WordPress 2.5 introduces a whole new dashboard that features widgets. However, it doesn’t come with a method or re-ordering or removing widgets from your dashboard. So I decided to write one.

Dashboard Widget Manager, currently in alpha/beta, creates a new menu page in the style of the new sidebar widget manager. You can drag to reorder the widgets or even click on “Remove” to hide them on your dashboard.

If you’d like to try it out, you can download it and stick it on your server. Please just make sure to give me feedback!

WordPress 2.5 RC1 is now available for those looking to test it. It’s very stable and should be bug free. Infact, I’m running it on this blog as we speak! :)

However, there’s one “required” plugin for those upgrading — Remove Max Width. Even though I and other users protested, the main developers and designers felt a fixed width of the admin area would be best. However, on my 1600×1200 monitor (soon to be even wider at 1920×1200!), that results in TONS of whitespace. This plugin adds some CSS to make it full width again. Very handy.

Ozh has an excellent article on WP 2.5’s new styling features and how easy it is to make your own color scheme.

I’ve updated my Viper’s Video Quicktags plugin to support WordPress 2.5 (out today hopefully) as well as other bugfixes and minor updates.

As always, it’s available for download from WordPress.org.

The latest version of Clean Archives Reloaded is now available.

It’s a complete recode from scratch featuring a queryless (maybe one query in certain cases) generation, the use of jQuery which comes with WordPress (no more MooTools aka moo.fx), and much, much more.

The big thing though is that it’s compatible with WordPress 2.1+. The old version became broken when 2.1.0 came out (or was it 2.3? I can’t remember). Either way, I coded it under WordPress 2.5 (due out Monday) and it should be relatively future proof meaning it won’t break when the next version comes out.

Check it out in action on my archives page!

EDIT: Nevermind. I’ve gone ahead and released the new version.

Do you use my Clean Archives Reloaded plugin? Then please read this post. The rest of you are welcome to as well.

I’m currently recoding the plugin from scratch to use less queries (something like 1/2 as many) and no manual SQL queries, only WordPress functions. What’s this mean for you? Well, it’ll work in WordPress 2.5 due out this Monday (the 10th) and should work infinitely into the future, no matter what part of WordPress changes.

However, I’m also retooling the HTML and styling of the plugin. This is where I need feedback. What markup are you looking for? The old one was a series of <ul>’s while I currently have it as nested lists (a big list with each month as an individual month).

Check out my public sandbox here: http://www.viper007bond.com/tests/clean-archives-reloaded/ (as of the time of this post, it still needs some CSS padding to look better)

You’ll also note that while I’ve kept the expand/collapse feature (it’ll be an option), I’ve gotten rid of the accordion feature. This was by accident, but after taking a look at it, I decided I kinda like it better. It’s also now all powered by jQuery which comes bundled with WordPress rather than MooTools, previously known as moo.fx.

So please, if you use this plugin, please leave feedback on this post as to what you’d like to see in the next version!

Just finished upgrading to a jailbroken copy of 1.1.3 via the official app in Installer.app. It worked like a charm with no hitches whatsoever! Woot! It kept all my songs, videos, settings, etc., but I did have to redownload all of my custom applications. Sadly, Summerboard doesn’t let itself install under 1.1.3, but I may be able to hack around it if I can just get SFTP working…

It is really nice to finally see the Webclip for FinalGear in person though:

UPDATE: I was trying to login as “mobile” (the new user that everything runs under in 1.1.3) rather than “root”. SFTP is working fine now and thanks to a hack I found, Summerboard is installed and running! It doesn’t work perfectly with 1.1.3 though as it can’t skin the wallpaper (still black) or the dock, but hey. :)

First, watch the original version (or at least the first 15 seconds or so to get the idea of the video):

Now, watch this hilarious “translated” version:

Additional bonus content!

Did you know that the International Organization for Standardization actually has a standard for how to brew tea? How weird and silly.

Rather than making a couple short posts I’ve been meaning to make, here there are crammed into one post.

• Web Developers: When backing up your computer before formatting, don’t forget to backup your MySQL tables too. Don’t be an idiot like me and loose a lot of your work. Thankfully I remembered to backup all my PHP code and I don’t think there was too much of utter importance in my database, but still, what a flippin’ pain in the ass.
• My New Computer: is awesome. It can play any current game on max settings, including Crysis. I love it and you can see the specs right here.
• Happy New Year: Happy New Year, Merry Christmas, etc. Yeah, I’m lazy and put this off. heh