WordPress 2.8 News: The final stages of development, testing, and patching is underway for the release of WordPress 2.8. The latest news on the next version of WordPress includes: read more

No one likes Internet Explorer 6 (IE6 for short), a web browser that’s been around since 2001 and just won’t die. Designers truly loathe it, because it forces them (us) to do various fixes and ugly hacks that just shouldn’t be needed these days. And users, well, they should loathe it but obviously they don’t know better.

If you are using IE6, please switch to IE7, Firefox, Safari, or just about any other web browser out there!

In Norway they are taking it one step further than above. It started as a week long experiment (still ongoing as I’m writing this), but it seems to be evolving to an actual movement to stop the use of IE6. And that’s good for the web. read more

I’ve been waiting for the blog post about the changes over at Twitter. Among other things, search is on the top of the page now (which it should be of course), and there are some changes done to both profile pages when not logged in, and the find and follow pages. Read all about it in the launch post, and be sure to follow The Blog Herald on Twitter.

This is the first step in our current effort to clean up a few areas of the site that we know need some work. We have a few more fixes to make in the near future (also for SMS and m.twitter.com) before we get on to the exciting new features we have planned for the rest of the year!

Really? Here’s hoping it’ll be more local SMS numbers, but I’m guessing it involves MMS:ing images and video. What do you think?

WordPress 2.5 is definitely the top news, along with some serious security vulnerability issues. WordPress 2.5 has been downloaded over 300,000 times so far. WordPress.com has gone WordPress 2.5. Tons of Plugins have been updated to work with WordPress 2.5, with more coming out daily. And there is some non-WordPress 2.5 news, too.

WordPress News

WordPress 2.5 Released: WordPress 2.5 was released last week. Last week, I published WordPress Wednesday Special Edition: WordPress 2.5 listing some of the blogs talking about the new version of WordPress. Here are some more:

• How To Upgrade To WordPress 2.5 In 5 Minutes
• Wordpress 2.5 Released [Reflection on upgrade and SVN]
• Wordpress 2.5 Early Reactions – Sticky Post + Wordpress Automatic Upgrade Plugins
• WordPress Codex page with 2.5 features
• Cool New Wordpress 2.5 Feature
• Dougal Gunters – WordPress 2.5 Released
• WordPress 2.5 Released Today
• Knowing Your Way Around the WordPress 2.5 Write Panel
• WordPress 2.5 Upgrade Guide(s)
• FAQ On WordPress 2.5 Version 2
• WordPress 2.5 ist da!
• Lorelle’s WordPress 2.5 Upgrade Preparation Checklist
• WordPress 2.5, Things You Must Know
• How to enable Gravatar on WordPress 2.5
• A Workaround for Uploading Pictures/Media to Your Wordpress Blog for Ubuntu/Linux AMD 64 Users…

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When Web 2.0 first began with Google and Craigslist, one of the “innovations” was simplicity itself – empty, uncluttered designs that allowed users to get what needed to be done with a minimum of design elements.

I feel this basic concept has been forgotten recently, what with widgets, ads, videos, monetization, polls, spam, and splogs. Some blogs are so obscured with extra stuff that the content – the post itself – is nearly impossible to find.

It may be time to get back to basics. This week, I noticed several articles about clutter reduction, enough to say that excesses may be reversing and we’re entering a “clutter-reduction equals increased productivity” trend:

• Blain at Stock Trading To Go did a guest post at Zenhabits called Getting Productive, and a Clean Desk. He has some good suggestions, namely a daily task list (in order to avoid distractions), waking up earlier, and discipline to avoid procrastination.
• An article from The Consumerist suggests one way to feel richer is to remove clutter, suggesting that “unnecessary objects steal energy and attention”. This could be a reference to the wasted time cleaning, things, looking for things, or maintaining things – all time that could be spent being productive. Now imagine how visiting a cluttered blog is like entering a cluttered room.
• Newsweek: The Latte-Era Grinds Down: A sagging economy is goading people to refocus their lifestyles toward the essentials.

Since upgrading to WordPress 2.3 I’ve been on a quest to “declutter” my blog: cleaning it up for the specific purposes of increasing readability, removing distractions, and improving load time. Here’s a short list of what I’ve achieved so far:

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Its the first day of Spring here today in Australia, and although its still fairly cool, September in my neck of the woods means that the 6 months it rains here will soon come to an end, it will be warm soon, and I’ll be a whole much more happier person (mainly because I hate winter). So what better time to write a quick spring cleaning list for blogs, but don’t despair if your North of the equator, because spring cleaning your blog(s) can be done at any time of the year: indeed I find it helps me particularly if I get into a rut, and as they say sometimes a change is as good as a holiday!
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