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WordPress Wednesday News: WordPress 2.3.1 Released, Get Your Upgrade, WordPress Podcast Speaks out, WordCamp Israel a Success, Argentina is Next, and WordPress Wins.
The Blog Herald
The Blog Herald

WordPress Wednesday News: WordPress 2.3.1 Released, Get Your Upgrade, WordPress Podcast Speaks out, WordCamp Israel a Success, Argentina is Next, and WordPress Wins.

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October 31, 2007

WordPress 2.3.1 Released with mandatory security upgrade. There’s an upgrade script to make upgrading life easier – well, at least your WordPress life. The WordPress Podcast is out, jammed with tons of WordPress news, rumors, and tips. WordCamp Israel was a hit. WordCamp Argentina is next. WordCamp Hamburg is taking reservations for the conference next year. WordPress wins points for Open Source. WordPress tags are all the rage. Gravatar fever is spreading. WordPress.com gets the news and so do you. Read on.

WordPress News

WordPress 2.3.1 Released: The latest version of WordPress is out and contains security fixes, which makes this a mandatory upgrade. It also includes tagging support for Windows Live Writer, faster taxonomy database queries, and fixes to the login and link importer. For a list of all the changes between the last two versions, see the Trac, and . For more information, see Peter Westwood’s description of the changes in WordPress 2.3.1.

WordPress Upgrade Script: Ozh of PlanetOzh has written a WordPress Upgrade Script for those with shell access to their web server, making upgrading WordPress “a matter of painless seconds”.

Is Your WordPress Blog Secure? Blog Security is at it again, researching WordPress blogs to check to see if they have updated to the most secure versions available. Their report in Power Bloggers Vulnerable gives us a glimpse into how many top bloggers are not taking their blog security seriously.

3 out of 5 had obvious vulnerabilities that could potentially be exploited now! Two of these blogs are running a blog version that would make Matt Mullenweg blush and one of them was using an older version of the popular Adsense-Deluxe plugin, which I reported a vulnerability for 6 months ago.

Need another reason to update WordPress?

Cleaning Up Themes Best Decision: In Google Penalizing Paid Links, one of many reports around the web of Google dropping PageRank for blogs using paid links, Matt Mullenweg admits the decision to clean up WordPress Themes from within the WordPress “official” listings was a good one as “Countless blogs could have been penalized just for the theme they were using, not related to anything they did or did not do on their blog.” WordPress took a lot of heat for taking a stand to protect the WordPress Community and it’s paying off now.

WordPressMU 1.3 Due Soon: Donncha announces that WordPressMU 1.3 is due soon with some good Digg proof cache and free and GPL Plugins for the mulitple user blog network version of WordPress.

WordPress Wins: WordPress has been chosen as a finalist in the PacktPub Open Source CMS Awards competition as the Best Open Source Social Networking CMS in the 2007 Open Source CMS Award, along with Drupal, Elgg, LifeType, and Moodle. At this stage, the five finalists receive USD $2,000, but the competition goes on as each group is filtered down in different stages, winning various awards for making it to each stage in the competition, until the Overall Winner is announced on November 2. Played right, WordPress could win a lot of recognition and exposure, but also some nice cash to keep their efforts in Open Source going. Congrats on the competition so far!

WordCamp Israel: WordCamp Israel was a great success with over 200 WordPress fans. The best of the best of Israeli bloggers and web publishing experts shared tips, tricks, and techniques on WordPress and blogging. Plans are already underway for next year’s event, expected to be twice as big.

WordCamp Argentina: WordCamp Argentina (Upcoming Event Page) is October 31, 2007, and will be featuring Matt Mullenweg along with other popular bloggers and web publishing experts at the Universidad de Palermo in Buenos Aires.

WordCamp Melbourne: Australia, is the next international spot for WordCamp Melbourne for November 17. There is now an Upcoming Events page which list WordCamp Melbourne will be at the Watermark Bar. They are still setting the schedule of speakers up for the afternoon long conference, but expect to see some fantastic speakers and programs.

WordPress Hamburg News: WordCamp Hamburg’s registration is open with tickets at 20 Euros ($29). Sponsor tickets are 400 Euros ($575), also available online. Blog Yoda writes about the excitement of the upcoming WordCamp Hamburg or WordCamp Germany, as many are calling it. The author also points to the popular wordpress-deutschland.org, which services German speaking WordPress users with helpful articles and tips. I’ll be searching for new reports and news on the upcoming WordCamp event, so please point me in the right direction if you have information on this!

International WordCamps: Is there a WordCamp coming to your area? Volunteers are needed to help coordinate WordCamp conferences around the world. Below are some of the first, and they need your help to be a success, so pitch in and spread the news.

WordPress on Your Calendar: Here are some WordPress-related dates and events to put on your calendar as found on the WordPress Roadmap and the WordPress Meetup Group Listings (subject to change):

If you are having a WordPress-related event that isn’t on the calendar, post them below or via email.

WordPress Podcast: The latest WordPress Podcast is out: Episode 31: Automattic acquires Gravatar, Automattic being acquired? It covers a ton of information including Charles’ trip to Podcast and New Media Expo, Aaron sharing about PodCamp Philly, Automattic buying Gravatar, rumors of the sale of Automattic, WordPress tags, Blog Security’s Whitepaper on WordPress security flaws, problems with WP-Cache, international WordCamps, wPhone WordPress Plugin and much, much more.

WordPress for Dummies: WordPress for Dummies is officially released Monday, October 29 by Lisa Sabin-Wilson.

Choosing WordPressMU over Drupal for Intrablog Network: Learning Blog says Not Drupal, WordPressMU for those trying to set up an intrablog network, and goes into step-by-step instructions and tips on how.

Tags, Tags, Everywhere Tags: The new tagging feature in WordPress is getting a lot of attention. In WordPress 2.3 Tag News, Simple Tags WordPress Plugin is getting a lot of attention and respect as a well-rounded Plugin for managing the new native tagging in WordPress. Called the successor to the popular Simple Tagging Plugin, Simple Tags features “type-ahead” input tags, auto suggestion, tag management, listing no-tagged content, mass editing of tags, tags for Pages, tag related content, a possibility of adding related posts inside feeds, tag clouds, header tags, embedded tags, and a lot more.

The following are WordPress Plugins that are designed to work with the native tagging in WordPress 2.3:

How Are You Using WordPress Tags? Nusuni offers “Three Unique Uses Of WordPress Tags”, and it makes me wonder. How are you using the new WordPress tag feature with your blog?

Time Change in WordPress: Donncha asks “What time is it WordPress?”, reminding us of Daylight Saving Time (DST) around the world as countries are shifting and changing their schedules around. He describes tips for manually switching, but also mentions the Time Zone WordPress Plugin, which can help make the time transitions easier.

WordPress 2.4 Digest: In this week’s WordPress weekly digest on WordPress 2.4 development by Peter Westwood, he reports there has been an increase in the types of sorting supported by get_terms, work on taxonomy relationships and cache, fixes to the manage posts feature and the Plugin installer.

Plugin To Improve WordPress 2.3 Upgrade: WordPress Upgrade Preflight Check WordPress Plugin attempts to check Plugins and Themes for errors when upgrading to WordPress 2.3. Run this before upgrading to help improve the ease of your upgrade.

Vote for WordPress Ideas: Did you know you could have your say in how WordPress works? You can add your idea and vote on any of the ideas to push them to the top in getting them added or removed from WordPress future versions. The section on WordPress is an open forum for you to have your say. Why not take advantage of it and add your voice to the vote.

Last Week’s WordPress Wednesday News: Last week’s WordPress Wednesday News report covered WordCamps in Israel, Argentina, Australia, and Germany, Tons of WordPress Plugin News and Updates, Beta Security Release Announced, and More, if you would like to catch up with the news on WordPress.

WordPress.com News

WordPress.com W logoWordPress.com News: WordPress.com has added a News Department to the front page of the WordPress.com site. Andy promises that it will be a “new place where you can browse fresh, hot content in any department you like”. Currently, the “news” categories are Business, Cars, Entertainment, Family, Food, Health, Politics, Religion, Science, Sports, Technology, and Travel. To get listed, you have to have one of these exact specific words in your post tags or categories, and have a “hot” article traffic-wise.

Sandbox Theme Updated on WordPress.com: The Sandbox Theme has been updated on WordPress.com and now comes in two versions, old and new. Sandbox Theme 1.0 is the new version and 0.61 the old, and the new will not work with the old due to major changes in the styles and structure. Used by all those who paid for the CSS Upgrade, to change to the new version, read the Sandbox readme file for notes on the changes and documentation. Also check out the announcement about the Custom CSS Upgrade on the WordPress.com FAQ.

What’s Hot on WordPress.com? The hottest blogs on WordPress.com were:

The hottest blog posts on WordPress.com were:

WordPress Plugins and Themes News

WordPress Plugins DatabaseTranslators Wanted: As many WordPress Theme and Plugin authors are starting to think “global”, requests for translators, like the recent request from planetOzh, to help translate a few phrases and words are growing. It would be nice to have a repository of keywords often used in Themes and Plugins from around the globe’s wealth of languages for all to use, wouldn’t it? Anyone interested?

Get Gravatared: With the purchase of Gravatar by Automattic, you, too, can be Gravatared. Three Gravatar Plugins to consider besides the Gravatar WordPress Plugin are WordPress Gravatar Plugin by Il Filosofo or Easy Gravatars by Dougal Gunters.

Twitter Tools Plugin and WordPress 2.3 Fix: I’m sure the author of Twitter Tools WordPress Plugin, Alex King, has been working on fixing his popular Plugin, but TechDad has come up with a solution to make it work with WordPress 2.3.

In Series WordPress Plugin Upgrade: The popular, In Series WordPress Plugin has been upgraded to work with WordPress 2.3, but also includes multi-lingual support and more flexibility. If you write article series on your blog, this Plugin displays a table of contents of the articles within the series and is invaluable. The next version, In Series 3.1.0 Beta 1 is available for those who want to help improve this popular Plugin.

See Also
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Apple Delays Launch of New M3 Apple Silicon into 2024

WordPress Theme Review Groups on Facebook: Open Giga announces a new WordPress Review Groups on Facebook for “WordPress friends” to help each other review your WordPress blog. While the also offer a review section, you might find some interesting perspectives on your blog from this new review group.

Exec-PHP Updated: Exec-PHP WordPress Plugin has been updated to version 3.4. The Plugin allows PHP tags to be included in the content or excerpt of posts and pages, allowing the PHP code to be executed as PHP code. It now supports execution of text widgets and Plugin upgrade notification.

WordPress Functions History Tool: If you are a WordPress developer, hacker, Plugin or Theme author, check out Ozh of Planet Ozh’s hot WordPress Functions Implementation History Tool.

Interesting WordPress Plugins: Some interesting WordPress Plugins I’ve stumbled across recently include:

WordPress Theme/Template Warnings: Again, more users are finding WordPress Theme/Template scam and spam links in Themes they get from in and around the web and not from verified “good” sources. Be warned! There is evil everywhere. As previously warned, there have been a variety of reports about WordPress Theme suppliers offering free Themes stuffed with advertising links and spam links in these downloaded Themes. Some are obvious, and others are buried in included template files, javascripts, and PHP code.

If you choose to download Themes from “unofficial” sites, take care. These are not the responsibility of WordPress or Automattic and you do so at your own risk. I recommend that if you cannot find a WordPress Theme from the official sites, you check the code thoroughly before using, or have someone do it for you. Or check out the list by WPThemesPlugin on sites that allow sponsored Themes. This list is no guarantee that these Themes will be free of ad or spam links, but it does show you the list of Themes which have been paid for and may include advertising.

Finding WordPress Plugins: For more WordPress Plugins see the official WordPress Plugin Directory, which now lists 1,182 plugins and 1,984,114 downloads, the WordPress Plugins Database, and Weblog Tools Collection of WordPress Plugins released daily.

Most Popular WordPress Themes: The WordPress Theme Viewer lists the most popular WordPress Themes:

WordPress Techniques and Tips

Here are some featured articles and videos from around the WordPress Community and the , the online manual for WordPress Users, the source to turn to first for your WordPress help.

NOTE: If you would like your WordPress tip and technique included in this list, see Tips For Writing Good WordPress Tips.

WordPress Community News

WordPress Community graphicAutomattic Rumor Mill: A lot of rumors are flying around about Matt Mullenweg’s Automattic, the parent company of WordPress, being up for sale. In the Mashable article that helped fuel the fire, saying Automattic could be worth anywhere between $150 and $300 million, CEO Toni Schneider says the rumor is not true and Automattic is not up for sale.

Looking for a WordPress Expert? Do you want a custom WordPress blog? Want to convert your website into a WordPress blog or use WordPress as a CMS? If you are looking for an expert in WordPress Themes, WordPress development, WordPress Plugins, or other WordPress-related expertise, check out the list of WordPress Consultants on , the parent company of WordPress, the WordPress Jobs listings, and the WP-Pro mailing list.

WordPress Jobs: WordPress Jobs is a new “service” announced by Weblog Tools Collection. It features jobs for WordPress experts and WordPress experts looking for work. Currently, the service is free as it is still in beta testing. Give it try.

Using WordPress in Your Blog’s Name: Just a reminder. WordPress is a trademark and you are not allowed to use WordPress in your blog’s name or URL unless you have permission of and . Currently, they are lax about enforcing this, but why run the risk of being forced to change your blog’s name and URL? Get permission or don’t use it. Also, remember, it’s spelled “WordPress” not “WordPress”. Oh, and Plugin is Plugin, not plug-in (what you put into a wall electrical socket).

WordPress Installed For Free: If you have problems installing the full version of WordPress, visit Installing WordPress for Free (aka Install4Free WordPress). This free, volunteer-driven service is limited to personal blogs only, and they help only with installations, not upgrades.

Even More WordPress News?

Past WordPress Wednesday News Reports

WordPress News Sources

Each Wednesday on is WordPress Wednesday, featuring the news around the WordPress Community. If you have a WordPress news item or tip to suggest, please contact me at this special email address: lorelleonwordpress@gmail.com

The author of Lorelle on WordPress and the fast-selling book, Blogging Tips: What Bloggers Won't Tell You About Blogging, as well as several other blogs, Lorelle VanFossen has been blogging for over 15 years, covering blogging, WordPress, travel, nature and travel photography, web design, web theory and development extensively as web technologies developed.

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