Wordpress 2.3.3

Posted by multippt

Within 7 days from the last security update, Wordpress has issued yet another security update. This update fixes a problem that may allow other users to edit your posts. This problem can be fixed easily by replacing the xmlrpc.php file with a newer version. Alternatively, you could always upgrade your Wordpress install to the latest version.

Aside from the major patching of the security problem, some other smaller bugs have been fixed such a registration email problem. There is also a fix for a function which fails to work properly on 64-bit servers.

Q1 2008 PageRank review

Posted by multippt

The entire update for the first quarter of the year is not yet over at the time of this post, considering that a random selection of pages had their PageRank updated. Of course, since it is not yet over, things can pretty much change over the next few days.

It is quite nice to know that the PageRank update this time appears more balanced - there are about the same amount of pages which had a reduction in PageRank as the ones with an increase in PageRank.

Comfirmation of update

There are reports of several sites having an update in PageRank. True enough, there are sufficient amounts of sites that have a change in PageRank in their main pages (both increases and decreases). Some new sites (those with no PageRank in pages except for the main page) also have internal pages assigned a PageRank of more than 0.

The update

There are not as many sites being penalized by Google at one shot compared to the last update in the last quarter (September), probably meaning that there are more people adhering to Google’s publicized guidelines. While there is less sites being penalized this round, it doesn’t mean that there are none. Fortunately, as with any large-scale PageRank penalties, there is large-scale PageRank restoration as well.

Google appears to update PageRank for random pages (particularly internal pages), so you may want to check out some internal pages for an update, rather than looking out for it on your main page. Most of the changes appeared 2-3 days ago (Friday). While no other changes are seen during the weekend, the update probably is still ongoing. Some sites have their PageRank updated completely, but they are generally those who already have a PageRank. Newer sites may take a little longer to get most of their pages assigned a PageRank.

As this PageRank update is on a smaller scale compared to the previous one, not many people may notice it. In fact, it took until the 12th of January (10th is where the update is known to start) before people began to notice changes in the green bar. The PageRank update is most visible on new sites where the change is usually seen on internal pages, as well as on the pages of moderately sized sites. Large sites like Yahoo do not really have a noticeable change in PageRank (Statcounter is an exception though).

It’s still not over 

Remember that the PageRank update is still not over yet (this is day 3); it usually takes about a week before the whole update is complete. Judging from the Google directory which is known for showing the most up-to-date values, the new PageRank has not been passed on to sites like Engadget and Gizmodo. In addition, some sites appear to have an incomplete set of pages with PageRank, particularly new sites whereby some internal pages has a PageRank that was not present, while the front page does not have a change (e.g. an internal page has a PR of 4, while the main has 0). It’s also a hit-and-miss, so some pages may be hit with a PageRank update the first round, while others get their’s later. So, expect Google to be dishing out more updates in the coming days.

What pages do Google update first?

Sometimes Google prefers starting out from the internal pages, working upwards to the front page, so that when you notice a PageRank change in your site’s main page you get to find other pages with a change in PageRank as well (usually happens to sites with no PageRank allocated). At other times it does the opposite - starting from the front and going downwards to the internal pages of your site (usually happens to sites which already has PageRank). It’s usually the change in the main page that triggers the alarms.

What are some of the pages Google gives a PageRank first? If you own a blog, they are generally the categories and the tag pages, or perhaps your “about” page (on other occasions, it updates the front page as well). How about a forum? You will probably not notice a PageRank update unless the main page has an update.

The point of PageRank?

PageRank doesn’t really determine how well you rank in search results (while it does influences it, the effect is not really significant enough). However, it is a nice indicator, since almost everyone knows that it takes a little more than sheer luck to get a high PageRank (talk about bragging rights :p).

Wordpress 2.4 skipped

Posted by multippt

Sounds like Wordpress developers can’t keep up with their planned schedule(and judging from the development copy, I can see why), and had to skip Wordpress 2.4 which was planned for late January. Rather, the next revision of Wordpress will be released between March to April. As Wordpress 2.4 is skipped, don’t expect to see 2.4 anytime soon. Instead, 2.5 will take its place, making Wordpress 2.4 the third time Wordpress skipped a revision number.

Hopefully a development time of 6 months should give Wordpress all that time to get some nice new features out.

An inside look at Wordpress 2.4.0

Posted by multippt

Wordpress 2.4 isn’t going to be released until weeks later (24th January), but it’s still fairly intact at its latest. Remember, this is taken from a development copy of Wordpress, and things change pretty fast when it comes with betas.

Visually…

Up front you cannot see anything different - that’s because Wordpress still uses the famous Kubrick theme and has not changed it. There are no visual changes on the front-end, but wait till you see the administration interface. This screenshot should say something:

Administration

The new control panel makes use of some pretty nice mix of colors, much vibrant compared to the old blue theme Wordpress administration interfaces have. In addition, some commonly used features - such as writing posts are now place right in front of you (well, for everyone’s convenience).

Name changes in administration panel

One small note of change in the administration panel is that the name for some tabs has been changed. Now instead of “presentation”, you see “design”, and “options” has now become “settings”. Sort of similar to the administration interace you see in Blogger.

Security Changes

When changing your password, you will now see a new thing called “password strength”. Not too unfamiliar right? This is the same sort of password length measurement thing that you see when you register a hotmail account. The longer the password the more “safer” it is. Though, length is just one factor. The password-strength checker also checks how easy the password is easy to guess (e.g. jumbled letters score higher than repeated ones in terms of strength). Well, at least it will convince more people to have longer and unique passwords.

Features?

While the changes at first glance may look pretty large, it’s actually quite small. Sadly, the development copy does not seem to have any big features added yet. Much of the changes are in the interface and usability. There are not many features added to this new version of Wordpress. Of course, as with any development version, it’s incomplete and not at full potential. Let’s hope to see some spanking nice features to go with the revamp in interface in the final release of Wordpress 2.4.

On a side note, there are (visual and coding) glitches which I would leave the development team to fix. At the moment, this release is pretty much in pieces - even the administration interface has quite a lot of touching up to do, but at least you get an idea of how Wordpress 2.4 is going to look like.

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Testing done courtesy of a friend who installed the development release on his site.

Wordpress 2.3.2

Posted by multippt

Wordpress 2.3.2 has been released and patches a security hole in Wordpress that may expose drafts and future posts in your site. Private posts are not affected. No biggy unless you do not want people to peep at what you are going to write tomorrow.

The second one might be a little bit more of concern, as it can expose your database structure (not much of a problem since almost all Wordpress installs use the same structure), and show some not-so-nice error messages on your blog.

While patching up this problem, the developers decided to give a nice little thing that you can customize Wordpress in: Error messages. The error message will show a customized page (taken from wp-content/db-error.php) if there is one, rather than a messy one which PHP generates.

PS3 firmware 2.10

Posted by multippt

Sony UK has recently annouced that they will release firmware 2.10 today. The update is available here.

The update adds a few enhancements:
-Ability to choose “Type 3″ as an option under Bitmapping settings.
-DivX (which is the main feature of the update) and VC-1 support
-Some refinements to Blu-ray features

Google changes name of Product search, again! Sort of…

Posted by multippt

Google has just renamed its product search from “Products” to “Shopping“, giving Google’s product search 3 names to work with (with the first one being “Froogle”). That change is only on the main page of Google. 

I guess Google might be trying to reach out to some nice would-be shoppers to use it’s product search feature, seeing that Christmas is not too far away. After all, why did it promote Product Search to the front page in exchange of Google video (though not too much of a problem now that Google has Youtube)? Well, at least it makes Product Search the second beta Google service to appear in the Google top bar.

A few others notice it, but it’s just a change in a word on the main page of Google; no big of a deal is it? But if almost no one noticed it, Google should try to make it more visible…