Matt Mauldin

I am trying to find out if the Blackberry Storm will be coming to AT&T any time soon, and I ran across this post.  It shows an alleged internal talking points document for AT&T sales staff when talking with customers interested in the Storm, which is available only Verizon.  They are trying to convince the customer to stay with AT&T and go with an iPhone instead.  Here’s the doc:

But most of these points are real crap.  Follow along above, and here’s my counterpoints:

1. Maybe multi-touch can enhance some features and keep me from flicking my finger over the touchscreen twice. Big deal.
2. Maybe I can’t get my Storm to fart like the iPhone – I use my phone for business, so that’s probably a good thing.
3. iTunes sucks. Period.
4. The next version of Storm could have Wi-Fi.  I’m patient.
5. 99% of the time, I only want to have data access in about 1/3 of Texas.  If I ever go around the world  it will be for vacation.  I want to leave my data access behind for a few days.
6. Maps huh? I’ve been pleased with the maps on my Curve, and that is the Edge network without Wi-fi.
7. Real HTML, well this one probably isn’t crap.  I use Opera and it works pretty well, but a better mobile browser would be nice.
8. Call with a touch of the finger?  Seriously, all the phones I’ve owned for ten years have that.  It’s called an “answer” button.  And if the real-HTML-browser works well I could care less if it was Safari, Firefox, Opera, or whatever (not IE).

So I agree with one out of eight.

I’m a real fan of AT&T, and was even a customer of Cingular years before that.  I’m not a fan of the iPhone.  And I love the Blackberrys that I have owned.  So overall, I’m waiting for a touchscreen Blackberry with a full QWERTY keyboard, Wi-fi, GPS, and 3G speed offered through AT&T.

Oh, Research In Motion, when will you come through for me?

Popularity: 22% [?]

This blog’s title sounds like a bad Meat Loaf song, but it’s actually easy to set up, works great, saves time, and is pretty freakin’ sweet.

I have lots of social media accounts (twitter, facebook, and identica)  that allow for status updates.   I’m also running chat accounts, which allow for status.  So I finally found a way to update all of these accounts at once from anywhere I can IM.

1. Identi.ca account – There is a setting to manage your Gtalk IM settings to confirm your Gtalk address, and a checkbox setting so that you can post a note it your Identi.ca profile each time you update your Gtalk status.
2. Gtalk buddy list – Add “update@identi.ca” to your buddy list.  Each time you chat, identi.ca adds a dent (aka tweet in identi.ca-speak) to your profile.  (important: do this!)
3. Identi.ca account – Add your twitter account to your Identi.ca settings and check the box to send new notices to your twitter account automatically.
4. Facebook account – Now add the twitter app for your facebook account, and set it to update your facebook status when you tweet.

That’s it. you are done. Your status flow will look like this:

Now you can update your status from the Gtalk client, from the chat in Gmail, from Gtalk on your blackberry/iPhone, or from another client like Pidgin or Digsby.

(By the way, Meat Loaf doesn’t have any bad songs)

Popularity: 81% [?]

Wordpress is one of the most well-developed open-source software packages available on the net today.  I’ve used it for blogging, as a review site or an article directory, as a CMS, and even for a simple e-commerce site.  All of these uses are possible using the stock Wordpress install because of the huge selection of Wordpress plugins.

As of the time I write this post, there were 4,245 plugins available for download in the Wordpress Plugin Directory.  So the question is this: How do you decide which Wordpress plugins to use?

MattMauldin.com runs on WordPress 2.7.1 with quite a bit of custom work, but the main functionality on this site comes from my use of 15 Wordpress plugins (at the moment).

15 Best WordPress Plugins (because I use them)

Akismet – Keep your comments spam free (or damn near) with this plugin.  It will automatically remove comments marked as spam from your comment queue.  This plugin has saved me a ton of time weeding through jibberish, stupid “great post, admin” comments and sale notices at oversea pharmacies.  I mean, come on; I don’t want a stupid Viagra ad running on my website (unless it’s from my own affiliate link).

No Self Pings – This plugin keeps WordPress from sending pings to your own site.  It’s incredibly helpful if you record pingbacks as comments, or if you are trying to manage your internal link juice.

All-in-One SEO Pack – This is the #1 most popular plugin on WordPress.org.  And there’s a reason why: you can manage most of the lacking SEO items for your blog from a single settings page.  Set how your Title and META tags are displayed for each page and post, tag, archive, and category page.  Set the same tags for your home page individually.  Beyond that, you can customize the Title and META tags for each page or post if you choose to.

Google Analytics for WordPress – There are a few other plugins that integrate Google Analytics into your WordPress install, but none are as easy or as configured out-of-the-box as this one.  There’s also a great resource available from Joost de Valk here to help you with some of the more powerful (or complicated) tracking options Google Analytics offers.

Google XML Sitemaps – Keep your XML feed to Google Sitemaps up to date with this easy plugin.  Take some time to set your settings correctly, and then you can forget it – it runs itself.

FeedBurner FeedSmith – Manage your RSS feed with Feedburner.  Then use this plugin to ensure all of the subscribers subscribe through your Feedburner feed so your tracking is accurate.

PS Auto Sitemap – Use this plugin to quickly create a Site Map for your WordPress blog.  It comes installed with several CSS skins you can choose through the admin settings page.  In fact, there are quite a few powerful settings you can choose through the settings page to create a helpful sitemap.

Page Link Manager – Add additional navigation and pagination to your blog.  Although I’ve got an archive, categories, and a tag cloud, I thought it was important to provide the pagination at the bottom of this blog for usability.  The last thing you want is a blog that is difficult to navigate.

WP-PageNavi – This plugin allows you to choose which pages appear in your blog menu if you use the wp_list_pages hook.  It works will with the next plugin.

My Page Order – This plugin provides a drag-and-drop interface for changing the order of your pages.  It’s great to easily manage the menus on your blog.  Use it in combination with the previous plugin and you have almost total control over your blog’s menu.

Simple Tags – Simple Tags offers three powerful new options to manage your tags.

1. Manage your tags: search tags, rename tags, delete, add or edit a tag, change the sort order of your tags, and even see how many times each of your tags are used.
2. Mass Edit your tags: changes tags on multiple posts at once instead of going post by pont – a huge timesaver. and
3. Auto tag: this is by far the most powerful function of this plugin. Choose the tags you expect to repat among your posts and enter them here, then Auto tag will automatically apply them to new posts if they match the headling or content.

Popularity Contest – This plugin scores your posts by calculating the number of comments, links, and a number of other attributes.  You can then show the result in a number of ways.  My footer contains a “Popular Posts” that uses this plugin.  I also use this plugin to help rank my page importance in my XML sitemap.

Twitter Tools – The Twitter Tools plugin is just what I was looking for to integrate my twitter account.  I’ve scheduled a post once per week, early on Monday mornings, that pulls all of my tweets over the past week.  I also use it to post a notification tweet each time I publish a new post.

Contact Form 7 – Create multiple forms with a ton of options for input fields.  You can create forms with text fields, comment boxes, and even CAPTCHA support.  I use it on my contact form, and have used it on other WordPress installs for much more complicated forms with ease.

Note: You will notice that I do not use Sociable.  Instead, I’ve custom coded five social icons that show up inside The Loop beneath each post that allow readers to share my posts on Digg, Delicious, StumbleUpon, Technorati, and Facebook.  The only reason I bypassed Sociable is for style.  In many other instances, I’ve used it and it will work just fine.

If you have a suggested plugin, please comment.

Popularity: 100% [?]

If your job revolves around the internet like mine, then you probably have  amassed a number of email, IM, and social accounts over the past few years to connect to friends and colleagues, or to access certain services.  In my case:

IM: I have a username for chatting through Google Talk, Yahoo & MSN Messengers, and AIM.  I have a number of colleagues and friends who use each chat client, so it is beneficial to have more than one IM login.

Email: I have a gmail account as my primary address, but I also have a Yahoo email address to access Yahoo’s Site Explorer and some of their other services.  I have a hotmail account that serves as my MSN login, and I have a number of email addresses for the blogs and ecommerce sites I run.

Social Networks: Among others, I have a facebook account to stay connected with my friends, a LinkedIn account to keep connected proessionally with current and past coworkers, and a twitter account to tie all of my activities together, from personal, professional, blogging and miscellaneous.

So how do you stay connected with multiple IM accounts, social networking accounts, and a whole host of emails to check every day?

Digsby.

Digsby talks with each of your IM, email, and social accounts above, and I’ve found that really saves me time during the day, while still allowing me to keep up to date with what is going on in my network of connections.

Digsby offers personalization through different skins and window styles.  Choose how you are notified for each account through discreet popups in the corner of your screen, or through sounds.  You can even create a Digsby widget to put on your blog or website so visitors can chat with you directly, even if they don’t have you set as a friend.

You can learn more or download Digsby here.

Popularity: 86% [?]

I’ve read a few recent articles about the eminent death of Firefox from sources such as betanews and PC World.

The question being asked is this: do the speed increases in Google Chrome and IE 8 forecast the demize of Firefox?

Above and beyond any other aspect of the browser war, it’s Firefox’s add-on support and also that huge library of add-on goodies. The huge library of Add-Ons are what make my browsing experience unique, and customized to my own tastes.

• I get to choose the theme that is most appealing to me. Noia 2.0 (eXtreme)
• I keep my bookmarks synced between three different computers. Foxmarks
• All my bookmarks are in a easy-to-use sidebar that hides when not in use. All-in-One Sidebar
• I can control my tabs for multiple windows and how I switch between them. Tab Mix Plus and Fox Tab
• I can easily see search status, PageRank, Alexa Rank, download info and if Google Analytics is installed on the site I’m currently browsing. SearchStatus, Download Statusbar, and GA?.

No other browser offers the level of customization as is available for Firefox. IE’s toolbars (except for the ID Developer toolbar, which is not yet compatible with IE8) are laughable.  Chrome is still so new to he game that they are still lacking some important features. And because of the newness, their addon and plugin options are embarassingly sparse.

With all of this taken into account, I ask myself again, “Is Firefox dead?”

Answer: Not anytime soon.

Popularity: 58% [?]