Matt Mullenweg’s New Year’s Resolutions set a plan for WordPress in 2009. BuddyPress nearing release from beta. WordCamp Las Vegas was a resounding success. This weekend is WordCamp Jakarta. Next weekend is skiing and WordPress at WordCamp Whistler. BlogSecurity makes predictions for security issues facing WordPress in 2009. WordPress shines at the People’s Choice Awards. Are you a Plugin author? Got information you have to know about the future of developing WordPress Plugins. WordPress.com now offers Subscribe to Comments WordPress Plugin on every WordPress.com blog. Google offers method for converting between blog platforms, including WordPress. Want to have your say in where Ed Morita puts a permanent WordPress tattoo on his body? And more WordPress news.

WordPress News

Matt Mullenweg’s New Year’s Resolutions and Birthday Celebration: Matt Mullenweg offered “Open Sourcing Resolutions,” asking people to tell him what his resolutions should be for the new year. In Twenty-Five, he celebrates his birthday and lists his goals for the next year, which include goals associated with WordPress.

WordPress Tattoo: Ed Morita wants a permanent tattoo. His WordPress blog has changed his life and he wants to honor the expertise with a WordPress tattoo. In “Where Should I Put My WordPress Tattoo?” he asks for input on where to put his new WordPress logo tattoo on his body. The deadline is January 30, and he will get the tattoo on his birthday, February 10th.

BuddyPress Prepares for Launch: Second Beta & 1.0 Final Dates for BuddyPress are set. The second beta release of this social media Theme for WordPressMU (and potentially for full versions of WordPress) is scheduled for January 26. The final release is set for February 9. Andy Peatling of BuddyPress will be speaking at WordCamp Whistler 2009 in Whistler, BC, Canada, on January 24, 2009, if you want an upclose and personal view of this new social media WordPress Theme. read more

WordPress 2.7 downloads now passing 970,000. Want to predict when it will hit one million? Matt Mullenweg asks for input on his New Year’s resolutions. Tips for optimizing WordPress Plugins to accommodate new AJAX abilities in WordPress 2.7. Two new versions of bbPress released. WordCamp Las Vegas is this weekend. WordCamp Indonesia coming up fast, along with WordCamp Whistler in Canada. And Ed Morita wants to know where to put his new permanent WordPress logo tattoo and wants your input.

WordPress News

WordPress Tattoo: Ed Morita wants a permanent tattoo. His WordPress blog has changed his life and he wants to honor the expertise with a WordPress tattoo. In “Where Should I Put My WordPress Tattoo?” he asks for input on where to put his new WordPress logo tattoo on his body. The deadline is January 30, and he will get the tattoo on his birthday, February 10th.

Matt Mullenweg’s New Year’s Resolutions: In an interesting open source style twist to making New Year’s resolutions, Matt Mullenweg offers “Open Sourcing Resolutions,” asking people to tell him what his resolutions should be for the new year. It’s an interesting list of what other people think he should be doing, as well as ideas for the WordPress Community and WordPress development. Want your say?

WordPress Unique Sites: planetOzh showcased some interesting sites using WordPress. They are Twitdom, Wingee and Free Shipping. If you know of any interesting sites using WordPress, let us know.

WordPress Men Called to Marathon for Breast Cancer: Brian Gardner is calling on Chicago/Midwest WordPress male fans to join him August 7-9, 2009, for the 60-mile marathon for the Chicago Breast Cancer event. He claims it will be a great journey talking WordPress and blogging non-stop. read more

WordPress 2.7 downloads now passing 800,000. WordPress goes to the Supreme Court. Weblog Tools Collection announces college scholarship fund for WordPress students. WordPress 2.7 problems with XML-RPC. WordPress.com annual wrap up features dramatic statistics and features. Analysis of top WordPress Plugin authors in the WordPress Plugin Directory – who is on top? Chicago Breast Cancer Marathon call for WordPress men to march. And more WordPress news, security information, Plugins, Themes, and tips.

WordPress News

WordPress Men Called to Marathon for Breast Cancer: Brian Gardner is calling on Chicago/Midwest WordPress male fans to join him August 7-9, 2009, for the 60-mile marathon for the Chicago Breast Cancer event. He claims it will be a great journey talking WordPress and blogging non-stop.

WordPress Goes to the Suppreme Court: The community blog of Londonderry NH.net, in Londonderry, New Hampshire, used their WordPress blog in defense of their case on school funding before the Supreme Court of New Hampshire and the Senate. According to Steve Young of Londonderry NY.net, when asked about sharing some WordPress history, he said:

For us it was the fact that it could make history in the way we used it. April 30th, 2005, was our first use of WordPress and [first] post. Using it to blog about school funding in New Hampshire, we published anything and everything on school funding. We ended up in Supreme Court and won. Our attorney told us, in part because they were able to use the data to hold the politicians accountable for the things they had said.

Matt Mullenweg would be proud as it speaks to his favorite subjects: freedom of speech and WordPress.

Problems with WordPress 2.7 XML-RPC: Joseph Scott reports on problems with libxml2 For WordPress XML-RPC users that he’s been finding on the WordPress Support Forums and elsewhere. The problem is not WordPress specific, but the PHP XML extension using the new versions of libxml2 which leaves off angle brackets. The solution so far is to use old versions of libxml2 known to work or build the PHP XML model against the expat parser instead of libsml2. Check the forums and his post for updated information, as well as the Trac ticket on the issue.

One Million Downloads of WordPress 2.7: Two weeks ago, there were 500,000 WordPress 2.7 Downloads and Miroslav Glavic caught the rollover of the counter. As I write this, there are now over 800,000 downloads, moving fast for 1 million. Bets are on Twitter as to when one million downloads will be counted on the counter. There is now the WordPress Download Counter which adds a counter to your blog’s sidebar featuring the number of official WordPress version downloads from the WordPress Download Counter for WordPress fan blogs.

Weblog Tools Collection WordPress Plugin Competition and Now Scholarship: For several years, Weblog Tools Collection hosts one of the most popular WordPress Plugin Competitions in the world, with some of the winners becoming the most popular Plugins around the community. Plans are underway to make this year’s contest even bigger than before, but they want to do more. Mark Ghosh announced plans for a Weblog Tools Collection College Scholarship to promote “WordPress development and help students dip their toe in WordPress.” More news on this exciting educational program soon. read more

There was a lot of WordPress news this week, including the release last week of WordPress 2.7, which has been heralded by many as one of the easiest upgrades and enthusiasm for the new interface. Applause for the whole WordPress development team and community that worked so hard to make WordPress 2.7 so awesome. A lot of WordPress Plugins have been updated, and some thought discontinued by incorporation of their features into WordPress 2.7 are back and better than ever. Lots of WordPress.com news, including crossing the 5 million blog mark. WordCamps and WordPress Meetups are starting to fill up the schedule for 2009. And a lot more WordPress news is crammed into this issue, so hang on.

WordPress News

Things You Need to Know About WordPress 2.7: Last week’s issue, WordPress News: WordPress 2.7 Released, covered a ton of information you needed to know about the latest version of WordPress.

Ryan Boren announced that there have been 100,000 downloads in the first 20 hours of release, followed by a hint that WordPress 2.7.1 work in progress and will be out soon with many of the fixes found during the first week of the release.

Other WordPress 2.7 news and tips include:

• Accessibility and Speed Comes to the WordPress 2.7 Comment Panel: Mark Jaquith presented a great demo screencast of the WordPress 2.7: Comment Moderation Keyboard Shortcuts which shows the various keyboard shortcuts you can use with the new version of WordPress to speed up the processing of comments. To turn it on, visit your Profile Page (click your name in the upper right corner) and check the box to enable keyboard shortcuts. From there, it’s just a few keystrokes to fast management of your comments.
• Customize the WordPress Login Panel: WordPress 2.7 now features an easily customizable WordPress login screen and WPEngineer offers a tutorial on how to customize the WordPress login screen to your own design needs.
• Admin Drop Down Menu Upgraded: With the major changes and easy-to-use interface of WordPress 2.7, many thought that Ozh of Planet Oz would discontinue support of his popular WordPress Plugin, Admin Drop Down Menu. Fortunately, the requests to continue and support an upgraded version were too much for him to resist, so it has been upgraded with some new features to better work with WordPress 2.7. It includes a horizontal menu to replace the left sidebar navigation, giving it a more “desktop application” feel. See below in the Plugins and Theme News for more WordPress Plugins making a comeback.
• WordPress 2.7 Administration Panel Skin: While many are thrilled with the new look and feel of WordPress 2.7, some still like having the option to change and control it. The Fluency Admin WordPress Plugin has been updated with a total rewrite to cover the new underlying structure of WordPress 2.7 while allowing a lot of customization. This version features custom flyout menus, navigation click reduction, hot key access shortcuts, screen options, and some other color variations. Expect more Plugins to change the look of the new Administration Panels soon.
• hCards in WordPress 2.7? Did you know that microformats are now a part of WordPress? Joost de Valk of Yoast was impressed with the new hCards feature of WordPress, so he’s written a WordPress Plugin to work with the new microformats feature to add name, website, email, and photo to your blog. He offers a a video to show how the Plugin works.

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Mark Jaquith has just announced that WordPress 2.7 is now live and ready for download.

Rumors were flying with the WordPress 2.7 RC2 release announcement and WordPress mailing lists, and now, the official announcement is now out. This version of WordPress is named “Coltrane” for famed jazz Saxophonist, John Coltrane, a favorite of sax playing, WordPress founder, Matt Mullenweg.

The official announcement includes a video and information on how WordPress 2.7′s new interace was developed. For more examples, screenshots, video, and information on the new WordPress 2.7 version, see WordPress 2.7 Release News and Links, Countdown to WordPress 2.7 and WordPress 2.7 Hits WordPress.com Thursday, December 4, 2008, and keep an eye on WordPress 2.7 blog posts and coverage across the blogosphere. read more

By now, WordPress 2.7 has been released on WordPress.com. The full version should be released by December 10. We’ve lots of WordPress 2.7 version news. WordPress Theme and Plugin authors need to update and ensure they are listed on the compatibility pages on the Codex. Hang on, we’ve got lots of WordPress news.

WordPress News

Things You Need to Know About WordPress 2.7: WordPress.com now features a Countdown to WordPress 2.7 on blogger’s Administration Panels. It is clicking off the time until WordPress 2.7 hits WordPress.com blogs.

In the announcement that WordPress 2.7 will arrive on Thursday, December 4, 2008, at 8PM Eastern Time in the United States on WordPress.com blogs, you will find all the tips and information you need to handle the transition to the new version of WordPress. Ryan Boren explained that WordPress.com users have been using WordPress 2.7 for a while without the new Administration Panel interface, which is due to arrive today.

Full Version of WordPress 2.7 Due December 10: In response to the Blog Herald announcement, Jane Wells confirms that the full version of WordPress 2.7 will be released December 10, though it could be sooner if testing on WordPress.com goes well. read more

I haven’t had time to spend much lately on the WordPress Support Forums and WordPress.com Forums, so I set aside an hour to help out, then found myself spending two. The support forums are addictive. Helping people is addictive. And fun.

If you are a WordPress, or familiar with the inner workings of WordPress.com, spend some time on their forums. It’s a huge learning experience.
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WordCamp 2008 in San Francisco videos should be out any time. Lots of WordCamp News including last weekend’s WordCamp South Africa and upcoming WordCamps in Portland, Hawaii, Birmingham, Charlotte, Raleigh/Durham, Utah, Philippines, and more. Jeffro asks you to stop blaming WordPress. Crazyhorse shakes the WordPress 2.7 trunk. How to switch from TypePad to WordPress with only a little stress. And more WordPress news.

WordPress News

Stop Blaming WordPress: In a daring post, Jeffro asks you to stop blaming the WordPress team for problems they have no control over, specifically, WordPress Plugins. I’ve written on this subject before and I agree. WordPress is an ongoing product in constant development and will undergo changes. For the most part, they are very good about announcing changes in code that will impact Plugins and Themes, and getting better all the time. If you support a WordPress Theme or Plugin, it’s your resonsibiilty to keep it updated. Thanks for reminding us, Jeffro.

Bleeding Edge Interface for WordPress 2.7: Ryan Boren announced that the new user interface from the Crazyhorse experimental version of WordPress 2.7 (we hope) is in the trunk. It is usable, but it will bite back, so only use it on your alfa testing blogs where it can do little harm.

Considering Switching from TypePad to WordPress: The never-ending battle between Lloyd Budd of Automattic and TypePad continues with his latest rant against TypePad, The TypePad Trap. Rant or not, this is a great article with tips you need to know about if you want to switch from TypePad to WordPress. read more

WordPress iPhone mania sweeps the WordPress Community. WordPress will now rule an entire nation. WordCamp UK a resounding hit. WordPress 2.6 appears to be a stable release. The new WordPress Themes Directory is now an extend. WordPress working hard on improving localization and international translations. Go VOTE for your favorite new WordPress Plugin.

WordPress News

iPhone for WordPress: It’s the talk of the web. The WordPress for iPhone brings your WordPress blog to your iPhone. It is Open Source and compatible with iPhone 3G, iPhone, and iPod Touch and works with full-versions of WordPress (2.5.1 or higher) and WordPress.com. You can download it for free from the iTunes App Store. There is a WordPress iPhone frequently asked questions page to help, and a place to report iPhone WordPress problems. A walk-through video on WordPress for iPhone is on the Automattic Publisher blog. CNet Webware gives a positive review of the iPhone WordPress app, including pros and cons such as uploading photos from your Media Library or from your phone’s camera, and a good post preview. The downside is not being able to copy and paste links and text. It’s all hand HTML coding, too. There are a lot of WordPress mobile options for blogging and keeping up with your WordPress blog via your cell phone.

WordPress Now Rules a Nation: Simon Dickson announced at WordCamp UK that Number 10 Downing new site will be on WordPress.
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