In my Blog Herald WordPress News, I used to feature a round-up of WordPress-related podcasts and fan blogs offering great tips and useful information on using WordPress from the beginner level to advanced techniques. I’ve decided to continue this tradition here on Lorelle on WordPress.

Every week or so, I’ll publish a Round WordPress post featuring highlights and most recent articles by some of the top WordPress blogging experts. I encourage you to visit these blogs and add them to your feed reader as they continue to provide invaluable WordPress tips, techniques, news, resources, and information.

This week, the talk around the WordPress Community is fired up over the discussion started by Weblog Tools Collection on retiring the Kubrick/Default WordPress Theme, Google/WordPress Summer of Code, WordPress 2.8, voting for new WordPress IRC ops and moderators, and the new WordPress Widget API.

WordPress Podcasts

WordCast: The WordCast features news, interviews, and great laughter on WordPress-related topics. This week’s episode is WordCast 49: Barbaric Blog Herald Barrage with Lorelle VanFossen as guest co-host, covering the delay of WordPress 2.8, WordPress/Google Summer of Code 2009, WordCamp Toronto’s efforts to involve their community in their WordPress Event, Celebrity Pressers help needed for Blog Herald WordPress News, WordPress for iPhone, contributing to WordPress, the Making of WordPress.tv, and more tips and news on WordPress.

WP Tavern WordPress Weekly Podcast: Jeffro interviews Andrew Ozz, the person responsible for the JavaScript load optimization articles and features, TinyMCE integration and updates, and other key and core WordPress features.

The most recent episode of the The WordPress Plugins Podcast featuring the MailPress Plugin and Search And Replace Plugin.

WordPress Fan and Expert Blogs

Weblog Tools Collection:

• Is It Time For Kubrick To Retire?
• Plugin Review: cSprites for WordPress

WP Engineer:

• Pages & Subpages – Is Parent?
• WordPress Plugin Readme File Generator

WPRecipes:

• WordPress shortcode to display related posts
• How to: Show related posts without a plugin
• How to: Resize images on the fly
• How to: Force using SSL on wp-admin directory
• How to: Display your most popular content in your blog sidebar
• How to: Display the number of results in WordPress search
• How to: Allow your visitors to send your articles by email to their friends

WPTavern:

• WPWeekly Episode 48 – Interview With Joost De Valk
• WordPress Plugin Readme Generator
• Where To Draw The Line With Support Models
• Vote For WordPress In Webware 100
• Vote For New WordPress IRC Channel Ops
• Vladimir’s Plugin Developer Tips
• Since When Has Matt Been Right Anyway
• Leland Returns! ThemeLab To Continue
• If CMS’s Were Operating Systems
• Automattic ALMOST Acquired At One Point
• Addicott Web Suggests 6 More Plugins

WP Hacks:

• Optimize Your WordPress Database with Optimize DB WordPress Plugin
• Tools & Resources for Multi-Author WordPress Blogs
• How To: Prevent Images from Being to Large

Yoast:

• On WPWeekly Episode 48
• Optimizing WordPress database performance

Featured WordPress Fan Blog

If you aren’t familiar with our WordPress experts and fans up north, check out Planet WordPress Canada, an aggregator similar to WordPress Planet, the official WordPress aggregator, dedicated to Canadian WordPress experts.

Here are some highlights published recently on the aggregator.

• [BlueFur.com Web Hosting] WordPress Wednesday: Revision Control
• [BlueFur.com Web Hosting] WordPress Development: Creating Top-Level Menu Items
• [BlueFur.com Web Hosting] WordPress Wednesday: Page Management
• [See How Two] Unschedule a post so it will publish immediately
• [See How Two] Change the colour of an individual text link
• [See How Two] Create a link within the text of posts or pages
• [See How Two] Flowing text around images in posts or pages
• [RiteTurnOnly.com] Hide Themes When Using Theme Switcher Plugin
• [RiteTurnOnly.com] WordPress Magazine Themes Revisted
• [RiteTurnOnly.com] Keep Your Images In Check
• [RiteTurnOnly.com] Twitter Meets WordPress
• [RiteTurnOnly.com] Plugin Review: Front-end Editor

Other WordPress Tips and Techniques

Every week I collect WordPress tips and techniques from around the web to publish here and on my @lorelleonwp Twitter daily. Here are some goodies I’ve found recently. They may apply to older versions of WordPress, but they still are helpful articles, probably featuring things you didn’t know you could do with WordPress.

• Get the latest sticky posts in WordPress
• Offline Blog Editing Tools
• Tutorial: A category based archive on WordPress
• WordPress Theme Hacks
• WordPress Tutorial: Hide Posts From Home Page, Only Display In RSS

The WordPress Community generates some of the best WordPress tips, techniques, and resources. If you would like your WordPress tip and technique included in my lists, 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.

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Copyright Lorelle VanFossen, member of the 9Rules Network, and author of Blogging Tips, What Bloggers Won't Tell You About Blogging.

As most of you know, I’m extremely passionate about supporting and encouraging WordPress Plugin authors. I’ve written a love letter to WordPress Plugin authors, spent a month writing over 36 posts on nothing but WordPress Plugins, published extensive tips on how to install, configure, and use WordPress Plugins and another guide for finding Plugins, “Where to Find WordPress Plugins.” I’ve researched lists of your favorite WordPress Plugins pointing out the most popular WordPress Plugins WordPress fans recommend, and even feature a WordPress Plugin a day on my @lorelleonwp Twitter.

Okay, I’m a WordPress Plugin obsessed fan.

Some are saying this will be the year of the WordPress Theme with the addition of the auto-load and update feature for Themes in WordPress 2.8, but I think it will be the year of the WordPress Plugin as so many are now exploring more Plugin options with the WordPress 2.7 search, auto-install, and update for WordPress Plugins. With the release of the new WordPress Widgets API and Validimir Prelovac’s new book, “WordPress Plugin Development Beginner’s Guide,” it’s time for WordPress Plugins and their authors to get the support and respect they deserve. Without them, how would our WordPress blogs survive?

As I prepare my weekly Blog Herald WordPress News, I collect a lot of tips and articles for and about WordPress Plugins. I will be moving those here to Lorelle on WordPress, publishing summaries of news and articles WordPress Plugin authors need to know on a fairly regular basis.

If you are a WordPress Plugin fan, there will be a ton of great information here, too.

New WordPresa Widgets API Feedback Wanted

The WordPress developers are seeking testers and feedback on the new Widgets API which will be released with WordPress 2.8.

WordPress Plugin Checkoff List

All WordPress Plugin authors need to check the article Weblog Tools Collection recently published called the “Top 10 Characteristics of a Great WordPress Plugin.”

It is a checklist to follow when reviewing or coding a new WordPress Plugin. Print this checklist out when preparing their Plugin for public release, as well as the recommendations I made in my own list for WordPress Plugin authors and you will make WordPress fans around the world love and adore you.

WordPress Plugin Developer Center

Have you seen the new Developer Center within the WordPress Plugin Directory?

It is a general guide on how WordPress hosts WordPress Plugins and how to get your Plugin into the directory.

Not all WordPress Plugins are found in the directory, but all WordPress Plugins found through the new built-in WordPress Plugin search and install feature in WordPress 2.7+ are found only within the Directory.

To get into the WordPress Plugin Directory, there are a few requirements.

1. The plugin must be GPL Compatible.
2. It can’t do anything illegal, or be morally offensive.
3. Use of the subversion repository is required to host the Plugin.

Automatically Generate WordPress Plugin Readme Files

Check out the news WPEngineer wrote about with the new WordPress Plugin Readme File Generator by Sudar Muthu. This Plugin automatically creates and validates readme files for WordPress Plugins. Many WordPress Plugins need to have instructions to help users install and use them, so this is a very useful tool for the WordPress Plugin author.

Scott Reilly On WordPress Plugin Development Overload

A year ago, the incredibly prolific WordPress Plugin author, Scott Reilly of Coffee2Code, and creator of the powerful Customizable Post Listings WordPress Plugin, spent 14 days releasing a Plugin a day. By the end of the two weeks, he’d created 14 new WordPress Plugins and updated 20 more. Now he’s at it again.

So far, he’s created or updated Admin Per Page Limits WordPress Plugin to control the number of posts per page, pages per page, and comments per page that appear in the Administration Panel listings of posts, pages, and comments; Restrict Usernames WordPress Plugin to restrict the usernames that new users may use when registering with your WordPress blog; Linkify Categories to turn a string, list, or array of category IDs and/or slugs into a list of links to those categories; Linkify Tags to convert a list of tag IDs and/or slugs into a list of links to those tags; Disable Search to turn off the search capabilities of the native WordPress search; and Configure SMTP updated for configuring SMTP mailing in WordPress with support to send email via SSL/TLS (like Gmail), with more on the way.

I’ll be covering more of his new odyssey in WordPress Plugin production as he moves his way to the top of the list as one of the most prolific WordPress Plugin authors in the WordPress Plugin Directory, giving the likes of Michael Torbert, Matt Mullenweg, Lester ‘GaMerZ’ Chan, Arne Brachhold, and Andy Skelton a run for Plugin fame.

Top Niche WordPress Plugins

The Top WordPress Plugin Niches by W-Shadow is a list based upon the top 100 most downloaded WordPress Plugins to determine their “niche” categories. It’s an interesting look at the types of Plugins most WordPress users desire and use.

There are now various ways to check out which WordPress Plugins are the most popular on the WordPress Plugin Directory.

• Most Popular WordPress Plugins
• Highest Rated WordPress Plugins
• Newest WordPress Plugins
• Recently Updated WordPress Plugins
• By Tags

WordPress Plugin Podcast

I’m not the only fan of WordPress Plugins. Check out the most recent episodes of the The WordPress Plugins Podcast featuring the MailPress Plugin and Search And Replace Plugin.

Past episodes included:

• Plugins 001 – Blubrry Powerpress Podcasting Plugin
• Plugins 002 – 7 Minutes on Blubrry Powerpress Podcasting Plugin
• Plugins 003 – Peters Custom Anti Spam
• Plugins 004 – CFormsII Custom Forms
• Plugins 005 – Google XML Sitemaps
• Plugins 006 – All In One SEO Pack Plugin
• Plugins 007 – Special Guest Peter Keung author of Peter’s Custom Anti-SPAM Plugin
• Plugins 008 – WP-DB-Backup Plugin
• Plugins 009 – Share This Plugin
• Plugins 010 – Contact Form 7 Plugin
• Plugins 011 – Search And Replace Plugin

Highlights of WordPress Plugin Tips and Techniques

Here are some past goodies to warm you up. Some of these related to older versions of WordPress, but don’t discount them. There are invaluable lessons to be learned from such articles. The topics cover a wide range of WordPress-specific tips and techniques for Plugin and Theme developers, as well as PHP, MySQL, JavaScript, AJAX, and jQuery.

• WordPress Functions Implementation History Tool
• ThemeLab – WordPress Template Tag Lookup Tool
• Validimir Prelovac – WordPress Fundamentals for Newbies
• Pearsonified – How You Can Use WordPress Functions to Run a Smarter Blog
• DBSWebsite – WordPress Template Tags Reference Guide
• 5 Helpful Tips for Creating Secure PHP Applications
• 25 Resources to Get You Started with PHP from Scratch
• WordPress Development – Converting Default Widgets to the New WordPress API
• WordPress Development – Optimizing script loading, implementation
• WordPress Development – Optimizing script loading part 2
• WordPress Development – Optimizing Script Loading
• WordPress.tv – PHP Cross Reference of the WordPress Source (Video)
• Installing WordPress locally with WampServer
• Will Norris – Authentication in WordPress 2.8
• Secrets of the Conditional Tag Revealed: How to Gain More Control Over Your WordPress Templates
• Nettus – What You Must Know About jQuery UI 1.7
• Nettus – 10 Reasons Why Your Code Won’t Validate (and How to Fix it)
• Webdesigner Depot – 7 Interface Design Techniques to Simplify and De-clutter Your Interfaces
• Lester Chan – New WP_Widget Class In WordPress 2.8
• Preparing for WordPress 2.8: Using JavaScript in WordPress Plugins
• Justin Tadlock – What’s in store for WordPress Themes in 2009?
• Nerdaphernalia – On Attribution and Plugin Priorities in WordPress
• Justin Tadlock – My Plugins are Now Hosted on the WordPress Plugins Repository
• Custom Theme Design – Building a Control Panel for Your WordPress Theme
• WordPress Codex – Formatting Date and Time in WordPress
• WordPress Codex – WordPress Conditional Tags

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Copyright Lorelle VanFossen, member of the 9Rules Network, and author of Blogging Tips, What Bloggers Won't Tell You About Blogging.

With work underway with the Google/WordPress Summer of Code which includes work on the native gallery system within WordPress, let’s not overlook some of the WordPress Plugins which have taken the bare bones of the WordPress gallery feature and turned it into magic.

Some of these gallery Plugins were hard at work presenting images on photoblogs and art blogs long before WordPress came up with the gallery feature and Media Library, so they have a long history of helping WordPress users display their images in unique and fun ways with lightbox effects, easy image management from multiple sources, and more.

Blog Oh Blog has reviewed what they think are the 10 best WordPress Gallery Plugins.

They include:

• PhotoXhibit
• Lazyest Gallery Plugin
• Cleaner WordPress Gallery Plugin
• Inline Gallery Plugin
• WP Photo Album Plugin
• FlippingBook Gallery Plugin
• NextGen Gallery Plugin
• Lightbox Gallery Plugin
• AWSOM PixGallery Plugin
• Falbum Gallery Plugin

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Copyright Lorelle VanFossen, member of the 9Rules Network, and author of Blogging Tips, What Bloggers Won't Tell You About Blogging.

This week’s Blog Herald WordPress News is WordPress News: iPhones Up, WordPress Widgets API, 2.8 Delayed, International WordPress.tv, and More, and I’ve covered a lot of WordPress news you can use:

iPhone for WordPress is in the iTunes store. WordPress Widgets will use new Widgets API as of WordPress 2.8. Security authentication will improve with OAuth in future versions. WordPress 2.8 delayed. WordCamps in Hong Kong and China coming up. International languages embraced on WordPress.tv. And more WordPress news, tips, resources, and help.

If you missed last week’s edition on the Blog Herald, it was WordPress News: Plugins Reach Milestone, New WordPress Community Project, Help to Search for WordPress Help.

I am working with the editor of the Blog Herald to change the look and style of the Blog Herald WordPress News. I’d love your input here or on the announcement regarding potential changes and input. The Blog Herald WordPress News is designed to meet the needs of the WordPress Community, so help us help you blog better with WordPress.

Here are some highlights for this week you do not want to miss, followed by WordPress Events, WordCamps, and Meetups coming soon.

iPhone for WordPress

The iPhone for WordPress Version 1.2 is now in the iTunes App Store, ready for you to blog and track comments on your iPhone.

WordPress 2.8 News

The WordPress Development team has confirmed that WordPress 2.8 will be released in April, pushing back the release date a few weeks in order to take a little more time with improving the underlying code, incorporating the new Widgets API, and improvements for managing JavaScripts, Plugins, AJAX, and more.

There is a list of features, changes, and improvements in the WordPress Codex.

A new WordPress Widgets API in in development for WordPress 2.8. Based upon MultiWidget Class, it will handle all the multi-widget functions and hooks to implement a multi-widget Plugin, giving developers an easier process to extend their WordPress Plugins with Widget functionality.

The WordPress Development team has announced that they are converting all default WordPress Widgets to work with the new Widgets API. If you are a WordPress Plugin author with a Widget-enabled Plugin, or you want to expand the flexibility of your Plugin for WordPress 2.8, check this out.

Lester Chan covers the new WP_Widget Class in WordPress 2.8 in greater detail to help Plugin authors understand how it works and how it can help them.

There will be a lot of changes under the hood, but not so much on the surface in WordPress 2.8. If you are working with WordPress Themes, Plugins, or development, articles on WordPress 2.8 news you should be aware of include:

• Optimizing Script Loading
• Optimizing script loading part 2
• Optimizing script loading, implementation
• Preparing for WordPress 2.8: Using JavaScript in WordPress Plugins
• Change your WordPress Theme on …
• WordPress 2.8 body_class, automatic_feed_links
• What a body!

Will Norris wrote about “Authentication in WordPress 2.8” as part of his ongoing project for the OpenID WordPress Plugin. Working with Peter Westwood, WordPress 2.8 now includes a new filter for authentication that passes through three paramters, along with the username and password. According to Matt Mullenweg, right now, the OAuth for WordPress will be a WordPress Plugin, with hopes of integrating it into the core in the future.

WordPress.tv Goes International and Offers Insider News

WordPress.tv has now launched the Making WordPress.tv development blog run on the new P2 WordPress Theme for those who want to keep up with what is going on with the new video service for the WordPress Community.

The first goal for improving the new WordPress.tv is to improve the localization, the ability to understand the videos in your language. Michael Pick is working on adding language filtering to help with the translation of videos into other languages. You can now filter the videos by language preference, too.

If you would like to help, let them know.

WordPress Tips and Plugins on Twitter

I’ve started sharing WordPress Tips and Plugin suggestions I’ve collected over the past couple years on Twitter at @lorelleonwp.

I post one WordPress tip and one WordPress Plugin link every morning (PST) covering recent versions of WordPress and WordPress usages and features.

Thanks and credit for making this happen goes to TweetLater, a future Twitter posting and management system I reviewed recently.

WordPress Events and WordCamps

Upcoming WordCamps and WordPress events include:

March 2009

• Utah WordPress Meetup – March 18, 2009
• Las Vegas WordPress Meetup – March 19, 2009
• Ferndale, Michigan – March WordPress Meetup – March 23, 2009
• Atlanta, Georgia – Atlanta WordPress Users Group – March 24, 2009
• New York City WordPress Meetup – The Wonderful World of Widgets – March 24, 2009
• Seattle WordPress Meetup – March 24, 2009
• Las Vegas WordPress Meetup – Thursday, March 26, 2009
• The Dallas/Ft. Worth Area WordPress March Meetup – March 28, 2009
• The Chicago WordPress March Meetup – WordPress Plugins – March 28, 2009
• Atlanta, Georgia – Atlanta WordPress Users Group Meetup – March 28, 2009
• North Carolina – Greater Charlotte Area WordPress Group March Meetup – March 28, 2009
• Alameda, California – The East Bay WordPress March Mash-up – March 29, 2009

April 2009

• The New Jersey WordPress April Meetup – April 1, 2009
• Las Vegas WordPress Meetup – April 1, 2009
• New Jersey WordPress Meetup – April 1, 2009
• Gulf Coast WordPress/Blogger April Meetup – April 2, 2009
• WordCamp China – April 4, 2009
• WordCamp Hong Kong – April 5, 2009
• Ft. Lauderdale, Florida – South Florida WordPress April Meetup – April 8, 2009
• New Orleans, Louisiana – WordCamp NOLA – April 10-11, 2008 (Twitter)
• Long Beach, California – Southern California WordPress Group – April 18, 2009

May 2009

• Chicago – Successful and Outstanding Bloggers Conference (SOBCon) – May 1-5, 2009
• WordCamp Toronto – May 8-10, 2009
• Richmond, Virginia – WordCamp RVA – May 9, 2009
• Ohio – WordCamp Columbus – May 16, 2009
• Washington, D.C., Baltimore and Philadelphia – WordCamp Mid-Atlantic – May 16, 2009
• Milan, Italy – WordCamp Milan 2009 – May 22-23, 2009
• WordCamp San Francisco 2009 – May 30, 2009

Past WordPress News Reports

• WordPress News: Plugins Reach Milestone, New WordPress Community Project, Help to Search for WordPress Help
• WordPress News: WordPress Wins at Irish Blogger Awards, WordPress Events Everywhere, WordPress for PowerPoint, Flash Security Issue, Feedburner Deadline
• WordPress News: Can You Spot a WordPress Blog? WordPress 2.8 News, Plugin Directory Searcable, iPhone App Tested, and More
• WordPress News: Release Week News, WordPress 2.7.1, BuddyPress, WordPress MU, and More Releases
• WordPress News: Logogate, WordCamps Everywhere, WordPress.tv, BuddyPress, WordPressMU, WordPress Plugin Podcast, and More
• WordPress News: WordPress.tv, WordCamp Whistler, WordPress Logo, City Saves Money, and More

Each week, the Blog Herald features WordPress News, a weekly column by Lorelle VanFossen of Lorelle on WordPress featuring the news around the WordPress Community. If you have a WordPress news item or tip to suggest, please contact her at this special email address: lorelleonwordpress@gmail.com

Site Search Tags: wordpress news, blog herald, blog herald wordpress news, weekly wordpress news, wordpress themes, wordpress plugins, wordpress tips, wordpress help, wordpress advice, wordpress techniques, wordpress tips, wordpress development

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Copyright Lorelle VanFossen, the author of Blogging Tips, What Bloggers Won't Tell You About Blogging.

Blog Security is one of the top security blogs out there keeping an eye on all things blog security and WordPress. They’ve just released two great articles WordPress fans need to check out.

First is news of a video and blog post by Guvnr called “10 Tips to Make WordPress Hack Proof. The effort involved tips from BlogSecurity’s popular WordPress Security Whitepaper, inspiring them to update and improve it soon.

The second is “How to Firewall Your WordPress Blog” by Jaimie Sirovich of SEO Egghead guest blogging on BlogSecurity. He covers options to help you make your WordPress blog more secure with a variety of WordPress Plugins.

Don’t forget that the best line of defense protection for your WordPress blog begins with a strong password, followed by regularly upgrading your WordPress blog, especially after mandatory security alerts.

There is a lot of misinformation on the web about blog and WordPress Security. Many will tell you that CAPTCHAs and their paid services will protect you and your WordPress blog. They will give you a lot of out-dated steps to take. Don’t be fooled. Get your information from the official and reputable WordPress resources. WordPress is inherently secure. It should be. It is used by some of the top government agencies in the United States and around the world.

The current version of WordPress is very secure with no critical security vulnerabilities reported since its release. There are, however, some security issues with WordPress Plugins so make sure you check in with your favorite WordPress Plugin authors and your Plugins Panel for updates on a regular basis.

Here are some reliable articles on blog and WordPress security:

• Lorelle on The Blog Herald – Protect Your Blog With a Solid Password
• Smashing Magazine – 10 Steps To Protect The Admin Area In WordPress
• Vladimir Prelovac – Improving security in WordPress Plugins using Nonces
• Matt Cutts – Alerting Webmasters to Webserver Vulnerabilities
• WordCamp Toronto 2008 – WordPress Security with Mark Jaquith
• Weblog Tools Collection – Maximum WordPress Security
• Weblog Tools Collection – Fake WordPress Site
• Technorati – Vulnerable WordPress Blogs Not Being Indexed
• Mark Jaquith – US Government Agencies Using WordPress
• Lorelle on WordPress – WordPress Security Prevention, Reactions, and Scares
• Blog Security – WordPress Security Predictions in 2009
• Arachna – Fear, Uncertainty and Disinformation About The WordPress Exploits and Spam
• Lorelle on The Blog Herald – WTF Blog Clutter: The Death of the CAPTCHA
• Daily Blog Tips – Make Sure Your WordPress is Not Hacked
• Donncha – There’s Never Been A Better Time To Upgrade WordPress
• Blog Security – Interview of a WordPress Hacker
• Noupe – WordPress Security Tips and Hacks

Site Search Tags: wordpress news, wordpress security, wordpress vulnerabilities, security vulnerabilities, wordpress risk, is wordpress safe, wordpress tips, security, safety, blog security

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Copyright Lorelle VanFossen, the author of Blogging Tips, What Bloggers Won't Tell You About Blogging.

This week’s Blog Herald WordPress News covers “Can You Spot a WordPress Blog? WordPress 2.8 News, Plugin Directory Searchable, iPhone App Tested, and More” including:

March is WordPress month with more WordCamps and WordPress Meetups than ever. Will April beat it? Lester Chan makes a WordPress PowerPoint Template for presentations. WordPress wins the Best Irish Blogs Awards. FeedBurner transfer deadline is this weekend. Adobe Flash security vulnerability found, impacting many Plugins and WordPress blogs. And a lot more WordPress news coming your way.

The following are a few of the highlights and the WordPress news you can use.

FeedBurner Transfer to Google FeedBurner Deadline is Now

As reported by Weblog Tools Collection’s Mark Ghosh, FeedBurner has been taken over by Google and FeedBurner users are required to transfer their FeedBurner feeds, or check to ensure they have indeed been transferred, as he found out recently that his weren’t. Feed must be transferred as of February 28, this weekend, to the “new” version of Google FeedBurner.

WordPress 2.7.1 Released

WordPress 2.7.1, a maintenance release, is out. If you are using WordPress 2.7, take advantage of the automatic built-in upgrade. If you are not, then consider upgrading to WordPress 2.7. Sixty-five files were modified with 68 bug and feature fixes and improvements, and I covered more details about the release on my blog.

WordPress 2.8 News

Ryan Boren reports that development for WordPress 2.8 is underway. Articles worth noting on WordPress 2.8 development include:

• Optimizing Script Loading
• Optimizing script loading part 2
• Optimizing script loading, implementation
• Preparing for WordPress 2.8: Using JavaScript in WordPress Plugins
• Change your WordPress Theme on …
• WordPress 2.8 body_class, automatic_feed_links
• What a body!

Flash Security Vulnerability Warning

F-Secure reports there is a security vulnerability with Adobe Flash, specifically a Adobe Flash Player remote code execution vulnerability which impacts several versions. Many WordPress Plugins rely upon Flash, as do many WordPress blog. It is recommended you upgrade Adobe Flash accordingly.

WordPress Events

I report on a lot of various WordPress events including WordCamps and WordPress Meetups around the world. Check the Blog Herald WordPress News for a WordPress event near you.

WordCamp Denver News

WordCamp Denver is this weekend and for the most part, is sold out. I’ll be attending and working with Dave Moyer of the WordCast Podcast to do live podcasting and video interviews during the event. Hope to see you there!

WordCamp Toronto Logo Design Contest Winner

The Logo Design Contest Winner for WordCamp Toronto 2009 is Paul Morrison, a student at Seneca College Digital Media Arts student. This is a great way to involve the community in a WordPress event.

WordPress Meetup or WordCamp Near You?

February 2009

• WordCamp Denver 2009 – February 28, 2009 (Facebook)
• Dallas/Fort Worth WordPress Meetup – Dallas, Texas – February 28, 2009
• Atlanta WordPress Users Group Meetup – Learning WordPress 2.7 – Atlanta, Georgia – February 28, 2009
• The Chicago WordPress February Meetup – February 28, 2009

March 2009

• Austin, Texas – Installing Full Version of WordPress – March 3, 2009
• New Jersey – The New Jersey WordPress March Meetup – March 4, 2009
• Mobile, Alabama – Gulf Coast WordPress/Blogger WordPress Meetup – March 5, 2009
• Las Vegas WordPress Meetup – March 5, 2009
• Los Angeles WordPress Users Group – March 8, 2009
• Southern California WordPress Meetup – Long Beach – March 15, 2009
• Ft Lauderdale – South Florida WordPress March Meetup User Group – March 11, 2009
• Las Vegas WordPress Meetup – March 12, 2009
• Austin, Texas – SXSW 2009 – March 13-22, 2009
• Arizona – The Scottsdale WordPress March Meetup – March 15, 2009

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.

Site Search Tags: wordpress news, wordpress events, wordpress announcements, wordpress releases, wordpress plugins, wordpress themes, wordpress community, wordcamp, wordpress meetup, help with wordpress, wordpress tips

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Copyright Lorelle VanFossen, the author of Blogging Tips, What Bloggers Won't Tell You About Blogging.

I’ve just posted this week’s WordPress News: Can You Spot a WordPress Blog? WordPress 2.8 News, Plugin Directory Searchable, iPhone App Tested, and More on the Blog Herald.

Can you spot a WordPress blog? Are you sure? WordPress 2.7.1 released. Improvements on the WordPress Plugin Directory search functions. Help for those transferring from LiveJournal to WordPress.com, and WordPress in the future. WordPress 2.8 development on track. WordPress iPhone app in testing for next release. WordPress.com gets a new data center. More WordPress Tattoo news. WordCamps in Miami and India this weekend, Denver next. Singapore starts its first blogger meetup, including WordPress fans. WordPress jobs, and tips for WordPress Plugin and Theme authors.

Here are some highlights of the WordPress news you can use.

Improvements in the WordPress Plugin Directory

At long last, the WordPress Plugin Directory now has a new and improved search function using Sphinx open source SQL full-text search engine to help you find the Plugins you need in the directory from the site as well as the WordPress Plugins panel.

Improved LiveJournal Migration

For those looking to migrate from LiveJournal to WordPress.com, there is now an even easier LiveJournal migration process that the WordPress.com team has come up with to help the ever increasing number of people moving to WordPress.com from one of the oldest blogging platforms in the world.

The new technique is a step by step approach that improves the importing from importing by the month without comments to now include comments, handle “friends only” posts, private posts, improvements in tagging, link back to LiveJournal blogs, and connection to the LiveJournal API to download all posts and comments in one pass. One LiveJournal users helped test the importer which handled over 3,700 posts and nearly 200,000 comments. That’s impressive.

The new importer will be included in the next major release of the full version of WordPress.

iPhone WordPress App in Testing Mode

The latest version of the WordPress iPhone app is underway and they are looking for hardware testers for the next version.

The changes in the iPhones operating system delayed this new update, but now they are nearly ready for the release to the Apple store. The upcoming version includes landscape mode with the extra wide keyboard, link creation help, editing and creating Pages, comment moderation, asynchronous publishing, photo resizing, and a few more goodies.

bbPress On Fire

Matt Mullenweg has announced that this is going to be a very active year for development of bbPress, the open source forum software that drives the WordPress forums. It begins the year with some new announcements and activities including two new bbPress releases. One is a security fix to prevent XSS attacks on login pages for Internet Explorer 6, which is highly recommend, and the second includes code improvements that increase the speed at which bbPress interacts with MySQL and integration with WordPress.

I’m working on an article for Lorelle on WordPress on bbPress, so stay tuned.

Help The WordPress Support Forum, Please

As a long time volunteer on the WordPress Support Forums, I join MichaelH in his request to improve the WordPress Support Forums and applaud his recent post on Weblog Tools Collection called “Wish list for the WordPress Support Forums software.”

Run on bbPress with a ton of customizations, there are a lot of limitations and problems on the Forums that could easily be fixed, and MichaelH joins a growing voice requesting the Forum be upgraded for increased functionality both by the users and the volunteers and staff who spend a lot of time helping others fix and use WordPress.

New Theme on WordPress.com

WordPress.com announced the Vigilance WordPress Theme has been added to the collection which includes customizable colors, alert boxes that appear at the top of the page for announcements, hidden pages from the main menu, custom image header, and special sidebar WordPress Widget functions.

Comment Threading on WordPress.com

WordPress.com announced comment threading and other cool comment features for their free blog hosting service.

All WordPress Themes are now set up to enable threaded comments, breaking comments into pages, and changing the comment order from the oldest comments on top to the newest comments at the top and the oldest ones at the bottom of the list. Comment threads are allowed up to ten levels.

To enable this on your WordPress.com blog, go to Settings > Discussion > Other Comment Settings and mark the appropriate boxes. It is disabled by default.

WordPress on Your Calendar

Some upcoming WordPress events include:

• Delhi – WordCamp India – February 21-22, 2009
• Miami, Florida – WordCamp Miami 2009 – February 22, 2009
• San Francisco – WordPress Surf and Turf – February 24, 2009
• Austin WordPress Meetup Group – Almost Everyone is a WordPress Expert – February 24, 2009
• Las Vegas WordPress Meetup – February 26, 2009
• Singapore Blogger Meetup Froup – February 27, 2009
• WordCamp Denver 2009 – February 28, 2009 (Facebook)
• Dallas/Fort Worth WordPress Meetup – Dallas, Texas – February 28, 2009
• Atlanta WordPress Users Group Meetup – Learning WordPress 2.7 – Atlanta, Georgia – February 28, 2009
• The Chicago WordPress February Meetup – February 28, 2009
• New Jersey – The New Jersey WordPress March Meetup – March 4, 2009
• Mobile, Alabama – Gulf Coast WordPress/Blogger WordPress Meetup – March 5, 2009
• Las Vegas WordPress Meetup – March 5, 2009
• Los Angeles WordPress Users Group – March 8, 2009

The last issue of my WordPress News on the Blog Herald was WordPress News: Release Week News, WordPress 2.7.1, BuddyPress, WordPress MU, and More Releases.

For more WordPress news, check out my weekly Blog Herald WordPress News. For more WordCamp news, check out the The WordCamp Report.

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Copyright Lorelle VanFossen, the author of Blogging Tips, What Bloggers Won't Tell You About Blogging.

Recently, two different clients lost their WordPress password. One couldn’t find the log in password for her WordPress blog. Since she is always logged in, she didn’t use it regularly and mislaid the original copy. The other had set up a test WordPress blog on their server ages ago for handling upgrades and conversions, and now wanted to upgrade to WordPress 2.7 to prepare his Theme for the new version, misplacing his password, too. Then I had a computer glitch the same week during a WordPress install and the password step was somehow bypassed, locking me out of the new WordPress install.

For whatever reasons, all three of us couldn’t get the password to work that was emailed to us by WordPress. Without access to the WordPress Administration Panels where we can change our passwords, we’re left hunting for other methods.

Please, do not contact WordPress for help recovering your password on self-hosted WordPress blogs. You can ask for help in the WordPress Support Forums and they will give you the following advice.

If you have lost your password with your WordPress.com blog, click the link on your login to have the password mailed to you directly, or contact WordPress.com support.

While there are many ways of resolving this issue, two tools are life savers for lost passwords if you are caught in this same situation.

The Emergency Password Recovery File

Try the Reset Your Lost WordPress Administrator Password Emergency, a PHP file you upload to your WordPress blog root directory and initiate through your browser. It will generate your WordPress username and password.

Remove the emergency.php file immediately afterward to protect yourself and your WordPress blog.

I tried it with WordPress 2.7 and it continues to work. This is an easy way to recover your password when all else fails and if you are unfamiliar with code and databases.

Manually Change Your Password Settings

The second method is actually the preferred method and is described in the WordPress Codex, the online manual for WordPress Users, in Resetting Your Password. It involves going into your MySQL database and manually changing the password within the tables.

Be aware that there are different versions of MySQL and your version may differ from the instructions.

In the MySQL database:

1. Go to wp_users and click “browse.”
2. On the user_pass field, click “browse” and find the ID number associated with your login (there is usually only one) and click Edit.
3. Select the password content and delete it. Type in your new password as you normally would.
4. In the dropdown menu, choose MD5.
5. Click Go or Save at the bottom of the screen.
6. Return to the tab for your WordPress blog and test the new password. If it doesn’t work, start over.

Remember, the first step in assuring you never have to do this is to save your username and password in a safe place where you will remember where you put it.

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Copyright Lorelle VanFossen, the author of Blogging Tips, What Bloggers Won't Tell You About Blogging.

This week’s Blog Herald WordPress News is WordPress News: Release Week News, WordPress 2.7.1, BuddyPress, WordPress MU, and More Releases, and I’ve covered a lot of WordPress news you can use:

It’s Release Week. WordPress 2.7.1 Beta 1 released for testing. WordPressMU updated. BuddyPress Beta 2 released. WP Scanner beta released. WordPress.com releases January stats. Akismet updated and improved. WordCamp.tv releases more WordCamp videos from last year. Scott Wallick releases his sites for sale. Kym Huynh of WordCast released from hospital, and does blogging with WordPress suck?

The audio version of this post can be heard here or is available for download as the WordPress News Summary for February 5, 2009.

If you missed last week’s edition on the Blog Herald, it was WordPress News: Logogate, WordCamps Everywhere, WordPress.tv, BuddyPress, WordPressMU, WordPress Plugin Podcast, and More.

Here are some highlights for this week you do not want to miss, followed by WordPress Events, WordCamps, and Meetups coming soon.

WordPress 2.7.1 Beta 1 Released

The first WordPress 2.7.1 Beta has been released and is undergoing testing. It is a maintenance release with 66 tickets fixed. Expect the final release within the next week or so.

Scott Wallick Selling Plaintxt Site and Sandbox WordPress Theme

Scott Wallick is offering for sale his popular site, plaintxt.org, and his “brand” which includes the Sandbox WordPress Theme, which is GPL and not for sale, to move onto new projects. The Sandbox Theme has long been touted as the next “default” WordPress Theme and set the standard high for other Themes to follow with a rich microformats and a powerful CSS framework.

I’ve been a huge fan of the Sandbox Theme which I use here on Lorelle on WordPress, and wish Scott the best of luck with his sale and all the endeavours the future holds for him. Scott, you’ve been an invaluable member of the WordPress Community and helped change it permanently. Your absence will leave a big hole and you are welcome to return any time. Thanks for everything you’ve done for so many millions of WordPress users.

WordPress.com News

The January Wrap-Up for WordPress.com is in and includes a new WordPress Theme, the launch of WordPress.tv, and breaking the 2 billion mark for combined pageviews across all WordPress.com blogs. 372,519 blogs were created, with 393,836 new users, and 553 terabytes transferred the WordPress.com datacenters. Almost 9 million comments were posted across 1.4 million active blogs.

With the recent announcement of LiveJournal layoffs and closing, many are transferring to WordPress.com. They reported 7,111 LiveJournal imports.

There have been three WordCamp events so far this year in Las Vegas, Indonesia, and Whistler, BC, Canada.

In a blog post featuring photographs, WordPress server guru, Barry Abrahamson let it leak that WordPress.com is working on adding some “cool gallery features” to WordPress.com blogs that are currently found on the Neat! WordPress Theme which add navigation links to the images (next and previous) and a link to take you back to the main post from individual picture pages, increasing gallery navigation and function.

Blog Design Contest on WordPress.com

The first blogging design contest has been announced for WordPress.com called “I <3 Blogging Design Contest” co-produced by Infectious. This isn’t a blog web design or WordPress Theme contest. It is a graphic design contest. Design a “why I love blogging and WordPress” graphic design and if yours wins, it could be printed and sold on laptop and iPhone skins around the world through the Infectious store. Let your creative self loose and show the world how you would design what blogging and WordPress mean to you.

BuddyPress News

BuddyPress 1.0 Beta 2 has been released and all components and Themes are available for download. Hundreds of fixes have been patched and fixed since the first beta and now will sync up with WordPressMU releases for the eagerly anticipated WordPressMU social media and networking WordPress Theme and Plugins.

I got a chance to interview Andy Peatling of BuddyPress at WordCamp Whistler, so stay tuned for that video coming soon.

WordPress Fan Blogs and Podcasts

I’ve added to the WordPress fan blogs and podcasts I feature on the Blog Herald WordPress News. They currently include highlights and news from:

• WordCast
• The WordPress Podcast
• The WordPress Plugins Podcast
• WP Engineer
• WPRecipes
• WPTavern
• Weblog Tools Collection – WordPress Weekly Podcast with Jeff Chandler

Akismet News

In “Akismet: Make Commenting Easy,” Akismet reported that CAPTCHAs are now officially dead and useless, and cite a report by ZDNet that a quarter of a million CAPTCHAs are easily broken by bot and human spammers every day. I’ve been reporting the death of CAPTCHAs for a long time. I hope the final nail has been pounded into that coffin, personally.

Akismet also reports they have improved the accuracy of their blog reporting stats for counting and tracking blog comment spam. There is no Plugin upgrade required.

WordPress Permalink Structure and Strategies

Dougal Campbell highlighted conversations on efficient permalink strategies for WordPress from the WordPress mailing lists, in an attempt to understand how to properly structure our blog permalinks to speed up how WordPress process them.

Otto of Ottodestruct made this important point to consider:

For performance reasons, it is not a good idea to start your permalink structure with the category, tag, author, or postname fields. The reason is that these are text fields, and using them at the beginning of your permalink structure it takes more time for WordPress to distinguish your Post URLs from Page URLs (which always use the text “page slug” as the URL), and to compensate, WordPress stores a lot of extra information in its database (so much that sites with lots of Pages have experienced difficulties). So, it is best to start your permalink structure with a numeric field, such as the year or post ID.

Due to this discussion, the WordPress Codex article on Using Permalinks was updated to say that using categories within the permalink structure is not “helpful” and may actually increase the number of queries to resolve the post link. The preferred format currently is to preface the post title with numbers representing dates rather than text like categories, such as:

%year%/%month%/%day%/%postname%
%year%/%month%/%postname%
%year%/%post/%postname%
%postid%/%postname%

WordPress Events, Meetups, and WordCamps

Here are some WordPress-related dates and events to put on your calendar.

February 2009

• Gulf Coast WordPress/Blogger Meetup – Mobile, Alabama – February 5, 2009
• Beer & Blog WordPress Meetup – Las Vegas, Nevada – February 5, 2009
• Toronto WordPress Meetup – Toronto, Canada – February 7, 2009
• WordCamp Paris 2 – Paris, France – Feb 7, 2009
• Los Angeles WordPress Users Group at Philippe’s French Dip – February 8, 2009
• South Florida WordPress February Meetup – February 10, 2009
• Portland WordPress User Group at CubeSpace – Portland, Oregon – February 12, 2009
• WordCamp Jena Germany – February 14, 2009
• The Boston WordPress Meetup Group – Blogging @ The Brewery – February 16, 2009
• New York City WordPress Meetup – February 17, 2009
• The Scottsdale WordPress Meetup – Scottsdate, Arizona – February 18, 2009
• WordCamp Education Vancouver 2009 – Vancouver, BC – February 19, 2009
• 2009 Northern Voice – Vancouver, BC – February 20-21, 2009
• WordCamp India – Delhi – February 21-22, 2009
• WordCamp Miami 2009 – Miami, Florida – February 22, 2009
• WordCamp Denver 2009 – February 28, 2009 (Facebook)
• Dallas/Fort Worth WordPress Meetup – Dallas, Texas – February 28, 2009
• Atlanta WordPress Users Group Meetup – Learning WordPress 2.7 – Atlanta, Georgia – February 28, 2009
• The Chicago WordPress February Meetup – February 28, 2009

Finding WordPress Event News: In addition to our weekly Blog Herald WordPress 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”.

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Copyright Lorelle VanFossen, the author of Blogging Tips, What Bloggers Won't Tell You About Blogging.

This week’s Blog Herald WordPress News is WordPress News: Logogate, WordCamps Everywhere, WordPress.tv, BuddyPress, WordPressMU, WordPress Plugin Podcast, and More:

WordPress Logogate continues. New WordCamps announced worldwide. WordPress.tv is changing WordPress tutorials and resources. WordPressMU updated. BuddyPress released any day. Super Cache new version released. Matt featured in USAToday. Did you hug a WordPress Plugin developer recently? New podcast on WordPress Plugins announced. And tons more WordPress news, tips, techniques, Plugins, and Themes.

Some WordPress news highlights you need to know include:

WordPress Logogate

Among Matt’s new year’s resolutions is to get the WordPress Community using the correct WordPress logo. He’s created a comparison image to convince everyone to use the right logo, but that wasn’t enough. Many thought the difference between the two was the color when it’s reallyl the font. So he’s created a new specific version to help you understand:

Color it whatever you want, but use the right base to start with. The font counts. When playing with the WordPress logo, start with the Official WordPress logos.

Also, WordPress is spelled WordPress not Wordpress. To make this part of his new year’s resolutions come true, he’s written a script to force Wordpress into WordPress across all of the 5 million plus blogs on WordPress.com. Instant gratification.

WordPressMU Update Released

WordPressMU 2.7 is now available, the multi-user version of WordPress than runs WordPress.com and other blog networks. This new version includes the latest version of WordPress and a lot of bug fixes. It also includes the exciting announcement that Viper007bond’s admin bar has been added to the core to make it even easier to use.

BuddyPress News

Andy Peatling announced BuddyPress Beta 2 would be delayed until WordPressMU’s latest version was released, but now that WordPressMU 2.7 is out, he has no excuses. Stay tuned for more news on this exciting social media WordPress Theme for WordPressMU blog networks.

Super Cache WordPress Plugin Updated

WP Super Cache has undergone a variety of patches and updates recently, and is now at version 0.9 with some great improvements for mobile user agents, reduction of cache files for sites with a lot of anonymous visitors, improvved compression and expiry times. Reports are that the new version is faster than ever.

JavaScript and Plugins in WordPress 2.8

Loading JavaScript In Footer In WordPress 2.8 is another tutorial for WordPress Plugin authors by Lester Chan on how to improve your WordPress Plugin’s use of code and JavaScript. This one tackles how to load JavaScript properly into the footer in preparation for WordPress 2.8.

For more WordPress news, check out my weekly Blog Herald WordPress News. For more WordCamp news, check out the The WordCamp Report.

Site Search Tags: wordpress news, wordpress, wordpress themes, wordpress plugins, wordpress logo, wordpress tips, wordpress help

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Copyright Lorelle VanFossen, the author of Blogging Tips, What Bloggers Won't Tell You About Blogging.