Longer Explanation:
In the good ol' days everyone had anonymous access to commenting on markpude.com. Abused by some and enjoyed by most, it was one of the things that made this website fun in the days before TwitBook and YouSpace. Most noticeably since switching to popular open source publishing software, WordPress, I started getting smacked in the face with spam comments. So I shut 'er down. I basically said you have to make an account, have that account approved by me, and get a signed letter of the President of the United States before you could post comments. Not surprisingly, in 2+ years of this setup not a single comment has been attempted let alone approved.

Since I'm dusting this thing off, I figured I'd give the newest spam filters another try as well as see if this 'Web 2.0' thing is going anywhere (does anyone even say that anymore? I don't think they do...). So instead of making an account on this site, you can log in with your Facebook credentials and leave a comment. One less password to remember in this world. It's all legitimate and open source software created by someone that knows more about what they're doing more than I do. The bottom line is, I don't keep your info, I don't check your info, but you still get to tell me how I'm being stupid/wrong. Check the plugin out, Simple Facebook Connect, if you're concerned for your privacy and general well-being. Otherwise, enjoy, and comment on my posts already, dammit...

P.S. - There is the obvious 'next step' desire to cross pollinate the Facebook comments with the markpude.com comments. The guys over at ottopress.com say they're working on it, so look for that sometime in the future. Until then, look at is a feature. With a minimal cut and paste operation, you get to have your clever/witty/pretentious comment seen in twice as many places while only having to think it up once!

That is all. Thank you.

As I promised before, I will list the plug-ins that I ended up with including a brief description of each.

1 - Contact Form 7 - Very simple contact form generator.  This one I probabaly could have done on my own, but I'm lazy.

2 - Easy AdSense - Added Google AdSense. I don't anyone comes to this site let alone clicks on the ads, but oh well.

3 - Fotobook - This is a pretty slick plug-in that grabs all of my facebook pictures and stores them on the site. It also has cron capability to periodically check for new pictures. See 7 to see how this is implemented. Check it out via the Photos tab above.

4 - Lifestream - This was the last one I added. It grabs RSS feeds from a whole host of services including Facebook status, and things I watch on Hulu. Check it out from the Lifestream tab at the top of the page.

5 - MapMyRide Widget - This pulls off of my MapMyRun.com RSS feed to display the most recent workout I've logged. I had to do significant customization to this one. I wasn't a big fan of how much information it posted, so I changed it.

6 - ShareThis - This adds the "Share This" link at the bottom of each post/page. I don't expect this feature to ever be used, but it makes the website look more legitimate since you see that sort of thing all over the intarweb these days.

7 - Utopia Cron - I think this guy is a very slick piece of work. Its a pseudo cron job manager. Basically whenever someone loads the website, it checks the time to see if any cron jobs need to be run. This is what I use to periodically update the Fotobook stream.

8 - Wordbook - This one interfaces with Facebook to tell people there when something new is posted here. Its really the only evidence on Facebook that this site even exists.

9 - WordPress PDA & iPhone Plugin - This little guy formats the site differently when it is accessed via a mobile device. Again, not something anyone other than myself will likely ever use.

Finally, I added a Zune tab above that just includes my Zune card or whatever its called so you can see what music I've been listening to.

This is a long post. I will end it abruptly.

I went fishing around through WordPress's extensive plugin library looking for things that will simultaneously update my facebook and website at the same time.  I was pleasantly surprised to find quite a few options.  I'm still in the process of playing with them to figure out which ones I like and which ones I don't.  Maybe when I'm finished I'll post which plugins I ended up with.

We'll see.