Windows 8 failed

I’m upgraded since a month to Windows 8 and I tried to give it a real chance, but I need to say : It failed… I missed the start button, I hate the Modern UI, the App store is full of crap. Windows 8 is a mixture of good old Windows and iOS, but nobody needs a mixture. Well, iOS is build on top of Mac OS, but it’s even _not_ a mixture of MacOS and just a couple of touch elements. It’s a pure Touch UI (same for Android).

The Metro Modern UI try to combine both, but that doesn’t work for me. When I try change some settings in an App it’s sometimes hidden in the Charms bar, but the Control panel itself is a classic Windows styled UI, how awful must this work on the Surface Pro ? I often need 2-3 seconds to remind how I can go back to the Control panel, did you every try this when you work with a dual monitor setup (and work on the left monitor) ? Yes it works, but I missed often the upper edge.

The app store could be a real benefit , better than Steam, better than the iOS App store, cause we have so many games played in the past on Windows, search for a good classic point and click adventure…. nothing. Ok, I admit, the store needs some more time. but I don’t need that tiny silly iOS games which I played on my first iPod Touch back again, not on a Full HD desktop PC (and please no more Star Trek Angry Birds). AND a simple mail/browser/calendar app program needs to be open instantly.

My biggest issue : I need to work in my daily business with Windows 7 (Visual Studio will _never_ Metro / Modern / Touch UI friendly), so a switch between old/new UI is horrible when you return to your home computer. I missed the start button, I forgot about the Charms bar and other shortcuts…

Microsoft should cut off (and even improve) the good old desktop UI from the Touch UI, both are ok, but both needs their own devices.

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Slowdown

Now a half year later…

Photocrati continue the NextGEN Gallery development

I’m very proud and happy to announce that Photocrati, the biggest supporter of my Plugin NextGEN Gallery continue the further development. The people behind Photocrati themes support me in my work already a couple of years and finally we find some way how we can continue the success of this plugin.

NextGEN Gallery is now more than 4 years old and with more than 5 million downloads the number one of all gallery addons for WordPress. WordPress is grown in the same time to the biggest blogging platform and the speed of development increased over the time. Unfortunately the day has still 24 hours and I’m just coding in my free time.

With Photocrati in the background I hope this plugin can increase in functionality and features much faster than I can do. I’m very happy that my “baby” find it’s feet now…

Let me thank to more than 1000 people who supported and donated to my work, without you this plugin would not be there. Thank you very much !

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Snow, snow, snow

Back from my ski trip, now back to work.

Bugfix release V1.9.2

Yes, I’m still alive ! Terrible busy with my job at the moment and in the spare time I’m playing Skyrim, which really makes me crazy… So, NextGEN Gallery development has a little break, hopefully after my vacation next week I can catch up some new energy for a restart.

Anyway, I’ve collected a couple of bugfixes the last weeks. The new version 1.9.2 is now avaiable.

Enjoy !

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Release of NextGEN Gallery 1.9.0

WordPress 3.3 is coming with big steps, so it’s time to update NextGEN Gallery. As said in my previous posts, I’ve included Plupload to this plugin as soon as you jump to WordPress 3.3 version. Moreover I fixed a couple of bugs. Here is a short list :

  • NEW : Keep images transparency for PNG and GIF format
  • NEW : Switch to Plupload, support now HTML5 Upload (only with WordPress 3.3)
  • NEW : Added client side resize feature (only with WordPress 3.3)
  • NEW : Support for gallery templates in album shortcodes [ album id=x template=”name” gallery=”templatename” ]
  • NEW : Added new hook ngg_delete_picture
  • Changed : Updated to jQuery Cycle Version 2.9995
  • Changed : Always cache the single pictures, remove option
  • Bugfix : Couldn’t use bulk operation for serach results
  • Bugfix : Bugfix for Edit thumbnails under IE 8 + 9
  • Bugfix : Allow empty altext in ngg.editImage
  • Bugfix : Various PHP notice fixes
  • Bugfix : Resize fix for Shutter effect and mobile Browser
  • Bugfix : FTP Import missing slug field into database
  • Bugfix : Check also EXIF field “DateTimeOriginal” for timestamp

Download NextGEN Gallery Version 1.9.0
Release Version @ wp.org

NextGEN Gallery V1.9.0 Release Candidate 1

Here is the final version which should be stable enough for production sides. Please help testing now !

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NextGEN Gallery 1.9.0 Beta 1

WordPress 3.3 will arrive in the next weeks, so it’s time for the new version of NextGEN Gallery. This version introduces along with WordPress 3.3 the new PLupload feature. I also rework a bit the PNG /GIF format handling, so that transparency images are should be shown up correct.

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Security update 1.8.4 and 4.000.000 downloads

Normally I’m happy to announce that NextGEN gallery reached 4 million downloads, but due to a security fixes I need to advice that everybody should update to the latest release 1.8.4. If you whatever reason prefer not to update the plugin, I suggest to download the file tags.php and overwrite this file in your nextgen-gallery/admin folder

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Client side image resize

Thanks to the work of the Moxiecode & WordPress team, I’m able to add the plupload feature into the next major release of NextGEN Gallery. Plupload is a tool which allows you to upload files using HTML5, Silverlight or Flash and enable a client side resize feature. Great framework !

A long long time I’m looking for such a great solution (just find some bad java based solution), I will publish this new feature along with the release of WordPress 3.3

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