The Fearless Blogger

bbPress is forum software created by Automatic, the same folks who brought us WordPress. Until recently, it’s development had been relatively slow.

Seems like things are starting to move forward, based on an announcement made in the bbPress.org forum today:

Hi everyone, bbPress 1.0 is moving beyond Alpha stage and skipping Beta to go straight into a series of Release Candidates towards a final 1.0 release. The first RC is now available for download.

We’ve made this decision to push towards 1.0 final as the scope of what was going to be included in 1.0 has been whittled back and we have had some serious real world trials through TalkPress.

I’ve been playing with bbPress for the still-in-progress URLuscious.com, so plan to try out the new upgrade in the next few days and will keep you posted when I have a live version available for folks to check out.

For more on bbPress, visit the site at bbPress.org.  Justin Tadlock has also recently posted the first in his series of bbPress-related tutorials on his site.

I’m excited to announce my latest endeavor: URLuscious!
URLuscious is part of my master plan to demystify all things techie-geeky; helping non-techie folks incorporate the web and its social goodness into their lives.

The mission statement:

Make it easy for anyone to quickly and easily have a website or blog that looks great and is easy to maintain – regardless of your creativity, technical knowledge or experience.*

*translation: Websites so easy, even your mother can do it!

Blog-in-a-box
URLuscious’s flagship product is Blog-in-a-box, a service that includes installation, configuration, hosting and user training for a WordPress blog.

Having a blog has been one of the most rewarding experiences of my life. I’ve talked to so many people who would like to have a blog or website of their own, but don’t have the time or technical comfort level to get one started. Others want the benefits of a self-hosted WordPress blog, but feel locked into their current system or don’t know how to make the switch.

My goal is to remove these intimidating and/or frustrating barriers so that anyone can have the rewarding experience I’ve enjoyed.

Sneak Peak and Gift Certificates read more

This post at speckboy.com crossed my radar today.  It was too good to keep to myself and didn’t want to wait until I have time to put together my own WordPress resource list together to share it, so it gets its own blog post:

 63 Essential WordPress Hacks, Tutorials, Help Files and Cheats

thanks to @mayhemstudios & @minervity for posting the link

Happy Birthday, Tamar!

To celebrate her birthday, Tamar Weinberg has gathered the mother of all lists of internet marketing posts for 2008. It’s a list you don’t want to miss – it’s one you’ll want to bookmark and save with your very most special and favorite-est bookmarks. Click over to that list immediately and see for yourself.

Be sure to wish Tamar a happy birthday while you’re there!

Tamar Weinberg is a social media enthusiast with a passion for all things tech and productivity. She provides consulting in internet marketing and blogs for numerous online publications, most notably Real Simple Magazine, Lateral Action, Search Engine Roundtable, and Mashable. She is also a former Lifehacker contributor.

From Tamar's About Page

This week’s spotlight is on Jacob Cass, writer of Just Creative Design.

Why I chose Jacob’s blog

First, to celebrate his blog’s first birthday, Jacob recently put together a contest to raise money for the Blog Action Day Poverty Fund. You can enter the contest two ways, by writing an article about design and/or making a donation to the fund. Sixty six winners will be selected at random to each win one of $11,000 worth of prizes. The contest raised over $400 for the charity within its first week. Visit the blog for specifics on how to enter. read more