As so frequently pointed out by open source proponents; the greatest thing about open source software is that anyone can modify, create and build on existing code and products. Flock is a notable example, as is Songbird and even Chrome.

BuddyPress was a project to convert a vanilla installation of WordPress MU (Multi-User) into a social media platform along the lines of Moveable Type’s new ‘Pro’ blogging platform. Through the use of plugins the installation will provide the following features:

Good news for plugin authors with the changes coming with WordPress 2.7. So far the features which have currently already made it into the release are:

This is a post from Extendably’s new regular author Angelo. Each week he will be reviewing individual Firefox extensions.

With the launch of Ubiquity, the net was a-buzz about the genius of this Firefox extension. The idea of anyone being able to create dynamic mashups of any internet service would provide a whole new set of freedoms. We could easily Twitter about the current website we were looking at, grab the address of our house and email it out to a few friends, even while searching Wikipedia, Google or any other search engine.

The idea was great, but for now Ubiquity is little more then a proof of concept, hardly the fully fledged extension we can invisage it as. 

Enter Deckkr RolllScreen.

If you’re any kind of download junkie then you’ll know the feeling of scouring the Internet in search of a particular program or tool to accomplish some obscure or not-so obscure task.

It’s one of the benefits of using Windows that there are literally millions of developers and products, however it’s one of the disadvantages that often its so hard to find what you need.

Extensions for Windows is a new set of products which provides an ‘unofficial upgrade’ to both Windows Vista and XP with a set of tools and applications to provide a lot of additional functionality to the OS.

Paint.NET started out as a replacement for the Windows Paint program, but has since grown into something much more over the last few years. The Gimp is another open source alternative which is much more powerful however I prefer using Paint.NET just because it’s that much simpler and easier to use.

What you may be less aware of is that Paint.NET can be extended via plugins. These plugins are various additional image effects and adjustments which are accessible via the main menus.

There is no easy to use directory of plugins, instead you’ll have to scrounge through the Paint.NET forums. Here are some of the best plugins and plugin packs currently available:

Last week I was wondering if Google Chrome would be getting the ability to be extended any time soon.

Well it seems like it hasn’t taken long, already a Japanese developer has figured out a way for Firefox Greasemonkey scripts to be run on Google Chrome. You’ll find it a bit clunky for now (scripts have to be manually copied into the My Documents folder) but it works and that’s what matters:

Today WordPress 2.62 was released as a minor update to 2.6.1 and includes about 10 bug fixes and patches a security issue:

With open registration enabled, it is possible in WordPress versions 2.6.1 and earlier to craft a username such that it will allow resetting another user’s password to a randomly generated password.  The randomly generated password is not disclosed to the attacker, so this problem by itself is annoying but not a security exploit.  However, this attack coupled with a weakness in the random number seeding in mt_rand() could be used to predict the randomly generated password.  Stefan Esser will release details of the complete attack shortly.  The attack is difficult to accomplish,  but its mere possibility means we recommend upgrading to 2.6.2.

The Woopra WordPress plugin was also updated today to 1.3.4, now word from Woopra what it addresses, more bug-fixes I presume. Woopra has been working much better for me since 1.3.2

About a month ago I decided it  was time for me to download iTunes and try it out. It gets consistently referred to as the best music jukebox (and perhaps the most popular as well) I tried it for a very short time a few years ago but quickly uninstalled it for being horribly slow and incredibly annoying with updates.

The second time I tried it performance had improved a bit but was still horrible, worse the WMP11 definitely and Apple Updates had become even more annoying. The best thing about iTunes however is there are plenty of plugins and extensions available for it.

GimmeSomeTune is a new plugin for iTunes on Mac OSX which will help you sort out your library and fix tags and album art.

Spotted this on CNET’s Webware blog, Rafe Needleman pretty much nails it with his comment:

To my mind, the killer feature of Google Docs is not that it is Web-based, per se. It’s that it makes real-time collaboration easy. You can invite a user into a document you currently have open, and you both can edit the file at the same time. It’s not a feature you’re going to need all the time, but when you’re on a deadline and need to get sign-off from one or more other person on a document right away, it’s a life-saver.

And I realised he was so right. Google Docs is nothing but a glorified notetaker and as an office application it really does suck, however what it does excel in is as an online collaborator.

This is a post from Extendably’s new regular author Angelo. Each week he will be reviewing individual Firefox extensions.

For a lot of us, the status bar is fairly useless. The only real purpose it serves out of the box is to tell you the progress of a loading website. For those of us with low screen resolutions (mine is maxed at 1024×768) the status bar is annoying. It just sits there, taking up about 20 pixels of valuable screen real-estate. 

Well now you can reclaim your precious screen real-estate, by eliminating your status bar, but still preserving the functionality. 

AutoHideStatusBar

AutoHideStatusBar is an add-on still in the experimental stages of development, but is useful nonetheless. It does exactly what the name implies - eliminate your status bar and freeing up those precious pixels so you can see more of the website instead of more of your browser.