coderchris.com

I noticed today that my blog wasn't included in Google blog search, so I set out to find out why.

The reason was google didn't know about it, so I added it to my list of update notification services as this blogcarta post explains how to do: http://www.blogcarta.com/2006/10/17/how-to-ping-google-blog-search/

Oddly enough, though I know what pinging is, how it works, etc. I'd not really thought about/researched wordpress pinging to any great extent, and found out that I was missing a lot!

Firstly, I have a feed burner account (http://www.feedburner.com) and can automate a massive amount of the pinging from there so I turned all that on (see the PingShot option under the Publicize tab).

Secondly this got me thinking about what may be missed as feedburner wasn't pinging them, so I turned to the codex list of ping service (which oddly enough I had been to a number of times before but never used): http://codex.wordpress.org/Update_Services and I added all of these to my list too.

Next I saw the Smart Update Pinger on the codex and downloaded and installed that - It basically improves the pinging wordpress does by default by only pinging services when a new post is published and logging the responses.

And then I started looking at all the other posts that existed about pinging services and who should be pinged when and how. And as I'm tired my head started swimming.

So ultimately, what's needed here? Yes, you've guessed it, another improved plugin.

I shall be writing my own plugin to improve the pinging functionality in wordpress. It will be based on previous work, namely Smart Update Pinger but improve the existing functionality of that by including the following features:

1. Central list of sites to ping automatically updated via webservice, so you're always on top of the game (would be so nice if this wasn't necessary, but hey ho!)
2. Re-ping feature to notify ping services that are temporarily down about your post once they're back up
3. Centralized logging to determine when a service goes off-line for extended periods of time or for good

All of the options will be turned on/off-able for users concerned about privacy.

If the guys who write Smart Update Pinger want to add this functionality in themselves, then fine, please go ahead but please let me know first. otherwise I'll be coding this up in a few days time.

If you want to be informed when the first release of my pinging plugin is made then either subscribe to my feed or leave me a comment

Popularity: 32% [?]

Not everyone has, or wants to have a device that they can read rss feeds on.

A lot of people don't even know what rss feeds are.

A lot of people buy newspapers or magazines every day that only contain 20% of content they're actually interested in.

So, why not setup a service where people can choose feed based news sources in a very non-technical way, and then print them out in a newspaper or newsletter format (they choose a template for it) that they can read while commuting to work or similar.

Handheld feed readers may replace the newspaper in future for some, but if you're like me you'll know that it's still nicer to read articles away from any type of screen and as such a service like this may have some merit.

I don't know the ins and outs of modern printing, costs involved etc, but you could imagine a situation where local printers deliver a personalised daily paper to your door everyday as opposed to the current junk that comes through the letterbox!

Popularity: 4% [?]

I love the idea of springwidgets.com (http://www.springwidgets.com) but everything I'm seeing there takes sooo damn long to load.

If only someone would make a faster loading version - quickwidgets.com or something, then bloggers and site owners everywhere could add some really useful and powerful features to their sites easily and with little penalty on the loading front!

Oh well, another idea for the pot!

Popularity: 4% [?]

I have a lot of ideas for personal projects that either get implemented by a big company (or people better placed to carry them out) before I've had time to do anything about it, or wouldn't get actioned commercially by the company I work for due to time, money or the commercialism of these things.

So as a result I thought I'd setup the Pot O' Ideas and just shout out anything that I think should be done, and that I'd do if I had the time or resources - maybe someone out there has time to pickup the slack - lol.

Popularity: 3% [?]