I’m using the PHP Markdown script, which can be used standalone but also functions as a WordPress plugin. You simply copy the script into your wp-content\plugins folder, activate it on the Plugins tab, and you’re all set.

I am currently evaluating MarsEdit, a very nice blogging application for OSX. When configuring your blog in MarsEdit, you can set the Preview Text Filter to Markdown, which will give you a nice realtime preview of your post, the same way it is going to appear on your blog.

See here for a brief overview of Markdown syntax, and here for the full Markdown syntax reference.

However, the iG:Syntax Hiliter plugin completely fits the bill. It uses the popular and powerful GeSHI Syntax Highlighter, which is also embedded in several Wiki syntax highlighting plugins that I’ve used. Installation is simple as usual for WordPress plugins: Just download the plugin and copy it to the “plugins” folder. It uses tags of the form

[language name]...[/language name]

and supports most popular languages, including Ruby (the support for which was actually added by the plugin author).

The plugin also adds a nice options page in the WordPress admin interface, which allows configuration of many details, including colors, whether to display line numbers, the name of the language, whether to add a plaintext option, and more.

Here are some samples:

[ruby] class Foo attr_reader: @bar

def initialize(bar) @bar = bar end

def do_stuff puts “Bar: #{bar}” end end [/ruby]

[java] public class Foo { String bar;

public Foo(String bar) { this.bar = bar; }

public doStuff() { System.out.println(”Bar: ” + bar); } } [/java]

[sql] SELECT People.* FROM People, Cars WHERE People.car_id = Cars.id AND Cars.manufacturer = ‘honda’ [/sql]

Comments are re-enabled for now. Let’s see how this goes… Either way, the upgrade was worth it. The WordPress 2.02 admin interface looks a lot more modern and polished, and I look forward to exploring some of the new themes and plugins.

Update: So far so good. Akismet already caught over 200 spam comments / trackbacks in the 11 hours since I installed it…

Most importantly, over 120 Typo themes resulted from this competition! The themes are very diverse, and everybody who is interested in hosting a Typo blog should be able to find at least a couple themes to their liking.

I am still happily running on Wordpress and not in a rush to abandon it, although I am definitely intrigued by Typo. It has come a long way and is now a very capable blog engine. If you are in the market for a new blog engine and have a Rails capable webhost, I strongly encourage you to check it out.

I should also mention that Geoffrey Grosenbach (who also hosts the official Ruby on Rails Podcast), is going to continue maintaining the Typo Theme Contest blog. Although now that there are 120 themes spread across 14 pages of the blog, I hope that somebody writes a Typo theme switcher plugin, or at least a webpage that lists all known plugins on a single page and links to a live preview of the theme, similar to what Alex King did for the Wordpress Theme Competition earlier this year.

Anyway, I decided to take the Typo Theme Contest that is currently in progress as an opportunity to play a bit with Typo and check out its theming capabilities. I’m impressed with the quality of the themes that have been submitted so far. If you are interested in a simple but colorful theme that gets by without using any images at all, you may want to check out my own submission to the contest: opyT.

It is based on the Scribbish theme, which has a very clean layout and has the CSS broken into several files. This makes it a lot easier to find the rules that are relevant for the aspect of the theme you are currently modifying. If you are planning on building your own Typo theme, I recommend you base this on Scribbish rather than the default Azure theme.

Somebody has written up a nice comparison between Google Blog Search, Blog Pulse, Technorati, and Ice Rocket. While Google still appears to be playing catch up in a few minor areas, they already do what they do best: provide lightning fast access to relevant search results.

I shudder to think that I might actually be inadvertently promoting religion via the ads displayed on my blog. Those spaghetti recipes might come in handy, though.

If the participation is anything like the recent WordPress Themes Competition, we can be sure to see some excellent plugins coming our way.