This point release is now available for download from wordpress.org. This point release was the result of lots of feedback from the WordPress community relating to the curl / PHP / webhost issues as well as problems with post scheduling (a feature I’m sure many use) and pingbacks (used to share your posts).

I used Tools, Upgrade to quickly, easily and painlessly upgrade my site.

I’m confident we have a stable version of WordPress and am looking forward to the end of the first quarter 2010 for WordPress 3.0

No sooner than WordPress 2.9 was released, an updated point release was announced to resolve issues on some versions of PHP’s curl extension. Bizarre. I mean who would’ve thought after all the beta testing and release candidates that this kind of issue would only show up once released to the public. Hence WordPress 2.9.1 was born just days after the WordPress 2.9 release.

I understand that like any software there’s the fine balance between releasing it promptly to give everyone the benefit of all the goodness, new features, speed / performance, bug fixes etc and holding back one more day, week, month to ensure all the bugs, known or unknown are squashed.

So, do you think that this particular bug should have been found before the release? That’s difficult to say as the diversity of platforms on which WordPress can be installed means that finding these bugs requires even more participation from the community at large. Increased beta testing and participation will increase the chance that these issues will be identified and fixed way before the public gets their hand on the software.

So, when the WordPress team requests beta testers perhaps next time I hope you will be encouraged to participate. I know I certainly will to help make it more secure, better performing and feature rich.

if you want to keep yourself abreast of WordPress development news you can find it by following the link.

Thoughts? Please comment on your experience if you’ve beta tested. Did you feel as though your input was valuable – perhaps you found a bug and got it fixed?

The latest version of WordPress, 2.9, has just been released.

Upgrading was really quite easy. I logged into my WordPress dashboard and saw the message saying that WordPress 2.9 is available, click here to upgrade. So, I did. The upgrade screen reminded me to backup my database, a sensible suggestion, so I quickly clicked through to my favourite backup tool and made backup. I returned to Tools, upgrade and clicked on “Upgrade Automatically”. Within seconds the upgrade process had downloaded the update, uncompressed and installed it.

So, here you are viewing this post in the latest version of WordPress, 2.9 as of post time.

You can always get the latest version of WordPress for download by going here

I hope your upgrade is as smooth as this – if not, leave a comment on what issues you encountered and how you resolved them.

Update: I noticed that the TweetMeme plugin no longer worked after the upgrade. And so did a few others

Update to the update – TweetMeme was fixed within 24 hours of me posting. Good work!

Enjoy WordPress!

In his weekly blog in the New York Times David Pogue ponders the question of “why we shoot home video”. After reading his column I wanted to contribute my reasons.

Here are some of the reasons I shoot home video footage:

• to record moments in history
• to practice new techniques or perhaps use new equipment
• to eventually get around to editing the footage (honest)
• prove I was there when at a significant sporting event and relive or share the moment
• share video moments with new friends or associates at some point in the future

I do think that we are prompted to remember more information about a photo or video when we encounter it and it happily reminds us of the moment in time the experience took place. Granted, now we flick through picture and video folders on the PC as opposed to handling physical photos but seeing them brings back floods of memories.

Making it easier to view videos (and pictures), instead of gathering around my PC monitor, I have my PS3 and Xbox 360 connected on my home network. My PC runs TVersity, the media serving software, giving the consoles the ability to display pictures as well as view video footage on the TV. Always fun for reviewing the most recent exploits with family and friends.

David’s orginal article in the New York Times is located here and is thoroughly worth the read for his take on the question.