WordCamps Update

Sunday, July 12th, 2015 at 11:12 
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Last week saw the halfway point for 2015, yay! This seems like a good time to update you on WordCamp happenings in the first half of this year.

There have been 39 WordCamps in 2015 so far, with events organized in 17 different countries and on 5 continents. More than 14,000 people have registered for WordCamp tickets so far this year, isn’t that amazing?

WordCamp Europe was held in Seville, Spain just a few weeks ago, with close to 1,000 registered participants and over 500 live stream participants. You can watch  Matt Mullenweg’s keynote Q&A session from WordCamp Europe right now on WordPress.tv.

WordPress.tv has published 537 videos so far in 2015 from WordCamps around the world. Some of the more popular 2015 WordCamp talks on WordPress.tv include Tammie Lister: Theme, Don’t Be My Everything from WordCamp Maui, Jenny Munn: SEO for 2015 – What’s In, What’s Out and How to Be In It to Win It (For Good) from WordCamp Atlanta, Fabrice Ducarme: Les Constructeurs de Page pour WordPress from WordCamp Paris, Ben Furfie: How to Value Price Websites from WordCamp London, and Morten Rand-Hendriksen: Building Themes From Scratch Using Underscores (_S) from WordCamp Seattle. Check them out!

Lots of great WordCamps are still to come

WordCamp US is currently in pre-planning, in the process of deciding on a host city. The following cities have proposed themselves as a great place to host the first WordCamp US: Chattanooga, Chicago, Detroit, Orlando, Philadelphia, and Phoenix. It’s possible the first WordCamp US will be held in 2016 so we can organize the best first WordCamp US imaginable.

At this time, there are 28 WordCamps, in 9 different countries, that have announced their dates for the rest of 2015. Twelve of these have tickets on sale:

The other 16 events don’t have tickets on sale yet, but they’ve set their dates! Subscribe to the sites to find out when registration opens:

On top of all those exciting community events, there are 26 WordCamps in pre-planning as they look for the right event space.  If you have a great idea for a free or cheap WordCamp venue in any of the below locations, get in touch with the organizers through the WordCamp sites:

Don’t see your city on the list, but yearning for a local WordCamp? WordCamps are organized by local volunteers from the WordPress community, and we have a whole team of people to support new organizers setting up a first-time WordCamp. If you want to bring WordCamp to town, check out how you can become a WordCamp organizer!

WordPress News

Brief Update

Monday, May 27th, 2013 at 11:11 
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I just wanted everyone to know I have a bunch of small tweaks in the queue for the Semiologic Reloaded theme and plugins such as Google Analytics, XML Sitemaps and Sem-Cache.  I'm going to try and get these pushed out over the next week.

The next big task will be testing and certifying everything against the upcoming WordPress 3.6 release.  I don't anticipate any major surprises but one never knows until things are tested.   I have been encouraged by how well the WordPress 3.5 updates went for people and the lack of issues reported (knock on wood).

This all brings up the issue of sales and renewals.  I had updated many subscriptions to expire the end of the May to allow those who had renewed over the past few years the ability to obtain the latest updates.   With May coming to a close (where does the time go?), I need to give some serious thought about renewals over this holiday weekend.

As always, thank you for your continued support of Semiologic!

Mike

 

Semiologic

An update on the Google bar

Friday, February 10th, 2012 at 10:02 
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Two months ago, we announced our plans to roll out a new design for the Google bar. Our goal was to create a beautifully simple and intuitive experience across Google. Based on your feedback, we realized there were some elements of the new bar that we could improve, and with that in mind, we’re introducing an updated version that we believe will provide a better experience.

The new design retains many of the feature changes we made in November that proved popular, including a unified search box and Google+ sharing and notifications across Google. The biggest change is that we’ve replaced the drop-down Google menu with a consistent and expanded set of links running across the top of the page.

We'll be rolling out this new version of the Google bar over the next few weeks. In the meantime, we invite you to read about the new design in our Help Center, and send us your feedback.

Posted by Eddie Kessler, Technical Lead


The Official Google Blog

Google+ Hangouts: going beyond the status update

Saturday, December 31st, 2011 at 10:02 
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All too often, physical distance and frantic schedules get in the way of spending time together, especially during the holidays. But you know what? They don't have to.

With Google+ Hangouts, you can go beyond “status updates,” and connect with the people you care about using multi-person video. For free. And today we're rolling out a number of improvements that make it even easier to say hello to your loved ones, face-to-face-to-face.

Upgrade any conversation from long-form to live
Certain posts act as kindling for face-to-face interaction. Suppose your sister gets engaged, or your roommate lands a job, or your favorite singer shares their concert schedule. You can obviously write comments back and forth, but it's moments like these when you really want to connect in person. That's why we're making it easy to start a hangout from any post on Google+.

Just click "Hangout" underneath a post that you’re passionate about, and we’ll add your invitation to the comments. If others are hanging out already, you'll see their invitation in the comments as well.

Starting a hangout on a post (left); Joining a hangout already in progress (right)

The desire to “go live” isn’t limited to your desktop computer, of course, so we’re also bringing hangouts to Google+ Messenger on mobile devices. Simply tap the new hangout icon when the time is right, and you'll flip from text and photos to smiles and laughter.

Google+ Messenger: tap once to start a hangout (left); tap again to continue typing (right)

The new Google+ app will be available in Android Market within a few days, and it’s coming soon to the App Store.

Broadcast and record what matters most
The Black Eyed Peas, the Dalai Lama and even the Muppets have all used Hangouts On Air to share their performances and peace talks with the world. On Air is still under active development, but today we’re doing three things to get us closer to general availability:

  • We’re turning it on for hundreds more public figures, celebrities and other Google+ users with large followings
  • We’re making Hangouts On Air completely self-service, so you can broadcast whenever you’re in the mood
  • We’re integrating it with YouTube, so once you’re off the air, we’ll upload a full-length (and private) recording to your account
Starting an On Air hangout (left); Watching an On Air hangout in the stream (right)

To get started, just look for the new “broadcast and record” option after starting a hangout. If you don’t see it yet, then don’t worry: we’re working hard to give everyone the chance to go On Air.

In the meantime, you can still watch or join On Air broadcasts directly from the stream. Just look for the red banner while reading your posts or checking your hair, and you'll know you're in the right place.

Dial-in friends and family, from all over the world
Not everyone has a webcam or a front-facing mobile camera, but that shouldn’t stop them from spending time with the people they’re close to. Fortunately, nearly everyone has a telephone, and today we’re making it possible to dial-in anyone, from almost any country, directly into your hangout. Calls to the U.S. and Canada are free, and international calling rates are super, super low.

Dial-in hangout participants from almost anywhere

Never miss a chance to connect
When friends and family invite you to hang out on Google+, we want to make sure the opportunity doesn’t pass you by. So we’re making active hangouts more accessible in two important ways:

  • On the right-hand side of the stream, you’ll see up to three live hangouts that you can join
  • Whether you’re at your desk or on the go, we'll ring your device and notify you when you’re invited to a hangout
From left to right: live hangouts you can join; desktop notification in chat; mobile notification

Whether it’s sharing baby news, or your niece’s new dance moves, Google+ users continue to use hangouts to build intimate onscreen experiences. We hope these two improvements help you discover more of them, more often.

Have some fun, add some antlers
Back in NMovember, we helped the Google+ community add millions of virtual moustaches to their faces. Now that it’s December we’re introducing a pair of antlers, so by all means, unleash your inner reindeer! Looking ahead, developers will be able to create their own effects using the updated Hangouts API, so stay tuned for lots more fun.

Moustaches in Movember (left); Antlers in December (right)

By bringing people together, face-to-face-to-face, we're hoping to make the world a bit cozier, and lift people's spirits a bit higher. So give hangouts a try this holiday season, and let us know what you think.

Posted by Vic Gundotra, Senior Vice President


The Official Google Blog

An update on Google Health and Google PowerMeter

Monday, June 27th, 2011 at 11:05 
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In the coming months, we’re going to retire two products that didn’t catch on the way we would have hoped, but did serve as influential models: Google Health (retiring January 1, 2012; data available for download through January 1, 2013) and Google PowerMeter (retiring September 16, 2011). Both were based on the idea that with more and better information, people can make smarter choices, whether in regard to managing personal health and wellness, or saving money and conserving energy at home. While they didn't scale as we had hoped, we believe they did highlight the importance of access to information in areas where it’s traditionally been difficult.

We’re making this announcement well in advance to give you plenty of time to download the information you might have stored in either product or to transfer it to another service, and we’re making it easy for you to do it in a variety of formats. More on how that works below.

More broadly, we remain committed as always to helping people around the world access and use information pertinent to them. We’ll continue to pursue this goal and to encourage government and industry to do the same.

Google Health
When we launched Google Health, our goal was to create a service that would give people access to their personal health and wellness information. We wanted to translate our successful consumer-centered approach from other domains to healthcare and have a real impact on the day-to-day health experiences of millions of our users.

Now, with a few years of experience, we’ve observed that Google Health is not having the broad impact that we hoped it would. There has been adoption among certain groups of users like tech-savvy patients and their caregivers, and more recently fitness and wellness enthusiasts. But we haven’t found a way to translate that limited usage into widespread adoption in the daily health routines of millions of people. That’s why we’ve made the difficult decision to discontinue the Google Health service. We’ll continue to operate the Google Health site as usual through January 1, 2012, and we’ll provide an ongoing way for people to download their health data for an additional year beyond that, through January 1, 2013. Any data that remains in Google Health after that point will be permanently deleted.

If you’re a Google Health user, we’ve made it easy for you to retrieve your data from Google Health any time before January 1, 2013. Just go to the site to download your information in any of several formats: you can print and save it, or transfer it to other services that support industry-standard data formats. Available formats include:

  • Printable PDF including all the records in your Google Health profile
  • Industry-standard Continuity of Care Record (CCR) XML that can be imported into other personal health tools such as Microsoft® HealthVault™
  • Comma-separated value (CSV) files that can be imported into spreadsheets and database programs for ongoing tracking and graphing
  • HTML and XML versions of the original “data notices” sent to your Google Health profile by linked data providers
  • A unified ZIP archive that includes all files you’ve uploaded to your profile, plus all of the formats above

Over the coming weeks we’ll also be adding the ability to directly transfer your health data to other services that support the Direct Project protocol, an emerging open standard for efficient health data exchange. And while we’ll discontinue the Google Health service at the beginning of 2012, we’ll keep these download options available for one more year, through the start of 2013. This approach to download and transfer capability is part of Google’s strong commitment to data liberation principles: providing free and easy ways for users to maintain control of their data and move it out of Google’s services at any time.

In the end, while we weren’t able to create the impact we wanted with Google Health, we hope it has raised the visibility of the role of the empowered consumer in their own care. We continue to be strong believers in the role information plays in healthcare and in improving the way people manage their health, and we’re always working to improve our search quality for the millions of users who come to Google every day to get answers to their health and wellness queries.

Google PowerMeter
We first launched Google PowerMeter as a Google.org project to raise awareness about the importance of giving people access to data surrounding their energy usage. Studies show that having simple access to such information helps consumers reduce their energy use by up to 15%; of course, even broader access to this information could help reduce energy use worldwide.

Since our launch, there’s been more attention given to this notion of people easily accessing their energy data. The installation of smart meters and other home energy devices is picking up steam, and states like California and Texas are moving forward to finalize policies and programs in this area. Earlier this month, the White House announced a goal of giving all consumers access to their energy usage in computer-friendly formats as part of a national plan for modernizing the electricity grid.

We’re pleased that PowerMeter has helped demonstrate the importance of this access and created something of a model. However, our efforts have not scaled as quickly as we would like, so we are retiring the service. PowerMeter users will have access to the tool until September 16, 2011. We have made it easy for you to download your data: simply log in to your account and go to "Account Settings” to export to a CSV (Comma Separated Values) file. We will be contacting users directly with more information on this process.

Momentum is building toward making energy information more readily accessible, and it’s exciting to see others drive innovation and pursue opportunities in this important new market. We’re proud of what we’ve accomplished with PowerMeter and look forward to what will develop next in this space.

By helping people make more informed decisions through greater access to more information, we believe Google Health and PowerMeter have been trailblazers in their respective categories. Ultimately though, we want to satisfy the most pressing needs for the greatest number of people. In the case of these two products, our inability to scale has led us to focus our priorities elsewhere.

As always, we welcome your feedback; please share your thoughts and opinions with us at health-feedback@google.com or powermeter-feedback@google.com. We won’t be able to respond to every email, but we promise we’ll listen.

Posted by Aaron Brown, Senior Product Manager, Google Health and Bill Weihl, Green Energy Czar


The Official Google Blog

This security firm will update your Facebook status whilst you’re away

Friday, June 24th, 2011 at 11:42 
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A security firm in the UK has claimed that some of its clients had announced on Facebook or Twitter that they were going on holiday, and subsequently their homes were broken into whilst away.

Now, Chelmsford-based Precreate Solutions has apparently launched a service where it operates ‘virtual updates’ whilst its clients are sunning themselves in the south of France – for a small fee, of course.

The Telegraph reports that the security firm’s director, Gary Jackson, said that “Putting up a Facebook posting of photographs on a beach to 300-400 ‘friends’ is like leaving an advert on your door to a burglar telling him when you will be out.”

The service will apparently use pre-approved messages, updates and tweets, which will be scheduled whilst the client is away.

Whether people will buy into this service or not remains to be seen. It’s clear that some people have had their properties broken into after announcing a big trip away, but then surely the solution is then to not announce on Facebook or Twitter that they’re going away on holiday. If they don’t announce they’re going away, then there’s no need to schedule pseudo-updates.

And besides, a simple free tool such as HootSuite lets users schedule updates for a long time into the future themselves. So in terms of a social networking equivalent of ‘putting your hall-light on a timer’, this is all that’s really required.

TNW Aggregated Feed

Update your Website Optimizer scripts to secure your site

Saturday, May 21st, 2011 at 07:32 
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Earlier this week we notified affected Website Optimizer users of a potential security issue with the Website Optimizer Control Script. If a website or browser has already been compromised by a separate attack, a hacker might also be able to execute malicious code by exploiting a bug in the Website Optimizer Control Script.
We have not seen any evidence indicating that sites using Website Optimizer have been targeted through this bug, but wanted to proactively reach out to site owners. While the probability of this attack is very low, we are urging Website Optimizer users to take action by updating their Control Scripts. We have taken action, so all new experiments created after December 3 are not susceptible.
Any experiments you are currently running need to be updated to fix the issue on your site. Additionally, if you have any Website Optimizer scripts from paused or stopped experiments created before December 3, you should remove or update that code as well.
There are two ways to update your code:
  1. Stop current experiments, remove the old scripts, and create a new experiment.
  2. Update the code on your site directly. We strongly recommend creating a new experiment as it is the simpler method.
Instructions for both methods are available here at the Website Optimizer Help Center.
We’re committed to keeping Website Optimizer secure, and we will proactively work to prevent any future vulnerabilities.


Posted by Trevor Claiborne, Website Optimizer team


Google Website Optimizer Blog

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