I’ve just been using ManageWP beta – the web utility for managing multiple WordPress installations – to delete an obsolete plugin from several of my older blogs. The functionality to delete or deactivate plugins was a much requested feature that was added to the many useful operations that ManageWP can perform for you just a couple of weeks ago, and it really does make this web service indispensable for anybody with more than just a couple of WordPress installations. I was recommending before, but even more so now. The plugin I wanted to deprecate in my installations was called Viper’s Video QuickTags, very handy in it’s day for embedding youtube videos withing blog posts, but that functionality was added into the core WordPress code several versions ago, which renders the plugin redundant for me. Plugins and Themes With ManageWP I could select “plugins and themes” from the sidebar, then chose All Websites, tick plugins, active, and search by keyword: “viper”. That gave me a list of five blogs that still had the old plugin active. I could have deactivated the lot in one fell swoop just like that, but I wanted to make sure all my old posts with videos embedded would still work so, without even leaving the ManageWP dashboard, I went to each affected individual WordPress dashboard in turn, and searched through the posts for the string “[youtube”, that being the way the old plugin recognised source posts needing to have the embed code added. I then removed the shortcodes from each end of the video identifier leaving just the youtube url on one line by itself, which WordPress now interprets as a request to embed video inline. Once the legacy code was removed, I could then deactivate and delete the plugin, leaving me with a nice feeling of having tidied up a longstanding loose end.

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Bob Dylan on his own websites claims the authorities did not censor his setlist for the recent China concerts.

This article titled “Bob Dylan posts web message about China shows” was written by Caspar Llewellyn Smith, for guardian.co.uk on Friday 13th May 2011 18.12 UTC Confounding seasoned Bob Dylan fans, the 69-year old song and dance man has posted a message on his official website addressing the controversy surrounding his concerts in China in April. Dylan has never previously communicated with his followers in this way, but he has now refuted the suggestion that he allowed the Chinese government to censor his setlist.   Several critics – if not all – questioned his motivation, including New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd, who wrote that Dylan “sang his censored set, took his pile of Communist cash and left.”   In response to such accusations, Dylan wrote on bobdylan.com that the Chinese authorities had not refused him permission to play there, and while “according to Mojo magazine the concerts were attended mostly by ex-pats”, there were not many empty seats and this was not true. “If anybody wants to check with any of the concert-goers they will see that it was mostly Chinese young people that came,” he continued.   Dylan added: “The Chinese press did tout me as a 60s icon, however, and posted my picture all over the place with Joan Baez, Che Guevara, Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg. The concert attendees probably wouldn’t have known about any of those people. Regardless, they responded enthusiastically to the songs on my last four or five records. Ask anyone who was there. They were young and my feeling was that they wouldn’t have known my early songs anyway.”   In respect to the idea that the Chinese government vetted the setlist, Dylan wrote: “We played all the songs that we intended to play”.   The singer turns 70 on 24 May, and with an oblique reference to the happy occasion, the sometime author and radio show host concluded this novel missive: “Everybody knows by now that there’s a gazillion books on me either out or coming out in the near future. So I’m encouraging anybody who’s ever met me, heard me or even seen me, to get in on the action and scribble their own book. You never know, somebody might have a great book in them.”

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Can you be a blogger and respectable at the same time? I hope not.

This article titled “Why would councils want to exclude bloggers and tweeters?” was written by Dave Hill, for guardian.co.uk on Friday 11th March 2011 15.00 UTC Local government minister Bob Neill MP (Con) recently wrote to local authorities as follows: “Bloggers, tweeters, residents with their own websites and users of Facebook and YouTube are increasingly a part of the modern world, blurring the lines between professional journalists and the public. There are recent stories about people being ejected from council meetings for blogging, tweeting or filming. This potentially is at odds with the fundamentals of democracy, and I want to encourage all councils to take a welcoming approach to those who want to bring local news stories to a wider audience.” Excellent advice. But some councils have been slow to get the message. These notably include the famous Tory “easyCouncil” of Barnet in north London, whose leader Lynne Hillan told the Barnet Times:   “The current advice according to the constitution does not allow filming in the council chamber … The only thing we will do is consider responsible media requests, and they are the only thing we would allow at this stage … I do not think we would consider a request from bloggers. Only respectable media would be considered.”  The statement raises an array of questions. What defines some parts of the media as “respectable” and “responsible” and others not? Who does the category “blogger” include? Can you be a blogger and respectable at the same time? I’ve a hunch that Councillor Hillan had a certain person in mind. His name is Roger Tichborne, publisher of a blog called Barnet Eye. The Eye campaigns tirelessly against her administration. Its author’s greatest triumph was successfully complaining that a Tory colleague – the quite astounding Brian Coleman – had breached the council’s code of conduct by sending him an abusive email. Tichborne networks with fellow local online citizen journalists – some of theme dissident Barnet Tories – in one of London’s best-blogged boroughs. Following Hillan’s remarks he attended a council committee meeting as a member of the public and filmed it until another Tory councillor ticked him off, unimpressed by the unrespectable blogger’s protesting that he had legal opinion on his side. But the law shouldn’t need to be dragged into this. Neither should those increasingly meaningless distinctions between citizen journalists and the professional media, not least because plenty of the latter are far less “respectable” or “responsible” than plenty of the former. Little love may be lost between Tichborne and the Tories responsible for emptying his bins, but Barnet town hall should still welcome him. It should welcome anyone prepared to sit through deliberations in its democratic chambers and convey these to a wider public either live or later and whether by blogging, tweeting, audio recording, filming or standing on a street corner waving semaphore flags. So should every town hall in the land. In recent weeks public galleries in London and elsewhere have been filled with hecklers ritually denouncing Labour councils in particular for passing on “Tory cuts” in their budgets. Many of the outraged were ignorant, boring and stuffed with cost-free piety, but at least they were there. Mostly, those galleries are close to empty. The same often goes for the press seats. Councils slammed for publishing their own freesheets often plead that their local papers take little notice of what they do. Often, they have a point. Citizen journalists can help to fill the void. Councils wary of licensing the amateur hordes should look to the top tier of local government in the capital. At London’s City Hall, the Thames-side glass bauble that contains London’s mayors, the main debating chamber enshrines in its very seating plan the non-recognition of any amateur-professional distinction. There is no special section for the press. Instead, anyone at all – the Guardian, Mayorwatch, Adam Beinkov, CyberBoris a school student on an educational trip – can liveblog or tweet, and lots of people do. Still photography is discouraged after the first 20 minutes of each session and the use of flash banned, but in both cases the restraints are simply to prevent noise and other distractions. All proceedings are webcast, but if I wanted to point my digicam at Boris Johnson or the assembly members I’d be as free to do so as BBC London’s camera crews so long as I created no disturbance. I’m told a simple principle applies: “It’s a public meeting. It should be public.” Town halls should take Bob Neill’s advice, and do the same. Who knows, the more open their policies, the more numerous, civil, varied and well-informed those in their public galleries might become, to the benefit of the voters they serve. How could they lose?

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What’s becoming of the online world when The Guardian writes about  Google algorithm changes?

This article titled “Google demotes ‘low-quality’ websites in search overhaul” was written by Josh Halliday, for guardian.co.uk on Friday 25th February 2011 11.51 UTC Google is making a “pretty big” change that will demote “low-quality” or “shallow” websites from online search engine results, in a move designed to tackle so-called “content farms”.   The change, which will affect around 12% of Google search queries in the US, follows pressure from the media industry and many of its users.   Although Google did not specify which sites would be affected, the search engine has come under fire for allowing content farm sites like Demand Media – which produces thousands of articles a day based on popular search terms – to “pollute” its results.   “This update is designed to reduce rankings for low-quality sites – sites which are low-value add for users, copy content from other websites or sites that are just not very useful,” said Amit Singhal, a Google fellow, and Matt Cutts, head of the company’s spam-fighting team, wrote in a blog post late on Thursday.   “At the same time, it will provide better rankings for high-quality sites — sites with original content and information such as research, in-depth reports, thoughtful analysis and so on.”   The move is Google’s biggest yet in responding to growing criticism over the relevancy of the world’s most popular search engine. It vowed to address the concerns in January.   Last week Google launched an extension to its Chrome web browser allowing users to set up a “personal blacklist” of sites that would no longer appear in their search results. Google said 83% of the “top dozen or so” sites which most often featured on the blacklist were demoted with its algorithm change.   Responding to Google’s announcement, Demand Media’s executive vice president, Larry Fitzgibbon, said: “As might be expected, a content library as diverse as ours saw some content go up and some go down in Google search results.   “This is consistent with what Google discussed on their blog post. It’s impossible to speculate how these or any changes made by Google impact any online business in the long term – but at this point in time, we haven’t seen a material net impact on our content and media business.”   The move will also be seen as part of Google’s wider attempt to woo news organisations and other “high-quality” content producers. Some publishers’ content had slipped down Google search results as content farms rose in prominence.   Last week Google unveiled plans for its One Pass online charging service for newspapers and magazines, just a day after Apple unveiled a rival internet payment offering for publishers.

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This year I shall be conducting at least two experiments in location indepndent working and this post is about the first episode, so far. Location independent working has been a long term goal of mine for many years. I’d like to be able to enjoy an optimum climate by migrating in tune with the seasons, do a lot of continuous touring, and be able to take advantage of property letting opportunities. I’m in the middle of my first week long experiment working from a location independent from my usual home and workplace. It’s supposed to be a gentle introduction to the practice, but has turned out to be considerably harder than I anticipated. I’m actually at my mother’s house in a small village with no facilities, and with only intermittent and slow internet access. I don’t have my main workstation computer either, but I do have a fairly recent second computer and an EeePC notebook.
The lack of internet is a temporary obstacle, but not the only one. It should be possible to get a USB dongle that supplies some kind of dialup/3G access in most places, albeit much slower than landline broadband in London. At present there are two of us sharing one dongle that only works when the weather is perfect and even then seems to drop back from so called 3G broadband to an ordinary mobile phone 2G connection which is barely usable. We’ve tried different rooms, orientations, and using the dongle with and without an extension cable. Upstairs and downstairs reception seem to be about the same. But like I say, that’s only one aspect of struggling with getting stuff done from another location. It took the first few days just to get used to not being able to work online constantly. I’ve developed some alternative tasks I can get one with, but it’s surprising how when one is writing something, creating rich media content, that in theory sounds like it could be done offline, how frequently you do need to access online services. It’s been a habit built up over many years. Tired of ISP based pop3 email accounts, I shifted to gmail almost as soon as the beta service became available. I maintain working information on private wikis and online documents. My Flickr photostream is more extensive than the iphoto library on any single machine. Reacting to interruptions has been a major stimulus to tackle the tasklist. But the first thing I learned really, was that the physical workspace is so important. I’m not much of a laptop worker so I got set up at a desk with a borrowed monitor which ought to provide a workstation similar to what I have at home. But of course the room just doesn’t feel the same. Things like relative postion to the window and door, and the height of the desk and chair are obvious factors that need to be set up as close as optimum as possible, but things like acoustics, lighting and proximity to whatever else may be going on in the house can become determining issues as to whether it’s possible to get on with productive work or not. I found it better for any kind of writing task that needs a bit of flow, for example, to venture up into the back garden and sit in the shed – sorry. ’summer house’. I used to laugh at the ’shed workers’ who built themselves a cubicle in their own grounds but now I think I can see what makes the idea seem tempting. On the plus side, without the usual online distractions this has provided an opportunity to create some different kinds of content that I might not normallly get around to. I thought I’d do some Screencasts because this is a good way to create video content but then realised that most screencast require an active internet connection, because they are usually demonstrating online tools and techniques. I did manage to think of some functions that are better done by installed offline applications, and image editing is one. Video editing and music production would be others, so there are plenty of tutorial ‘how to’ screencasts that can be created in these circumstances. The other thing is to write lengthy pieces of narrative that depend mainly on previous experience and life history – autobiographical storytelling. I don’t seem to have done much of that yet though. So the internet connection, such as it is, can be used just to keep reassured that there is nothing untoward going on out there with my websites that might need urgent attention. Once I’ve got used to that, the compulsion to keep checking stuff should subside and I’ll be able to concentrate for longer periods on the offline tasks that can be progressed in between real world distractions. Location Independent living is a promise that has been enabled through new technologies but is a practice that requires a lot more than technical skills to get right.

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Free FTP Client Software for Windows Filezilla is a free and open source FTP client software program used for connnecting to a webserver to update websites. Here’s a short tutorial video which deals with downloading, setting up and connecting Filezilla FTP to a website. I describe the twin pane approach, and show you how to download a website file, edit it , test and then re-upload so the new version is live on your website.
This Filezilla video can be watched from right here below as an embedded YouTube video, do try the HD (High Definition) and full screen options:

Or you can download the full original 84Mb video file onto your computer using the free file hosting service at divshare: Download Filezilla FTP Video Tutorial Filezilla FTP client software is available in Windows, Mac OS X and Linux versions.

Good alternative FTP clients apart from Filezilla are Cute FTP for Windows and Mac (small charge) , and on a Mac there are also Fetch and Cyberduck.

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