The first (only?) release candidate for WordPress 2.8 is out, and it was another very smooth update.
Hopefully they can get the final version released within the next few weeks.
Download it yourself, read the release announcement, or see a list of changes since beta 2.
The second beta release of WordPress 2.8 has been released, and we’re now running it live on this blog.
Nothing huge to announce in this release. You can read about the changes since beta 1, or download beta 2 for yourself.
For what it’s worth, it was another silky-smooth upgrade and things seem to be running well!
The latest beta version of WordPress has just been released, so we figured we’d give a shot in a live environment. No major changes, but a whole bunch of small ones. You can check out the full list here.
The upgrade went very quickly and very smoothly, and things seem to be running well.
If you notice any problems with the site, please let me know. Thanks!
It’s a fairly common thing to protect your photos from being hotlinked — shown on another site but still hosted on yours. Bandwidth costs money, and people don’t like to have their hosting abused like that.
A common solution is to configure the server to show the correct image when people are on your site, but show a different image if it’s being shown elsewhere. The “other” image is typically a message along the lines of “this image was stolen from mysite.com”.
The NHL Officials apparently are trying to be proactive and prevent that from happening with the photos they’ve posted of the league officials. Unfortunately, they’ve neglected to include their own site on the “safe” list if people forget to use the www prefix.
Try it for yourself:
Featured Officials — http://www.nhlofficials.com/featured_officials.asp
Featured Officials with “copyrighted image” — http://nhlofficials.com/featured_officials.asp
This leads to two quick points:
1 –Make sure to use proper canonicalization. It’s a big word, but easy to implement. Not only will it help avoid situations like this, it’ll be a small boost to your SEO. The NHL Officials should be doing this already, but they’re obviously not.
2 — Be careful how you protect your photos. For tips on how to do it, just search Google for “hotlink protection” and you’ll find plenty of tutorials.
Another great “Whiteboard Friday” video from Rand at SEOmoz. This one talks about over-optimization and it covers it very well. Check it out:
SEOmoz Whiteboard Friday – On-Site Over Optimization from Scott Willoughby on Vimeo.
The short answer is yes. And no. 
Matt Cutts explains in the video below. In a nutshell, he says they haven’t specifically changed the way social media links count toward your site, but they’re always changing the algorithm and some of the changes certainly could have had an impact. They’ve made about 300-400 changes in the last year, and some of those may have had an effect on the weight of social media links that point to your site.
Anyhow, watch the short video below for Matt’s full answer:
I told you a few days ago how I thought Cool Ray Atlanta was doing some interesting things with Twitter. Turns out they were quite brilliant.
Last Monday I tweeted that I was “Heading home to meet the plumber to fix a leak. Fun Monday morning…“. It was a local guy I’ve used before. Not long after that, @coolrayatlanta tweeted back “@mickmel Always a bummer to take time out of your day for plumbing problems – yuck“. I thought it was very nice, especially that they weren’t trying to push anything, but I thought that was the end of it.
The plumber came on Monday (2.5 hours late) and fixed the leak, but couldn’t get the water heater restarted. We figured we’d let the base of it dry out a bit more and it’d be ok the next day.
Tuesday he had to come back out — the same leak was back. He fixed it again (after being about 3 hours late this time), but still no dice on the water heater. I called GE to get some help, but they tossed me under the bus. Because the 3-month-old water heater had sat in 1/2″ of water, it was now “flooded” and out of warranty. No exceptions. I asked for a suggestions for a local plumber and they gave me one.
I called their suggested plumber, but only got the answering machine (just after 8am). They’d call back “as soon as possible”, but gave no indication of when they’d be open. I hung up.
Now, I need another plumber. Who should I call? Cool Ray was in my head so I gave them a call. They promised to have someone out before noon (which they did) and they did a great job. They worked HARD to get our old water heater going again, but it simply wouldn’t go. They offered a very good deal on a replacement, so we did that. The leak that had been fixed twice by the old plumber was back as well, so they took care of that too.
All told, it was about $700. I hated to spend that to replace a water heater barely 3 months old, but it was still a great experience. Here’s why. They…
All of those are traits that any company should have, but you’ve got to get in the door before you can show them off. A search for “Atlanta Plumber” on Google Maps gives me 3,099 results. Had they not been on Twitter, I almost certainly wouldn’t have called (mathematically speaking).
One simple tweet — just sympathtic, not hard-selling — $700. Brilliant.
I’ve noticed a few interesting people (well, companies) on Twitter recently and thought I’d share.
@PTIShow — I’m a big fan of the ESPN show “PTI” (Parden the Interruption). They recently started a Twitter account and I love the way they use it. Quite focused on the show, with useful information. Some recent tweets:
Topics for today’s show:
Today: Tiger, Calipari/Kentucky, MSU., Nova, UConn & UNC, Seth Curry, LeBron, Guitar Hero, 2 handed bowler, 5GM with Tom Izzo. What else?
Asking for input from users:
Lane Kiffin has agreed to join us for 5GM on Friday’s show. What would you like us to ask him?
Warnings if the show might get bumped:
Just a heads up that if the soccer game on ESPN2 goes into OT today, the WBC moves to ESPN, and PTI gets bumped over to ESPNews.
37 minutes later – Because Man U scored, looks like we’ll be good to go on ESPN at 5:30pm.
Great stuff. Very useful and not overwhelming.
@coolrayatlanta — I’m not in love with this one, but I find it interesting. I tweeted earlier today that I had to go home and meet the plumber. They apparently keep active searches up for things related to their business, because I noticed this a few hours later:
@mickmel Always a bummer to take time out of your day for plumbing problems – yuck
They weren’t trying to sell me anything — just expressing sympathy for my situation and keeping their name fresh in my head. Because they do so much of that (24 tweets in the last couple hours) I’d never follow them, but it’s interesting nonetheless. They seem to have just started doing it (they only have 42 tweets in all), but it’ll be fun to watch and see if that makes a difference.
What other creative ways have you seen businesses use Twitter?
I’ve always shied away from using more than H1 tag on a single page. I’ve assumed that Google would frown upon multiple H1s on a single page. I was wrong.
The video below from Matt Cutts explains Google’s position on it. I may re-look at a few sites where I used an H2 when I really could have used another H1 instead. Good stuff.
As per the official WordPress for iPhone blog, version 1.2 of their app is now available.
Comment moderation, landscape mode, page creation and editing and much more!