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WordPress Wednesday: New Security Release, Updated WordPressMU, More WordPress Plugins, and Time to Get Naked
The Blog Herald
The Blog Herald

WordPress Wednesday: New Security Release, Updated WordPressMU, More WordPress Plugins, and Time to Get Naked

by
April 4, 2007

A new security release of WordPress is out, and WordPress is now taking serious steps to protect WordPress users from evil doers. A new version of WordPressMU has also been released, and found lurking under some new exciting business blogs. The latest version of the top notch comment spam fighting Plugin, Spam Karma, has been released. Weblog Tools Collection is offering a month long review of WordPress Plugins. And many web design fans are getting naked for CSS Naked Day, made easier with a great WordPress Plugin.

WordPress News

New WordPress Security Release: A new security release for WordPress has been announced for both the WordPress 2.1 and 2.0 branches. For the 2.1 branch, it is version WordPress 2.1.3. According to the news, “These releases include fixes for several publicly known minor XSS issues, one major XML-RPC issue, and a proactive full sweep of the WordPress codebase to protect against future problems.” Mark has the changed files for WordPress 2.0.10 only so you can install only the files that have been upgraded and not the whole version. There are two lists of changes in these two versions: List of changes for 2.0.10 and List of changes for 2.1.3. Download it now.

WordPress 2.2 Release Date of April 23: Things are still on track for the next major WordPress release to be April 23rd, 2007. Some great improvements and new features are expected.

WordPressMU New Release: Donncha announced that WordPress MU 1.2 has been released. WordPressMU is the multi-user version of WordPress, the program that runs the free hosting service. It is not for the general user or even for those who have more than one blog. It is designed to be a blog hosting service with many bloggers blogging on one system independently.

WordPress 2.1.2 Mandatory Upgrade: This is a reminder of the latest version of WordPress is a mandatory full upgrade.

CSS Naked Day – April 5: April 5th is CSS Naked Day, a day honoring web page design around the world by turning off your stylesheet for the day. There’s a Naked Day WordPress Plugin which will automatically disable your WordPress Theme’s stylesheet on April 5th, and turn it back on April 6th so you don’t have to. There is also the 48 Hour Naked Day Plugin. Unfortunately, WordPress.com bloggers will not be able to participate, as they have no access to their WordPress Themes. So the rest of the WordPress Community must make up for their lack of participating. Join the web world in celebrating web page designs and designers by letting your blog go naked!

Blogroll Categories Gone From Category List: The last WordPress version rolled Blogroll categories into post categories and brought a flurry of complaints. WordPress.com blogs no longer feature blogroll categories in the post category list, which means the developers were listening. As the testing ground for future WordPress versions, this “unfeature” will probably be in the next release of WordPress due out soon.

WordCamp 2007 – July 21-22: will be July 21-22 in San Fransisco and there is now a Meetup page for the event, with no information. If you are interested in attending, why not start signing up. That will help give the planners an idea of attendance.

WordPress FAQ Series by Aaron Brazell: Long time WordPress expert, Aaron Brazell, is offering a series he calls “WordPress FAQs”, offering tips and tricks for using WordPress. The article series, which answers questions his readers have, so far includes:

Best Ideas for WordPress Development: is a place where you can post your suggestion for improving WordPress, and rate the suggestions of others. The most popular WordPress ideas right now are:

Several of the ideas have been implemented such as Plugins on WordPress.org and Create a better Plugin database, which resulted in the new WordPress Plugin Directory. Do you have a suggestion to improve WordPress? Or want to vote on one you think is a must-have for WordPress users? .

WordPress.com News

WordPress.com W logoNew Ranking Algorithm for WordPress.com Blog Statistics: A new ranking algorithim for WordPress.com blogs caught a lot of people’s attention this week when their blog was the blog of the minute. A prank for April Fool’s Day, many WordPress.com bloggers were delighted to find their blog listed.

835,021 Blogs on WordPress.com: One million is just around the corner.

No Blogroll Categories in Post Categories: WordPress.com users complained loudly about the inclusion of blogroll categories in their post categories, and now they are gone. YEAH!

Scoble on WordPress.com Honored: What I’ve Learned about Blogging From Robert Scoble by Chris Garrett features WordPress.com’s own Robert Scoble.

What’s Hot on WordPress.com? With more than 835,021 blogs on WordPress.com, the most popular blogs and posts change by the second. In one of those seconds, the hottest blogs on WordPress.com were:

  1. Scobleizer – Tech Geek Blogger
  2. Practical Personal Development
  3. Law Students Building a Better Legal Profession
  4. A Nun’s Life
  5. Gaijin Tonic

The hottest blog posts on WordPress.com in another of those seconds were:

  1. Delusional Cheney Still Ranting About ‘Victory’
  2. 6 Ways to Track Your Time
  3. A bold General may be lucky, but no General can be lucky unless he is bold
  4. Video of ‘fabulous’ Merida
  5. Free discussion of public results ?
  6. 97 – Where (and How) Evolution Is Taught In the US
  7. Unimpressed In The West
  8. Lost pages from the original “Winnie-the-Pooh”

WordPress Plugins and Themes News

WordPress Plugins DatabaseSpam Karma New Release: The latest version of Spam Karma 2.3 has been released. Spam Karma WordPress Plugin is a top notch comment spam fighter offering high customizability in your fight against comment spam. Many use it as a back up to , but I use it as a front defense on several of my blogs alongside Bad Behavior. In addition to some bug fixes, new features and fixes include improved compatibility with other Plugins, improved blacklisting, and faster database access and response.

Weblog Tools Collection – One Plugin a Day: Weblog Tools Collection will be featuring “A Plugin A Day”, honoring a WordPress Plugin and its author once a day through the month of April. Suggestions for reviews are still being accepted. So far, the following WordPress Plugins have been reviewed:

Another Twitter WordPress Plugin: Twitter Sharts WordPress Plugin by iamdeadnow adds another Twitter option to sit alongside Alex King’s Twitter Tools WordPress Plugin. Twitter Sharts allows you to insert your Twitter status anywhere inside of your WordPress blog. Have you found any other Twitter WordPress Plugins?

Add Technorati Widgets To WordPress Blogs: Technorati now has three new Widgets to feature the top searches, top tags, and your Technorati “authority” ranking on your blog. These include an HTML link and a Javascript to generate the Widget, which can easily be added to any full version WordPress blog. Right now, WordPress.com blogs are not able to use Javascripts and these Widgets require that script.

BloggingPro WordPress Theme: BloggingPro released their Blogging Pro WordPress Theme, which soon generated 6 variations. They are now offering a series of WordPress Themes and the first is the Insense WordPress Theme.

Most Popular WordPress Themes: The WordPress Theme Viewer now features 1,936 Themes and 3,496,061 Themes downloads. The top WordPress Themes are:

  1. Vistered Little 1.6
  2. MistyLook 3.1
  3. WP-Andreas01 1.5
  4. Water 1.1
  5. Japanese Cherry Blossom 1.0
  6. ChaoticSoul 1.0
  7. Cordobo Green Park 0.9.2 BETA 12
  8. Mesozoic 2.0
  9. Sky3c 2.0
  10. AndyBlue ver 1.3

WordPress Plugin Directory: The new WordPress Plugin Directory is going strong and improving as it develops. According to their list, the most popular WordPress Plugins downloaded are:

See Also
Google search
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WordPress Community News

WordPress Community Podcast: The latest version of the WordPress Community News Podcast is out with news on WordCamp, the new WordPress Plugin Directory, and some of the host’s problems upgrading his blog to the latest version of WordPress, along with other exciting WordPress news.

Meet Matt Mullenweg in New York: Matt Mullenweg want to meet up with WordPress fans in New York City on the evening of April 11. Interested? Let him know.

Ireland.com Using WordPressMU: Donncha reports that Ireland.com blogs, the website of The Irish Times, is using WordPressMU to drive their new WordPress blog.

Looking for a WordPress Expert? 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, and the WP-Pro mailing list.

WordPress Family Expanding: Mark Jaquith, WordPress guru extraordinaire and developer, is getting married the first week of May in Florida. Congrats to both of you!

WordPress Techniques and Tips

Know of a great WordPress tips and techniques article? Let me know and it may end up on our weekly list.

More WordPress News

WordPress Events

The following are upcoming WordPress group meetings and meetups, and a few special blogging events you may want to attend. If you know of any I’ve missed, please post them or contact me on my WordPress Events Page.

For a WordPress Meetup near you and other blogging events, check out the WordPress Meetup Group List.

For more news on WordPress, see:

Extra Tip of the Week

April is Poetry Month in the United States. Many educational and library blogs are incorporating poetry into their content, reminding their readers that a language can convey so much through more than complete sentences and proper grammar. Why not honor the music of the written word by celebrating Poetry Month on your blog.

Each Wednesday on is WordPress Wednesday, featuring the news around the WordPress Community.

Lorelle VanFossen blogs about blogging and WordPress on .

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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