How to Auto-update Your Copyright in WordPress

(Republished from last year, because you need it.)

So it’s a new year…have you forgotten anything?

Here’s a hint:

Ever see a site with a copyright statement 6 months out of date? Even big-shot corporate blogs make this mistake. But on a young, growing blog, it looks particularly bad.

Or perhaps you don’t have a copyright statement at all? Tsk tsk.

Why don’t we automate this, so we’ll never, ever have to think about it again? Here’s how to do it in WordPress:

1. Log in to WordPress, and go to Theme Editor.
2. Choose “footer.php”.
3. Delete your current copyright statement (if it exists), and insert the following code:&copy; 2008 – <?php echo date(Y); ?>…replacing “2008″ with the date you started your blog.
4. If you wish, put your name adjacent to the copyright, being sure not to disturb the php date tag. See mine below for an example.
5. Done.

Happy New Year! Anyone got a good detox recipe?

Google Wonder Wheel

Google has rolled out an interesting experiment in search results, dubbed the Google Wonder Wheel. In this new search results view, the user can see a graphical representation of related search queries surrounding the original request, like so:

Clicking on the a suggested related topic then returns the new results, and presents related queries for the new search. As you keep exploring related topics, the old searches remain onscreen, represented as the “tail” of your current search:

The related searches could use some work – so far I haven’t found them to be incredibly useful, and overall the Google Wonder Wheel is a bit of a toy. But what a toy it is – I’ve spent quite a bit of time enjoying it so far. Hopefully as the experiment continues, the results will get better.

Another less flashy, but more useful feature that comes along with the Google Wonder Wheel is the new Timeline view. A search on “baseball” seen in Timeline view allows you to zero in on results related to a certain year, and even month. For example, by clicking through to May of 1862, I can see that the Star Spangled Banner was first played at a baseball game on May 15th of that year:

The results aren’t perfect- some irrelevant content slips through based on passing uses of the search term – but for researchers and students, this will be pure gold.

Several other alternate views are included in the Google Wonder Wheel experiment as well, including longer textual excerpts, and a different type of image search which presents images from relevant pages inline with search results.

The Google Wonder Wheel has been dubbed an prototype, and is only available to some users. However, if you’d like to give it a spin, all you need to do is set a cookie in your browser to tell Google you’re participating. Here’s the trick:

Go to google.com. With Google loaded in your browser, paste the following code in your address bar and hit return:

javascript:void(document.cookie=”PREF=ID=4a609673baf685b5:TB=2:LD=en:CR=2:TM=1227543998:LM=1233568652:DV=AA:GM=1:IG=3:S=yFGqYec2D7L0wgxW;path=/; domain=.google.com”);

Nothing happens…at first. But now perform another search in Google, and on the results page you’ll notice a small “Show Options…” link just below the Google logo. Click this, and you’re off and running.

Now the question is: will this change the way you search, or is it just a toy?

Augmented Reality: The Coolest Thing You’ve Ever Seen

At least that was my reaction. I think it will be yours too:

I know what you’re thinking: that wasn’t real, was it? Take a look at this one and see if you believe it yet:

Desktop Fireworks from Saqoosha on Vimeo.

I’ve tried it, and it’s real. All you need is a printer and a web cam.

It’s called Augmented Reality, and if this doesn’t achieve World Domination, I don’t know what will. The commercial applications are endless, and I think we can safely predict that soon you’ll be seeing this everywhere. Any technology that can be used by both the military and the porn industry has a very bright future indeed.

Here’s that implementation by GE from the first video, promoting green energy:

http://ge.ecomagination.com/smartgrid/#/augmented_reality

How about a 3-D interactive greeting card? Well, here’s a start:

FLARToolKit Demo from Ryan Stewart on Vimeo.

Wait until Hallmark gets their hands on this.

The technology is called FLARToolKit, and it appears to have been invented by someone named Saqoosha (that was him in the last video) at Spark Project. It’s apparently just a brilliant use of existing technologies to make something very impressive. Actually from a technical standpoint, it appears remarkably simple:

http://saqoosha.net/en/flartoolkit/start-up-guide/

The commercial license was released on Monday, and I for one hope Saqoosha makes a fortune.

I know you want to try this now, so go here:

http://www.strafwerk.nu/ar/

Oh, and you can even do this without a printer – just draw a square on a piece of paper and go here to prove it:

http://saqoosha.net/lab/FLARToolKit/2/

So, as Stephen Colbert might ask: cool, very cool, or coolest thing ever?