Wired is reporting that YouTube now has a 720p-ish (reports vary on what resolution it truely is, but it’s sure good) video playback support. Even more important, the audio is stereo instead of mono (you can really hear the improved quality).

YouTube’s default video resolution is utter crap (not sure what the resolution is) and the existing higher quality video was 480×360. This new video resolution is 2-3 times as good as the previous “high quality” resolution.

To prove it, here’s some sample videos. The difference is more apparent if you click the fullscreen button, especially if you have a large monitor. Make sure to also have your speakers or headphones on to notice the improved audio quality.

YouTube Default (Low Quality)

YouTube’s Previous High Quality

YouTube’s New HD Quality

I have added support to my Video Quicktags plugin but note that if a video does not have the HD quality version available (99% or more don’t), it will drop back to the lowest quality format. As a result, I don’t recommend making the HD format your default on your blog. Instead, set the quality to 22 like this:

[youtube width="630" height="380" quality="22"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zlfKdbWwruY[/youtube]

UPDATE: WordPress 2.6.5 has been released. This is still no legitimate version 2.6.4 and there never will be.

As of the time of this post, there is no such thing as WordPress 2.6.4. There also likely never will be as 2.7 will be the next version of WordPress assuming no emergency security fixes are needed before it comes out.

If you “upgraded” to “2.6.4″, then you have installed a fake trojan version (full description is here and here), you should delete your wp-admin and wp-includes folders and replace them with fresh copies downloaded from WordPress.org, the official site. If you have a recent database backup from before you upgraded, I would also advise dumping your database and using that backup just to be safe. You should also of course change all of your WordPress user account passwords.

Please be smart when it comes to WordPress! Because it’s so immensely popular, it has become the target of spoofers and hackers. Always type in the URL to the official site (rather than using a link and not paying attention) if you are trying to download the latest version.

Viper’s Video Quicktags works fine, but will need a styling update for it’s admin page.

WordPress Admin Bar will need a fair amount of work. Yes I’m aware it’s fairly broken at the moment.

The rest should probably work fine as they’re fairly simple. If not, please post on that plugin’s homepage with full details.

Thought I’d follow in Ryan’s footsteps and post my personal “Add New Post” screen looks like. I’ll probably end up moving comments to the main column and tweaking the CSS via a plugin to make the categories widget taller though since I have the screen real estate to do it. We’ll see.

Note: the Twitter checkbox is Alex King’s Twitter Tools.

While WordPress 2.7 will be missing the November 10th targeted release date (see the development blog for details on that), Beta 1 is now available for download. Go ahead and check it out, but if you decide to upgrade a site you care about, make sure to back up your database and wp-content folder! I’ve been running 2.7 for quite a while here, but you never know — something could go wrong.

No posts or many plugin updates from me recently. Been very busy working on WordPress 2.7 as well as paid work from existing clients.

This blog is now running the super alpha WordPress 2.7. Please report any problems (namely any plugins that may break) in the comments section of this post.

Note I have not had a chance yet to implement threaded or native paged comments yet.

This is an improvement upon my earlier post on how to keep SVN checkouts automatically up to date.

DD32 used his awesome Googling skills to find this page in the TortoiseSVN docs that talks about automation. Turns out you can launch TortoiseSVN via the command line, have it update the folder(s), and then close when done. So here’s an updated guide.

These instructions are for Vista, but they are likely similar for XP.

1. If you don’t already have TortoiseSVN installed, download and install it.
2. If you don’t already have a copy of WordPress checked out to a folder, do it. WordPress’ in-development SVN URL is http://svn.automattic.com/wordpress/trunk/
3. Start -> Control Panel -> Administrative Tools -> Task Scheduler
4. On the right, click on “Create Task” (not the basic one)
5. Fill out as follows. Paths will likely be different! Click for bigger versions and hover over the images (even when the lightbox is up) to display the comment text.

Done!

To test it to make sure it’s working properly, delete a few non-custom files from your SVN’ed folder. wp-trackback.php, xmlrpc.php, etc. are good test files. Then click on “Task Scheduler Library” in Task Scheduler (it’s on the left), click once on your new task, and then click “Run” on the right-hand side. If it’s working properly, the files your deleted will be restored.

This post has been deprecated as a better method was discovered. Please see this other post for details.

Read the rest of this deprecated post anyway »

At WordCamp Portland right now listening to Lorelle’s presentation. Woot.

UPDATE: 13-14 hours later I’m home. What an awesome day. I’d write more, but I’m burned out and not big on word words anyway. See me on Twitter as well as the #wordcampdx tag for a summary. So totally going next year.