This review is part of the 1 Pound Challenge - can you find a decent gadget in a pound shop?

Before I start, I should add that although it’s called an iPhone/iPad Docking Station there is a sticker on the product which states that it doesn’t work with iPads. However, I have tried this with an iPod Touch and it works fine.

This is a glossy white plastic dock. On the top of an iPhone docking connection and the plastic raises up behind this to support the device. Underneath is a white, non-slip pad.  The product looks remarkable similar to Apple’s own, but this doesn’t have the support. And the Apple version is £26.

On the rear is a connector for plugging in your phone’s cable and a headphone socket next to it for audio. However, this doesn’t work unless power is being supplied via the iPhone cable. With the iPhone cable connected you can both charge your device and sync it with your computer.

The device doesn’t look too bad – it’s not brilliantly put together with some rough edges and the non-slip pad being placed crookedly, but overall I don’t really have complaints.

It’s available from Poundland.

Summary of Signalex iPhone/iPad Docking Station

It works well and looks good. The connection are a bit stiff, but that might change over time, and it’s not brilliantly glued together. However, it is just one pound and you’ll need £25 more to buy the Apple version.

Reviewed by David Artiss on 16th May 2012.

Since my Raspberry Pi review I’ve had some comments (and, I suspect, more to come) critisising my poor review of the product. The first one I answered personally but after the second person made different arguements but I would have answered them in an almost identical way I thought a seperate article may be appropriate, explaining in a lot more detail^a.

I’ve removed my original comment and added it into this response. If I get further comments I will reply via an update to this article (or simply pointing them to it if I’ve answered it already).

What’s the Point of the Raspberry Pi?

So, my review. It wasn’t pretty. The hardware is superb for the money and if the review was about that it would have got full marks. However, it wasn’t. The first thing I need to do, though, is explain WHO the Raspberry Pi is aimed at.

The Raspberry Pi Foundation (RPF) is a not-for-profit UK charity. Tax breaks from the UK Government (and hence also the UK taxpayer) allows them to produce the product so cheaply. I’ve twice been on the committee of a charity and have also applied, on the behalf of a charity, for charitable grants.

The Foundation’s charity number is 1129409 and from that I can find their details on the Charity Commission website. To gain charitable status you have to indicate what the purpose of your organisation is, and where that fits in with such a status. This will tell us what and who the Pi was intended for…

THE OBJECT OF THE CHARITY IS TO FURTHER THE ADVANCEMENT OF EDUCATION OF ADULTS AND CHILDREN, PARTICULARLY IN THE FIELD OF COMPUTERS, COMPUTER SCIENCE AND RELATED SUBJECTS

What

• EDUCATION / TRAINING

Who

• CHILDREN / YOUNG PEOPLE
• THE GENERAL PUBLIC / MANKIND

How

• PROVIDES SERVICES
• OTHER CHARITABLE ACTIVITIES

So, the Pi is meant for everybody with the intention of advancing their knowledge in computers. It will do this with education and training via services and other activities.

But Does It Educate?

But, and the crux of my review, is that they have delivered an excellent piece of hardware but with poor software and documentation support. This is hardly “education and training”.

I’m sure both the commentators so far will argue otherwise but both, particularly the first, seem to already be pretty knowledgable in their computer skills and are, therefore, not who the Pi is intended for. The same goes for me – I bought mine for review purposes but also to get both/either of my daughers interested. And it’s because of that latter point that I believe I can state that, so far, RPF are failing. My eldest daugher is nearly 14 and has an interested in computers – Facebook and computer art, mainly. But not at programming or the hardware – both things that the Pi should be able to stimulate an interest in. The former it should be able to do because the hardware is there, present, caseless for all to see. Unfortunately, a lack of documentation means that I couldn’t answer questions on what components do what. Secondly, the poor quality OS and accompnaying software is an immediate turn off for her to try and “tinker”.

Some might try and argue that the basic OS is exactly what people need to get interested but without the documentation to back that up, it’s likely to just be a turn-off. Indeed, even with the documentation, I’d struggle to accept an argument that having to find and install software via the command line is a good thing.

It Was Meant For Developers

One comment suggested that the initial run of 10,000 was meant for developers.

Although in private the RPF may have regarded the release for developers that isn’t what they’ve been saying when they’ve hyping the product launch in advance, with the skill of the next big Batman movie. Sadly, their blog page announcing the launch is now AWOL, but let’s use as an example, the BBC news page for it’s release. RPF have used the BBC extensively throughout the production of their device to develop interest and I am in doubt that they had a close relationship.

There were 4 separate news releases on the BBC site dedicated to it on the day of release, but this is the main one… http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-17190918

Sorry, can’t see evidence that this was launched for developers in mind – it keeps referring to users. In fact, didn’t they give a load, on day of release, to a school? Odd that they’d do this if this was at the early stages and only meant for developers. Personally, I’d have distributed a limited number via the Linux development channels, built up the software to a stable and usable base and then released it.

If the current release of the Pi is meant for developers, RPF have done a terrible job of telling people that. I have 3 friends, none of them Linux developers, and all are thinking about getting one. I guess the message has been lost on them as well as it was on me and, I suspect, an awful lot of the 350,000 people who ordered. And THAT is why an awful lot of people are going to be disappointed and stick the Pi in the back of a cupboard.

Having said all, even if this was a development release, who would you define as “developers”. People who can code? I can, but I’m sure as hell not using the current Raspberry Pi software to do this. The only developers who would be interested are Linux Developers – 10,000 is an awful lot.

How Many People Need to Like It?

Another comments makes a good point – if only a few people are turned off by this, what does it matter? 10,000 have been sold.

The thing is, it doesn’t matter what percentage of the overall total it is, but the percentage of those that the Pi is aimed at. I suspect the majority of people who clamoured to get the initial release probably aren’t those the Pi was aimed at. If only 10% of the 10,000 sold were destined for genuine educational needs and 100% of those have been put off by the software and documentation then that’s a 100% failure rate for the Foundation, no matter how many they may sell.

As the commentator said, “I do suspect that the great majority who placed pre-orders are technically savvy and will not be easily discouraged by its half-baked status”. Exactly.

Command Line is Good For You

The same comment also mentions that he has a vast experience in development and can remember having to “get dirty” with command line and hence can see what the developers of the Pi were trying to do.

From what the RPF have said they’re taking their key from the 80′s micro computers where you’d turn them on and come to a command prompt and, many people, would start programming. The difference is that these computers, the successful ones anyway, would come well documented and with a vast array of easily accessable software. Those that didn’t died on their arse.

In Summary

• The Raspberry Pi is intended to educate people in computers
• It comes with poor software and equally poor documentation
• It’s currently failing, in my view, to fulfil its charitable objectives
• The only people critising my review are computer savvy and not the people this product was aimed at

But, most important of all – if the above changes, whether it be later this year or in a year’s time, I will be happy to re-review the Raspberry Pi.

Ideally, the commentator I’d like to see is a teenager who had no interest in programming, was given a Pi, tinkered, loved it and started to do some developing as a result. They might be the exception, so I wouldn’t be ready to eat my words just yet, but that’s the kind of thing the Pi is intended for. Show me that person and we’ll talk.

1. more detail than I should put in the original review without boring readers to death!

The bare-bones Raspberry Pi board is great for looking at and being generally tactile with technology, but it’s sometimes equally nice to try and keep it away from prying fingers

To this end I decided to see what cases are available for the Pi. Naturally, I turned to eBay and quickly found something that sounded just right – a clear acrylic case that covers the top and bottom but allows full side access to the ports. The bottom piece of acrylic is in the spare of the Raspberry Pi logo and, because it’s clear, you can still see everything. It cost me £8, which included P&P.

I ordered Thursday night and Saturday morning it arrived. There are no instructions with it, but it’s simple enough. You get the 2 pieces of acrylic, 4 plastic “legs” which separate the acrylic (these legs have a notch in them so the circuit board sits on these), 8 screws to hold it all together and 4 rubber feet. All you need it a Philips screwdriver and a couple of spare minutes to put it all together.

It works brilliantly – it’s a bit tight in some places (the SD card is difficult to get in and out, as is the Ethernet cable) but still perfectly usable.

Laser cutter producing the acrylic case - click for larger image

The case is made by SK Pang Electronics in the UK, a company run by Sukkin Pang, who is both the Design Engineer and Director. Sukkin came up with the design for the case himself and uses a laser cutter to manufacture it. Because of a lack of fixing holes in the circuit board (something that Sukkin hopes will be changed in later releases of the Pi!) he came up with the idea of it sitting on the plastic separating legs.

The cases are sold via eBay, Amazon or the SK Pang Electronics website, along with other Raspberry Pi components and other electronic items. They sell a red version of the case, a Pi power supply (very useful!) and special development cases that can house a secondary circuit board next to the main one.

Summary of Raspberry Pi Case

A brilliant case for the Raspberry Pi, showing off the hardware to full effect. The fact that, unlike the Pi, this is both designed and made in the UK is a real bonus.

Reviewed by David Artiss on 14th May 2012.

With a number of plugins under my belt, I’ve collected a number of theories on what you shouldn’t do. All of them are relevant, if light-hearted.

Don’t allow your plugin to rely on third party code

If you do and it doesn’t work (or doesn’t work as the users want) then you’ll be crucified. No matter how much you may argue to your users that it’s not your fault and there’s nothing you can do, that won’t prevent the poor reviews you’ll get as a result.

Take my YouTube Embed plugin – the majority of support queries I get are from people having issues with the way the YouTube Player API works. Not my plugin’s fault, but doesn’t stop me having to constantly answer questions on it.

My Feed List plugin displays RSS feeds by using the in-built WordPress feed parser. However, I regularly get complaints from users who say that their feed output is not updating. It’s not the fault of my plugin and there’s nothing I can do to fix it. Do you really want that hassle?

Don’t write a plugin on a subject that people will argue about

So, you have a great idea. A plugin that counts the number of words in a post. But then the complaints poor in – it’s not counting the words right. You finished the sentence with a word that was split onto the next sentence and it’s not counted it correctly. You get a user who writes in Afro-Spanglish and they count hyphenated words as 2. It’s never ending and you’ll never, ever, get it right.

Pick your plugin topic carefully – something fixed that people can’t argue with. What about a plugin that counts the words in 1 word posts (although if you do, you’ll probably still fall foul of the Afro-Spanglish)?

Pick a subject you actually care about

I will often decide to write a plugin simply because I’m after that functionality myself. That way I actually use it and care for it. Too many plugin developers create something and then leave it to rot.

Dead, useless plugins just give WordPress a bad name. And you don’t want that.

Be careful what words you use in your plugin title

Start your plugin title with “WordPress” or “WP” and you risk looking like an idiot. A WordPress plugin, available at the WordPress plugin repository at WordPress.org and you feel the need to indicate in the title that it’s for WordPress? Amazing.

Equally, and for different reasons, don’t use “Simple” in your title. I used to, and did so to indicate that they were basic plugins – no “singing and dancing”, it just did the job. However, you could also mean simple to suggest that the plugin is really, really easy to use. Both definitions don’t always work at the same time. Whichever reason you choose for using it yourself, you will be soundly berated for the other. In the case of my “Simple” plugins I had more than once occasion when a user angrily complained that they weren’t simple to use. Explaining that it didn’t mean that didn’t help. Multiple meanings = bad.

Don’t write plugin READMEs with next to no detail in it

Unless you link to a web site that covers everything. Unfortunately, there are a large number of plugins that have installation details and, after that, you’re on your own. Writing some instructions for use is not at all difficult and, to be honest, whenever I see such a plugin I’ll move away from it quickly. This is a perfect example.

Don’t use third party support

You’ve written a plugin, under the GPL licence, to be a caring, sharing kind of person. You cared for it, nurtured it and continue to make it better with regular updates. So why in the name of all that’s holey have you handed over support to some money-grabbing third party?

If you want to annoy users, or make them turn away right from the beginning, this is the way to go.

Don’t write a plugin unless you work for Automattic

It’s the only way to get any half decent promotion

Don’t ignore all of the above

As I do.

Raspberry Pi is a novel, brilliant idea. A cheap $25 computer that will help re-invigorate people’s (particularly children’s) interest in computers – the hardware, software and in programming. You can put free versions of Linux onto it, and there would be programming packages available too. There’s no better way to learn about computers than a circuit board that you can look at and explore – indeed it has a number of ports for connecting additional circuits too and they readily promote people trying to expand it’s capabilities further.

However, it’s far more about fixing the UK computer programming situation in schools, as that could be remedied by simply adding it to the curriculum (as it is being) and installing the same programming packages on the schools’ existing PCs. As Raspberry Pi themselves state…

We don’t think that the Raspberry Pi is a fix to all of the world’s computing issues; we do believe that we can be a catalyst. We want to see cheap, accessible, programmable computers everywhere; we actively encourage other companies to clone what we’re doing. We want to break the paradigm where without spending hundreds of pounds on a PC, families can’t use the internet. We want owning a truly personal computer to be normal for children.

All of this has been made possible by the not-for-profit and registered charity The Raspberry Pi Foundation.

So, there are to be 2 models, Model A and B^a. Initially Model B, which has the higher specification, has gone on sale and has been an overwhelming success. The Model A will come later, as will versions in cases (the current release is a bare circuit board). I ordered my model B, caseless Raspberry Pi on the day of release. Model A retails for $25 and Model B for $35. Sadly, even by 9am I wasn’t quick enough to get the first batch, so my estimated delivery date was April 16th. Because of hold-ups I eventually received it on 4th May.

Rasperry Pi in Lego case

Inside a jiffy bag was a small box, inside of which was the Pi wrapped inside an anti-static bag. To give you an idea of how small it is – it’s under 86 × 54 mm. There are no instructions but a URL was printed on the otherwise pretty plain box. I quickly made a case for it from Lego and you can see an image of that to the left (click on it for a larger view). In fact it’s small enough that you could probably make a case for it out of a cigarette packet!

Both models have a 700Mhz ARM processor and 256Mb of memory. Where the Model B differs is with ports – it has 2 USB ports rather than 1 and a 10/100 Kbps ethernet connection. As a result of this the Model B also draws more power – 700mA/35W rather than the Model A’s 500mA/2.5W. It’s still rather frugal though, whichever version you choose.

Additional ports include HDMI video, RCA video and an audio jack. Power is via a micro USB connector – no cable is provided for this and you can either connect it to a USB power supply or into another device that supplies power. I’ve successfully powered the Pi via the USB port on my desktop PC. Some people, using plug-in mains USB chargers have found that they don’t provide enough power, so be wary of that. One thing it doesn’t have is a RTC (Real Time Clock), so every time you boot the Pi up you need to set the time and date again.

No hard drive is required – instead a bare SD card reader is on the underside of the board. You simply add the OS onto an SD card and boot from that instead. However, be aware that not all cards work and a list is maintained on the Raspberry Pi site of those that are known to work^b.  Myself, I bought a 16GB class 6 Integral SD card only to find that didn’t work – Debian booted but I got a “mmc0: Timeout waiting for hardware interrupt” error. Switching to a Sandisk of equivalent specifications worked.

In fact, it’s worth repeating that no software, SD cards or cables are included with the package, so ensure you have everything you need – at the least a USB keyboard and mouse, an SD card, micro USB and HDMI connector.

Once you have an SD card you need to choose a version of Linux that works with the Pi. Two are currently available – Debian and Arch Linux. Ubuntu is unlikely to ever be available due to it’s higher processor demands.

On your PC, download the image from the Raspberry Pi website and then also download the free Win32DiskImager utility. Run the latter and it will allow you to copy the Linux image to your SD card. Once that’s done you can put the SD card in your Pi and, hopefully, it should boot up.

So, all of this sounds great, doesn’t it? Except, having used it I have some big reservations.

The whole initiative here is to get people excited about computers – as their own tagline says, “Take a byte”. So what you don’t want to do is be putting them off once they have a Pi in their hands and that’s precisely what I expect will happen.

The hardware is great and I have no complaints but the software is poor. The Arch Linux distro is command line only so you have to pretty hot on Linux in the first place to want to use that (and that’s not really who the Pi is intended for). The Fedora version does have a GUI interface but still boots to a command line and you have to manually start it up. The distro generally is lacking – little software is installed by default, what is has system-type names that would mean nothing to most people and, worst of all, to install anything else you have to use the command line. It is, in a nutshell, very unfriendly.

It’s not as if the Fedora installation is even stable – many users are complaining about issues with sound (the most prominent one being a lack of sound via HDMI, but I can’t get any sound from the audio output either) and this is apparently due to some poor quality drivers.

There was a mention in the Raspberry Pi blog of a Fedora distro. However, I couldn’t find it on the download page and the installation program they linked to didn’t seem to work. After some more searching I found that it had been removed because of issues – nothing was added to the blog entry or the downloads page to indicate this and, to me, is indicative of how little thought it being put into make this whole thing a friendly experience.

No documentation comes with the Pi and the online documentation is, although present, lacking too – it didn’t even give the correct password to sign into Debian and I had to hunt around forums to find it. Considering this device is a great tool to teach people about computers, the developers have provided one diagram for the board…

Now I’m sorry but that’s rather lacking. It shows the ports, yes, but it doesn’t mention a number of connectors that have obviously been added for future use and it only shows one of the chips. A teaching aid it isn’t.

It’s not as if the documentation can even help you with the basics. The provided online documentation is short, doesn’t cover basics such as troubleshooting as often just assumes you to be a power user (the kinf of person this product isn’t aimed at). An example from their “Quick Start Guide”…

Kernel sources and a cross-compiling toolchain for use on an x86 Linux PC are available at https://github.com/raspberrypi.

Example code for OpenGL ES, OpenMAX and other multimedia APIs is available in the directory /opt/vc/src/hello_pi.

Excuse me? I have no idea what that’s about.

My own feeling is that this has been rushed – they started promoting this product long before it came out and so pressure was put on them to get it out. Their were delays and this caused ill-feeling as it was. If they hadn’t done all the pre-promotion they could have spent some time getting this product better upon release. The hardware would have been defined so they could even have been producing cases and “getting started kits” (both of which they promise for later in the year – the latter is likely to be an SD card, USB cable, etc).

Instead, the extremely un-user friendly documentation and OS is highly likely to put people off. The fact that they can’t even officially get one in its own case (yes, it is lovely to show and everything but after a while you want to put it in something rather than let it drag across your desktop) I think shows that this was pushed out too early. Too many people are going to connect this up, try out the OS, find it difficult to do much with, switch it off and stick it in a cupboard. In fact if they have problems getting a successfully boot-up (as I did) then thanks to the lack of documentation many people may not even get any further than that. After all they’ve made it cheap enough to be almost disposable.

For my money, and I don’t think for one minute that I’m in the majority with this though, I think it is, currently, a wasted opportunity. Once the decent software gets out there, with a cased version of the product and some decent documentation to back it up then I think they have an amazing product. The danger is that so many people are buying it now, finding it hard to use and probably giving up now. And that’s a shame.

Summary of Raspberry Pi

An amazing piece of hardware let down by poor software and documentation. I’m sure this will improve with time, but how many people will have given up on it by then? A waste opportunity

Reviewed by David Artiss on 12th May 2012.

1. and a good reference to the model names of the original BBC Micro
2. class 10 SD cards in particular are known to not work, and it’s best to stick to 16GB or below capacity

WordPress is a fantastic blogging platform – I love both using it and developing for it. However, with regard to the latter I find it a struggle to promote the work I do. Any WordPress plugins that I develop are free, GPL licensed and I provide free support via the WordPress.org site or, preferably, here on my own forum. Yet, WordPress.org is hardly helping me to promote my plugins amongst the many thousands of others.

When you visit their plugin page you can get a list of the most popular or the most highly rated, but you need to get people actually downloading and trying your plugin to get on these lists – how do you actually get there? Well, that’s the rub. There is no other promotional mechanism. There is a “Feature Plugins” section on the main page and this might be a perfect way to do this. Sadly, it only shows 6 plugins, rarely changes (and then not by much) and of the 6 currently on display, every single one has been written by Automattic or a member of their staff. Yep, they like to promote their own work, but they’re obviously forgetting about the many others who ensure the popularity of WordPress with their own time and effort.

So, here’s a suggestion, borrowing some capabilities from their own platform. How about a slider on that front page, moving between one of a number of plugins, regularly updated, to help promote them. If the author has supplied a banner image this could be used to really help grab the visitor. Under that slider you could have a list of a number of other plugins that are being promoted. And, no, they don’t have to be created by Automattic.

The irony is, that of their 6 currently featured plugins, only 1 is in the top 6 most popular plugins. Only half of those popular plugins are by Automattic, showing that plugins written by others are equally as important and valuable.

It’s just a thought, anyway.

I’ve been needing a switch for some time. As with most people I rely on the ports on the back of my ISP supplied router, but those 4 don’t get very far. For some time it’s been filled by my desktop PC, NAS, Pogoplug and Solwise Homeplug. Now I have a Raspberry Pi  I could do with one more. And I’ve also recently upgraded my NAS (also more on that in later review) to a speedier version – the 100 Mbps speed of my router just isn’t cutting it.

The TP-LINK I bought for 2 reasons – it has a Gigabit connection (i.e. 1000 Mbps) and it was cheap (I bought mine for less than £15 from Amazon).

Other features are that it has 5 ports (there is an 8 port version but it’s nearly twice the price), is energy saving (by powering down the ports when there’s no activity and by varying power based on deteced cable size,  it claims to save up to 75% of energy).  The box is rather lacking – a User Guide leaflet, the switch and a power supply. You don’t even get a single ethernet cable (thankfully I have many spare!).  The user guide is, putting it politely, rubbish – it tells you all about the technical functionality and how to connect it up to the mains but if you don’t know what to do with a switch this really won’t help. The box itself is smaller than a router and generally quite compact. There are lights on the front for each port and well as a general power light. There are no buttons at all and no configuration to perform.

So, I powered up the TP-LINK and connected an ethernet cable from my router to a spare port on it. I then transferred my desktop PC, Homeplug, NAS and Pogoplug over to the switch – each of these can now communicate to each other via gigabit, which each have. Sadly I hadn’t checked this before ordering as I hadn’t realised that 4 of my current devices would benefit – if I’d known this I would have ordered their 8 port switch (I hate not having ports free!). As it it all my spare ports are now on my slower router (at least I can plug my Raspberry Pi into that as it’s only 10/100 Kbps).

Summary of TP-LINK 5-Port Gigabit Desktop Switch

It was cheap, simple to use and has given me a 10x increase in speed accessing certain devices. It only loses a point for its rubbish instructions.

Reviewed by David Artiss on 10th May 2012.

This review is part of the 1 Pound Challenge - can you find a decent gadget in a pound shop?

Not to be confused with the identically named product, this has a more square design with each of the 4 USB ports on their own separate side. The top is domed and the plastic hub measures approx. 6x6x2cm.  The version I have is made of see-through green plastic, but other colours are available. It has a 38cm (approx) captive cable on it.

Non-surprisingly it’s USB 1 (although it doesn’t explicitiy state this on the packaging). Plug the USB cable in and a green LED lights from inside.

One of the corner has a hole in it and there’s no screw in the bottom at this edge as there are on the others. I’ve seen an image of an identical product online that shows something plugged into this corner – I wonder if this is a power option.

The product is made by Signalex and sold at Poundland.

Summary of Signalex 4 Port USB Hub

It works. It’s USB 1. As with my other USB 1 hub reviews if you don’t need the speed (e.g. plugging in a keyboard) then this is quite suitable. Otherwise, avoid.

Reviewed by David Artiss on 9th May 2012.

Most people don’t realise that running this site and developing WordPress plugins is not a full time job for me. Therefore I have to find the time during lunchtimes and snatching time in the evenings. However, this week I’m off and have decided to tackle a big upgrade to my most popular WordPress plugin – Artiss YouTube Embed. As a bit of an experiment I thought I’d write a diary of how it goes – each day I’ll make regular updates to this article with details on what I’m doing. If I get it completed this week I’ll be astronished – I expect it to run into at least next week!

First of all, though, I need to bring you up to date with where I’ve got.

Today is Monday 7th, but in the UK it’s a public holiday. Therefore, my development hasn’t officially started as I have a family to keep entertained However, I did make a start so my diary starts on Sunday.

If you find this interesting, please come back for the latest update. For a complete list of my planned changes and where I’ve got to please view the roadmap.

Sunday 6th

Pulled the YouTube Embed files out my personal archive. Ensured the current version, 2.4.1, is safely stored and created version 2.5. At the moment this is an exact duplicate of 2.4.1, but I quickly changed that by updating the version number in the root file and the README.

Meantime, I’ve had a report from a user of problems with the URL embedding options^a. By default, if you add a YouTube URL to a line of a post it will convert it to a video. There are few parameters available to the user and the end-result isn’t very configurable. So, I’d added an option to my plugin to override WP doing this and allow my own embedding instead. Sadly, it doesn’t appear to be working (something must have changed as I tested it when I originally implemented it).

Monday 7th

My wife and youngest daughter were out at the park this morning and after I’d mowed my rather substantial lawn and done a few other jobs I took another look at the plugin changes.

First job – going through the list of changes that I have on MantisBT and ensuring that all my planned changes are there. Unfortunately the list is now bigger.

I also had an opportunity to do 2 things…

1. Start making some internationalisation changes. Basically, I’m ensuring that any text output goes through the appropriate WP filters and does so properly. WP has some great translation tools built in, but you need to ensure you’re using them properly.
2. I’ve updated the plugin filenames – all my others have an appropriate suffix and describe the files use well. This wasn’t the case with this plugin so they’ve been updated. I still need to do the same with the CSS and JavaScript though.

Both of these items, both unfinished, took me an hour which, I guess, goes to show how much time it can take to make what are relatively insignificant changes.

Tuesday 8th

8:30

Had some breakfast and time to make a start. My intention is to concentrate on 2 of the major issues initially – getting the aforementioned embedded URLs to work (or not) and updating the playlist code. There are a couple of things on the list that could potentially wait for a future release so I’ll do those last – otherwise everything else I’ll do in no particular order.

The URL embedding issue is causing WordPress to display the embedded URL instead of my own code and the following error is logged… “WARNING: wp-includes/media.php:1171 – preg_match() [function.preg-match]: Delimiter must not be alphanumeric or backslash”.

I’m bringing back a copy of media.php and will add some lines of code in to help me debug the situation. I’ll put that version back and re-try.

9:00

Got somewhere with the regular expression issue but I’ve hit an impasse. When outputting the expressions that WP is processing I came across another, which wasn’t one from my plugin. No, this isn’t causing the issue but  I could see the format was different to mine – I believe mine is formatted incorrectly and hence the error. Unfortunately, my knowledge of regular expressions isn’t good enough to fix it so I’ve added my question to a forum – I’m hoping somebody will be able to assist.

Moving onto the playlist…

9:45

I’ve spent all this time trying to desperately understand how the new playlist function works. The documentation for it is poor and the penny has just dropped that it only supports the IFRAME player. This is a retrograde step from how it was. On the plus side I’ve since managed to get the old playlist method to work, so I’ll see if I can get it to work on new playlists!

Just realised actually that I can get new format playlists to appear in the current version of the code simply by removing the “PL” suffix from them. I could swear I’d already tried this and it hadn’t worked! I’ll have to do some more testing on that. Maybe the solution is to use the new method when using the IFRAME player and the old method for the Flash player.

10:20

Finally, the playlists are working correctly and I’ve taken the opportunity to tidy up some of the code in doing so. The code tidying means that I now generate the embed URL all in one section, rather than piecing it together later. This has also affected normal video embeds as well so they’ll need a thorough re-test later. The up-side of this (other than making the code easier for me to understand!) is that it’s given me an opportunity to bring it 100% up-to-date with the API examples.

If you use the IFRAME method then the new playlist parameter will be used, if you Flash then the older one will. The API also works too for the different formats too.

I’m going to have a little break now!

10:30

I lied, I fixed a bug in the MCE button JavaScript instead Now I’ll have a break.

12:20

I’ve now completely re-written the contextual help and updated all the script file names (see my Monday comments!). The former took a while, but it’s now compatible with both the 3.3 updates to the help system and the previous version.

20% of all the planned changes are now done which is an excellent start.

I’m now off for a long lunch, including having a much-needed shower.

13:55

Back! One lunch, one level of Infamous on the PS3 and one shower later.

My aim now is to “rattle off” some of the smaller changes, starting with completing the internationalisation.

15:30

Okay, all code tidy-ups done – output appropriately internationalised and function names standardised.

16:10

I’ve now resolved an issue with the titles not appearing correctly – I was incorrectly calculating the position of the title in the XML if I was using the one from YouTube. That’s fixed and the title is now displaying correctly. Other small fixes done…

• The option to display the README now picks up the one relevant to your installation and not the latest
• Fixed assorted errors being reported in DEBUG (none were critical)

That’s it for now – Mantis shows 36% of the changes are done so I can rest for now. I may do some more later, but a new episode of CSI and popcorn beckons

Wednesday 9th

8:15

Another early start. The first thing I’m going to look at is an enhancement for excerpts. Post excerpts have shortcodes removed from them which, if you have a YouTube embed included, doesn’t give a great output, especially if a post if not much more than a video. My intention is, in the case of excerpts, to replace the video with a line of text.

8:30

Thankfully I didn’t spend much time on it! The excerpt is edited BEFORE any plugin can edit it (unless you remove the excerpt filter and replace it entirely yourself).

09:15

I’ve now bought all the parameters up to date with current API documentation – some now work with a large number of player types so this has been reflected in the screens and README. I’ve also changed some of the wording to better reflect how Google differentiates between the different player types.

Lastly, I’ve added the ‘end’ parameter which allows you to specify when a video should end.

09:50

An update on the embedded URL issue – I’ve found out what I’d done wrong and the errors are gone. Unfortunately, the expression is simply not trapping YouTube URLs and I don’t have enough knowledge on regular expressions to correct it. I’ve therefore decided to remove the functionality from the plugin.

10:05

Wow, I’ve blitzed through the list of changes. I’ve removed a few because they weren’t actually issues – for example, someone requested that I remove the restriction on the number of lists and profiles I allow. In fact, there is no limit (should have realised that).

However, some changes have been made. One user reported that adding FRAMEBORDER to an IFRAME is not HTML5 compatible. I’ve therefore put this into the options as a selectable feature.

14:40

After all the changes I made I went for a break and I just ended up doing a lot of jobs around the house.

There are now just 2 changes to make – implement the new search facility and update the README with new FAQs. I’ll therefore call it a day and return to the code tomorrow – the search facility should be a bit more taxing.

Thursday 10th

13:30

A late start today as I had a lot of things to do this morning away from the computer. I updated the README last night so I just have the one (admittedly large) code change to make.

YouTube now allows you to specify a user name or search term and it will generate a playlist from the results. This is what I need to implement. My intention is that the search term or user will be specified between the shortcodes instead of the video ID.

14:30

One hour later and I’m now able to build a playlist based on user ID (more specifically my own). Excited!

15:45

I’ve now added the same options to the widget. I think that’s now about it for now – just some tidying up to do and some testing.

I’m out tomorrow so I’m not sure if they’ll be a diary entry – I’ll be back soon!

20:45

I’ve had 2 responses today from queries.

First of all, the forum where I asked about the regular expression they offered to construct what I needed. They asked me for some examples of what should match and what was needed to be extracted. At this point I realised that I didn’t know the latter – maybe this is why it didn’t work in the first place! If I ever work out what WordPress requires I’ll be able to work it out but, with my current knowledge, that may not be anytime soon.

On the more positive side I also heard from Jeff Posnick from the YouTube API Team. He has provided me with details on how to add the new playlist, search and user details to the Flash embed. Up until now I thought it only worked with the IFRAME and have coded it for that. So, I have more work to do after all!

Friday 11th

12:30

Spent the morning at the shops, now raring to try and sort out the code.

Having thought about this further, this is a good opportunity for me to clean up some of the code further – at the moment I’m building the playlist separate to the new search/user features but I should, in fact, be doing it as one.

Before diving in, though, I need to do some planning. Paper and pencil are ready!

14:20

Code done (still neats neatening up, though). I’ve realised that I still don’t know if the new functions with the Chromeless player. I’ve had a play and can’t get it to work, but have fired another query off to Jeff Posnick to confirm it.

Meantime, I’ve (after some head-scratching) decided to get it to force the player to IFRAME if one of the new functions is requested in the Chromeless player.

15:50

Lots more testing and tweaking done and I’m struggling to break it. I therefore suspect I’ve cracked it, so will tidy my code up now and think about testing next week (and also some updates to the README!).

Monday 14th

11:55

Am 30 minutes into my lunch break at work today. Have been testing, concentrating (so far) on the admin screens. After some modification, they now appear fine.

I’ve also updated the plugins’ screen icon. Am now going to whip through the plugin files and remove stray, redundant characters (tabs and spaces mainly).

12:15

Lunchtime over. Whilst testing MCE edit button and the link on the Admin Bar, I realised that the format (and action filter) of the bar has changed. I’ve therefore updated the code so that if using WP of 3.3 or greater it will add a new menu link to the Admin Bar with sub-menu links to all the main option pages. If the WP version is below this it will use the old style of adding a single link to the “Appearance” menu.

16:15

Back at home and have been working on the testing again since 4pm.

I realised the the positioning on the Admin Bar was wrong – instead of it being to the right of the site menu, it was to the left. A bit of tweaking and I found that a weight of 40 (passed via the admin_bar_menu action) resolved it.

16:20

Checked debug output to ensure I’m not creating any errors – all now cleared up (that I can find!). Finishing already, but will return later.

20:25

Testing again since sometime after 8pm.

Lots done including checking that the new “stop” parameter works – yes I coded it, but never checked it at the time. However, I’d made a school boy error – I didn’t allow it if using the IFRAME player. In fact, the API allows it in the IFRAME player, it just doesn’t work if it falls back to HTML5.

The same went with the switchable FRAMEBORDER code too – it all worked, except I was looking at the wrong parameter when generating the embed code FRAMEBORDER was never added. Ho hum.

Now finishing for today – more testing fun tomorrow lunchtime! I now only have the playlist, search and user upload features to test (so nothing major) along with general testing of other functions that I haven’t specifically changed. I then need to finalise the internationalisation text before creating the requisite translation files.

Wednesday 16th

Nothing happened yesterday as I was feeling unwell. However, I hope to return to testing today.

However, something might hold up proceedings – I’ve been approached to add some advertising to the plugin administration screen. They haven’t said it will be this plugin but I’m guessing it may be. In which case I’ll add it to this release.

20:50

Tested existing features – they all work fine. Now moving to testing playlists (in all their flavours!).

21:00

Playlists all worked, so I moved onto the new search and user upload features which worked equally well. Yes, that was a fast test but when writing the code I’d already constructed some test posts with examples in so it was simply a case of checking I’d covered all examples and re-testing.

21:25

Internationalisation has now been implemented, with all the relevant translation files generated. I had to tweak some output to get it spot on but I’m happy with the results.

Basically, I’ve generated the translation files that list all of the text that my program outputs. If anybody then wishes to provide translation to another language they will use these files to do that.

That’s it for tonight – I’m busy tomorrow and out Friday night, so I’ll hopefully be able to do some further work Friday lunchtime. By then I hope to have heard from the potential advertisers.

1. in fact he’s been reporting it for a while but has never supplied me with enough detail to allow me to recreate it until now

There are a number of USB monitors now beginning to come into the market. The idea is that you plug these into your laptop, as required, to give an extended desktop. The problem with most of them, however, is that their output is usual quite poor, often with reduced angles and low levels of brightness.

The Lenovo ThinkVision LT1421 is a 14″ screen with a 1366×668 pixel resolution that connects via USB. A mini USB plugs into the monitor and this runs to your PC as 2 USB cables – one is required for data and power and the other, if required, for further power. Personally, I’ve not needed to use the 2nd cable. With the cover (that you’d be mad not to use) it weighs just over 2.3 lbs and it’s just 0.35 inches at its thinnest, so it slips into a laptop bag easily.

The screen itself has no stand but comes with a hard plastic cover which, when clipped off, the monitor sites on. A “leg” with a rubber foot is then folded out from the back of the screen and this allows you to prop the monitor up at angle between 12 and 40 degrees.

Also on the back of the monitor is a control allowing to adjust the brightness up and down and a power light.

The screen surround is a very traditional Lenovo matt black plastic with the ThinkVision logo in a top corner and a silver Lenovo badge at the bottom.

Included with the monitor is the screen, cable, instruction leaflet and driver CD. The LT1421 connects via the DisplayLink technology and hence the reason for the driver. I never used the CD but, instead, downloaded the latest driver from the Lenovo website.

Once the driver is installed simply plugging the monitor into your computer’s USB port causes it to power on. Both screens will flicker as the current desktop is extended. A system tray icon allows you to specify how the 2nd monitor should work – I usually have it to the right of me and extend it that way so I can drag and drop files precisely from one screen to another. You can also rotate the screen and even just use it as a mirror of your laptop screen (potentially useful in meetings where you want to share your screen’s output but need to be able to view it yourself).

The screen is quite bright with good viewing angles. The colour is a little more yellow than my laptop screen and there’s no method of adjustment. Bear this in mind though – I have no intention of using it for photo work or the like so I’m happy that this is the case.

I struggled to find a UK distributor of this and bought mine via a German retailer on Amazon.co.uk. It cost £145 but if you’re happy to buy in Euros from Amazon.de I hear you an save a lot more.

Gallery

Promotional Video

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

Summary of Lenovo ThinkVision LT1421

An excellent way to extend your laptop screen. It’s not too expensive and has a better screen than the majority of the competition. Combine that with the Lenovo quality and this is an excellent product.

Reviewed by David Artiss on 4th May 2012.