I’m not going to particpate in it, but the “best blonde joke” (example)thing is driving thousands and thousands of hits every day to WordPress.com. It’s traffic on par with a front-page Digg, just constant and steady. Where did this thing come from??? (Continuing my tradition of being a month late to internet trends.)
I moved the bulk of Red Alt to the Asymptomatic server last night because I got tired of that unmanaged server going down. The Asymptomatic server is managed, and so should get better attention when things go awry.
This also allows me to house a more permanent subversion repository (if that means anything to you) for all of the PHP development I do around here.
On top of that, it paves the way for a few minor changes at Red Alt, mostly revolving around the navigation and a wiki upgrade. Many of the navigation links there don’t work because I’m usually off doing something else rather than hooking them up. I’m going to go through all of those and make them all work.
Anyway, in case you were thinking about ignoring this news, I have updated one of my plugins for WordPress 2.0: Limit Categories
Limit Categories allows you to set limits on the categories to which users in certain Roles can post. If you create a new Role called “Guest Posters”, you can add new users to that Role, and the users with that Role will only be able to post to the “Guest Posts” category.
This makes it easy to section out your site to different writers by category, bringing your WordPress installation more toward a CMS.
Limit Categories does not limit the categories that logged-in users can view - that’s a different plugin. It might also not work as well with WordPress admin consoles that have been “redesigned”, but you can try it.
You can read more about and download Limit Categories at Red Alt, where you will also find the Role Manager plugin, which will be very useful for creating new Roles.
The bloggies are now open, and for the first time ever WordPress is a nominee. However there is very good company like Blogger, Flickr, and Delicious. Flickr! My fav thing about the bloggies has always been the discovery aspect, finding blogs I had missed somehow. This year contains quite a few gems and I’d recommend going through everything and exploring a few you haven’t seen before.
Best computer for blogging? Is it going to be a PC or a Mac? I have always been a Windows user with Mac undertones. I cannot see myself switching completely, ever.
CustomScoop - Blog Search Watcher Still in private beta but could be a very cool tool for PR people in particular and bloggers in general looking to keep tabs on blog searches in real time. Thanks to Threadwatch.
Chuck Norris 2.0. “Chuck Norris showers with AJAX but no water.” See also: Original Chuck Norris facts, New Chuck Norris facts, and the official Chuck Norris response. 
Update: I highly recommend watching these Walker, Texas Ranger clips on Conan O’Brien. If that struck your fancy, you can always buy the DVD set, I just ordered it.
Yahoo and MSN give up your information without a fight, Google fights it. Who do you trust your data with more? Also how would a Web 2.0 company with a much more fragile financial state respond to legal demands from the US Goverment? “We’re going to spend millions fighting the DOJ” seems like a rough way to start a board meeting. 
Hat tip: Eric Haller.
I’ve been following the Livejournal hack closely because as someone who runs many services that allow user submitted content, any new developments in XSS are very important to stay on top of. So far the only official technical explanation I’ve seen is here on lj_dev. Since we don’t allow template editing or embedded JS or styles on WP.com I can’t think of any vectors for attack, but you never know with these things. More on moz-binding.
It looks like I am going to be at Calcutta, India for two weeks around the end of February and would like to get together with Wordpress and blogging folks from that region.
March 4th (Saturday) is the tentative date for the meetup and my initial thoughts are to meet at the Park Hotel (on Park Street). I will post updates as and when they develop.
I would like to judge the level of interest. Please leave a comment if you are interested. Also, please link to this post if it would help to get the word out.
[EDIT]: Not sure if people realize this or not, but I am originally from Calcutta, India. My fiance’ and I are going to visit my parents for a couple of weeks and this is more of a pleasure trip than anything business. Any business conducted will be incidental and will have less priority. I am also glad to know that there is such a concentration of bloggers in Mumbai and Chennai. How about independant blog meetups there?