Last week, Wordpress 2.3.1 was released - a bug fix minor update to 2.3 which also corrects some security issues. It’s a strongly recommended update that should just drop in easily if you’re running 2.3 already.

As always, it’s available from http://www.wordpress.org/.
[tags]wordpress, update[/tags]

The latest version of Wordpress became available last night, and it looks to be a pretty major release.

Probably the biggest feature in it is that it supports tags without any additional plugins required. I had been planning on writing an article on Ultimate Tag Warrior, the tagging plugin I’ve been using, but its author retired it a while back because of the new tagging support upcoming in Wordpress 2.3. The new release supports importing tag info from several previous tagging plugins.

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Wordpress 2.2.2 (and for those still on the older version 2.0.11) has been released. It primarily addresses security issues with a few other bug fixes rolled in, and isn’t expected to break any plugins. You should update.

Via: WordPress › Blog » WordPress 2.2.2 and 2.0.11
[tags]wordpress, update, blog[/tags]

Wordpress 2.2.1 has been released. It fixes a few security issues as well as some rough edges around the 2.2 release. The security issues are, as always, particularly important. If you’re running 2.2, you should take the few minutes needed to upgrade to 2.2.1 as soon as possible.

WordPress › Blog » WordPress 2.2.1
[tags]wordpress, update[/tags]

Wordpress 2.2 has been released.

The new update includes support for “Wordpress Widgets” (hey everyone’s doing widgets, Wordpress might as well too) in the Wordpress core as opposed to being in a plugin; full support for Atom, protection from plugins and file changes breaking Wordpress, and speed improvements. Plus lots and lots of bug fixes.

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I’ve finally updated the Wordpress themes on all three of my blogs. I rolled out the new theme to this blog and Shiny Things a while back; I’ve just moved the Apocalypse Blog over to it, too.

I had several motivations in doing these new themes. I did them from scratch. One motivation was to improve my CSS skills and learn more about cross-browser issues (man do they suck!).

I also wanted to improve the way that the blogs are monetized (that phrase really rolls of the tongue…). The new theme has three elements that help monetize the blogs. The first is the memory finder in the header. The second is the Google ads. The third is the Amazon box in the right hand column (this is only present on the Apocalypse blog at the moment as I haven’t picked out Amazon items for the other blogs yet).

The memory finder feels to me like it fits in well with Shiny Things and isn’t too far off base here (after all, what developer couldn’t use more RAM?), but it doesn’t really fit in at all on the Apocalypse Blog. Then again nobody’s bought memory through it yet so perhaps it’s just pointless.
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Wordpress versions 2.1.3 and 2.0.10 are released as of April 3rd. They’re mostly security fixes, with a dash of reassurance that the downloads are being actively monitored against tampering now.

Via: WordPress › Blog » WordPress 2.1.3 and 2.0.10
[tags]wordpress, update[/tags]

The Apocalypse blog got 2104 spam comments today!

Fortunately, Akismet caught most of them. 14 were sitting waiting for moderation. By the time I marked them all as spam, I’d received 4 more.

If you don’t know about Akismet, it’s a built-in Wordpress plugin that detects and filters spam. It works by comparing comments with spam comments collected by other blogs. The spam is separated from the “good” comments and is automatically deleted after 15 days.
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Wordpress.org is now providing its own directory of plugins at http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/. Plugins extend the functionality of Wordpress, providing support for doing everything from AJAX-y comments to social bookmarking to spam detection. There are thousands of Wordpress plugins out there. If they’re not the backbone of setting up a Wordpress blog, they are at least the tatts and piercings.

Until now I’ve used http://wp-plugins.net/ for most of my plugin searching (or I’ve just used Google). I’ve even found a few authors who’ve had a nice set of high quality, useful plugins. It will probably take a while before Wordpress.org catches up to the previously existing plugin directories, so I’d suggest not giving up if you’re looking for something and don’t find it at Wordpress.org.

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The Wordpress 2.1.1 distribution was cracked recently and a couple of files were tampered with. The malicious version was only online for a few days; the original version was safe. But if you’ve installed and are running Wordpress 2.1.1, the Wordpress maintainers strongly advise that you update to version 2.1.2 instead. Check the link below for their report.

The CVS distribution is intact, so if you installed from it you’re safe.

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