Nicknamed “Baker”, most of the changes to WordPress 2.8 are behind the scenes. The overall back-end system being easier to use for the person in charge of the site, as well as having more customisation features on the Dashboard and post listing pages.

There are also improvements to the Theme selection page – with the ability to search online, according to tickboxes relating to style and colour, for hundred’s of available to download themes. Simply click on the Add New Themes item in the Appearance tab and you’ll be searching in seconds. The Themes also have the ability to install into your blog without you having to upload them manually. The widget management has also been polished up to make things a little clearer and straightforward.

The code editor, if you really like to get your hands dirty with WordPress, now features syntax highlighting, making it easier to navigate and edit your php & css files. Something programmers have been crying out for!

There are also many bug fixes (790 in all) and an overall speed improvement. If you use WordPress on your site, I suggest you upgrade immediately! Techsnake.com had no problems and was upgraded within minutes.

At last! WordPress 2.5 has been released to an expectant blogging community. For those that use the blogging software (and skymonkey.org is powered by wordpress) then you’ll be glad to know the following features come with the latest version: Multiple file upload, WYSIWYG that doesn’t “helpfully” change your html code, plugin upgrades are simpler & a search system that looks at pages as well as posts. There are lots of other changes too, so if you’re a wordpress fan or are thinking of using the software, go here.

So, if you want to move your blog to a WordPress blog, take your time, do your research and send me an email if you need help. I've provided a few links below to hopefully help if you're having problems...

[Import Blogger to WP] – Move your posts to WP. Didn’t work for me, did it manually in the end!
[Moving WP] – How to move WP from one directory to another.
[Move the feed] – I think your host needs to be linux (apache) to do this, but works well. Just remember the .htaccess file they talk about goes in your blog directory! I’m pretty sure all is good…!

I’ve been toying with the idea of going over to a WordPress blog for a long time (in fact shortly after I started my blogger blog.) The idea of full customisation, the ability to categorise posts and lots of other cool features really appealled to me. The biggest hurdle though was creating a template that would fit seamlessly into my current website. And that was the scary part..

You may have noticed that my website has matured over the last 3 months or so, and that’s mainly due to me learning how to do things. It started out as an all table design, which was quick and easy to setup, but I quickly realised the constraints you have with tables. For instance, the way they appear differently depending what browser you happen to use. And also the way you can’t get things pixel perfect. So with that in mind I learnt a bit more css, specifially div tags, created a template and started playing about with it. Now for the next step, WordPress, the website has really got to be fully css. You also need to understand and implement php (a scripting language), and also use it for the building of your pages!! More learning damn it!

So next step, try some php. My current British hosting company didn’t provide php support, which basically stopped development for a couple of hours.. =) Within a short time I had signed up to Go Daddy and started to move my site across to the other side of the pond. Same price as my current host but so much more bang for your buck (as they say.) If you’re thinking about moving your site to an American host, do it, use Go Daddy and say I sent you =)

So I’m now at the stage where my website has no index.htm, it’s index.php and everything else is php. And I have the template ready (click the link below to see it’s current incarnation) and hopefully within the next couple of days all will move over to WordPress “seamlessly” (at least, that’s the plan!)

So was it easy? Not really, the learning curve has been steep but, I have to say, rewarding. But being a programmer previously, I think this helped me along a bit! The best benifit though is after making the mods I have a website that is pretty flexible now in design – so as I learn more and create some new graphics, the look can change quickly and painlessly.

SO roll on WordPress, and I think if you’re a regular you’ll quite like some of the cool features in the new blog.