Wordpress Upgrade
WordPress Upgrade

Since updating this website to WordPress v2.8 in the middle of June they’ve released two additional security updates.  Unfortunately, the latest update also required a little extra tinkering and work on my part.  I look on constant security fixes for this fantastic (free!) open source software as a small price to pay for increased security.

Again, the calculators should all be completely impervious to changes in the WordPress program itself.  However, its theoretically possible you might notice a little weirdness in how the website looks/acts.  If so, please drop me a line and let me know so I can take a look.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled rating…

Wordpress Upgrade
Wordpress Upgrade

Last night I updated this website to use WordPress v2.8.  There’s a lot of new features under the hood.  One that I really like is the ability to browse new website themes.

The calculators should all be completely impervious to changes in WordPress.  However, its theoretically possible you might notice a little bit of weirdness in how the rest of the website looks/acts.  If so, please drop me a line and let me know so I can look into it.

Enjoy!

Wordpress
Wordpress

A friend of mine owns and operates a number of websites – all of which run on ASP/.NET/MS-SQL servers.  He knows what he’s talking about, but he’s fairly dismissive of WordPress, PHP, and MySQL.

All this time I’ve been raving about WordPress, telling him that you can basically do anything with it.  I’ve mentioned how easy it is to use, how easy it is to maintain, its open source, how many global corporations use WordPress to build their websites, how its the tool of choice for so many designers, and how huge the WordPress community is.

In the meantime, he’s referring to his millions of rows in his “real-SQL, MicroSoft SQL” database.  I believe he’s been stuck thinking of PHP and MySQL as “kiddie” stuff, just not ready for big time.

That is, he’s been dismissive of WordPress until about two months ago.  In the last two months other people (SEO consultants, professional designers) have been raving about WordPress to him too.

I think he’s finally coming around.

Wordpress Upgrade
Wordpress Upgrade

I upgraded to WordPress v2.7.1 as soon as it came out (after testing on another website, of course).  I can honestly say WordPress is the only software I use that I actually look forward to upgrading.

Since version 2.7 RC 1, upgrading to the next version of WordPress has been this easy:

How to Upgrade WordPress
How to Upgrade WordPress

You click “Upgrade Automatically” and wait about 5 seconds.

You’re done.

Not entirely off topic: a friend of mine asked me yesterday about the best way to put up a new website.  She had thought about using Yahoo Site Builder or some such.  Yahoo and its like are great at building free, quick, and ugly websites.  If you’re going to publish on the internets, why not just opt for something just as easy and that has hundreds, if not thousands of possible totally free themes to choose from?  I say, go with WordPress.

I used to code sites by hand – that’s a chump’s game.  Just install WordPress and call it a day.

Wordpress Upgrade
Wordpress Upgrade

I upgraded the website to WordPress 2.7 RC 1 over the weekend.

I generally do not bother installing the updates between the major upgrades.  My major concern in upgrading is eliminating possible security issues and obtaining additional program features.  I maintain a totally separate website from PDRater.com, also running on WordPress, where I install the very latest versions of WordPress and try out new variations on the look-and-feel of this website, new calculators, and new ideas about how best to present the current calculators.

Very late Wednesday night I upgraded this website to WordPress v2.7.  I’m not sure I fully appreciate how much better it might be than the various release candidates.

Thursday morning I discovered an unintended effect of upgrading is that it “broke” one of my plugins.   (Reza: Thanks for pointing it out!)  I had modified an existing plugin, EasyPayPal, to allow this website to accept credit card payments.  WordPress v2.7 changed the user profiles area of the website – and made it so that instead of seeing an option to become a paid subscriber, you just saw a cryptic PHP error.  This is nothing that would have compromised a credit card number or anything – it just would have prevented anyone from giving me money.

A little bit of bug testing, one new line of code and its back up and running.  :)