Here at WordPress.com, we always run the most recent version of the WordPress open source software. In addition, we do custom development so that we can offer features not included in the open source core product (like VideoPress, built-in polls, etc.). Because WordPress.com gets new features implemented as they are developed, we don’t usually talk too much about big version releases. For example, WordPress 2.8 was released recently, but we didn’t announce it here because WordPress.com blogs had already been running the new features (like the new widgets administration panel) before the big open source release occurred.
The open source project is getting started on development of version 2.9, which is expected to launch toward the end of this year. The reason I think it’s worth posting about this here on WordPress.com is that the focus of the 2.9 development is going to be improved media features, and improved media management is one of the most frequently requested things in the support forums, support emails, comments and at WordCamps.
There have been many suggestions for how to improve our media functions, so many that we can’t build all of them at once. For the next couple of days, there is a survey you can take to vote on which media features are the most important to you. This will help us prioritize the development. Are you dying for photo albums? A redesigned uploader? The ability to crop, resize or rotate your images? There are 11 proposed media features listed in the survey for you to rank in order of priority.
Descriptions of each proposed feature are provided at the beginning of the voting survey, so you’ll be sure to know what each what means. Only the first question (pick your top choice) is mandatory. This survey isn’t very long. Question two lets you assign a general high/low priority to each of the 11 feature suggestions, while question 3 asks you to rank the 11 features in order of priority from 1-11. A text box or two allow you to make additional suggestions, and that’s it. The survey is anonymous, and will be open until Friday, July 10, 2009 at 11:59 PM UTC.
Remember National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) back in November? You all used the opportunity to take a swing at churning out a 50,000-word novel on your blogs in only one month — some with great success!
It’s an even more fitting occasion for posting regularly to your blog on the topics that interest you. And maybe the best part is that it starts whenever you want it to! The only objective is to post every day for a month. So why not begin with July? To make it official, sign up here. It’s open to anyone with a blog, anywhere in the world.
The NaBloPoMo team provides a theme for each month, which isn’t mandatory, but is a nice way to gain inspiration that can kick off your daily updates.
Not into that? Then we suggest sticking to the stuff you’ve been blogging about all along — the things you experience and love — with the added caveat of keeping it on the regular.
If you run out of steam, you can always find ways to blog about the dozens of weird celebrations and holidays that take place in July, in addition to Independence Day in the U.S. — like Ice Cream Soda Day, Video Games Day, or Bugs Bunny’s Birthday.
To plug the WordPress community into your endeavor, we suggest using NaBloPoMo09 as a tag on each post you publish to your blog. They’ll show up on the tag results page, which is also a great place to get inspired by your fellow bloggers.
A note: Please refrain from commenting with questions about NaBloPoMo in response to this post. It’s not a WordPress project. Instead, check out their FAQ to learn more about its objectives and requirements.
Last month we launched the Yahoo! App and 360 importer so you can migrate your content to WordPress.com quickly and easily. And we introduced the SocialVibe widget, which helps you earn donations for the charity of your choice. July will bring more feature updates, and more of the themes and customizations you’ve been asking for. We’re listening.
Here are the stats for June:
388,580 blogs were created.
5,845,417 posts were published.
411,540 new users joined.
5,800,941 file uploads.
3,633 gigabytes of new files.
810 terabytes of content transferred from our datacenters.
8,330,617 comments.
6,841,633 logins.
1,245,935,191 pageviews on WordPress.com, and another 1,245,882,985 on self-hosted blogs (2,491,818,176 total across all WordPress blogs we track).
2,153,176 active blogs where “active” means they got a human visitor.
You spend a lot of time creating great content and attracting an audience for your blog. What if you could use that influence to make a positive social impact? Now you can.
We’ve teamed up with SocialVibe, and now by adding the SocialVibe widget to your blog, you are able to earn donations for the charity of your choice by getting sponsored by a brand that appeals to you.
Each time someone visits your blog and engages with your brand (by rating a video, for example), you’re making a difference. That impact is immediately visible on your badge, i..e., ‘My blog has provided 63 cups of clean water for people in need.’
The money donated comes from your brand, so you and your readers never have to pay a dime.
In addition to earning donations, you’ll also get feedback from your charity about the difference they’re making thanks to you. By clicking the charity logo in the badge, you can find information about your cause and view real-time goal progress.
Setup is easy and only takes a few clicks – just go to Appearance->Widgets in your dashboard, add the SocialVibe widget and pick a cause and a charity. For more details you can find documentation in our support area. If you change your mind about your sponsor or cause, you can easily make adjustments by visiting your widget dashboard.
If you are running a self-hosted WordPress blog, be sure to grab the SocialVibe plugin.
With SocialVibe, our community can pool our individual influences to create positive change in the world.
May was also the month for our largest-ever WordCamp San Francisco. Mission Bay Conference Center was a packed house, but (amazingly) everything ran on schedule, and nothing went wrong! A round of applause is due to our sponsors, speakers, and everyone who attended for helping to make WordCamp such a smooth success. Thanks for making it all possible.
WordCamp San Francisco had 739 pre-event registrations (a huge jump from 427 last year), and 789 actual attendees from 32 countries — plus 15 speakers, six sponsors, and lots of volunteers.
I have visited five colleges with my son.He has recently passed the secondary school examination and intends to get admitted in a college of his choice.Everywhere I went,I found large number of students trying to secure admission forms and
depositing the same at the college counters.The numbers of students are very large at all the locations.Students were waiting in very long ques for hours with great patience.Nobody knew what was his fate.But they were very determine to get higher education.I hope the crave for their higher education will be fulfilled.
Blogging has become a way of life nowadays.It is a passion for many peoples.Many creative thought emerges as blogs and published in internet.Some people take pleasure by writing blogs while other groups of people gather enjoyment by reading them.In the mean time some blog writers have become famous for writing blogs.You may be curious on how the word "blog" was coined.Infact,the word was made from the words WEB and LOG where B has been taken from the former and LOG from the latter words.See how a brand new word,'BLOG' was created to conquer the world.It is a matter of great interest to note how the blogging will influence the world of tomorrow.
The first is that we’ve launched a Yahoo! 360 importer (listed in your admin screens under Tools → Import) to make migration from 360 to WordPress.com super easy. Just upload the Yahoo! 360 export ZIP file, and we’ll do the rest. Yahoo! will be shutting down their 360 service soon, so if you have any friends over there feel free to give them a little help and encouragement to head over to WordPress.com
Second is the release of our WordPress.com QuickPress Yahoo! Application. You can post posts and read and moderate your most recent comments straight from My Yahoo!. (Note to any self-hosted WordPress.org folks out there: the app currently only works on WordPress.com. We’re working on making it .com/.org universal.)
Thanks to Yahoo! for their help with their Yahoo! Application Platform, and thanks to all of you for the best blogs on the intertubes.
If you need help with either of these new toys (or anything else), please contact our support team.
Failure is the pillar of success.But,this proverb or saying may be very cruel for many peoples.The shock or trauma may overwhelm the person who has just experienced a failure in his life and he/she may not bear he pain of the failure then.He/she may take various undesirable way to mitigate the pain.You know well what they do and may love to provide some cases for sharing with others.I suggest all persons to kindly to have patience and try to attain success again when the failure has come to test your fate.
The cyclonic storm called "AILA" recently hit large areas of Bangladesh and India.The storm was very fatal.It took away many human lives,domestic animals,crops,fruit gardens,homes and many infrastuctures.It was really a fatal storm.It has left miseries and scars of devastation all around.Peoples falling victim of the storm will take uncertain time to recover from the loss and trauma.Let us find means to support the affected peoples and come forward to assist them.
Comparto con ustedes un video de una exposición que tuve la oportunidad de hacer el año pasado en representación de la Asociación Vientos del Sur, titulada "Participación Juvenil y Nuevas Tecnologías".
En mi exposición abordo someramente conceptos y herramientas útiles para el trabajo de las ONGs juveniles.
Web 2.0, Ciberactivismo, los nativos digitales, el poder de los Blogs, los Wikis, las mal llamadas redes sociales, entre otros temas están incluidos en este resumen de menos de 10 minutos (la exposición original duró 30 minutos)
Gracias a Gastón por realizar la filmación y a Nacho por convertirla a formato digital.
A quienes les interese la relación entre participación, juventud e internet, los invito a leer un artículo que escribí el año pasado para un dossier sobre "juventud y TICs" para el Portal de Juventud de América Latina y el Caribe, clickeando acá
All research is specific, whether you conduct ethnographic or questionnaire research, the first thing you do is describe a process or investigate a relationship among some variables in a population. To get from description to
theory is a big leap and involves asking " What causes the phenomenon in the first place?" The question I posed fellow students is; how far can we take the Freedom of Speech? And what is child pornography?
My purpose is also to show you the danger of using children as sex objects, and the general apathy or acceptance American and Dutch culture has toward these sexual portrayals of children through literature, art, and erotica. Art is not the core issue of my research, but this is a way to soften public resolve. Sexual portrayals of children are common in bookstores, sex shops, video stores, and in private collections, even museums, which may at times be described as art and thus legal. Because of the liberal stand the Netherlands takes on matters of sexual issues, as described later, there could be questionable material concerning young children and adolescents sold directly to anybody in sex shops or video stores anywhere in the country, or on the Internet, internationally, affecting all of us and our children.
It was important to see what was being done in the country about this subject because of its international impact on child sex trade. There was some questions raised to me about the validity of this research because a non-government organization (NGO) is not ‘scientific”. In fact I found that they are the one of the only sources that take an active role in combating the child sex trade, whether it be in a democratic “Western” country or poor country and their resources are based upon fact, and detailed research. As a student doing this solo research project in two countries I also faced obstacles such as funding, and professors willing to work with me on this subject.
Permission was granted by Dutch International NGO’s to conduct interviews, but was denied by GWAK, a new special police force in the Netherlands to combat child sexual exploitation, although I did interview a new special Child Pornography Unit on the telephone. The NGO’s that I have interviewed from were; ECPAT (End Child Prostitution, Child Pornography, and Trafficking in Children for Sexual Purposes), Defense for Children International, Terres des Hommes, ChildRight, and a government supported scientific institute in the Netherlands; the Verwey Jonker Instituute. Almost all of these groups are a part of international organizations that work along with the United Nations as well as the Ministry of Justice in the Netherlands, and especially with the Convention of the Rights of the Child. I think it is very important how each of these NGO’s look into the problem of child exploitation, namely child pornography in the Netherlands.
Feelings about the Subject
I have found in doing research many uninformed democratic citizens believe in the idea child pornography is protected by the Freedom of Speech. Child pornography is not protected by the Freedom of Speech, as children must deal with the permanency, longevity, and circulation of the record of the crime long after the act (106th Congress, 1996). This I also feel is true as in one case, that is close to me, the charges were dropped and the thousands were never found of one "collector" pedophile, who was never held in jail for using 4 female children for his own purposes.
In cultural anthropology, unobtrusive observation includes all methods for studying behavior where informants don't know that they are being studied. My methods involve unobtrusive questions or observations of American students and Dutch students at New Mexico State University, and in the Netherlands at Leiden University from August 1997 through May 2001.
Student reporter, Sylvia Carlson asked New Mexico State University students how they felt about child pornography on the internet and the accessibility of it. Some students felt aggression and anger and formed a group to block “censorship.” About five hundred students, the President of NMSU, and the Board of Regents openly expressed how they supported the accessibility of child pornography on the internet at NMSU.
Although my questions aimed at Dutch students were not printed in a school journal, their answers I feel remain important. Do Dutch citizens believe the number of children used in exploitation in Holland is a small number, and is this an important subject to them? When I moved to the Netherlands, my new Dutch housemates and I exchanged ideas about the problem of human rights that are violated in their country, namely child pornography. What follows is a summary of a heated discussion between us that provides an example of a typical social reaction about this subject;
Many of my housemates asked, “Why did you decide to come to the Netherlands?” My answer was, “Well, two years ago while doing research about the problem of child pornography in the United States, I discovered there was an amazing amount of child pornography coming from the Netherlands”.
My roommates replied, “You have been misinformed! There is no one in the Netherlands that is interested in child pornography. It is illegal here! You won’t find any child pornography here if you tried. You are wrong. Now don’t go back to the United States and print lies about our country”. Not to mention violence and aggression, on their part. They felt targeted.
During many discussions with fellow students and professors and while reading academic research in the United States and the Netherlands, I discovered several interesting opinions from democratic students/citizens besides persons with empathy for victims, I would like to share with you:
The person researching the nature and extent of child pornography is actually interested in it for himself/herself!
Children cannot be harmed by child pornography, it can actually benefit their sex life later as adults! "What about PTSD, depression, suicide, and the like?"
Why didn’t I study in Belgium or Thailand? It is not a problem in the Netherlands. "Doesn't happen in my backyard?!Only a third world problem?"
NGO work is not scientifically proven research and therefore not acceptable to use as a resource in an acedemic paper. "Hmm, really? Then get some scientists to work on it."
Child pornography is not an acceptable topic to discuss and there are no classes that teach students about this topic. "Thats why there are 6 million images on the internet, because no one has a clue. Why can't we talk about it? Fear, anger, apathy?"
If the Dutch were to make a hard rule about child pornography, the people actually interested in the material would riot and cause too many problems for the government.
"What about the victims? Don't you think they suffer? Don't they deserve justice?"
People interested in child porno are the same as the people interested in members of the same sex (homosexuals or lesbians)! "Says, what official source?"
The child pornography that is available now has not been recently made, but it is from the 1960's. "Then why does the Department of Justice say there are 6 million images of child pornography online today? People just stopped after 1969? Not in the cases I have read about and personally am affected by."
Child pornography is protected by the Freedom of Speech. "Oh really. Tragically many people believe this. The sad case is trying to be made that child pornography is a human right of certain folks who "need" such things to keep them sane. Very dangerous thinking, indeed."
The nature and extent of child pornography is difficult to understand due to the lack of scientific data.Due to the lack of scientific data about the extent of child pornography in the Netherlands, or we may use the term, the commercial sexual exploitation of children, all of the complexities about this issue cannot be answered. This could also be said for the United States.
You may ask yourself if you stumble upon something questionable; is the photo is this child pornography, or adolescent pornography? Did this adolescent make a mature decision about her employment? Could she have been manipulated? Is this legal? I discovered typical photos found in the advertising sections of a popular adult magazine and teenage porn sold in magazine shops in the train stations in the Netherlands. My purpose will be to show the nature of erotica and child pornography and how difficult it is to define.
The United States also needs to take an example from the Netherlands and sign the Convention of the Rights of the Child. For such a large country there are such few places to report child pornography, and few police organizations that work specifically on the issue, as well as research centers for students who like myself, want to end this crime against our children and children's children.
Recently I traveled several districts of Bangladesh.The time was very critical as the temperature was very high though
some rain was very desirable.We were lucky to see some rain along the trip though constant thunders frightened us.
We saw many cropped fields and fruit gardens along the long way.Flowering plants were showing their gorgeous colors too.
There was paddy fields in some areas.Most of them were harvested recently.Sesame,jute,pulses and many other crops were seen.
Mango trees were bearing diversified varieties of shapes,sizes and colors.Jackfruit,palmyra palm fruit,wax apple were some other fruits on the sight.But we were excited to see the festival of mango on the way.Particularly in Sathkhira we saw many orchards of mango
laden with many varieties of mango.Farmers were selling the HIMSAGAR variety with pleasure.We visited some orchards and enjoyed the beauty of the fruits in the garden.It was a great festival of the celebrated mango.We always love to taste mango and it was a great opportunity for us to see the festival.
