Brent Shepherd
Born to Code.
|| Coding- || Tweeting
- || Writing
- || Curating
- || Reading
- == Contact
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Repositories
- An open source eCommerce plugin for WordPress created by WooThemes.1 watcher / Pushed May 17, 12
- WordPress plugin for signup/login using social media providers.9 forks / 23 watchers / Pushed May 16, 12
- The missing PayPal Digital Goods PHP library. Friendly to humans.6 forks / 22 watchers / Pushed May 01, 12
- In a Multisite WordPress, automatically add new users to each of your sites.9 forks / 24 watchers / Pushed Apr 14, 12
- Payment & subscription examples using the PayPal Digital Goods PHP Library.1 fork / 5 watchers / Pushed Apr 12, 12
- Subscription Driven Support for WordPress plugins. Powered by the bbPress plugin, thunder & lightning. Beta.1 fork / 11 watchers / Pushed Apr 10, 12
- Using Grunion Contact Form for WordPress? Make form submissions a little more slick with Grunion Ajax.1 fork / 2 watchers / Pushed Feb 14, 12
- Implements the Chosen jQuery Plugin for WordPress.1 fork / 5 watchers / Pushed Feb 14, 12
- Add a column in the WordPress manage posts table for each of your custom taxonomies2 forks / 2 watchers / Pushed Feb 14, 12
- WP e-Commerce plugin - The most popular e-Commerce solution for WordPress sites.1 watcher / Pushed Jan 11, 12
- Builds on the excellent Bing Maps for WordPress plugin by adding a widget.1 fork / 2 watchers / Pushed Dec 14, 11
- Simple and unified PHP abstraction library for payment gateway integration1 watcher / Pushed Dec 11, 11
- A super simple plugin that offers basic authentication & url hashing to protect a file download link in WordPress.2 forks / 2 watchers / Pushed Aug 29, 11
- A stupendously simple sign-up form for WordPress. So simple signups can only be viewed directly in MySQL. Not for the feint of heart.1 fork / 1 watcher / Pushed Aug 23, 11
- Control who can publish, edit and delete custom post types in WordPress. Silly name, useful plugin.2 forks / 5 watchers / Pushed May 25, 11
- In WordPress, allow a site admin to restrict the non-hierarchical taxonomy items available to other users on their site.1 fork / 1 watcher / Pushed Apr 29, 11
- Restore the skip email notification option on the add users page for site admins.1 fork / 1 watcher / Pushed Apr 15, 11
- Allow site admins to change avatars of users on their site with the IncSub Avatars plugin.1 fork / 1 watcher / Pushed Apr 15, 11
- SimpleModal Login provides a modal Ajax login, registration, and password reset feature for WordPress2 watchers / Pushed Dec 07, 10
- A fork of SimpleModal WordPress Login plugin to support Social Connect and consistently implement login_form & register_form actions.2 forks / 2 watchers / Pushed Nov 24, 10
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Tweets
- @nosgihderf certainly am Fred & I'd love to have you help beta test. Shoot an email to me@brentshepherd.com :-)
- @rmccue oh wow I didn't realise, down the GC highway?
- @rmccue and I doubt the ground is solid enough to tunnel
- @rmccue are actually they doing it? they've been talking about it for decades as far as I understand
- @rmccue @anthonycole yep you're right, I was arguing on bus systems of 10 years ago not today
- @anthonycole @rmccue combined with mobile tech & tracking to give real-time schedules & easier journey planning, it's game set match buses
- @rmccue @anthonycole busways are luxury not standard and really a recent invention - they do change the game though in favour of busses
- @anthonycole @rmccue SEQ's bus system is very sophisticated compared to what it was 10 years ago & to most other cities
- @rmccue do you bus GC to Bris?
- @rmccue true, I haven't ridden buses much since the inception of busways in SEQ - on the occasions I have the ride has been more comfortable
- @anthonycole @rmccue the real advantage with buses is flexibility, which creates complexity, but mobile tech is mitigating that
- @anthonycole @rmccue interesting, I thought the only different between LR & trams was that trams are on the road amidst cars
- @anthonycole @rmccue LR > trams - trams can still get stuck in traffic
- @rmccue true, but I'd also guess busways are more expensive than LR, could be very wrong though
- @rmccue and punctuality - buses are beholden to traffic, light rail isn't
- @rmccue comfort & complexity
- @Japh yeah, I guess the use case is if you're bored it offers suggestions, but we don't get bored, we code haha
- @Japh yep: http://t.co/dbgNAX0q perhaps it's just my limited number of G+ friends though. What do you think of it?
- @Japh just signed up to Schemer - you're dominating it!
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Posts
- Mar 27, 12
Tacking a post_type parameter to any search URL in WordPress filters the search results by a post type. For example: http://example.com/?s=speak+easy&post_type=events Will return only events which include the terms speak and easy. But when setting the post_type parameter to page, something unusual happens. … Continue reading
- Mar 03, 12
When publishing a post on WordPress.com these days, authors receive a new sidebar alongside their post. The most interesting feature in this sidebar is a game-like progress bar. Arbitrary goals are now being set on WordPress.com to encourage blogging. Publish … Continue reading
- Mar 03, 12
The Greeks used fire beacons at the time of the Trojan War, in the twelfth century BC. A bonfire on a mountaintop could be seen from watchtowers twenty miles distant, or in special cases even farther. … The meaning of … Continue reading
- Feb 29, 12
Early on, Graham envisioned this network as a “replacement for the traditional corporation.” “You know what’s great about the YC network? It gives the benefit of being part of a large company without being part of a big company,” Graham … Continue reading
- Oct 27, 11
WordPress 3.1 introduced the best new feature I failed to notice – built-in support for filtering posts by multiple taxonomies. For a post index or custom post type archive, instead of being constrained to queries for one taxonomy like this: … Continue reading
- Jul 11, 11
Recurring Payments with Digital Goods for Express Checkout is the 8 word name PayPal chose for their most convenient subscription product. The verbose name is a good indicator of the API’s complexity. It’s actually quite easy to integrate Digital Goods subscriptions. We … Continue reading
- Jul 01, 11
If you are using the new HTML5 input types like input[type="email"] and input[type="url"], you will discover their automatic validation bubbles in Chrome. Soon after spotting them, you will likely want to change their style. The good news is, Chrome makes selectors available as discussed … Continue reading
- Jun 20, 11
JLB’s presentation at Demo Day makes my inner ad-nerd excited. I love advertising. I don’t mean pop-ups, pop-unders, dog-ears, CPU chewing flash banners and all the other menacing forms it has taken in the last decade. I mean great creative campaigns. Old … Continue reading
- May 31, 11
In 2005, the hacker-saint Paul Graham and other luminaries launched Y Combinator. It was the tectonic shift that set off the incubator tsunami1. Dozens, if not hundreds of incubators have since sprouted in cities around the world. The growth is partly due … Continue reading
- Apr 26, 11
There was a discussion on WPCandy a few weeks ago asking if Tumblr was the new WordPress. Many commenters on the post tout Tumblr’s features, like post formats, as the key to its success. These are only a small part of the … Continue reading
- Apr 26, 11
Ridiculous right? But with $65 billion in cash, such ridiculousness is becoming a real possibility. The NYT notes: acquisition of Facebook remained a remote possibility. … Facebook, which recently raised $1.5 billion in a financing round led by Goldman Sachs … Continue reading
- Apr 26, 11
I recently came across some code which set the priority parameter for an add_action() call to -1000. I’d never seen a negative number, or such a large number used for a WordPress action or filter’s priority. Turns out, it’s actually necessary to use such … Continue reading
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Posts
Transformative change happens when industries democratize, when they’re ripped from the sole domain of companies, governments, and other institutions and handed over to regular folks. The Internet democratized publishing, broadcasting, and communications, and the consequence was a massive increase in the range of both participation and participants in everything digital — the long tail of bits.
Now the same is happening to manufacturing — the long tail of things.
The story of every company begins with a clever hack. Pick any company, read its history, and I’m pretty sure there will be a well-documented origin story that will define its beginning and involves someone building something new and possibly of unexpected value.
What isn’t documented is the story of every moment before where everyone surrounding the hacker asked, “Why the hell are doing you that?”, “Why would you take the risk with so little reward?”, or “Why are you wasting your time?”
What’s not documented are the nine spectacular failures the hacker survived before they built one success.
Hackers are allergic to process not because they don’t understand the value; they’re allergic to it because it violates their core values.
In the future, we’ll see more of the opposite: everyday objects that already exist (like glasses) or spaces (like a room) that have technology built into them. As the functionality of gadgets becomes built into these everyday objects, the gadgets themselves start to become irrelevant.
Are Google Glasses the Beginning of the End of Gadgets? http://www.forbes.com/sites/julietbarbara/2012/03/03/are-google-glasses-the-beginning-of-the-end-of-gadgets/This report recommends the following actions be taken.
- Put a personal manufacturing lab in every school
An excellent recommendation.
The fall in the prices for these units is part of what is so stunning and promising about these devices. MakerBot is now selling fully assembled units of its Thing-O-Matic 3D Printer (gotta love the names for these things) for just $2,500. eMAKER had a special promotional offer of just $475 for kits of its Huxley RepRap. And a new entry called the Ultimaker is apparently more compact and faster than the Thing-O-Matic, can print larger objects and sells for $1,700 plus shipping. Wohler Associates, a consulting firm that tracks additive manufacturing, foresees that 3D printers costing only $75 or so could be making children’s toys in a few years.
Yet Wohler also questions whether fabbers will really become common home appliances any time soon: even if the price seems right, most consumers may not have the skills or interest sufficient to maintain and operate the devices—especially not if conventional manufacturers and fab-for-hire services can provide desired products more easily and at a desirable price.
The Latest in 3D Printing: The Era of Downloadable Objects | Retort
Enter P2P manufacturing marketplaces.
Wired’s Danger Room interviews Marc Ambinder, a former reporter for The Atlantic and National Journal, who’s just written a book on JSOC, or Joint Special Operations Command. The whole interview is fascinating.
Here, Ambinder describes JSOC’s intelligence gathering tactics, which take a page from journalism, detective work, and data science:
DR: What were some of the intelligence tactics that JSOC would use?
MA: Some of the tactics were as simple as equipping your tier-one operators — i.e., a Delta Force shooter or a SEAL Team Six demolition expert, the elite of the elite — with a camera. Instead of rounding up insurgents, bringing them to one area of a house, they’d have pictures of them exactly where they are, and take pictures what they have on them exactly. They’d keep them with their pocket litter until they were processed. And they’d send pictures back in real time to an intelligence fusion center. The main one in Iraq was in Balad but there were others. And you’d have analyst who could use many of various databases that JSOC had access to, and many that JSOC was building. The common metaphor was that you’re building the airplane as it’s taking off. You built all these databases for intelligence and had secret biometrics processes. There were teams of U.S. intelligence officers who were trying to get as many fingerprints, DNA samples and so forth of anyone in Baghdad as they could. The analysts would be able to create link analysis charts from them.
If you captured Abu So-and-So, you’d be able to say within a minute, “Hey, I know your uncle is this person, who we really want to get to. If you can tell me where this person is right now, we’ll give you a break and even let you go.” And often, that would be what Abu So-and-So would do, because it would be in his best interest. Within maybe 20 minutes, JSOC could launch a second raid targeting the uncle of Abu So-and-So.
Such methods have thankfully replaced several forms of torture.
- Content Creep Check-In
An update regarding “content” based businesses:
- Since the original post, Demand Media is down 15% and 3 founders/EVPs have left “coincidentally” at the same time.
- About.com is crumbling, according to recent NYT earning reports. PaidContent’s Jeff Roberts writes, “About.com is in free fall. The New York Times revealed yesterday that its network of information sites suffered a 67% drop in profits and that revenues had fallen by a quarter.”
Pop
These are some damn classy accordions. Be sure to checkout the demo.
Example 1 - 4 would working nicely as a WP plugins, and example 5 could even make a nice WP theme.
Jones Lang LaSalle has ranked Brisbane number 1 in the developed world for expected GDP Growth from 2012 to 2020. Exciting times ahead.
Other tidbits from the Jones Lang LaSalle report:
- 50 percent of global commercial real estate investment is concentrated in only 30 cities;
- 300 cities account for 40% of Global GDP; and
- London is the top city for commercial investment.
In this issue we launch a weekly section devoted to China. It is the first time since we began our detailed coverage of the United States in 1942 that we have singled out a country in this way. The principal reason is that China is now an economic superpower and is fast becoming a military force capable of unsettling America. But our interest in China lies also in its politics: it is governed by a system that is out of step with global norms. In ways that were never true of post-war Japan and may never be true of India, China will both fascinate and agitate the rest of the world for a long time to come.
The Economist is beginning dedicated weekly coverage of China. This article is a succinct overview of why China matters. I heartily suggest you take 5 minutes and read the whole piece. (via dbreunig)Indian cell phone subscribers, of which there are 900 million accounts, have a monthly average revenue per user of $3, which is rock bottom low for even a developing market.
In India, the “missed call” as a means of communication and interaction has developed into a cultural and business norm.
Also:
Missed calls are being incorporated into mobile apps and services as a standard type of messaging like a text or an answered call itself. For example, an Indian cloud telephony service provider startup called KooKoo has been working with a Bangalore-based company to create an information market based around missed calls. If you want to know the latest weather, the latest Groupon-style deal, or the real-time bus schedule, you can send a missed call to the designated number and get an automated or manual voice call back with the answers you need.
(Via GigaOm)
It’s one part foursquare and four parts onesquare,” Mr. Lodwick said.
Exclusive: Jake Lodwick Raises $1-2 M. To Build Elepath, a Software Studio | Betabeat (via rickyv)This is why Jake is awesome.
(via jackzerby)Only time will tell if this represents a new model, or just another sign we’re in a bubble.
the same gene, Pax6, which affects part of the brain associated with approach-related behaviours (the left anterior cingulate cortex, if you really want to know) also induces tissue deficiencies in the iris.
Not the window to the soul, just the peep-hole to personality.
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Posts
- Apr 03, 12
- Mar 01, 12
- Mar 01, 12
- Nov 13, 11
Apple was already one of the hottest tech firms in the country. Everyone in the Valley wanted a piece of it. So Steve Jobs proposed a deal: he would allow Xerox to buy a hundred thousand shares of his company for a million dollars—its highly anticipated I.P.O. was just a year away—if parc would “open its kimono.” A lot of haggling ensued. Jobs was the fox, after all, and parc was the henhouse. What would he be allowed to see? What wouldn’t he be allowed to see? Some at parc thought that the whole idea was lunacy, but, in the end, Xerox went ahead with it. One parc scientist recalls Jobs as “rambunctious”—a fresh-cheeked, caffeinated version of today’s austere digital emperor. He was given a couple of tours, and he ended up standing in front of a Xerox Alto, parc’s prized personal computer.
- Nov 10, 11
- Nov 09, 11
