About
John Ford presently works for Automattic, focusing his attention on VaultPress, a realtime backup service for WordPress.org users. Passion for coding is what motivates John, but some people are beginning to question his attachment to his iPad. Mix equal parts beautiful code writer, lover of healthy living, world traveler, living room DJ, and community giver and you'll have the geek known as John Ford.
Category Archives: Programming
Gordon: A Flash runtime written in JavaScript
Ok, I’m super stoked about the possibilities of this one. Gordon is an open source Flash™ runtime written in pure JavaScript. Give some of these demos a try on your iPhone. They don’t run as fast as they do on the computer but OMG Flash on the iPhone! http://jancona.com/gordon/demos/blue.html http://jancona.com/gordon/demos/tiger.html http://jancona.com/gordon/demos/trip.html (thanks Mark)
Programmatically Pull Attachments from WordPress Posts
One of my favorite tricks in using WordPress as a CMS is to have it handle photo resizing and insertion into pages automatically. For example, swissmiss and I just launched Convert (a NYC based Green Roof Service) today. Within the projects section they display photos of the green roofing projects they’ve done and let you download a project sheet PDF. … More
Plugin Update: PDF Bookmark bug fix and French translation
If you are having problems with the bookmark plugin not working for some documents, this update (1.2) should fix that. The update also adds a French translation to the Bookmark menu and provides an installation path for Linux users. Thanks to TitCouille for help with all of those items. The plugin should work correctly for Adobe Reader 7, 8 and … More
WordPress 2.5 is officially out
It’s official. WordPress 2.5 is now out with a crisp new admin interface and great new features. They’ve even redone the website. Here are some of my favorite changes: A beautiful new admin interface. A much more intuitive flow when making a post. Multiple instant file uploads. Thumbnail, medium and full-sized image options (and you can change the image dimensions … More
Plugin Update: PDF Bookmark for Adobe Reader 8
Some of you may already be using the PDF bookmark plugin I put together for Adobe Reader. It provides a quick and easy way to bookmark the page your on and return back to that spot later. It’s especially handy when reading large PDF books. Thanks to the input of Michael Hartl, I updated the plugin to work properly with … More
Installing ImageMagick/RMagick on Leopard
I’ve heard many horror stories of developers trying to install ImageMagick/RMagick to manipulate images. Fortunately, when I needed to install RMagick to use with the attachment_fu plugin, I ran across a fantastic script at OnRails.org by Solomon White (many thanks). It gave the steps to install RMagick from source without MacPorts or Fink. I made the following minor changes to … More
Moment of Open Source Zen
Every day, as a developer, I’m grateful for the thousands of programmers around the world who have so graciously shared their time, knowledge, and programming code. I have access to millions of lines of free code at any moment through the Internet which allows me to write programs more easily, learn new concepts, and make a difference in society. Yes, … More
The Architect and Builder Dilemma
(Originally uploaded by sweetsexything) One of the problems I’ve seen over the years, in corporations where I’ve worked and as a business owner, is the misconception that a builder (a developer in this case) can quote a project without the blueprints. I often times receive a request for a quote (10 pages long) and it says something like this: We … More