On July 4th, while we were all celebrating with fireworks and apple pie, the WordPress team released the latest edition of WordPress. Say hello to WordPress 3.2!

What can you expect with the new version update?

- A faster WordPress
- Refreshed dashboard design (very sleek, if I may say so myself)
- Distraction free writing or zen mode (It’s like WriteRoom for WordPress!)
- Speed improvements for software
- Retiring support for PHP4, older versions of MySQL, and legacy browsers like IE6

Interested in what else changed? Check out the WordPress Codex for the full details.

That’s right! You read right… WordPress 3.2 is just around the corner. It also comes with big changes behind the scenes.

The minimum requirements to run WordPress have now changed. As of 3.2, you’ll need to be running PHP 5.2.4 and MySQL 5.0. Don’t know if you’re running those version? Check your webhost settings.

You’ll want to log in to your hosting account, and check to make sure you have at least PHP 5.2.4 and MySQL 5.0. Most major hosts already default to these or newer versions, but there are some exceptions.

If you don’t know how to log into your hosting account, you can find out if you’re ready for 3.2 with the Health Check plugin. In your dashboard, go to Plugins → Add New and search for “health check” (it should be the first result). Install it, activate it, and it will tell you if you need to update anything!

If I wasn’t paying attention, how did I find out, you ask? I planned a sale on my jewelry website, only to find out it had been hacked. And so began my two month journey to remove/replace all the hacked code across my websites.

When I finally had a chance to start working on the jewelry website (because as is the plight of an independent contractor, clients come first always), I was able to migrate it from Textpattern to WordPress, but not without some trouble. The latest of which was fixing a discrepancy with post comment counts in WordPress.

I originally tried a few solutions, but myPHPAdmin was yelling at me… it didn’t like how the SQL was formatted for making the updates. Another quick search and I found this post: Reseting Post and Comment Count in WordPress by Ankur Banerjee. He wasn’t sure that it would function on everyone’s servers due to timeout settings, but it worked like a charm for me.

How about you out there porting from Textpattern to WordPress… What issues did you encounter that were not easily handled by the Textpattern importer plugin in WordPress?

Here is the second one in the series of projects I’ve had on the backburner. If you’re looking for a Halloween costume, go check it out!

Work Completed: WordPress Website

Description: Best Star Trek Costumes is an affiliate website setup to market Star Trek costumes. In order to facilitate ease of updating, this website was created using WordPress as a content management system.

I don’t get very many opportunities to play around with personal projects, so I’m very glad to announce the completion of this website. If you’re looking for a Halloween costume, go check it out!

Work Completed: WordPress Website

Description: Best G.I. Joe Costumes is an affiliate website setup to market G.I Joe costumes. In order to facilitate ease of updating, this website was created using WordPress as a content management system.

reCAPTCHA is a free service that takes CAPTCHA one step further. If you’re not familiar with a CAPTCHA, it’s a program that helps control the amount of spam received through web forms by generating tests that humans, but not computers, can pass. For example, when you visit a blog to comment and you are asked to type out a set of words, numbers, or phrase in order to submit your comment, that is a CAPTCHA.

What makes reCAPTCHA different is that they are using these web forms to help digitize material like books, newspapers and radio shows. By having humans process words that current computers find difficult reading, they are processing internet archives and old editions of the New York Times, for starters. I think this is one of the neatest ideas I’ve heard all week.

Check out this ScienCentral video explaining reCAPTCHA:

They have application plugins for WordPress, Movable Type, and Joomla among several others. Go check them out!

Have any other spam control plug-ins or addons I should consider? Let me know below!

Work Completed: Website Design, Blog Setup, Donation Integration, WordPress Setup

Description: A personal website established to chronicle the events of my husband and myself leading up to our 52-mile road skate for The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society’s Team In Training program.