• Fixed CSS inclusion code: the plugin’s directory can now be renamed to something different than “onAirNow”.
• Song length can now have the format hh:mm:ss, mm:ss or just seconds.
• fixed the timeout logic
• Timeout is delayed by 5 seconds to give the track info a chance to be updated in case of any delay (media player, upload, server).

See the dedicated onAirNow page for more information »

GeoMapLookup — my web application to show the geographical location of an IP address using Google Maps — now provides a download link for .kml files to be used with your copy of Google Earth.

Zoom in on your commenting blog visitors with Commenter Spy the GeoMapLookup integrating WordPress plugin.

New in version 1.7:

• Added widget support so there’s no need to add code to your theme’s PHP files. (thanks David Goldstein)
• Added an option to display the song info only on the homepage.
• Added a link to my onAirNow page through the “On Air Now” title. Thank you for leaving it there!
• Control panel quick link fixed in WordPress 2.1
• some CSS tweaks (line-height)

onAirNow 1.7f (fix-release; 1st March, 2007) changes since version 1.7:

• Fixes a bug which prevented the removal of the title link (thanks go to Dave… again)

See the dedicated onAirNow page for more information »

See the dedicated Commenter Spy page for more information »

There’s only one version for WordPress 2.0.x and 2.1. The only difference on WordPress 2.1 is the lack of any checked category for new posts. Forgetting to set a category will result in an Uncategorized post after all. So deUncategorize still comes in handy to automatically deselect the default category when editing a post after submitting it and assigning the first custom category.

See the dedicated deUncategorize page for more information »

The 1.3 release allows a custom default category to be deselected — obviously a bug.
Thanks go to Ian Murray for pointing it out and suggesting a fix!

deUncategorize 1.3 (January 16th, 2007): changes since version 1.2

• Fixed a bug which prevented the deselecting of a default category that wasn’t the last category listed.

See the dedicated deUncategorize page for more information »

The 1.2 release contains a fix to make this plugin Internet Explorer compatible. (Which I’m pretty sure it was but it must have gotten lost somewhere across the line. I’m a Mac user and use the IE very sparingly…) — Thanks Gideon!

deUncategorize 1.2 (December 6th, 2006): changes since version 1.1a

• Fixed the plugin to work with Internet Explorer (again?).

See the dedicated deUncategorize page for more information »

See the dedicated Commenter Spy page for more information »

This basic WordPress plugin uses JavaScript to change the URL used for the WHOIS request that is triggered by a click on the IP addresses shown on your blog’s Manage → Comments page. This click now queries GeoTool GeoMapLookup — a service to display the geographical location of an IP address using Google Maps.

See the dedicated Commenter Spy page for more information »

The 1.1a release contains only one bugfix to make this plugin Firefox compatible again.

deUncategorize 1.1a (November 1st, 2006): changes since version 1.1

• The plugin now deselects the default category onclick and no longer onmouseup so that the plugin works with Firefox again. (Note to self: always test different browsers/scenarios as you do at work.)

See the dedicated deUncategorize page for more information »

deUncategorize is bloody brilliant [...] Genius! Jo Salmon

The purpose of deUncategorize is to deselect the default category set under Options — Writing (Uncategorized per default) if any other category is selected while writing or editing a post on your WordPress blog.

deUncategorize 1.1 (October 18th, 2006) — this version comes with some small enhancements:

• As of version 1.1 the default category set under Options → Writing is deselected upon selecting a different category (not just the Uncategorized category).
• One DB query less is needed.
• The default category is only deselected on selecting (not deselecting) a different category.

See the dedicated deUncategorize page for more information »

Fear no more: Use deUncategorize and prevent accidental already categorized Uncategorized posts.

The whole purpose of this plugin is to deselect the Uncategorized category while selecting your post’s correct categories.

Download deUncategorize and test it now »

Did You Pass Math is a WordPress plugin that asks the poster of a comment to answer a very simple math question like “Add 7 and 6 to post your comment”. If the correct answer 13 is given DYPM assumes the poster is human. In my modified version a Javascript fills out the correct answer because currently spam bots don’t execute Javascript. (It would be funny though to hack them through this “feature” and thus render them useless.)

I’v noticed the following referrer in my logs (line breaks added)

http://www.google.com/search?hl=uk&
q=%22+%28Add+7+and+6+to+post+your%22&
btnG=%D0%9F%D0%BE%D1%88%D1%83%D0%BA

and instantly knew I had an e-mail in my inbox telling me to moderate the spammer’s comment.

What happened?

To spare you the copy and paste: the search was for ” (Add 7 and 6 to post your” and my blog was the only match. Notice the blank and opening parentheses at the beginning that make this query very inflexible? Tells you about the (hopefully not hugh) success of this method to find blogs for spamming.

Or was the search configured to try many different variations? It would be interesting to know which combinations the spammer(s) tried. Every combination of single digits? Every number from 0 to 10? Was the (very likely automated) search only aiming at the currently used “add” to post question or also at “multiply”, “divide” and “subtract”?

I think it is not that hard to find a different phrase and some different numbers to ask the same question and slip under the spammer’s radar at the moment but it might get harder to do so in the future. I’ll stick to my current setup and see how severe these “attacks” are getting and will report back on new developments.

Be prepared for some comment spam — again.

onAirNow 1.5 (September 3rd, 2006): changes since version 1.4

• Added a new <image> tag that takes the URL of an image and displays it above the song info. Also added the needed CSS.
• Added the song length represented by the <time> tag. onAirNow understands both: time in seconds and the m:s format as song length. If a timeout is specified manually onAirNow first tries to read the song length and use it as timeout and then falls back to the user-set timeout.
• changed <tracknumber> tag to <track>
• changed <filename> tag to <file>
• some code changes

See the dedicated onAirNow page for more information »

onAirNow 1.4 — released today. onAirNow 1.4 is a simple WordPress plugin for displaying information about your currently playing song which is even more flexible than it’s predecessors and has some neat new features:

onAirNow 1.4 (August 22nd, 2006): changes since version 1.3

• If no artist and title info was found inside the pseudo XML of the track info file onAirNow now tries to get the information from the title, the filename and the whole track info file by matching the text against a user-defined pattern. Useful if your streamed music has a title like “Artist - Title (Album).mp3” or simply the ID3 tags are missing and the filename is uploaded. This function handles optional parts (e.g. album is not always given). See admin page for documentation (as always).
• You can now set a timeout after which the track info is treated as outdated (onAirNow assumes you’re no longer listening to the song).
• minor changes
• Thanks to Dave for some ideas!

onAirNow 1.3 (never released): changes since version 1.2

• Added tags for <year>, <tracknumber> and <filename> of your track. (Also changed the AppleScript to include year and track number.)
• Added the ability to display the track number and album year. (New CSS added, too.)
• minor code changes

See the dedicated onAirNow page for more information »

onAirNow 1.2 is released today. It is a simple WordPress plugin for displaying information about your currently playing song with many enhancements over version 1.0. The highlight is the reworked options page and the removal of the output template. Take a look at the screenshot and read the release notes:

onAirNow 1.2 (July 16th, 2006): changes since version 1.1

• Changed the way the HTML is inserted. You need to add the content wrapping tags – <li></li> in most cases – to your theme’s file (e.g. sidebar.php) where you want the track info to appear. This is done to make this plugin more flexible.
• Way better output configuration. See the options page. You can now set the heading and what is displayed before and after artist, title and track.
• Added more div and span tags with IDs for you to style using CSS. Use display: block; to make a span behave almost like a div and display the album information on a new line. See onAirNow.css for more.

onAirNow 1.1 (never released): changes since version 1.0

• Added a simple AppleScript to upload the track info file via FTP. It’s very handy when configured to execute it on the press of a key combination. This way you can control which track info is uploaded. See the script file for more information. DO NOT UPLOAD THE APPLESCRIPT TO YOUR BLOG! YOUR PASSWORD MAY BE PUBLICLY VIEWABLE!
• Added currently playing song below admin user name and options to disable the display of song info on the WordPress Dashboard and below the user name.

See the dedicated onAirNow page for more information »

I’m proud to present to you my first WordPress plugin: onAirNow.
It is a simple WordPress plugin for displaying information about your currently playing song. It reads the track information from a file uploaded with the client-side program of your choice via FTP and displays it where you want it to appear on your blog.

It’s a very simple and functional one because I couldn’t find something like this when my girlfriend asked me to add her currently playing song to her blog. So I did what every man does: programming his first WordPress plugin ;-)

See the dedicated onAirNow page for more information »