As you may know, our blog farm is made possible by an installation of Wordpress Multiple User (WPMU). The WMPU community is really dedicated to fixing all the bugs and security issues that get reported to them. We’re a part of that community. They’ve released version 2.7.1 which fixes 68 or so technical and security issues in version 2.7. What does this mean for you as an end user? Nothing. You shouldn’t notice any differences on your individual sites. Versino 2.8 is coming out soon with some new enhancements to make your blogging experience more robust enjoyable. As usual, if you would like us to add some functionality to this site, just drop us a line!
New Plugins
To create of a more enjoyable blogging experience, we’ve installed some new plugins that we thought you might like.
- Spam Karma 2 will block multiple forms of comment spam, that regularly impact bloggers everywhere. You’ll have to activate this plugin through the plugins section of your dashboard.
The following plugins are installed automatically. Just click the appropriate buttons on your text editorand you’re ready to go!
- Anarchy Media Player will play any simple href link to mp3, flv, Quicktime mov, mp4, m4v, m4a, m4b, 3gp as well as Windows wmv, avi and asf files, in the appropriate player on your web page. The WordPress versions also add buttons to the Rich Text Editor for embedding Flash swf and Director dcr movies as well as YouTube, Google Video, iFilm, Daily Motion, Revver, Metacafe, MySpace, AppleiTunes iMix and GoEar players.
- Video Quicktags Just simply click one of the new buttons that this plugin adds to the write screen and then paste the URL that the video is located at into the prompt box — easy as that. You can fully configure how the videos are displayed (width, height, colors, alignment on the page) and much more. Will play: YouTube (with playlists), Google Video, Daily Motion, Mimeo, Veoh, Viddler, Metacafe, Blip.tv, Flickr videos, Spike.com MySpaceTV, FLV, MOV, AVI, MPEG and WMV files.
Screenshot
The doors are now open!
Our beta release of our blogging platform went off without a hitch. As of today, the Blogs @ CSU-Global site is now available to all students, faculty and staff at CSU-Global Campus. You must have a csuglobal.org or csuglobal.net email address in order to register for a blog on our site. Other than that, the blogging doors are wide open!
No longer Beta
We’ve upgraded the structure of the blogging platform from WPMU 2.7 Beta to WPMU 2.7. The Beta version worked just fine, but now we’re on the production release. Individual blogs operate on the Wordpress 2.7 platform like they always have.
Beta Release
We’re pleased to announce the beta release of our new blogging platform. You can sign-up to get a free WordPress blog through our system. We are pre-releasing this to faculty and staff (those with a csuglobal.org email address). The plan is to open the system up to students later in the spring. Please keep in mind that this is a beta release. That means support and help will be limited on the user end. We’re currently writing a FAQs page along with some support material for how to use WordPress. If you have suggestions … leave us a note through the Contact page. For those who are starting new blogs, we highly recommend the SpamKarma plugin.
Site Upgrade
We just finished upgrading the infrastructure on which our blogging platform runs. Everything looks the same on the outside, but the inside is all shiny and new and full of administrative goodness. That means a smoother interface for you. This upgrade pushes our time-line back a few days to incorporate some more testing. But … we’re a few days away from releasing this to faculty and staff for our Beta run … so hang in there!
Bouncing Baby Blog
You’ve begged. You’ve pleaded. You’ve been waiting patiently … and now it has finally arrived! Colorado State University-Global Campus’ blogging platform is finally installed. We’re working behind the scenes to do some testing and to add all sorts of blogging goodness. So we’re not quite public yet — but we will be soon. Stay tuned!