I recently found this nice little plugin called StatusPress that shows your Facebook status on Wordpress. It’s been developed by Adam Walker Cleaveland (pomomusings.com) and serves a simple solution to bloggers who would like to easily integrate their Facebook status to Wordpress.

The initial release lacked a timestamp feature, which C. Scott Andreas (paradoxica) added. The only problem was that the plugin was not available as a widget – which is why I chose to continue where they laid off..

For this release, I have made some enhancements:

• NEW! Added the option to remove first name in the beginning of messages
• Available as a widget with options (controls)
• Option to enable/disable the timestamp
• Option to have the status item on your Wordpress page link to the facebook message
• A minor mathmatical calculation error fixed
• Tested to work with WordPress v. 2.7.1

Download the Plugin here!

Just after I finished the development and started writing this post, I found that Brian D. Goad (briandgoad.com) actually widgetized the plugin just as I. I have chosen to release it anyway

Quick setup instructions.

1. Login to Facebook and go to this link: http://www.facebook.com/minifeed.php?filter=11
2. Right click on My Status in the right column and copy the link
3. Download the Plugin, install it and activate the widget
4. Paste in the Facebook feed URL to the widget option and enjoy!

You can see a working demo on my sidebar to the right. Let me know i you have any questions or new feature requests!

• 50 Beautiful CSS-Based Web-Designs
  Smashing Magazine      

  Even though this collection is starting to get a bit old, it’s still a great comprehensive source for inspiration.

• Single-Page Portfolio Sites
  Web Designer Wall           

  Nice collection of simple, stylish portfolios.

• Keep It Simple, Stupid!
  Smashing Magazine           

  Simple is good – it can’t be emphasized too often. Here’s a few good examples.

• 20 Creative Russian Web Designs
  DESIGN Walker         

  Let the creativity bloom! (if it isn’t too cold over there in Russia)

• 2008 Design Trends
  Web Designer Wall     

  Man – can you feel the juices rushing to your fingers, urging you to start up Photoshop! Great resource.

• 40 Creative Design Layouts
  Smashing Magazine     

  As always, Smashing Magazine delivers each time. Very inspiring indeed.

Besides the above posts, there are sites that focus only on showcasing websites of high quality. That’s literally tons of inspiration available, ready to get devoured!

Here’s a few of my favourites:

• Web Creme provides a continious stream of well-designed websites
• Designer Whore has a more artistic look at web design and supply with a broad range of creative designs
• Minimal Sites emphasizes on the minimal design (hence the name) – great stuff
• Style Boost is also a great resource to keep an eye on

There’s probably a whole lot sites I’ve either forgot or don’t know about. If you have a favourite you think should be included on the list, feel free to drop a suggestion in the comments

• Social networking services: Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace
• Communication and publishing platforms: Wordpress/Blogger, Tumblr, Twitter
• Social life aggregators: FriendFeed, Profilactic, Lifestrea.ms
• Social bookmarking and news: del.icio.us, Digg, StumbleUpon
• Information search and lookup: (inevitable) Google,  Wikipedia, Dictionary.com
• Personal organization and communication: Gmail, MobileMe and so forth (Hotmail, Exchange, Yahoomail etc.)
• Video and photo sharing: Flickr, YouTube, Imageshack
• Online shopping: eBay, Amazon, Pricerunner
• Services to centralize the above (online desktops if you will): iGoogle, Netvibes, Pageflakes

This is only to mention a few – check out Webware’s top 100 list for an awesome overview of current high-flyers. People I know, will recon that I love visualization. Statistics, workflows, networks, you name it, everything is so much more interesting when it’s visualized in a diagram of some sort. So:

Diagram picturing popular web apps 2008, categorized after purpose

I’ll claim that all of the mentioned web apps serves either one or multiple of the following three purposes: socialize, organize and/or informatize (self-made up word, but it needed to end with -ize ). Some will overlap, others will not quite fit any, but these are the major needs that web apps will to try to cover.

During the recent years, the development seem to have accelerated heavily, especially at the social aspects of digital online life. Actually, by the time I have published this post, plenty of new services have already surfaced, spreading like a steppe fire. Besides the many new services, a whole deal of new platforms, devices and technologies takes the services to a whole new level and makes the possibilities almost endless. Just consider digital life in terms of: mobility, accessability, reliability, compatibility, extensibility and usability - all undergone tremendous advancement. Simply put, the possibilites have never been as intriguing as now.

Now, what I find the most interesting is how we make use of all the possibilities presented to us. This is the first post in a series, where emphasis will be on this particular topic: how to get the most out of the digital revolution currently taking place..