WordPress 2.7 is at beta version 2 and due for release the end of November. There is a sneak peek video of WordPress 2.7 and story on how it was developed. Lots of information you need to know on WordPress 2.7 and how to be ready for the new version. WordPress for iPhone needs testers. This week’s WordPress Showcase features education blogs using WordPress. WordCamps coming this weekend and already into 2009. WordCamp Israel has 560 signed up. WordCampED in Washington D.C. is sold out. Are you going to a WordPress event near you? Warnings still around about a malicious WordPress clone site. More reports of blogs using the old version of WordPress getting hacked. And a lot more WordPress news.
WordPress News
Testers Wanted for New WordPress iPhone Version: The WordPress for iPhone blog is requesting help testing the next version of their application. New features include landscape mode with an extra wide keyboard, link creation help, support for creating and editing Pages, comment moderation, asynchronous publishing, and photo resizing options.
Sneak Preview Video of WordPress 2.7: If WordPress 2.7 Was A Movie… features a video introduction on the new WordPress 2.7 interface and how easy it is going to be upgrade and adjust to the new format.
Vote for WordPress 2.7 Icons: The final vote for the new WordPress icons is being held on the WordPress 2.7: Project Icon page. If you would like to have your say in how the icons look for the next version of WordPress, go vote. Note that comments will be moderated and only those applicable to the discussion of the icons will be allowed.
WordPress 2.7 Development: The original release date of November 10 has been pushed back by at least two weeks, though may change as beta testing continues. Two beta versions of WordPress have been released, with WordPress 2.7 Beta 2 fixing a lot of the bugs found in Beta 1. Articles are coming out with news and information on the new version all around the web and include:
- Ryan Boren – WordPress 2.7: Getting Ready for Public Beta
- WordPress 2.7 UI Configurability from Ryan Boren
- WordPress Codex – Keyboard Shortcusts
- WordPress 2.7 Feature List
- WordPress Usability Testing in New York
- planetOzh: WordPress 2.7 Featuring Your Favorite Actions
- WordPress 2.7 Navigation Survey from Jane Wells
- Shortcuts/Favorites Menu from Jane Wells
- Justin Tadlock – Making your theme’s comments compatible with WordPress 2.7 and earlier versions
- Mark Jaquith – WordPress 2.7 Feature Preview: Publish Module (UPDATED)
- Customizable Post Editing Screen from Mark Jaquith
- OP111 – Ten New Features in WordPress 2.7
- Ottodestruct – WordPress 2.7 Comments Enhancements
- Sivel – Separating Pings from Comments in WordPress 2.7
- WordPress Child Themes and
functions.php
- WordPress 2.7 Trac Milestone
- Child Themes in WordPress 2.7 – Part 1 and Part 2
- The New 2.7 Dashboard
- The Visual Design of 2.7
- Usability Testing Report: 2.5 and CrazyHorse
- WordPress 2.7 wireframes
- WordPress 2.7 Development Updates
- WordPress Development Updates from Jane Wells
- WPHacks – Keyboard Shortcuts in WordPress 2.7
- WordCamp NYC: Matt Mullenweg on the State of WordPress also gives a walk through of WordPress 2.7 (video)
- WordPress 2.7 Walkthrough by Matt
- Getting Ready for WordPress 2.7: Sticky Post Styling
- WordPress 2.7 and beyond from Matt at WordCamp Utah
- Nathan Rice – Is My Theme 2.7 Compatible?
- Jacob Santos on the hazardsof customizing Themes in WordPress 2.7
- CrazyHorse Presentation at WordCamp SF
Taking WordPress 2.7 Personally: In “This time, it’s personal,” Mark Ghosh of Weblog Tools Collection takes it personally to ensure that everyone understands how much work has gone into WordPress 2.7 and everyone worried about how much work it will take to upgrade, and how much agony will be involved in training their customers and users, should sit back and relax. The work involved has had a LOT of testing for functionality and usability, with tons of polls, surveys, testing, research, and development. This isn’t a casual interface update. It is one of the most thoroughly researched interfaces on a web app in recent years. It’s designed to make the WordPress blogging experience easier, faster, efficient, and, most of all, very user friendly. Get excited folks. WordPress 2.7 is going to be easy to transition to for everyone.
Will Automatic Upgrade Work With Your Web Host? WordPress 2.7 will feature the new Core Update automatic upgrading for WordPress, but can your server handle it? A article on the WordPress Codex, the online manual for WordPress Users, “Core Update Host Compatibility” explores whether or not the new feature will work with a specific web hosting company. NOTE: The upgrade feature may not work when updating to WordPress 2.7, but designed to work after upgrading.
Security Upgrade Announced: WordPress 2.6.3 has been released covering a Snoopy class vulnerability. This is a mandatory security upgrade and involves replacing two files. Download WordPress 2.6.3 now to protect your blog.
Fake WordPress Malicious Site: Take care when searching for WordPress that you do not end up on a fake WordPress site. Wordpresz.org looks like the WordPress site but isn’t. The version of WordPress you download has malicious code in the download that opens a backdoor to your blog. If you upgraded WordPress to 2.6.4, you are running a fake version. There is no WordPress 2.6.4. The latest version is 2.6.3. This is just the first attempt and Automattic is looking at ways to keep users informed and warned, but pay attention to details and check the URL carefully before downloading WordPress. For more information see these articles, but please, do not click through to the fake WordPress site mentioned:
- Craig Murphy – WordPresz 2.6.4 – fake?
- Viper007bond – There is No Such Thing as WordPress 2.6.4
- Peter Westwood – WordPresz
- The Register – Trojanised WordPress
- ZDNet – Fake WordPress site distributing backdoored release
- Weblog Tools Collection – Fake WordPress Site
Recent WordPress Plugin Security Issues: Blog Security reports on several Plugins with security issues with the warning that you should discontinue using these Plugins until they have been updated and repaired.
Researching Trademarks: As Kyle Eslick of Hack WordPress (now WPHacks) learned, you must respect a company’s trademark and it is a violation of the WordPress trademark to use “WordPress” in a domain name. He offers “How To: Do a Trademark Search” to help others using WordPress or other trademark names so you don’t make the same mistake. WordPress is nice about it. Many other companies are not and violating trademark names can cost you.
Wall Street Journal Adds Another WordPress Blog: The WordPress Publisher Blog announced that the Wall Street Journal Magazine is now running as a CMS on WordPress.
LinkedIn Gets WordPressed: LinkedIn has added a variety of applications you can add to your LinkedIn page, including WordPress for LinkedIn. It works with full versions of WordPress and WordPress.com blogs to bring feed coverage of your blog to your Profile Page in a drag-and-drop module.
Showcasing the Best WordPress Blogs: The new WordPress Showcase highlights what are called the “best and brightest WordPress users who are using WordPress to do a lot more than blog.” Hosted on the WordPress.org site, they showcase screenshots and summary descriptions as examples of the possible with WordPress. For the next few weeks, I’ll feature some of the various blogs from different categories and tags to introduce you to the art of the possible with WordPress. This week showcases blogs tagged Education.
- VizThink
- University of South Florida
- University of Melbourne
- University of Florida News
- University of Calgary
- University of Berlin
- Pepperdine Emergency Information
- Oregon State University Admissions
- MIT Libraries News
- Lamson Library & Learning Commons
- Harvard Law
- Edublogs
- Duke Center for International Studies
- College Crunch
- Carrigaline Educate Together
- Appfrica
WordPress in Your Language: Peter Westwood reminds everyone that WordPress is available in many languages and offers some tips for WordPress in your language.
How and Why Students Blog: WordCampED is asking how and why student bloggers blog to help prepare their participants for the upcoming WordPress event focusing on education and WordPress. The question includes how and why we should encourage students to read and produce blogs, and how WordPress is used in the classroom and out. The WordCampED blog includes an article on Teaching WordPress Development in School, teaching kids about design and code.
The WordPress Podcast: Last week’s Episode 45 with the Matt Mullenweg Interview covered, Automattic acquisition of Intense Debate, how Automattic works, WordPress security issues, blog statistics and marketshare, GPL, the future of WordPress, WordCamps, and more. This week, Episode 46: WordPress 2.7 preview, Automattic aquires PollDaddy, Podcasting for Dummies and Practical Web Design Magazine is out and includes a new blog design, Amazon S3 WordPress Plugin Simple Storage Service, MobilePress, WordCamps, and WordPress Plugins, Themes and tips.
WordCast Podcast: WordCast 35: Typing with Whisks is the latest episode featuring a lot of fun and songs and features on high-profile WordPressers.
WordPress Weekly Podcast: The latest episode, 2.7 Overdose, includes a discussion on WordPress 2.7, the WordPress showcase, Drupal versus WordPress, and news from WordCamps including WordCamp Australia.
Last Week’s WordPress Wednesday News: Can’t get enough WordPress news and tips? There is so much news coming out about the latest version, so you can catch up with the past news in last week’s WordPress Wednesday News: WordPress 2.7 Beta 2, Danger WordPress Faker, and More WordCamps.
WordPress on Your Calendar
WordPress Meetup or WordCamp Near You? If you are putting together a WordPress event, please email me so I can publicize it here. If there is a WordCamp near you, go. If you are interested in setting up a WordCamp, stay tuned for news and information on to bring a WordCamp event near you.
Here are some WordPress-related dates and events to put on your calendarh.
- MinneWordCamp – Minneapolis – November 15, 2008
- WordCamp Charlotte – November 15, 2008
- WordCamp Israel – November 16, 2008
- New York City WordPress Meetup Group – WordPress Theme Creation Workshop – November 18, 2008
- WordPress UK London 4 at One Tun – Nov 19, 2008
- The Boston WordPress November Meetup – November 20, 2008
- Toronto WordPress November Meetup – November 22, 2008
- Atlanta Web Design with WordPress Users Group November Meetup – November 22, 2008
- WordCampED for educators – Washington DC – November 22, 2008
- The Dallas/Ft. Worth Area WordPress November Meetup – November 22, 2008
- WordPress 2.7 Release Meetup – Austin WordPress Meetup Group, Texas – November 25, 2009
- WordCamp Australia – Sydney – November 29-30, 2008
- Gulf Coast WordPress/Blogger Meetup – Mobile, Alabama – December 4, 2008
- Toronto WordPress Meetup – Toronto, Canada – December 6, 2008
- WordPress Installation Step-by-Step – South Florida WordPress Meetup Group, Pompano Beach – December 9, 2008
- Manchester WordPress User Group at MDDA – England – December 11, 2008 (Manchester WordPress User Group on Google Groups)
- WordCamp Las Vegas 2009 – Las Vegas, Nevada – January 10-11, 2009
- WordCamp Indonesia 2009 – Jakarta, Indonesia – January 17-18, 2009
- WordCamp Whistler 2009 – Whistler, BC, Canada – January 24, 2009 (Facebook)
- WordCamp Higher Ed North East – Worcester, Massachusetts – February 2, 2009
- WordCamp Miami 2009 – Miami, Florida – February 22, 2009
- WordCamp NOLA – New Orleans, Louisiana – March 18-19, 2008
- WordCamp Denver 2009 – February 28, 2009 (Facebook)
- WordCamp Jena Germany – February 14, 2009
Upcoming WordCamps not scheduled or confirmed:
- WordCamp Indy (Indianapolis)
- WordCamp Augusta
- WordCamp Seattle (WordCamp Seattle Twitter
- WordCamp Argentina
- WordCamp Perú
Upcoming WordCamp and WordPress Event News
WordCamp Israel: WordCamp Israel 2008 (English) is set for November 16, 2008, and has 560 registrants for this huge WordPress Event at the Z.O.A. House in Tel Aviv.
WordPress Theme Program in New York: The New York City WordPress Meetup Group is offering a WordPress Theme creation workshop on November 18, 2008 for USD $5 a person.
WordCamp ED: DC Sold Out: WordCampED announced that their registration is now closed as the event is fully booked nearly ten days in advance. The next WordCamp ED event is scheduled for Worcester Massachusetts as part of the Northeast Regional Computing Program (NERCOMP) in February 2009. Check out WordCampED for details.
WordCamp Whistler: The latest WordCamp Whistler Update for the January 24, 2009, event of skiing, photography, and WordPress is set and there will be an admission for the event, though they are seeking sponsors to keep the prices down as low as possible. This unique WordCamp is expected to fill very fast as it is set in one of the most beautiful ski resorts in the world. There is now a Facebook event set for those wanting to sign up, as well as a WordCamp Whistler Barcamp Page.
WordCampNOLA: WordCampNOLA in New Orleans has been announced and a Twitter account set up to generate interest. They are looking at scheduling the event in March 2009.
WordCamp Miami: WordCamp Miami is now scheduled for February 22, 2009, as a track at BarCampMiami.
WordCamp Denver Rescheduled: WordCamp Denver 2009 has been rescheduled to February 28, 2009. For more information and updates, check out their WordCamp Denver Facebook site.
WordCamp Australia News: Matt Mullenweg and Jane Wells will be speaking at WordCamp Australia in Sydney on November 29-30, 2008. Registration is open and the speakers are lining up to speak. The list of speakers and topics is very exciting.
WordCamps and WordPress Meetups Everywhere
- WordPress Meetup: A WordPress Meetup is a frequent meeting of WordPress fans. If you would like to start a WordPress Meetup group, find a meeting place and announce it among your friends, and add a listing to the Yahoo Upcoming events for WordPress and WordPress Meetups Upcoming Events and tag them “WordPress Events” and “WordPress”, as many track WordPress event announcements there.
- WordCamp: A WordCamp is a day or two long event with sponsors and dozens if not hundreds of WordPress fans gathering annually. If you would like to sponsor or host a WordCamp, check out the new official site for tracking WordCamps is WordCamp Central, which includes instructions and guidelines for running a WordCamp. Get a Twitter account and add a listing to the Yahoo Upcoming events for WordPress and WordPress Meetups Upcoming Events and tag them “WordPress Events” and “WordCamp.
- WordPress and WordCamp Event News: In addition to our weekly Blog Herald WordPress Wednesday News, you can learn more about the various WordPress and WordCamp Events on the official WordCamp Central site, The WordCamp Report, Yahoo Upcoming events for WordPress, WordPress Meetups Upcoming Events, and Upcoming: Public events tagged with “WordCamp”.
WordPress Plugins and Themes News
WordPress Plugin Developers Ready for WordPress 2.7: For the most part, WordPress developers have worked hard to ensure that current popular WordPress Plugins will continue to work in WordPress 2.7, but there are some Plugins which need updates to accommodate the changes in Parent/Child Themes, Comments, and the new interface. Here are some reports from WordPress Plugin authors on the state of their popular Plugins:
- WP-CommentNavi 1.00 Beta is an updated version of Lester Chan’s WP-PageNavi WordPress Plugin which adds pagination for comments which now works with the new WordPress Comments API.
- Lester Chan (Gamerz) reports that current versions of his Plugins work fine in WordPress 2.7 except for WP-Email and WP-Print due to the new canonical redirects, which he has offered a fix for download.
- Viper checks his WordPress Plugins for WordPress 2.7 and finds that Viper’s Video Quicktags will work fine but it and WordPress Admin Bar WordPress Plugin need to be updated for the new interface. The rest of his Plugins should work.
New WordPress Optimization Guide: While WordPress comes optimized, there are a lot of people who claim to have the “expert” opinion on what WordPress needs for real optimization. Most are redundant, but Vladimir Prelovac has just released his WordPress Optimization Guide and it offers some great tips on how to speed up and clean up your WordPress installation. This is ideal for those who have been using WordPress for a while and need to clean up their old code and methods.
Redirects to Help Move from Blogger to WordPress: If you are considering moving from Blogger/Blogspot to WordPress and worried about handling redirects, see How to Redirect Blogger Beta to WordPress.com, Moving from Blogger-Blogspot to WordPress the right way : 301 redirect, and A Great Day for Blogger Users Or Those Who Migrated to WordPress.
Designing Sticky Posts: Devlounge offers tips for designing your new sticky post option in WordPress 2.7 to make that post look different from the rest of the posts on the front page of your WordPress Theme using the WP-Sticky WordPress Plugin by Lester Chan. If you don’t want to use the Plugin, just add .sticky { style options }
to your Theme’s stylesheet and style away.
Talking AJAX: Donncha O’Caoimh presented a talk on “Make Your WordPress Plugin Talk AJAX” at BarCamp Cork about adding AJAX functionality to your WordPress Plugins and offers example scripts from his presentation.
WordPress Template Tag References and Resources: I recently highlighted a few WordPress Template Tag references and resources, including filters and hooks. planetOzh found another one: Template Tag reference to join the rest:
- Peter Westwood covers “WordPress: Tracking Deprecated Functions”
- WordPress Codex Function Reference
- WordPress Inline Documentation site with PHPdocumentor
Interesting WordPress Plugins:
- Alphabetical List WordPress Plugin rearranges the chronological order of selected categories of posts to alphabetical order.
- Tylr Slidr WordPress Plugin adds a Flickr slideshow to your WordPress blog.
- Results Count Remix WordPress Plugin adds the number of displayed posts and number of posts in a search result and archive pages.
- Custom Permalinks WordPress Plugin allows thorough control of your site’s URL structure.
- Rails Integration API WordPress Plugin integrates single logins betweens a Rails application and other WordPress installations.
Finding WordPress Plugins: For more WordPress Plugins see the official WordPress Plugin Directory, the WordPress Plugins Database, and Weblog Tools Collection Plugin and Theme announcements.
WordPress Techniques and Tips
Here are some interesting WordPress tips I’ve found as I explore the web looking for WordPress resources:
- How to: Create An Ads Rotator With PHP
- CodeScheme – Alternates – PHP test for Odd or Even
- Daily Blog Tips – Display Only Post Titles on Category Pages (Video)
- Darren Hoyt – Creating Two Tiered Conditional Navigation in WordPress
WordPress Tips on Twitter: I’ve started sharing WordPress Tips I’ve collected over the past couple years on Twitter at @lorelleonwp. I’ll be posting one WordPress tip link every morning (PST) covering recent versions of WordPress and WordPress usages and features.
Want to Write a WordPress Tip and See It Here? If you would like your WordPress tip and technique included in this list, see Tips For Writing Good WordPress Tips and Writing and Publishing Code In Your WordPress Blog Posts. When its ready, contact me at lorelleonwordpress@gmail.com.
WordPress.com News
October Stats for WordPress.com: October Wrap-Up statistics are in for WordPress.com, which included information on WordCamps held during the past month, PollDaddy integration, and the WordPress Application for LinkedIn, which applies to WordPress.com and full versions of WordPress. The numbers included 323,786 blogs created, 343,832 new users joined, 4,085,148 file uploads, and 1995.86 gigabytes of new files. Over 531 terabytes of content transferred from their datacenters with 1,826,865,834 pageviews across the whole WordPress.com network of blogs. They also measured 8,862,195 new comments and 1,179,018,712 words published.
WordPress Community News
WordPress and Education: Matt Mullenweg reports there is a new mailing list for discussion of WordPress and education on the WordPress mailing lists.
WordPress Logos: The official WordPress logos are available on WordPress as are WordPress fan art featuring variations on the WordPress logo and artwork.
Things You Need to Know in the WordPress Community:
- WordPress Facebook Community: WordPress on Facebook
- WordPress Schwag for Sale: WordPress Shop
- WordPress Bugs: Reporting Bugs in WordPress
- Online WordPress Manual: WordPress Codex
- Have Your Say: WordPress Ideas
- WordPress Experts Found: Automattic WordPress Consultants List, WordPress Jobs, and the WP-Pro mailing list
- Help Installing WordPress: Installing WordPress for Free
- WordPress is Trademarked: You are not allowed to use WordPress in your domain name
- WordPress is WordPress: It’s spelled “WordPress” not “Wordpress”. Oh, and Plugin is Plugin, not plug-in (what you put into a wall electrical socket).
Past WordPress Wednesday News Reports
- WordPress Wednesday News: WordPress 2.7 Beta 2, Danger WordPress Faker, and More WordCamps
- WordPress Wednesday News: WordPress 2.7 Soon, Security Upgrade, PodCamp-WordCamp Hawaii, PollDaddy, and More
- WordPress Wednesday News: WordCamp News, WordPress 2.7, Lester Chan Plugins Famous, Super Cache Updated
- WordPress Wednesday News: WordPress 2.7 Final Features, WTC Plugin Contest Winners, WordCamps, Surveys, and More
- WordPress Wednesday News: WordPress 2.7 Final Features, WTC Plugin Contest Winners, WordCamps, Surveys, and More
- WordPress Wednesday News: 4 WordCamps, WordPress 2.6.2, Bad Themes, Count Twitterers, Threaded Comments, and Sticky Posts
WordPress News Sources
- WordPress Planet
- WordPress Development Blog
- WordPress.com Blog
- Weblog Tools Collection
- The WordPress Podcast
- Lorelle on WordPress
- Planet WordPress from Planet Ozh
- WordPress Publisher Blog
- Planet WordPress Canada
- The WordCamp Report
- WordCast
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Each Wednesday on Blog Herald 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