Soliciting Fame

I upgraded WordPress to 2.5.1. I didn’t feel like doing it manually so I used the WordPress Automatic Upgrade plugin.

The plugin gave me errors the entire time I was running it but I just kept hitting next and now WP isn’t bugging me to upgrade. Yay!

Wow, that was the simplest update I’ve done for a piece of software online before. Just copy a few files and go to the upgrade page, super simple.

I really like the new WordPress layout. It’s smart looking and a big improvement over the outdated layout they previously employed.

My favourite part is the write page: it’s a lot easier on the eyes and the options are grouped in a much my organized manner. All the common tasks are on the right while most of the extra junk you’ll never use is pushed below the post.

What really looks awesome is the new built in gallery part. You can upload multiple files at once and it will catalogue them in the nice gallery for you. Matt Wullenberg, WordPress’s founder, has a great example of a fully functioning gallery.

My biggest gripe with WordPress to date has been the speed and the stats. Right now my installation is pretty sluggish, and I don’t think it’s DreamHost. I’ve read a few comments and it’s one of the top ideas in the Most Popular Ideas section of WordPress Ideas. On that note I think it’s awesome how WordPress includes the highest rated ideas in their upcoming releases. Most community sites might do well to implement something along these lines

So far I haven’t been able to get my stats to work with WordPress, but that’s ok because I’m using Google Analytics as well and I think it’s a bit more accurate anyway.

Screencast of WordPress 2.5

You can grab the latest WordPress release here: http://wordpress.org/download/

/installs

Nexopia…

…haha, made you look

I can’t wait until WordPress 2.5 is stable. I’m really looking forward to having a nicer interface to blog from. The AJAX features are going to be really snazzy too. Yay.

Matt just posted a screencast of the new interface, it looks awesome.

Most of yesterday and during most of my classes today I tweaked the layout a bit. The following have changed:

• FeedBurner now powers the RSS feed and email subscriptions in the header.
• Added icons to the sidebar.
• Sharpened up the margins and general layout.

Since I made the design from scratch the comments don’t work. I still need to read some WordPress documentation and look at other themes to get them working.

Also, since the wireless network here at the university is complete junk I can’t FTP or access the port required to administer my domains. So the permalinks are broken until I can update the .htaccess file. If you have no idea what I’m talking about, don’t worry, I’m blabbing.

Update: Comments now work.