After a long wait, the highly anticipated WordPress 3.0 is finally here. I’m just as excited as I was when the first beta was available and we were able to start tinkering around with the features that would be released in the final build.
There are plenty of posts around discussing the new features of the release so I won’t go into much detail in this post. What I would like to do is provide my experience with the new version.
No pains here - upgrading from WP 2.9 is simple as any other release. Everyone did a great job in making sure nothing in the core breaks when upgrading, and themes will not be affected as you have to specify whether a theme can use certain features (within the functions.php file) before they take affect.
I haven’t tried upgrading a WPMU site to 3.0, although it was simple enough with the release client version. I’m pretty sure this method for upgrading is the same in the final release.
I did not have any problems with the plugins I was using on the sites I upgraded, which included some of the more popular ones (All In One SEO Pack, Twitter Tools, Gravity Forms to name a few).
However, there are some plugins out there that are not compatible with 3.0 so be sure to back up your site. You also should deactivate all of your plugins before upgrading, and reactivate them one at a time in case one of them crashes your site. That way you will know which one not to reactivate until an update is made.
I’ve used plugins for menu management and custom post types for just about every site I’ve made since I started developing in WordPress (about 2 years ago). Those plugins served me well but I am happy to say goodbye.
With menu management and custom post types integrated into the core you don’t have to rely on the support of a single plugin that has a smaller development team (or possibly a single developer). Nothing against those developers of course, but you know if there is a problem in a WP core feature it will be fixed in no time.
One thing I love about the menu management is if you use wp_nav_menu function and the administrator has not setup a menu, it defaults to the wp_page_menu function instead of just displaying an error or nothing at all (as some functions tend to do).
So now that we’re all happily plugging away in WP 3.0, we have the next iteration to look forward to. There isn’t too much right now as far as new features, but there are some items in trac that are of particular interest:
There will most likely be more to come as more users start upgrading their sites to the new version. If you want to keep up with WP development be sure to periodically check out the WordPress Roadmap.
So what are you waiting for? Download WordPress 3.0 right now!
If you have been following the story of AT&T being hacked, you are aware of how a hacker group known as Goatse Security (GS) was able to retrieve 114,000 iPad users’ emails via a security exploit. After reading of the latest news I felt compelled to share my comments on the story, possibly just as a way to vent on my frustrations of the entire issue.
There were many positive aspects to the developing story on both ends.
Also known as “The Frustrating”…
There are burdensome issues on both ends. Despite society becoming more and more in the cloud and accepting technology as a necessity for the future of business, people still think “hacker” is an expletive. Actually a hacker by definition is simply a programmer that likes to code and tinker away with technology (commonly confused with a “cracker”). In this case it seems more like AT&T is just trying to pass blame and make it seem like the exploit was something created by the Goatse, instead of simply being discovered.
As always, a few bad apples give the entire industry a bad name. But I feel like this is not an instance that should be the case. I feel like for the most part Goatse did the generally “right” thing, yet AT&T rebutted with an atom bomb. Maybe one day we’ll all be able to get along…a day when maybe corporations will give hacker groups incentives (monetary and publicity) for discovering issues like these, instead of jail time.
I was appalled to see a tweet promoting purchasing Twitter followers the other day. There are a few sites out there that I won’t even link to because I don’t even want to give them the publicity. Laides and gentlemen, this type of product is the newest generation of “Snake Oil”. It is just another business with poor ethics looking to take your money and provide little-to-no value in return.
The allure is that you can go from 0 followers to 5,000 followers overnight which will make you look “legit” so other people follow you. As with everything in society, we’re looking for that quick fix that will solve all of our problems. Be warned however, that this completely negates the concept of Twitter. Twitter is about having a voice that can be heard by people all over the world. For businesses it provides an avenue for getting the word out to your loyal customers quickly and efficiently. So why not pay to have 5,000 people follow you instantly?
Think about where they get these thousands of people from. If you have a new product, what could possibly be done to have 5,000 people instantly start following you? The answer is nothing - it is not possible. Simply put these followers are either (a) a group of people that are paid to follow whoever the company asks them to, or (b) fake accounts. In fact I wouldn’t be surprised if these accounts even had more than a dozen tweets. And if you attempt to direct message one of the accounts, you may be waiting until your business is in the ground before you receive a reply.
Great, now you have a few thousand followers that care nothing of your product. So instead of 100 loyal customers following you, you have a few thousand followers that really don’t even know anything about your business. You are tweeting upon deaf ears. Large successful corporations were not built overnight so don’t expect your company to just jump into social marketing all of a sudden, have be a powerhouse in the twittersphere.
Twitter is about communicating with those who care. Sharing ideas and concepts, promoting interesting products and sites, or finding similarly interested parties that you may be able to learn from. It is not just some bulletin board that you throw up a message about “great new product for $19.99” and wait for everyone to start throwing money at you. It is about gaining the trust of real followers that have followed you because they share an interest in your company or cause.
Instead of paying $200 for a number that has no significance, give that $200 to a Web developer that can add a box to your home page to list your recent tweets. Upgrade your blog to include some social media icons. Set up a Facebook page or something to that effect. Or donate it to a cause so that your customers learn that you actually care about things other than money and profits.
You simply cannot buy customer loyalty. You never could and you never will be able to. So please think twice before falling victim to one of these schemes that preys upon customers by using technical jargon and buzz words to make you think “I need this service if we are to be successful”.
Internet Explorer is a four-letter word in any Web developer’s dictionary. Between the sluggishness, CSS compatibility issues, and lack for JavaScript development tools the beloved Microsfot Web browser has give us quite the headache. With the upcoming release of IE9 many of us hoped for a product from Microsoft that would mimic our other favorite browsers giving us the peace of mind to develop for one unified environment and not worry about quirks, conditional comments and other hacks. But alas, we will have to keep hoping.
According to Freeciv.net, IE9 will not support HTML5’s best features at all - no canvas element, embedded video/audio, CSS3, storage or geolocation. In fact it sounds like IE9 is more of an IE8.1.
I was tired of reading the compatibility results of others’ IE9 browsers and looking at them as piece-meal so I went ahead and installed IE9 in a VM and included my results from html5test.com below. As expected: barely any support.
Lagging browser standards means you either have to use older technology (Flash instead of embedded video) or write dedicated code for alternative browsers. Using older technology is usually not as efficient and can take more time to develop. More code equals more cost. Also the quality-assurance process will take longer since it is another browser version without full support to test against.
When you can’t use new technology such as HTML5 on a client project because you have to support IE you become frustrated and decide, “I will learn HTML5 when IE supports it since my clients will require IE support anyway”. This statement makes sense to many people since the reality is that you could learn something that you can use today (like a new library or framework) and wait until you are able to leverage HTML5 technology on all projects. But in the meantime you have to listen to everyone talk about how wonderful HTML5/CSS3 is on their projects where they do not require support for IE.
People are still using IE6 even though it is no longer supported by many major Web sites. If IE10 is to fully support HTML5 we may be long into 2012 before we can comfortably develop sites fully in HTML5 without dedicated IE fixes. Yes, we can surely educate our clients about browser statistics and that most people use Firefox now, but you can’t completely ignore 30% of the browser market share.
So just as we were all getting excited about using our HTML5 skills in the next client project it looks like we’ll have to table that hope for another time. I’m pretty disappointed IE9 won’t support just about everything that is exciting about HTML5 and CSS3, so I’ll just continue promoting Google Chrome in the meantime.
Anytime a new trend catches on malicious attackers are sure to be close by, mimicking the trend to capture unsuspecting users. Now that the Facebook “Like” Button is popping up on more sites around the internet, phishing attacks are going to start popping up here and there. How would Like Button Phishing work? Click “Read the rest” to see an example…
