Sponsored by Topanga @link tenderfeelings.be

As the title says, you have Topanga to thank for this plugin because she paid us to code it, with the explicit condition that it could be freely released to the community once it was finished^(a), because thats kinda what OSS is about huh? As a part of that condition the AstonishMe Team has decided that we won't fully release^(b) this plugin on BOPIT until after the value of it has been made in donations to Topanga. Now, before you all start shaking fingers at us and prodding us with sticks, I should tell you that Topanga will be donating all of the donations she gets for this plugin to Kiva.org and, because we didn't really want paying for this in the first place, we'll be donating the fee to Kiva ourselves .... who said life was simple? ;)

On with the Plugin

This plugin allows you to add custom fields to your posts, so if you're the sort that likes to add "mood", "listening to" and all the other stuff then this is the plugin for you! Once you've installed the plugin you'll be able to add fields to any/all of your blog posts by clicking the nifty little "add new field" button somewhere under your post field ... exactly where kinda depends on if you're in simple or expert mode ... but it'll be there ;)

To make life a little bit simpler each user can have a set of default fields that are added to every post, the fields are only shown if they're filled in so it doesn't really matter how many defaults you have. To make things slightly easier for blog admins they can use the plugin settings to specify the default user settings.

Displaying the fields

Because of the complexity of what Topanga wanted, and seeing as she was paying we had to listen to her, we decided to make the displaying of the fields a widget. This allowed us to add in filters and custom html and other wild and wacky stuff that makes a sunday a brighter place, but because we knew that you lot would bitch if we forced you to add a container to all your skins, we added a shiny new plugin setting for choosing whether to automatically add the fields to the start or the end of your post content .... so new in fact that it's not in the screenshot ;) ... so if you want the easy life just pick top or bottom and press save ... be aware though, if you choose automatic mode then it won't do anything as a widget ;)

Widget mode

As mentioned, this plugin can also be used as a widget that can be thrown into any container you like. If you slap it in one that's inside the post loop then it'll strut it's stuff for each post, but if you slap it outside then it'll attempt to use a single posts stuff ... so it can survive happily enough in the sidebar of your page.main.php / single.main.php ;) If you look at all the widget settings then they'll hopefully make sense to you ... if not then feel free to donate and then demand further instructions :D .... the chances are you'll pretty much just want to slap it in your container of choice and leave the settings at default ;)

Download the plugin

You can get the latest version of the plugin here ( AM Custom Fields ). Whilst you wait for it to download we'd like you to consider hitting the donation button on the left and donating what you can towards our Kiva fund. This fund will be used to sponsor projects on Kiva. You can visit our Kiva Lender page at any time to see the current status of our ongoing projects.

^(a) Is this explicit enough?

topanga: if you work for me, then I'll pay you
topanga: if you give it away
topanga: then that is other things ;)
yabba_hh: what if I work for you and then I give it away?
topanga: then at least, it will be something that is written especially for my needs
topanga: and if others want it that way
topanga: here they go
yabba_hh: you have no problem with that?
topanga: no I don't
yabba_hh: excellent, cos otherwise I'd do it for you for free ;)
topanga: they can still paypall me 1 euro if they want ;)
topanga: and I give those euro's to kiva.org
topanga: deal closed

^(b) BOPIT will inform you of any updates to the plugin but you will need to come back to this post to download them .... which gives us another opportunity to coerce you into donating to a good cause ;)

My New Year started months ago ;)

After getting bitch slapped for having the most un-profound New Years post on the internet, I thought I should defend myself .... mainly because I can't afford a solicitor .... soooo, here's my shiny new New Years post ... pretend you read it days ago. :|

A very optimistic basil plant

So, my New Year kicked off months ago when I found out I had a smidge more room to grow in next year ( which is now this year ) than I normally do. No more playing around with a couple of small beds and just bringing to the table the successful bits, this year I've got to be FAR more serious .... and I'm not renowned for being shit-hot at serious ... Anyway, I was daft enough to ask, so the least I can do is make sure it all happens close enough to a game plan to declare a technical draw :D ... With this in mind I instantly went out and bought enough seeds to sink a small tectonic plate by several inches ... and in true blonde fashion I charged them to Barrys credit card ( must remember to pay him back ) .... and all of this happened before my holiday ... in october :| .... and so my new year began.

Shortly after the seeds arrived I came to 2 conclusions .... 1) I'd bought faaaar to many seeds, and 2) It was time to sod off on holiday .... anyway, after I came back, it was time to start planning the new year. Even with all the extra space that we have to grow in this year, the Mighty V and I decided that we need to make more use of our space at home to grow food in, as well as making as good a use of the field as we could. So we decided to slap in a couple of "raised" beds to define what was growing where. Being the total cheapskate that I am, I nicked a few pallets from the field and slapped enough planks together to convince the Mighty V that they were the best thing since sliced bread .... not much of an achievement when you consider the fact that she's blonde as well, but you take your victories where you can huh? ;)

We promptly slapped some garlic and shallots into them, that the Mighty V had bought from somewhere, some of them even have labels, and then we sat for a bit and watched them ... well, we actually watched the cat and decided that it *really* needed to find a new toilet ... so I froze my arse off one day and put a net over them, that pretty much killed any "and last week I was swimming in the sea" mentality that was lingering, vainly, in my mind ... ahh well, at least it wasn't snowing.

7 Varieties of chilli peppers, 3 of which are "unknowns"

Then it snowed

It didn't really, that was just to cheer scott up .... it's to bloody cold for snow here ... anyway, a couple of weeks later the first "short 'n' green" bits, that'll eventually turn into summat we put on the table, arrived ... how cool, I can already taste it, even though it's going to be about August before they're ready. Continuing with my "I'm an optimist" / "make a concerted effort" mentality, yesterday I slapped some chilli/pepper seeds in .... I'm convinced they'll grow this early ... but just in case I only planted half of them .... but that's still 77 seeds! 11 each of 7 different varieties, Lemon Drop, Pretty In Purple, Orange Bell, N. Napia and 3 "unknown" ones that someone on the allotment forums sent me. I know 77 sounds a lot for an 8' x 6' greenhouse, but they have a poor germination rate so I'm only expecting about 1/2 of them to make it ... if not then I guess I'll just have to sneak a few into the potting shed.

During the next week or so I'll be trying to spark off some very early tomatoes, which means that I need to remember to turn the heated beds on in the potting shed. If it works then I should be harvesting by the end of May, which is a fair tad ahead of last years which we started harvesting at the end of September. For those of you who are into names and numbers I'm hoping to grow 20 Rose de Berne, 10 Galina and 10 Gold Medal, all of which are vine types ( you can see pictures of them on Real Seed ). After a couple of conversations with an ex-commercial grower I've decided to try and grow them the way they do. Basically it involves growing them up a string and then when they reach the top you *should* have cropped the lower ones, so you undo the string, lower the plant and move it along the bed to where the next one is planted. Then you just tie the string up again and do the same for all the plants which gives them all another foot and a half to grow. It's a technique called layering and is also used by professional/commercial sweet pea growers.

Besides sparking off 77 chilli peppers, 40 tomato plants and a very optimistic basil plant I'm also going to be sparking off a few hundred onion seeds this week. I've never grown onions from seed before so this'll be interesting. The good news is that a member of the allotment forums called vegmandan is pretty good at growing onions and, like the rest of the nutters members, he's happy to share his knowledge if you ask him .... and quite often even when it's not asked for :D If you follow the link then the observant amongst you will notice that his New Year started in October as well .... so it's not just me that's strange.

The list goes on

Other things that need doing in the next couple of weeks are closing up the small greenhouse so it can be used as a cold frame for storing all the pot tubers that are currently occupying the heated beds. Later on I'll also be using it to harden off the onions before they get slapped in their final bed in the main greenhouse and then, sometime around the end of March / April the tomatoes will go in .... if they've survived that long. I also need to get the main greenhouse cleared up and ready for the dahlia season as well, so that's 500+ tubers to dig up and the stakes to pull out, and it really needs to be all done and dusted before the middle of the month as we'll be sparking off next years plants in February, damn the potting sheds gonna be a smidge crowded! On top of all that, I really need to clear out our own lil greenhouse and give everything a good scrub so it's ready for the new season as well.

Hopefully by the end of the month all of the greenhouses will be ready for the new season and my seedlings should be taking their first glimpses of daylight, although some of the daylight will be coming from bulbs because the suns a smidge crap at making an appearance for more than a few hours a week at this time of year. You can be sure that I'll take lots of pictures for you to be bored by and, if I pull my finger out, I might also get round to finishing coding my seed site which I'm hoping to use to track my progress through the growing year in a way that the blogs probably couldn't cope with. There's still a long way to go with it though, so don't hold your breaths ;)

¥

Thanks for the graphics card ;)

longkau49: you there dude?
yabba_hh: yeah, just in the middle of a huge post .... which will take me days to finsih :P
yabba_hh: otherwise I'm just meandering online whilst my brain recovers from writing chapter one :D
longkau49: cant remember the password for email@fab cookie not saved it
yabba_hh: lol, unlucky
yabba_hh: probably *usual pass*?
yabba_hh: of course, depends if you mean email login or blog login
longkau49: email
yabba_hh: but I'm guessing it's the same for both
yabba_hh: if *usual pass* don't work try *usual alternative*
longkau49: nothing work!
( wanders off to reset pass )
yabba_hh: try *usual pass* now
longkau49: shite no can do
yabba_hh: :|
yabba_hh: then yer fucking up the username
longkau49: domain.com/cpanel --- un : ashley@fab ?
yabba_hh: no
longkau49: domain.com/cpanel --- un : ashley
yabba_hh: you wanted webmail, why go to cpanel
yabba_hh: fab/webmail
longkau49: i dunno
longkau49: ok
yabba_hh: tit :P
longkau49: yes indeed cheers in now!
yabba_hh: on the grounds that yer a mate, I'll only charge you our discounted rate of £12.50 an hour or part hour ...... so that's just £37.50 I owe you :D
longkau49: ashley has left the building and couldnt recieve your message - this is an automated respoce
yabba_hh: :D
longkau49: responce
yabba_hh: couldn't :|
longkau49: and that
yabba_hh: receive :|:|
yabba_hh: Ashley :|:|:|
longkau49: ok ok its still me
yabba_hh: seriously mate, sack yer fuckin' secretary
yabba_hh: ohhh and it's response :D
longkau49: ok fuck off now
yabba_hh: heheh, good chance you'll make a silly o'clock quote :D
longkau49: look forward to reading it
yabba_hh: you already have :D

You wouldn't believe the position this was taken in

Wonder if they'll have baby trouts?

yabba_hh: sarah must be a crap shag, nick noticed I defaced his home page already :|
tuxnus: that was quick
yabba_hh: yeah, was pretty impressed myself :p
yabba_hh: wish he'd cure his mysql crap as fast :D
tuxnus: must be checking his emails/computer between honeymoon bonks :P
yabba_hh: < 24 hours ... c'mon, he needs to read the vgiagra ads :|
yabba_hh: -g :|
tuxnus: you'd make an excellent spammer :D
yabba_hh: I would :D
tuxnus: all yer misspellings would baffle the filters for ages :|
yabba_hh: yep :D
yabba_hh: u ... you ... ur ... fuck, however you spell "you" in your world, or is that ur world ? whatever ... anyway, wanna have a big bush ? I mean dick or is that arsehole ... whatever, wanna buy some?
tuxnus: :p sounds like yer skimming product off the top :|
yabba_hh: weirdly, that had no typos :|

¥

I hear you knocking

There's been many a request on the b2evolution forums for a way to make blogs so that they can only be seen by members. The usual response has been "hack this file and then make sure that you make posts as protected" .... which is great and stuff, but it's hardly "friendly" when you have several blogs that need protecting and you also want a tad more than "are they logged in?". Soooooo, I made a plugin to do it for me ;)

That's it, now your blog is protected

How does it work?

It's dead simple really, first go grab the plugin from BOPIT, unzip it, upload it, meander into admin and install it .... that was the hard part. For any blog that you wish to protect just put am:protected in the blog notes field and press save ...... and that's it! Instant protected blog ;)

What happens now?

From now on when a visitor tries to reach any blog marked as protected they'll automatically be redirected to the login screen with a message of your choice being displayed to them to explain why. If a registered user tries to reach a protected blog that they're not a member of, they'll get sent back to your homepage ... or whatever you slapped into your $baseurl ... but you chose that.

As well as taking care of the visitors / non-members for you this plugin will also automatically change any posts created, or edited, with a status of "published" to "protected" if it's in a protected blog , just to be sure to be sure ;)

I'm sure you'll let me know if it doesn't work,
¥

<?php
echo 'am I german ?'.( 1 + 1 * 4 / 2 + 3 * 2 );
?>