository in such early stages, and Chris Messina has something related to say about that, which I agreed with.

That said, I can’t say I’m too impressed with what’s been checked in so far, but I’m holding judgement due to the faith I have in Happy Cog Studios (and the fact it’s only 10% done). That color scheme reminds me of something, but for the life of me I can’t figure out what. Oh, and I can’t say I’m really with that comments bubble on the menu item. Looks a bit tacky, but maybe that’s just me.

That’s that.

I hope to redesign soon. But, then again, when don’t I. Apparently my Footnotes plugin is incompatible with recent versions of Habari, which I should really fix. I’ll give them all a quick checking-on, too.