A lot of people are still asking what the differences are between WordPress version 1.5.2 and version 2.0. I did mention that a lot of the differences are under the surface, and I mentioned the WYSIWYG editor and the new user permissions scheme. Rather than list the changes here, I’ll point you to those who have already written about it. One of the best articles is probably What’s New in WordPress 2.0? over on Owen … Continue reading
Building Online Communities with Drupal, phpBB, and WordPress Well, actually, the book isn’t just about WordPress. But it does devote six chapters to our favorite blogging platform. The book I’m talking about is Building Online Communities with Drupal, phpBB, and WordPress, co-authored by Mike Little. The result is six chapters on using WordPress to help build an online community. Although I wrote the book using version 1.5.x most of the WordPress chapters are version agnostic. … Continue reading
In response to concerns about availability of support over the Christmas holiday, the release of WordPress 2.0 has been delayed until December 26. This will allow all the fine helpers who answer questions in the forums and on IRC to enjoy the holiday without feeling that they need to rush back to assist upgraders.
I went ahead and took the plunge: this site is now running WordPress 2.0 RC3. Everything seems to be working fine so far, despite some of the ugly hacks I have in my home-grown “Rock’em Sock’em Robots” theme. I’m not using the new WYSIWYG editor, as I prefer to write my post markup by hand. And even though the new version lets you add categories on-the-fly, I’m still using the Tags4WP plugin, because it will … Continue reading
Double Yow! Another announcement from Matt: Yahoo! Web Hosting has added WordPress to their offerings. And as an added bonus, they automatically enable the Akismet plugin, which is going to add a wealth of data to that service’s spam filters.
Just three hours ago, Matt posted this on the wordpress-hackers mailing list: Subject: [wp-hackers] 2.0 Release Wednesday or Thursday, depending on the phase of the moon. Now would be a great time to start making sure your themes and plugins work with the new version, and post to hackers if you need any help updating them. Yow! On the one hand, I’m really excited about this release. A lot of the changes are under the … Continue reading
Overall, the volume of spam attempts on my server have been down lately. Oh, I still get a steady stream, I delete over 100 comment spams (caught by my filters) each day. But I’ve seen fewer of the massive, server-squashing spam runs that hammer my web service with too many simultaneous connections, blocking out legitimate users. On the other hand, I’m seeing a lot more attempts by spammers to poison the well. What I mean … Continue reading
Alex has posted a moderately detailed article explaining The State of FeedLounge. For any newcomers who don’t know what FeedLounge is, it’s a web based feed aggregator, not unlike BlogLines. But FeedLounge is a next-generation web service that looks and acts more like a desktop application than a web site. I’m one of the lucky alpha testers who have had access for the last six months. I committed to using FeedLounge as my only feed … Continue reading
Between projects at work (rolling out the largest indoor WiFi network in the world at a certain international airport near Atlanta) and projects at home (building more IKEA furniture — bed, dresser, chest, entertainment center, end tables, ottomans; doing what I can to help Suze prepare for Thanksgiving), I haven’t had much time for posting lately. But I’m making a minute to come up for a quick breath and note some of the things that … Continue reading
Thanks to my friend Mike, who pointed out the Blog Software Smackdown article over on SitePoint. Author Vinnie Garcia compares the “big three” of blogging software: Movable Type, WordPress, and Textpattern. He gives a good overview of each, discusses their strengths and possible pitfalls, and provides links to example sites for each. In the final analysis, he compares the systems in 9 areas, grading them on a five point scale. If you average the scores, … Continue reading