Please use the contact form on my website to send me an email if you want to help with testing. I’ll get back in contact with you and keep you updated on the availability of beta versions.

Please note whether you’d like to help test all future releases or just v1.9.

1.8 introduces the ability to modify the text above the form and the labels for the form fields. Also, you can remove the fieldset (the border around the whole form). See more details about the plugin here. As always, if you’ve got comments relating to the plugin, not the release, please comment on the plugin’s page at the link above.

Future releases are going to feature internationalization (i18n) for multiple language support, and integration to support the WP-reCAPTCHA plugin if it’s installed.

Last year, Oracle bought Sun, which had bought MySQL. Which means Oracle owns their biggest competitor in the database market. You can read more details here.

There’s a petition online to keep MySQL developed under the GPL (meaning it continues to be available for free). Please go and sign the petition. Every bit helps.

I was able to figure out enough to get the contact form’s button working, but the way it worked wasn’t ideal. In a perfect world, the button would insert the shortcode in the html editor and an image in the visual editor (much like WordPress already does with flash video, like a youtube embed.

Just hoping somebody stumbles across this.

Why would I do that, you may ask? Because the Simple Contact Form wasn’t simple enough. As crazy simple as shortcode seems to me, this is what I do for a living. It’s my job to think it’s easy and make myself look smart by using highly technical language.

With the click of a button, you can have a fully functioning contact form in any post or page.

And now the release date has arrived.

Of course, I had good reason to release some kind of an update, since the wonderful minds at Automattic just released WordPress 2.9 (Carmen!) a couple of days ago.

Anyway, I’m sure I’ll have to release a new version soon, in a quest to make the plugin ever more accessible.

Please let me know if you have any problems with the plugin, but please post comments on the plugin page so that other people (who may have the same question) can see the discussion.

Two more things: first, if you have any suggestions for future versions, please send them my way, and I’d be happy to put them on the list. After all, I’m making this so that people will use it (and enjoy it).

WordPress won the best open source CMS award for 2009. As if I needed any more reason to like using (and developing in) WordPress! It was nice to see, since I’ve thought (ever since 2.7) that WordPress has infinite potential.

Well, ok. Not infinite. But it is limited only but the programmer’s imagination and skills.

In the latest stable release, I’ve added the ability to customize the subject of the email sent.  You can set a default subject line in the admin page, and you can also set the subject individually in any instance of a form. To set the subject in the shortcode, use the `subject` argument. If you want the subject to include the user’s name and/or email, use %name% or %email% where you want them to go. For more information, see the plugin’s page here.

Basically, I use Chrome for everything, and I use Firefox if I have to debug a script (their web developer add on is really wonderful).  If there’s absolutely no way around it, I’ll use Internet Explorer (damn you, microsoft.com…). As anybody who’s ever designed websites will tell you, IE is EVIL.

And we don’t negotiate with terrorists.

But sometimes the terrorists restrict functionality to proprietary software that doesn’t understand basic web standards.

The plugin will also feature an admin page where you can limit which pages will appear in your menus.

Toodle pip!

The Venue:

Madam’s Organ was a great place. The happy hour (which goes until 8 p.m.) was 1/2 price drinks, so that only served to increase my enjoyment. They had a cool little balcony for smokers which overlooked 18th Street. The decoration was eclectic and very befitting of a blues/jazz club. The darker colors of paint (dark red and black, mostly) worked with the dim lighting (very few overhead lights, candles on the table) to increase the sense of being in the group. One felt like one’s own table was the only thing there.

The upshot of my impressions of the venue are as follows: a great hole-in-the-wall place with an abundance of character. I can’t wait for the next meetup there.

The Meetup:

When I arrived, the meetup had just gotten underway. It was on the second floor of the restaurant and about 8 others had already gathered around a few tables by the window. They were talking about running. This instantly eased my fears that the group might be made up of the quasi-fictitious basement-blogger type. I signed in and grabbed a drink from the bar (don’t worry; I paid).

After a few orders of business (basic rundown of group, who the 10 most active members are), we got to introductions. One thing which delighted me was the ease with which an introduction rocketed into a tangent (“Oh, you’re that Lilu? Awesome!”). I was very pleased to see so many WordPress users there too.

After introductions, we talked about our mission statement (I’m not sure if we ever ratified it, though), and then got to plain old socializing.

It was delightful to meet all the different bloggers that I did. I had a wonderful conversation with a new blogger named Zach on the finer points of web design, and pointed him in the direction of some good resources for learning the basics. I also had a good time talking about the frustrating obsolescence of ColdFusion with a couple of bloggers.

All in all, I had a great time, met a lot of great people, and will definitely be attending more in the future.