I’ve recently run into some crippling Windows problems. And it was, worst of all, effecting my Internet access when I need it so desperately, like so many fellow South Africans. Moving to mac has crossed my mind, but I opted to go to a free place. A place where operations and function, roam freely. Linux.
I happy to announce that I’m officially a WooThemes Gold member 
. They have gracefully accepted me in on what I call a-heck-of-a-nice project. It’s part of living the dream. Working with an on-line success story, being in on the action every step of the way.
I currently have 110 unmoderated comments. Yes, I have a filter enabled and yes, I might have a few spam comments. Majority comes from my themes I realeased. They, luckely, will all be moving to ThemeSmith. More streamlining to do on my behalf. I apologize if you we’re caught up in that.
It’s been about a month since I’ve joined Adii (http://adii.co.za) at his new design firm {radiiate} (http://radiiate.com) and I have been stuck in with plenty of WordPress work. And it’s been lovely. I have great fun using the platform full time and am really starting to get to know the ins and outs of the lion that wades beneath the surface.
This renewed energy for WordPress has only been strengthened by the announcement of the great looking WordPress version 2.7. They team have been busy and i think we’ll be able to start using that sparkling and intuitive in backed in no time. Just to prove my point I’ve added some images for you to have a sneak peak at the yet to be finished designs. Well done guys.
Wordpress 2.7 New Post
Wordpress 2.7 Dashboard
Our office was lucky enough to have a copy of Spore dropped off here yesterday. I immediately jumped on the grenade and took it home for a test drive. From the get go it’s a do or die game. You start off with a tiny micro-biotic organism swimming around for food quickly evolving and moving your way up the food chain. Soon you pop out out pre-biotic pool and start your journey on land, and keep on evolving, taking on other spores that made it out of the microbial stages.
Making friends of foes, you keep gaining DNA in order to progress you creature, picking up new features, be it for resources control, social gain or straight out combat. Soon you spawn into a creature with a brain big enough to build camps and fight in packs. Then the starts the race for global domination.
You challenge nearby villages to become a ever more dominant force. In no time at all you will be building your own civilization. Literally creating the templates for the building that will go into your city. At this point you will no longer be playing with creatures but with land, sea and air vehicles. And the stakes are high, were talking global domination.
Once the globe is yours, you can start expanding into space. Where there is no boundary. Keeping you busy for hours, maybe even years. At this stellar point in time you friend next door might also be building his civilization, playing online and on one fine day you might bump into each other. As they say: “May the strongest man win”.
Verdict:
What a great game, thought out really well and with tons of stuff to adjust and re-adjust. It is crazy too see the amount of stuff you can do and create for you creature. The concept is really fresh in gaming. I’ve always been a fan of sim games. This game deserved to be played. I would love to replay an see how radically different my creature will turn out.
On the other hand, there is almost too much to do that you really get bored of the unlimited amount of stuff to add and change. I somewhat rushed thought the initial stages that only took me about 6 hours to play thought and when I got to space it seemed like I’m going to be running around doing errands. Things like that I don’t have time for. This is where it ended for me thus far.
The game expands online and then turns into a massive multi-player game. Something that will give it a huge edge and in doing so, create longer life for itself. I have not gone into that part yet and hope to do so soon. The jury is still out on the next chapter of Spore.
Big thanks to the guys from WordCamp SA for organizing the event. Two of the heavy weights over at Automattic climbed on a plane and took the long journey down to South Africa to come meet the passionate WordPress users.
The event was filled with speakers talking about all thing WordPress, from making money with WordPress to how they have used WordPress in wonderful and imaginative ways. Among them was Adii (Woothemes.com ), Vincent Maher (M&G ) and Justin Hartman (The Times ).
Soon after Matt was talking about how WordPress.com has turned into a business and the ways they turn profit in an open source realm. After which I had to stand in somewhat of a que to share an audience with the man of the hour. Matt came across very humble and was eager to give advice to some burning questions. A true legend in my eyes.
Then I managed to squeeze some time in with Warwick Poole . We talked about the massive system he has to stay on top of at WordPress.com. We also talked about how the work flow works over at Automattic.
It ended up being a great day for meeting new people and finding out more about WordPress. Here are some pics of me and Matt and Warwick… proof I guess. Damn I look scruffy.
Matt and I
Warwick and I
The guys at Automattic has been busy! WordPress 2.6, dubbed “Tyner” is jam-packed with lots of new stuff. Along with being crunched with impressive new features, it feels like WordPress is also starting to be geared towards blogging… fast!
Have a look at the following list to just get a scope of what the new features are:
wp-config file and wp-content directories to a custom location, for “clean” SVN checkouts.WordPress continues to be awesome. This update came a month ahead of time so the dudes really are making sure their product stays on top… rightly so.
“The Link List” features a large array of articles that has made a big impact on the web. This list will be continually growing and getting better as time goes on. I hope that this page will become a fully fledged resource and a one stop for the right material of discovery, education and inspiration. Lets have a look at what those lists are and discover new things right now.
Prologue Pro is Prologue but with a twist. It has over 20 possible theme combinations, features personal customization in the WordPress backend, makes use of great transparency techniques and best of all… its’ FREE! Just wait till you see the screen shots…
Prologue Pro (537.3 KiB, 3,981 hits)