TechTicker
educational technology, eLearning & emerging technology

Having just installed OpenOffice on my laptop I was quite surprised to see that extensions are now available for the software. I’m unsure of whether this has always been the case; but it certainly is now.

Of particular interest is the Sun Weblog Publisher 1.1.0. According to the description, the plugin is designed to let OpenOffice users take advantage of the formatting capabilities inherent in the software, and then having done that quickly post the results to their blogs.

Personally speaking this is a really nice option to have. I frequently write blog posts on the train on the way into work in the mornings and then copy and paste the contents into WordPress before publishing it. Unfortunately this often involves reformatting text that previously looked just fine in the original document.

In the case of this plugin you will apparently be able to “use the advanced word processing features of the Writer to create blogs with tables, bullets, hyperlinks, graphics, and spellchecking via the office suite’s spellchecking technology. ”

Documents are created as per normal, then when you’re back online you can quickly publish the post by going to File → Send → To Weblog. You’re then given the option of including a title and category before finalising the post.

The description continues:

“The new Sun Weblog Publisher 1.1 now supports Roller, WordPress, Gerneric ATOM, MovableType (new) and MetaWeblog on servers like WordPress.com (new), Blogger.com, Blogspot.com and Typepad.com (new)”

With this being my very first attempt at this process it remains to be seen what results I’ll have. Let the test begin.

Update: At least this first time through I was only able to publish the post as a draft.  I also discovered after having done that, that there was a fair amount of formatting to correct because it didn’t display very well on screen initially. I’ll experiment with the settings and see if I can improve the process any.  All in all it’s ok, but didn’t improve the posting time any.

A while back a thread emerged in my Facilitating Online Communities course regarding the differences between discussion in forums and email lists and those that occur on or between blogs.  To some, discussion forums were more conducive to indepth discussion than blogs are, and were much easier to follow.  In response to this I posted the following thoughts:

Interestingly I find it far more difficult to keep up with the conversation on discussion forums and email lists than blogs - particularly with respect to the volume of posts that come through. With this google group for example I only manage to read one in 10 messages that comes through (if that) and I feel like I’m really missing out on the conversation.

In that sense I think usage preference really comes into play. It also raises the issue of centralised versus decentralised conversations.

In the case of blogs I think conversations do take place, but it’s of a much different nature than discussion forums. With forums you have one spot where all the activity takes place. In blogs it’s spread across a few or even many different locations. With certain topics it can become what’s known as a “meme” - or a topic that is discussed by numerous people.

I do notice a sort of informal convention with blog-based conversations which is worth mentioning here. Personally speaking, when I have a thought that relates specifically to the post I’m reading - either as feedback, or a suggestion, or an anecdote - I’m likely to leave that as a comment on the post itself. As [a student] was saying, these do tend to be shorter than the blog posts themselves and may not necessarily push the conversation along in a really meaningful way.

However when the content of a post inspires me to in depth reflection I’m more than likely to post something elaborate on my own blog and link to the originating entry as a trackback**. In many ways this does represent an addition to the conversation, but it’s of a much different nature than what you see on discussion forums.

**NB: Trackbacks are notifications sent to the author of a blog indicating someone else has referenced their post. They tend to appear in the comments area as a reference to the new post to help tie the discussions together.

The result in the blogosphere is a conversational “web” in which a topic is being covered and progressed by a decentralised network of bloggers. On the topic of “what constitutes a community” I would argue that edubloggers (bloggers with an educational interest or focus) do constitute a community - but in a much different sense to what most people associate with the term.

So if you can consider blog posts that inform and influence each other as related “conversations”, then the discussions you see in blogging may/could be as considered as considered - or perhaps even more so - than those you see in discussion forums.

That said I can definitely understand why people who favour discussion forums or email lists have an aversion - or at least difficulty acclimating - to the notion if blogs. The whole concept of communication and how conversations take place is inherently different with blogs and in some ways it favours certain usage preferences.

In that sense I think having both blogs and discussion forums/email lists is really important in a course like this, because almost certainly one technology won’t appeal to everyone - so you need to provide a range of
conversational vehicles in order to accommodate the needs and learning preferences of as many people as possible.

The rumours over the last couple of days have proven true it would seem, as Automattic has just released a WordPress blogging application for the iPhone and iPod Touch.

According to the iTunes store:

“Robust but simple to use, the WordPress for iPhone Open Source application allows you to create and edit content on your WordPress blog(s) with support for offline use.”

ReadWriteWeb notes (”WordPress Comes To iPhone“):

The new WordPress App for iPhone supports both WordPress.com installations as well as self-hosted Wordpress.org blogs that are version 2.5.1 and above.

The app includes the following features:

- Embedded Safari previews of posts
- Full support for tags & categories
- Photo support for both camera phone pics and library photos
- Support for multiple blogs
- Ability to password protect a post, save as draft, or mark for later review
- Auto-recovery feature recovers posts interrupted by phone calls

The application can be downloaded from the iTunes store here.

The following video overview has also been made available:

I’ve only just downloaded the free application and have yet to try it out. Personally speaking I find the tiny keys on my iPod Touch quite tedious to use and would much prefer to use my laptop for mobile blogging than hunt-and-peck on an iPhone/iPod Touch. That said, hopefully Automattic will have thought of that and made the keyboard nice and chunky for fat-fingered people like me.

Regardless, this news would seem to offer some significant new abilities in the realm of mobile blogging.

Update: I’ve had more of a play with the application since my initial post and unfortunately it would seem that the keypad hasn’t been changed from the native iPhone/iPod Touch version. This is a shame, since applications such as Twitteriffic have shown that it is possible to enlarge the keypad, thereby making it easier to use.

The ability to include images is a nice touch; as is the option to preview before posting. You also seem to be able to sync a nominated number of your most recent posts for offline viewing. However personally speaking I can’t see myself using this with any regularity - especially for any posts that require elaboration. Using the current keypad configuration will just take too long to prepare anything of expository value.

People live-blogging an event or launch of some sort will almost certainly have an advantage with this application; however for the rest of us we’re arguably just as well off using a text editor and waiting until we can use a standard computer.

I don’t link to Twitter updates nearly as much as I used to - largely because I’m not using Twitter as much as I used to - but one of the headaches of doing so was always how best to reference them. Yes, each update has its own permalink and you can include it as a URL in the post, but given how short Twitter updates are I always felt doing that was wasting the readers’ time.

Alternatively, you could also also just reference the update in its entirety - they are at most only 140 characters after all - but I didn’t like doing that either as I’ve been taught to cite my source and include as much information as possible.

By way of Liz Kolb (lkolb on Twitter), I’ve just become aware of a neat little tool that solves the issue.

Known as TweetPaste, this application enables you to convert the URL of any Twitter update into an embeddable piece of code that, when rendered on screen, closely resembles each update’s unique permalink view as seen Twitter.

Using Liz’s original update as an example, the code snippet would result in the following:

(NB: The link to TweetPaste that Liz included in the update breaks because it’s not meant to have Paste at the end - just http://tweetpaste.net/)

This option is available either as a text field on the TweetPaste site (where the snippet is an i-frame), or as a WordPress plugin.

In the case of the WordPress plugin, bloggers need only follow these directions:

1. Download the plugin
2. Unzip the contents and upload to your /wp-content/plugins folder.
3. Activate the TweetPaste plugin
4. To get the ID of a tweet, read the string of numbers from the end of the tweet URL.
5. Start writing your post, then just type [tweet=x], where x is the ID of the tweet you want to post.
6. Publish and marvel!

The result is an official looking reference to a Twitter update, which includes links to the Twitter user’s profile, how they submitted the update (in this case from the website) as well as links to Twitter users they were sending the update to. Interestingly it doesn’t reference the permalink of the update - the time sent is left as static text.

Having said that, a quick glance at The TweetPaste Weblog indicates the developer is open to feedback on “what features you want added.” Perhaps I’ll suggest they add clickable permalinks.

I’m going to flesh out this topic when time permits, but for the moment I’d like to offer up this discussion in response to Jason Calcanis’ recent statements that “blogging is dead.”

Consider this post a Hail Mary play in the hopes that the Tech Gods may be listening and sympathetic to my wishes.

Wordpress.com needs to start supporting use of the Seesmic plugin and embedded video clips.

As the several posts I’ve written here indicate, I’ve spent the last few months gaining a greater and greater appreciation for the potential and value that Seesmic has to offer - from both user and technical perspectives.  The Alpha video chat application is continuing to pick up speed, having launched a procession of valuable tools and functions that spread it’s capabilities farther and farther outside the confines of the main site.

In the wake of its continuing development, we are starting to see the emergence of a powerful new means of online communication that caters to rapid asynchronous discussion while retaining and in fact injecting the human and non-verbal communicative elements that make face-to-face discussion so much more engaging and immersive than text-based discussion.

Notably this includes the recently launched embed option, which enables users to view the entire thread worth of discussion on a topic as well as submit a response or even create a new Seesmic account - all within the embedded player.

Equally valuable is the plugin for WordPress that enables users to post inline comments that are embedded within the chronological flow of commenting discussion.

Online video is becoming an increasingly ubiquitous component of internet usage today.  However this option is noticeably absent in blogs hosted at WordPress.com

Seesmic Not Supported By WordPress.com

As of this post neither option is available to users of WordPress.com.  The commenting plugin is not an available option, and any attempts to embed Seesmic video clips results in the code snippet being stripped and therefore not playable.

The perhaps disconcerting part about all this is the fact this topic has come up before - amidst calls of support and agreement from the user community - but has thus far received no responses from WordPress of any kind.  Indeed at least on the surface it would seem that discussion of the topic is being actively discouraged.

A forum post called “Seesmic video support?” for example was opened by underleft on 23 February saying:

“Just wondering if it would be possible to request support for seesmic videos.
Seesmic is pretty much a video version of Twitter.”

However the topic was inexplicably closed to new replies with no response - formal or otherwise - from WordPress whatsoever.

A previous thread asking a similar question and which had received over a dozen replies of agreement is no longer returned in the search results.  This would suggest it too was closed and perhaps even deleted without reply.

Email to WP.com Support

Given the vacuum of available information on the fate of Seesmic at WP.com, I’ve just sent an email to WordPress Support seeking clarification.  In this email I stated the following:

Subject: Inquiry on Seesmic embedded clips and/or WP plugin for inline comments

Hi There,

I’ve been following the WP forums for some time now regarding discussion on the Seesmic plugin for WordPress in an attempt to determine when it will be supported, however it would seem the oldest thread has been removed completely - and the only other request closed to replies.

Therefore I wanted to email you directly to find out what the official situation is with respect to the plugin.

I am a passionate user of both WordPress.com and Seesmic and am greatly interested in seeing Seesmic supported on WP.com.  However at the moment I can’t even embed Seesmic clips - let alone use the inline commenting.

Are there plans to support either or both of these two activies?  If so can you tell me when this would be?

If support is not likely to occur ever I’m likely to move my blog to a self-hosted instance of WordPress.  I love the blogging platform and would ideally really like to stick with WP.com.  However my interest use of Seesmic is the main consideration driving the decision making.

Thanks for the assistance.  I look forward to hearing from you.

Kind regards,

Mike Bogle

The Alternatives

In saying all this there are alternatives for users who wish to explore Seesmic in an embedded capacity.

A self-hosted Wordpress blog

First and foremost is a self-hosted instance of WordPress.  I’ve done just that with a testbed on my home server and truly amazed with what is possible in terms of extensibilty and customisation freedom.  The world is your oyster in self-hosted instances.

This comes at a price however, both in a dollar sense as well as that of time.  Getting your own hosted instance requires either paying hosting fees with a provider, or installing and maintaining an instance on a home server.

For many the latter option is perhaps too technical to swallow.  However for the interested users who would like to experiment with the possibilities, I’ve written up a post detailing how to set up your own hosted instance of WordPress - from installing and configuring the webserver itself all the way through the WordPress installation.

View this post here: “Setting up a self-hosted WordPress Blog”

Another blog provider

Unfortunately aside from the self-hosting option the only other possibility would seem to be going with another blog provider alltogether.

Blogger for example supports use of the Disqus 3rd party commenting tool, which includes the Seesmic plugin.  So you’re effectively able to take advantage of video commenting though a slightly different means.

Parting Thoughts

In my case, barring WordPress.com bringing in support for one or both Seesmic activities I’m likely to go with one of the first two options - self-hosting on my own server, or paid hosting through a provider.

My experiences with WordPress.com thus far have been fairly positive, and have served to whet my appetite for the customisation potential that is so ripe for WordPress users.  However I’ve reached the point where the widget, plugin and embedded media restrictions are becoming prohibitive and starting to stand in the way of where I want to go with this blog.

Update: A few hours after sending my inquiry to WordPress.com Support for an official line on Seesmic use I received the following response:

Howdy!
Unfortunately, there is nothing to announce at this time.

I have added your input to our user suggestion library, which is reviewed on a regular basis.

Best,
Anthony

Automattic | WordPress.com

Unfortunately there is little that can be gleamed from the wording of this email.  The one exception is the point about my input being added to their suggestion library.  This is what you tell a user when you have no real information or solution to provide and want to be seen as taking their thoughts seriously.  More often than not though, what this amounts to is a brush off.

When you have good news for a user you given them specifics; when you have bad news, you tell them they’ve been added to the suggestion library.

Realistically the silence here from WordPress speaks volumes.  Users interested in exploring Seesmic functionality on their blog will either need to go without, or go elsewhere.

Update 2: Just to drive this point home, I discussed this topic on Seesmic.  Click on the image for a link to the video, or click here: http://seesmic.com/videos/PZ0ciRaOB9

In WordPress-related development news, mock-ups were release Thursday of BuddyPress, which is an impressive theme for WordPress Multi-User (WPMU) installations that adds a social networking layer to the existing functionality. This includes groups, direct messaging, friends, photo albums and of course a blogging component.

As the BuddyPress website explains:

“The idea of BuddyPress is to take a standard vanilla installation of WordPress MU and turn it into something that represents more of a community building tool, or niche social network.“

According to BuddyPress developer, Andy Peatling (”New BuddyPress Theme“):

“The theme has been designed so that colors and the logo can easily be changed. It has also been created to make use of every BuddyPress feature, theme designers can then cut and paste functionality they’d like in their own themes.

The theme will pass most of the admin area functionality through to the front end. However, all components can still be controlled within the admin area itself. This means simple BuddyPress compatible themes can be created, without having to create designs for each component.

There will be an option to set either the profile or the blog as the default screen for a user.”

I’ve been following these developments very closely and even installed a very early Alpha of the theme a few months ago. Unfortunately my time constraints have prevented close involvement with and evaluation of this project since then, so I haven’t managed to devote any hands-on testing of the development. Rest assured I will be taking the plunge as soon as I possible can.

Based on some of the comments on the post, I’m not the only one chomping at the bit for a play

Chris Pirillo indicated in the comments area of the post that “I’m still planning on deploying it on Lockergnome.com.”

Based on the mock-up screenshots, the functionality slated for inclusion in BuddyPress will make it a strong competitor for other open source projects like Drupal and ELGG, both of which are frequently used to establish the frameworks for online communities.

Furthermore given the fact it’s built upon the existing WordPress framework, use of the BuddyPress theme will offer users phenomenal depth and flexibility in functionality - not the least of which come from the myriad of available plugins.

There are 12 screenshots available on Peatling’s post, so be sure to take a look for a proper look.

References:

• “New BuddyPress Theme“, Andrew Peatling, 12 June 2008
• BuddyPress website - http://buddypress.org

For those of you who aren’t aware, Seesmic is an online video chat tool designed to facilitate multi-user asynchronous discussions. It has quite a passionate and loyal userbase, which seems to be expanding every day and in some ways marks a new generation in use of online video.

Of particular interest is their plugin offering. After a relatively quick installation process bloggers are able to enable video commenting in addition to that of text. Users who read blog posts and wish to comment on them are then given the option to include either a standard text comment or record a video. Selecting record video comment spawns an embedded video window within the page, where they can even create a new Seesmic account if they don’t already have one.

Once they are satisfied with their comment (you can do multiple takes if desired), the video is displayed in the comments area along with the text comments.

Through its incorporation with another application known as Disqus, this plugin is available for several different blog platforms including Blogger/Blogspot, and notably Wordpress. In the case of Disqus this requires the ability to make changes to the blog template.

Unfortunately WordPress.com, which is what I use to power this blog, does not currently support the plugin - either in its standalone form or in conjunction with Disqus - so I’m not currently able to offer this functionality here. I have installed Disqus on my other blog, which is hosted by blogspot, and have had great results from it. So I’ve been trying to set up a WordPress testbed on my home server to evaluate the standalone Seesmic plugin.

Unfortunately so far I’ve been unsuccessful in my installation attempts, and would like to ask for help from anyone who has had success in the installation of this plugin on WordPress.

The Problem

So far I’ve followed the instructions as outlined on the Seesmic Wiki, which instruct users to:

1. Download the Seesmic plugin
2. Unzip the file to your /wp-content/plugins/ directory. If you are uploading to your plugins directory, be sure to upload the entire seesmic-wp-plugin directory (not simply the individual files).
3. Enable the plugin in your dashboard.
4. If you would like to allow people to post a video reply w/out creating a Seesmic account, visit Settings > Seesmic Comments and check Allow anonymous video comments.

I’ve performed the first 2 steps, however when going to the Pluging Management area in the WordPress Dashboard I find the plugin is not displayed. So I’m unable to complete the remaining 2 steps.

I have assumed that by “be sure to upload the entire seesmic-wp-plugin directory” the instructions call for uploading of both the _MacOSX folder as well as the WordPressPlugin directory. Is that right?

I’ve read something about having to enable cURL as well, however this was listed on a non-affiliated blog; so I’m not sure whether it’s true or not.

For the record I’ve managed to install other plugins successfully, so the WP installation I’m using seems to be ok.

I’ve discussed things in a bit more detail on a video I sent through to Seesmic:

“Installation of Seesmic WP Plugin?” - http://seesmic.com/videos/kb75byx0mu

I’ve also added my experiences to a previously reported instance of the issue on the Get Satisfaction website. If you have had - or are having - similar issues with this I encourage you to provide your thoughts and input there as it seems to be the designated support channel for Seesmic.

As soon as I get this figured out I’ll post the solution here.

The Solution

After a tremendous swell of assistance and support from the Seesmic community I have discovered the source of the installation problem and it seems to be related to something in the new version of the Seesmic plugin (version 0.1.3).

Thanks to John in particular for pointing out the fact that version 0.1.1 does work,  I downloaded version 0.1.1 and copied it to the wp-content/plugins/ directory and found the option was now available.  Once activated I was able to post several video messages, which were then made available in the comments area.

Note that there are two sub-folders within the seesmic-wp-plugin_0.1.1.zip, _MACOSX and WordPressPlugin.   You only need to copy the contents of ONE of these to the plugins directory depending on your OS.  My dev server is GNU/Linux based (Ubuntu) and I used the WordPressPlugin folder; I suspect this folder should also be used for Windows Servers.  If you copy the whole folder - multiple folder levels and all - it’s not going to work.

Final Thoughts

This experience was a fantastic example of what Seesmic is capable of - particularly with regards to the community spirit that surrounds it.  My first post was at 8 am this morning, and in the span of 3.5 hours I received 15 responses from some very thoughtful people - all of which combined to solve my problem.  This is in stark contrast to the fact my post to the official support channel for the Seesmic Plugin at Get Satisfaction received not one response in that same time.

For the full thread of the discussion please see my final clip - http://seesmic.com/videos/NQgM7aTAIM - , select view thread (beneath the clip) and the related clips will load in the left-hand side of the page.

References:

• “Installation of Seesmic WP Plugin?“, Mike Bogle, Seesmic (video clip)
• Seesmic website - http://seesmic.com
• Seesmic wiki - http://wiki.seesmic.com
• “Plugin not recognized. Not listed as available plugin to activate!“, Problem report submitted to Get Satisfaction
• Version 0.1.1 of the Seesmic plugin (ZIP File)