You’ve tried Things; you’ve tried Remember the Milk; you’ve tried Omnifocus; you’ve tried your Moleskine with plain pen and paper. You’ve tried a dozen other apps, especially iOS ones on GTD. I’ve tried them too. But my opinion is they are all shit. Except maybe the Moleskine part because my Moleskine is the notebook I like the most. Or at least to say it better, they didn’t work out for me.

All of these apps seem so different, yet they share some core things (of failure):

• complicated UIs (yet, they’re advertised as the most easy-to-learn UIs)
• too much clutter when adding an event, note, to-do
• too much hassle to add one (lot’s of clicks, plus the previous point)
• can’t sync correctly (only OTA between the same app at best)
• proprietary support of devices & connectivity

What you need from a to-do / GTD app?

• add things on the fly
• sync between the whole universe
• overall KISS-ness

After long philosophical thoughts I figured out that the only solution that satisfies these three core needs is an app that every computer whether it’s Mac, Linux or Windows (meh) has. *Drumroll* yeah, it’s the plain —fucking— .txt editor. (I know, goose bumps all over your body now, lol).

.Txt enhanced

In a so “meta” world we live in i.e. you can sync content simultaneously in between all your machines, plain ol’ .txt is not enough. But hold on! There’s an app for that. (I’m so meta using these cliches.) I can describe this, my current to-do / GTD setup, and recommend it to people as “.txt on steroids”.

The app that transforms .txt into “.txt 2.0″ is called PlainText. And it’s free—fuck yeah. However it’s not only the app that makes it awesome, it’s the whole setup.

The Setup

If you don’t already use DropBox (seriously, WTF if you don’t), start by clicking here. Download and install the client.

Download PlainText from your local AppStore on your iOS device. Link PlainText with your DropBox account, create a folder “PlainText” in your DropBox folder and delete the 2 default files of PlainText if you want (all these from within the PlainText app).

Create a new file with PlainText and name it “todo”—the .txt will be appended automatically. Go to your computer and see that the todo.txt appears instantly in your /Dropbox/PlainText folder.

Mac tip: pin the todo.txt file on your dock like this (you can do that with a kind of “hack” in Windows 7 too, I think).

Now, every time you type and click save (from your computer) or stop typing (it autosaves) from PlainText the todo.txt is automatically synced via DropBox. DropBox even holds file revisions and backups automatically for you through its system, in case you do BS sometime.

If-you-don’t-have-an-iOS-device tip: you can sync the todo.txt between your computers by simply installing DropBox to your other machines. By itself, DropBox will download all of your files in the /DropBox folder to every new computer. Don’t forget to pin the file!

Final words

I don’t know if you’re excited with this, but I am. This setup worked perfectly for me since —not even day one— but second one. It’s like magic, it’s like what you ever wanted. If you give it a try you’ll remember me for the rest of your life. Word.

And here comes a fine new (well, not so new) Mac and iOS app called AirFoil.

Simply to put, AirFoil is awesome. Awesome like, (awesome)^e. AirFoil sends audio to remote speakers including iOS devices, other computers, and hardware devices like the Apple TV and AirPort Express. Plus, it supports multiple audio—that is, you can send audio to multiple outputs around your house and not just Apple’s approved hardware, all in sync. Not only that, but AirFoil supports also DVD & video playback, web-based Last.fm & Pandora plus Spotify streaming, complete metadatas from your library and many more cool features.

Literarily, there’s no setup. Just download the Mac and the (free) iPhone/iPod/iPad app (it’s called AirFoil Speakers Touch, find it in AppStore) and you’re good to go. Yes, that’s the only thing you have to do. Here’s how it looks.

Just a little reminder, this is a universal way. That means it works whether you own a Mac or a PC (I think that it works with Android phones too—if anyone can test it, give me a heads-up.)

Intro

The very tool this how-to is based, is Transmission’s WebUI. Almost every torrent downloader application supports a WebUI. If your app doesn’t support a WebUI, you can switch to uTorrent (if you’re on Windows/Mac) or Transmission (if you’re on Mac).

Small parenthesis: imho after using several years uTorrent on Windows, on various Linux distributions (through Wine) and on Mac I’d recommend you using uTorrent as torrent downloader in Windows/Linux and Transmission in Mac. Transmission simply rocks in it’s native environment. But at the end of the day, it’s all about what your preferences. End small parenthesis.

Step 1

Fire up Transmission’s Preferences and then click the Remote tab. Check to enable remote access. If you like, you can setup a username/password authentication (I didn’t). The listening port can remain to it’s default number, it should be 9091 anyway.

Step 2

Find your computer’s IP address (not the public one) under Preferences > Network. Click on the connection you are using. Under it’s status there is a small text that states where AirPort (if you’re using WiFi) is connected, the name of the network and your IP. Copy the IP somewhere, for example on TextEdit.

Step 3

Grab your iPhone, open Safari.app and type:
http://the-ip-you-copied-before:9091/transmission/web/. If everything worked well, you should see a screen similar to this:

You can click now the Safari’s + icon to add Transmission’s WebUI to the home screen as a web app.

Until now we have complete management functionality of our desktop torrent downloader from our iPhone. But, how about actually downloading a torrent from the iPhone to the desktop?

Step 4

Now, it is time to actually use the remote access. Visit a torrent tracker from Safari.app, I’d say the world’s most resilient one, The Pirate Bay, browse for a torrent and copy its the “Download” link. Open the newly created Transmission web app from your home screen, click on the “Open” icon and paste the torrent’s URL.

Boom.

That was it. From now on you can download any torrent from anywhere in the world on your Mac. Although I don’t want to repeat myself, I’ll say again that this method works for every torrent downloader with a remote access WebUI. If you’re not using Transmission, just follow the same logical steps.

This trick brings GMail to the next level on the iPhone. Keyword? (Almost) Real time inbox. How? Push notifications. But GMail doesn’t offer out of the box Push notifications unless you are using Google Apps. Well, there’s a tap for that.

Step 1

Delete your GMail account from the Mail.app on the iPhone. Just browse through Settings → Mail, Contacts, Calendars → Accounts (select GMail) → Delete Account.

Step 2

Tap on “Add Account…” and select Microsoft Exchange. Yes, Microsoft — and yes, Exchange! (I assume you are already in iOS 4.x so there’s no problem having more than one Exchange accounts — in case you use already one. Otherwise, you have to upgrade your iOS firmware.)

Step 3

Add the required info:

• In the Email field, enter your full Google Account email address.
• Leave the Domain field blank.
• Enter your full Google Account email address as the Username.
• Enter your Google Account password as the Password.

Tap Next at the top of your screen.

• Choose Cancel if the Unable to Verify Certificate dialog appears.
• When the new Server field appears, enter m.google.com.

Press Next again.

Step 4

Select the Google services (Mail, Calendar, and Contacts) you want to sync. I recommend you selecting only Mail and/or Calendar (if you want Google Calendar and iCal.app sync). Clicking on contacts, Google Sync will sync your contacts, but it might delete your iPhone’s Contact Book and just import GMail contacts.

Tap on “Keep on my iPhone” for everything that appears, just to be sure not to delete anything.

Step 5

Navigate to “Mail, Contacts, Calendars” menu and tap on “Fetch new data”. Enable Push and you’re good to go. Also be sure to have IMAP enabled on GMail settings.

Now, every email you’ll receive, it will be almost instantly pushed to your iPhone. You can check this out by yourself. It’s kick-ass.

Straight to the point. How to install Diaspora on your Mac OS X machine. It’s pretty much simple if you are are familiar with console and unix commands. Let’s see how it goes.

Get the Source

git clone http://github.com/diaspora/diaspora.git

Install Dependencies via Homebrew

(if you don’t have HB, install this first + it requires XCode, so if you again don’t have XCode go and download XCode first)

ruby -e "$(curl -fsS http://gist.github.com/raw/323731/install_homebrew.rb)"

(If this complains you aren’t part of the staff group, run this first)

sudo dscl /Local/Default -append /Groups/staff GroupMembership $USER


Install MongoDB

brew install mongo


Run MongoDB manually

mongod run --config /usr/local/Cellar/mongodb/1.6.2-i386/mongod.conf


Plus, you can make it start on boot

cp /usr/local/Cellar/mongodb/1.6.2-i386/org.mongodb.mongod.plist ~/Library/LaunchAgents
launchctl load -w ~/Library/LaunchAgents/org.mongodb.mongod.plist

Install ImageMagick

brew install imagemagick


Make sure GEMS is up to date

sudo gem update --system


Get Bundler

sudo gem install bundler


Now build/run Diaspora!

cd diaspora_root
bundle install


Start Mongo (if you didn’t already)

mongod run --config /usr/local/Cellar/mongodb/1.6.2-i386/mongod.conf


Now run the app server (finally!)

cd diaspora_root
bundle exec thin start


Seed the DB with some info

rake db:seed:tom

Then point your browser to http://localhost:3000 and login in as tom/evankorth. Sounds good, huh?

It’s very easy to have a synced calendar over your Google Calendar, iCal and iPhone’s iCal.app. The basic concept works if you use Google Calendar, otherwise you just have to sync your iCals via USB and iTunes.

But, you can also setup a Google Calendar to achieve OTA syncing for your Mac and iPhone. Nice, huh?

Just follow these quick and eath steps.

Setup Google Sync

In your iPhone open Settings > Mail, Contacts, Calendars, tap “Add Account” and select Microsoft Exhange. In the next screen enter your account info. In the email field type your full Google Account (ie. your Gmail). Leave the “Domain” field blank and type enter again your full Google Account as “Username” and your password as a password, obviously. Tap “Next”. If “Unable to Verify Certificate” apperas just tap “Cancel” and in the next screen enter m.google.com in the “Server” field. Tap “Next” and select the services you’d like to sync and “Keep on my iPhone”. (Hint: Google Sync supports Push notifications.)

— Now, you have successfully enabled OTA syncing for Google Calendar and your iPhone. Time to setup Google Calendar in iCal, don’t you think?

Setup Google Calendar in iCal

Fire up iCal and hit the Preferences (cmd+,). Navigate to Accounts tab and click “+”. In the pop-up enter your full Google Accounts username (email) and password. Under “Server Options” enter the following https://www.google.com/calendar/dav/YOUREMAIL@DOMAIN.COM/user Of course, replace with your email. Leave “Kerberos bla bla” box unchecked and click “Add”. Your Google Calendar will now appear in iCal’s list of calendars, and changes you make to your Google Calendar in iCal will be reflected almost instantly. Event information will automatically refresh every five minutes. You can change this interval by opening the iCal > Preferences > Accounts menu and selecting a new refresh interval under the ‘Refresh calendars’ drop-down. Otherwise, you can simply hit cmd+r to refresh manually. There’s no API limit or something.

Thanks to @diab for his initial help with this.

Questions? Feel free to comment.

It’s very handy since it catches sneaky family and co-workers red handed. See a demo screenshot here.

But there’s a small bug in DeskLock.

At the “lock” screen (the left one at the screenshot) someone can actually see which applications/windows are running and in a nutshell, the whole desktop, due to a Expose and/or OS X’s Active Screen Corners (show the desktop) bug. Though, that someone cannot interact with any of the the windows, he/she can still see them in a pretty much detailed way.

To watch the bug in action you must have Expose and Active Screen Corners enabled (with the “Desktop” option) and of course, DeskShade installed. Simply lock the computer and then make the 4-fingers gesture for Expose and/or mouse over a corner to enable “show desktop”. Pretty much simple.

See a quick and short demo video I made.

DeskShade’s lock screen bug/hack from Apostolos on Vimeo.

In fact, it’s piece of cake. You don’t have to know anything about PHP or CSS.

Step 1: your Comments loop

Every WordPress theme supports comments. That equals to a comments.php file in your theme directory. Open it and find the the foreach and endforeach loop (it might look something like this:

<?php foreach ($comments as $comment) : ?> and <?php endforeach; /* end for each comment */ ?>.)

Now, place this code everywhere inside this loop:

<?php if(function_exists('get_avatar')) { echo get_avatar($comment, '50'); } ?>

The “50″ string or whatever in this code is your Gravatar’s photo size. You can edit it so it suits your theme’s design or your own likes.

Step 2: Style the Gravatar

By now, Gravatars won’t be styled (left, right, padding, etc). We will do it with a simple CSS code snippet. You probably have noticed that the Gravatar code spits out the “avatar” class on each image. Why not tell now the CSS to float the image left and add a small right margin. Open your style.css file of your WordPress theme and add this line of code:

img.avatar {float:left; margin-right:5px;}

This is it!

There you go! Simple and efficient Gravatar implementation to your WordPress comments. Of course themes will differ, you can style them however you like using CSS. (Hint: this code will only work on WordPress 2.5 and above; but I assume everyone now uses at least 2.9.2 so it won’t be a problem.)

More info about Using Gravatars at the WordPress Codex.

Having problems? Do you want to suggest a different workaround? Feel free to comment.

I came with the idea of using the Like button as a post-to-Facebook button, something like share but renewed and with the “like” keyword in it’s description. It serves two aspects: the act of liking the post and the act of sharing the post.

In the short, I wanted to embed the Like code in my single.php file in order to appear below each post the same way Sociable plugin works and when someone clicks on it to like, share+post the specific post into Facebook.

Unfortunately, it didn’t work out of the box.

The thing is that when you try to create the Like button via iFrame or the Javascript SDK you are prompted to enter a URL that Like will prompt users to “like” and post to their Facebook’s profile. The URL itself is dummy. That means it’s not dynamical. Wherever you will put the Like button it just will like+share+post the URL you typed before (in my case, http://apas.gr/).

In fact, the workaround of this problem is very easy — and you probably thought it already by now.

The Like code looks something like this:

<iframe src="http://www.facebook.com/widgets/like.php?
        href=http://example.com">
        scrolling="no" frameborder="0"
        style="border:none; width:450px; height:80px"></iframe>

Instead of giving a statical http:// URL, why not give inside it a WordPress PHP tag called

<?php the_permalink() ?>

This PHP tag will, everytime, give the Like button the permalink URL of the specific post the visitor reads. Isn’t it cool?

So, your code have to look something like this now:

<iframe src="http://www.facebook.com/widgets/like.php?
        href=<?php the_permalink() ?>">
        scrolling="no" frameborder="0"
        style="border:none; width:450px; height:80px"></iframe>

I found it very useful and fun to workaround this little problem. Do you know or can you think of other useful ways of using the new Social Plugins? Feel free to comment below!

P.S.: You can see the custom Like button in action a few pixels below this post.

It’s great that iPhone can do lots and great things — and I don’t mean multitasking, folders and the such. I mean real, good and geeky things. Like, for example, accessing your computer remotely via Wifi, EDGE, 3G or even GPRS and making it just like you were in front of your monitor using your keyboard and mouse. Believe me, it works.

[This how-to is for Mac computers. If you have a Windows one, click here and follow (almost) the same steps as described. It won't be a problem. You can always check this and the iTeleport Windows how-to for any help you might need or anything else.]

All you need is to download buy the iTeleport app. It costs $24.99 but it sure does worth it. iTeleport is available on the iPad with the same price, too. After you downloaded it, follow these – really – easy steps to setup iTeleport and start using it.

Step 1: Setup Screen sharing

First you have to disable Screen Sharing or Apple Remote Desktop — if they’re enabled at all. Then, download the Vine-Jaadu Server application and run it. Enter a secure server password, make sure it says “Server running” and leave it running on the background.

Step 2: Install & setup Jaadu VNC Connect

Basically, Jaadu VNC Connect is a utility that runs on your Mac and autoconfigures port forwarding, dynamic DNS settings and also publishes your connection information over the local network so that iTeleport can auto-discover your computer. Download the app from the official site after accepting the licence — or if you prefer, here’s the direct link.

Well, sometimes it just doesn’t work. Here’s an other (official) workaround to setup correctly all the required settings. This the way I did it. First, your iPhone needs to know how to reach your router and then your router needs to know how to reach your computer. That’s why we have to use no-ip.com (for to teach the iPhone how to reach) and setup a little of port-forwarding on our router (for to teach the router how to handle the iPhone request).

Step 3: The other way [follow this only if VNC Connect didn't work for you]

Visit no-ip.com and create a free account (it’s just under the login form). After you are a member of no-ip and logged in click on the “Add a Host”. This tool helps you by keeping track of your router’s external IP address no matter how often it changes — aka make the computer visible always on the iPhone.

Just select a nickname for your computer — something like a username and then select a domain from the drop-down menu. I did select no-ip.org, simply because I think that the other names suck. Leave the other settings as they are and click “Create Host”. Download the DUC client. Now, simply add your no-ip account details, click refresh host and just tick the checkbox next to your hostname. That was it.

Now you’ve solved the first challenge — no matter what network you’re on, you can always connect to your router by entering your xyz.no-ip.org (or the domain you entered) address in Jaadu.

You have to port-forward now. The purpose of port forwarding is to take an incoming request from the external side (Internet) and forward that request to an internal computer in the network. You need to tell your router to forward port 5900 to your VNC server. If you do not know how, No-ip.com has guides for the other major routers and so does portforwarding.com.

Here’s what you need to set:

• Internal / Private IP of your computer: [*Your IP address]
• Port to forward from / Private TCP Port: 5900
• Port to forward to / Public TCP Port: 5900
• Leave any UDP ports blank

Finally, visit Can You See Me and type in your forwarded port (5900).  See whether it is able to connect or not.  If so, then you should be good to go. If not, then your router isn’t correctly forwarding to your VNC server. (This problem is unrelated to no-ip.com.)

Step 4: Configuring iTeleport on the iPhone

After all these settings and configurations you are now, finally, able to click on the iTeleport app and connect to your computer.

But before this, just a tip. It’s better to set-up two “computer remote profiles” for your machine. One to work for your home/work Wifi and the other to work as the real remote one, like connecting from 3G or from a hotel or something. In the first you can set-up the really good (and fast) settings like the best color, the best mouse response, the best refresh rate, etc. On the later, you can set-up a really good and not so heavy on network demands profile for better remote access.

So, for the first profile, let’s call it “your-machine’s-name home”, you just have to run the app and click on the “Discovered” app. Hopefully, your computer will appear there just because you’re iPhone and you’re computer are on the same network. At least, that worked for me but I think it won’t be a problem. Now, click on the blue arrow icon and set a name for this profile, through the Security menu enter your password you typed in Step 1. Finally, because this is the home/work profile as I said, click on Advanced and chose for Colors “Server Decideds” and for the Refresh rate “Fast Refresh”. Also switch the Touchscreen Mode and Invert Mouse from “Off” to “On” as well as Cursor Momentum from “On” to “Off”.

You’re good to click “Connect” now and enjoy.

But! Before that you have to manually enter the profile settings for the second profile the “real” remote one. Go to the main menu of iTeleport and click on “Manual”. Click on the “+” icon, set the name to, let’s say “you-machine’s-name remote”. Below that, enter your hostname for address (your-machine’s-name.no-ip.org — or whatever you chose) and, as previously, the VNC password you typed in Step 1. To test this you have to be on a different network (Wifi). Either disable WiFi and use 3G/EDGE, or use a different WiFi network.

Recap

By now you should have two separate saved servers. One will be used for external access (when you are on 3G or EDGE, or on a different WiFi network). It will not work when you are on the same WiFi network as your computer. The other one will be used for internal access. It will only work when you are on the same WiFi network as your computer.

Back to Step 2

If Jaadu VNC Connect did work for you, in order to connect to your computer you simply have to follow the steps in the “Discovered” tab (the home/work profile in which iTeleport finds automatically your computer). Basically it’s same procedure.

Final words

You’re good to remote access your machine now. Remember! The Vine Server app has to run in order to remote access, so do not quit it. I made it to run on-startup and always be on the dock.

I hope you enjoyed this how-to workthrough for iTeleport. If you have any questions, problems or just want to drop a few words feel free to write a comment!

Oh, and by the way here’s the final result. The first photo is with the home/work profile (all the good settings) and the second one is the “remote” profile with the not-heavy-on-network-resources settings. I chose to screenshot my Air’s background so that you can feel the difference.

Με έχει ρωτήσει ο @arkoudos πως στο καλό γίνεται το jailbrake σε iPhone που τόσο πολύ ακούγεται τον τελευταίο καιρό, ειδικότερα μετά το 3.1.2 update της Apple είπα να γράψω έναν οδηγό. Του είχα στείλει έναν step by step οδηγό μέσω mail αλλά δυστυχώς γι’ αυτόν και ευτυχώς για όλους εμάς η διαδικασία άλλαξε με το πρόσφατο 3.1.2 OS update χάρη στον @geohot και το Blackra1n.

Η διαδικασία είναι πάρα πολύ απλή – και πλέον κρατάει 3 λεπτά περίπου (μαζί με το unlock για όποιον θέλει). Οποιοδήποτε iPhone μπορεί να χρησιμοποιηθεί (το έχω δοκιμάσει με iPhone 3G και 3GS).  Ο @geohot έκανε απίστευτη δουλειά και γι’ αυτό πιστέυω αξίζει το donation του ώστε να συνεχίζει να βγάζει και άλλο αξιόλογο software.

Βήμα 1

Κατεβάζεις το Blackra1n και το αφήνεις στο desktop σου.

Βήμα 2

Συνδέεις το iPhone (iPod touch, κλπ) με το PC σου και ανοίγεις το iTunes. Από εκεί όταν εμφανιστεί το update iPhone OS dialog, πατάς Yes και συνεχίζεις την γνωστή διαδικασία Accept στα ΤοS και τα διαδικαστικά. Μετά από 10 περίπου λεπτά θα τελειώσει το download του update (ανάλογα την σύνδεση σου, φυσικά) που είναι πάνω-κάτω 300Mb και αρχίζει το installation. Εδώ τα πράματα κυλάνε πιο αργά οπότε πήγαινε φτιάξε κάναν καφέ, δες λίγο τηλεόραση και έλα ξανά πίσω να δεις το κινητό σου με 3.1.2 OS installed.

Βήμα 3

Αφού λοιπόν εγκατασταθεί επιτυχημένα το φρέσκο OS, τρέξε το Blackra1n και έχωντας συνδεδεμένο το iPhone με το PC (ακόμη), πάτα το μαγικό κουμπί Make it rain. Το iPhone θα κάνει reboot/restart όπως θες πέστο και μετά θα είσαι επισήμως με 3.1.2 OS jailbroken! Τόσο απλό. Η όλη αυτή μικρο-διαδικασία δεν θα πάρει πάνω από 2,5 λεπτά.

Βήμα 4

Συνδέεις το iPhone με κάποιο Wifi ή στο 3G και ανοίγεις το Blackrain app που θα υπάρχει σε μία από τις οθόνες σου. Εκεί αν θες και unlock πάτα το σχετικό κουμπί και μετά install. Σε κάποια δευτερόλεπτα θα μπορείς να βάλεις οποιαδήποτε SIM θέλεις! Anyway, τώρα είναι η σειρά να κάνεις install το Cydia. Ίδια διακασία με το unlock – μόνο που παίρνει περισσότερη ώρα αφού έχει να κατεβάσει ολόκληρο το Cydia ξανά.

Τέλος λοιπόν με το jailbrake & unlock του iPhone σου. Ελπίζω όλα να πήγαν όπως πήγαν και σε όλους μας.

Μην ξεχάσεις να κατεβάσεις το must-have SBSettings μέσα από το Cydia, το καλύτερο utility που θα βρεις.

Επίσης, μην ξεχνάς να επισκέπτεσαι και το iPhone Hellas όπου θα βρίσκεις πάντα έγκυρη ενημέρωση και νέα σχετικά με τον κόσμο του (jailbroken και μη) iPhone.

Σε αυτό το post θα δούμε πως μπορείτε να φτιάξετε το δικό σας Twitter-like χώρο στο internets για την παρέα σας ή ακόμη και για τη δουλειά σας. Είναι αρκετά απλό και εύκολο ως προς την κατασκευή και διαχείρισή του.  Για να το φτιάξουμε, θα χρειαστούμε οπωσδήποτε μια WordPress installation. Οπότε, εάν έχετε κάποιο private hosting μπορείτε να φτιάξετε ένα subdomain και να εγκαταστήσετε (και) εκεί το WordPress, αντίθετα εάν δεν έχετε κάποιο hosting plan, ένα WordPress.com blog μας καλύπτει απόλυτα.

Ιδέα για όλο αυτό την κλειστού τύπου επικοινωνία ενώ υπάρχει το Facebook, Twitter κ.α. ήταν το ίδιο το P2 theme που με το που είδα σκέφτηκα ότι θα ήταν αρκετά χρήσιμο εάν το φτιάξω για την παρέα μου μόνο – για να έχουμε ακόμη πιο προσωπικό χώρο απ’ το Facebook, ώστε να επικοινωνούμε μεταξύ μας.

Αρχικά εγκαθιστούμε το καινούργιο WordPress στο subdomain που έχουμε κάνει ή δημιουργούμε το WordPress.com blog – ανάλογα με την περίπτωση του καθενός. Οδηγίες πως να εγκαταστήσετε το WordPress μέσω FTP εάν δεν ξέρετε ήδη θα βρείτε στο πολύ καλό codex της WordPress.

Αφού λοιπόν εγκατασταθεί το WordPress / δημιουργήσατε το blog, πρέπει να επιλέξουμε το theme. Το οποίο theme, είναι το ίδιο το Twitter-like module. Όπου χωρίς να είστε στο /wp-admin backend του blog γράφετε τα μικρά posts-statuses σας και τα βλέπουν οι υπόλοιποι φίλοι σας με την υποστήριξη tag, replies/comments και edit. Το πως θα το χαρακτηρίσετε, δηλαδή εάν μοιάζει τελικά στα Facebook statuses ή στα tweets του Twitter είναι δικό σας θέμα. Το ποιο σημαντικό feature του είναι το real-time update του, δηλαδή κάθε φορά που γράφει κάποιος ένα καινούργιο post ή comment/reply δεν θα χρειάζεται να πατήσετε F5 ή refresh γιατί απλά το φορτώνει αυτόματα μέσω AJAX. Για την ιστορία το theme λέγεται P2 και είναι δημιουργία της ίδιας της Automattic και του Matt για την ενδοεταιρική επικοινωνία. Ενδιαφέρον, right?

Λοιπόν, το P2 theme μπορείτε να το κατεβάσετε από το αντίστοιχο theme directory του WordPress. Ακόμη, μπορείτε να διαβάσετε την αναλυτική παρουσίασή του από την Heather και τέλος, το post του Matt Mullenweg για το πως το ίδιο το theme άλλαξε την Automattic.

Ας περάσουμε όμως τώρα στο σετάρισμα του blog. Επειδή όπως είπαμε το project μας είναι για την παρέα ή για τον κλειστό οικογενειακό κύκλο ή ακόμη και για την δουλειά (όπως στην περίπτωση της Automattic) δεν θέλουμε τρίτοι να μπορούν να γράφουν και στην καλύτερη καν να μη μπορούν να δουν το site.

Το πρώτο θα το πραγματοποιήσουμε πηγαίνοντας στις ρυθμίσεις General του WordPress μας και ξε-τσεκάρουμε το Anyone can register. Στη συνέχεια ενεργοποιούμε τα Atom Publishing και XML-RPC επιλογές από τα Writing Settings. Στο Reading Settings δεν χρειάζεται να αλλάξουμε τίποτα, αλλά στο Discussion Settings ξε-τσεκάρουμε στο πεδίο Before a comment appears τις δύο επιλογές, τσεκάρουμε στο Other comment settings τα Users must be registered and logged in to comment, Comment author must fill out name and e-mail και Break comments into pages. Στα Privacy Settings τσεκάρουμε την δεύτερη επιλογή, I would like to block search engines, but allow normal visitors και τέλος στα Permalinks Settings βάζουμε στο Custom Field αυτή την επιλογή: /%postname%/.

Τώρα αφού επιλέξαμε το Users must be registed and logged in to comment πρέπει να φτιάξουμε αντίστοιχα και το user registration κομμάτι της υπόθεσης. Όπως είπαμε το network αυτό θέλουμε να είναι κλειστού κύκλου, άρα δεν θέλουμε να δίνουμε τη δυνατότητα στον οποιονδήποτε να μπορεί να εγγραφεί. Η λύση είναι απλή και λέγεται manual user registering. Δηλαδή – εσείς θα πηγαίνετε στο tab Users > Add new για κάθε νέο μέλος που θέλετε να εγγραφεί. Αφού συμπληρώσετε username, όνομα – επίθετο, email και το password μην ξεχάσετε να τσεκάρετε το Send this password to the new user by email. Το password τώρα φροντίστε να είναι κάτι απλό πχ 1234 ώστε μετά ο κάθε χρήστης από το User > Your Profile να μπορεί να το αλλάξει. Στο πεδίο Role βάλτε Author και είστε έτοιμοι!

Πρακτικά, είστε έτοιμοι να αρχίσετε να γράψετε το πρώτο status και να ξεκινήσει η κουβέντα. Μην ξεχάσετε να βάζετε τα tags σωστά για να είναι εύκολα indexed όλα τα posts στο μέλλον!

Enjoy!

Για όποιες απορίες, ιδέες κλπ, μην διστάσετε να αφήσετε το σχόλιό σας!