WordPress released 2.0.6 yesterday- and it’s supposedly the last release before the much awaited 2.1

Apple users should be happy that Safari will now display quicktags- but, as always, Firefox is the browser of choice for WordPress users (and with Firefox 2.0 you get spell check!).

Development Blog › WordPress 2.0.6

Here’s what’s new:* The aforementioned security fixes.
* HTML quicktags now work in Safari browsers.
* Comments are filtered to prevent them from messing up your blog layout.
* Compatibility with PHP/FastCGI setups.

If you’d like Websitetology to upgrade your WordPress installation to 2.0.6. complete with back-up, and a review of your active plug-ins for latest versions, jump over to this link: http://blogosopher.com/?page_id=7

When we install WordPress for clients, we often include a nice selection of themes and some essential plugins. However, many people want to change the look of their site- by uploading new themes- or add new functionality to WordPress using Plugins. Here is how you update your WordPress install using FireFTP a free plug-in FTP for Firefox.

FTP stands for File Transfer Protocol, and the FireFTP extension for Firefox is a free, open source solution- other programs that do the same thing on a Mac are Fetch and Transmit. On a PC, you can get SmartFTP or FTP Explorer. FireFTP will do everything you need- and it’s free.
First you have to have Firefox installed- go to www.getfirefox.com to download a copy (if you haven’t already). Install Firefox- and don’t worry, it can reside peacefully next to Internet Explorer or Safari- you can have multiple browsers on your machine. It’s our opinion that you should make it your primary browser- and import all settings from your current default browser- but that is up to you.

Once in Firefox- go to TOOLS>ADD ONS

This will take you to the page where all the extensions are listed. Find the Search box- and type in FIREFTP- it should take you to this page: https://addons.mozilla.org/search.php?q=Fireftp&type=E&app=firefox

Click on FIREFTP, and then the “Install now” button. Restart Firefox and you should now have a little seahorse in your tool bar- and “FireFTP” as an option in your TOOLS menu.

The icons: back, forward (dimmed), refresh, stop, FireFTP (the blue seahorse), Sage, autofill, new tab.

Now that you have FireFTP installed- you have to set it up for accessing your WordPress installation.

These are instructions for our server– using a standard Linux, Apache, MySQL and PHP (LAMP) running Cpanel.

First- click on the “Manage Accounts” text on the left side- create new account.

Main Tab: 

Account Name: What ever you want to call your site.

Host: url.tld (example: websitetology.com)

Login: your site login, will be different than your WordPress login

Password: your site login, may be different than your WordPress login

Connection type tab: 

Check “Passive mode”

Initial directories:

Local: a folder on your computer where you will keep your WordPress files.

Remote: www

Advanced tab:

No need to enter anything in these- although you can decide on how you want your file names to be structured- either Leave Case Alone, convert to lower case, or  CONVERT TO UPPER CASE (note- all files must not have spaces in them.)

Clicking on connect should open the connection- with your local folder on the left- and your www folder on the server on the right.

There will be a long list of files on the server- with a lot of them starting with WP – this is your WordPress install- the only, ONLY, folder you will move things in and out of is your wp-content folder.

Inside it you will find three folders,  Uploads, themes and plugins.

These are where you place your content- respectively.

Uploads is where the WordPress upload tool will place your files- using a year, month, date file hierarchy. Sometimes you may go in here to update a file, or check a link structure. Most of you will never have to access this folder.

The Themes folder is where you will copy the entire folder of a theme that you have downloaded to your computer from someplace like the WordPress Theme Viewer. To upload the file from your computer to the server- have the closed folder that contains your theme on the left, and the themes folder open on the right- select the theme on the left- and click the right arrow button in the center-FireFTP will begin the upload process.

To upload- select the file on left- Pool, click right arrow and it will move from your computer to the server.

Once the files are done the FTP process- you log into your WordPress admin panel- the Desktop, click on the presentation tab- and activate your new theme.

To upload Plugins- you do the same thing- only upload them into your Plugin folder.

If you have any questions- or run into problems with these instructions- please comment below- and I will update or clarify the instructions.

Those of you who have resisted all advice to switch to Firefox, and insisted on staying with a Microsoft product (which typically means security issues and either feature gloat- or in IE’s example- features missing)- your day has come:
IEBlog : Internet Explorer 7 for Windows XP Available Now
Internet Explorer 7 for Windows XP Available Now

Today we released Internet Explorer 7 for Windows XP. I encourage everyone to download the final version from http://www.microsoft.com/ie.

We listened carefully to feedback from many sources (including this blog) and worked hard to deliver a safer browser that makes everyday tasks easier. When I first posted publicly about IE7, I wrote that we would go further to defend users from phishing and malicious software. The Phishing Filter and the architectural work in IE7 around networking and ActiveX opt-in will help keep users more secure. IE7 also delivers a much easier browsing experience with features like tabbed browsing (especially with QuickTabs), shrink-to-fit printing, an easily customizable search box, and a new design that leaves more screen real estate for the web site you’re viewing. IE7’s CSS improvements are incredibly important for developers as many of you have made quite clear. I also think IE7’s RSS experience and platform are important, powerful, and innovative.

In addition to our release of IE7, Yahoo! has a customized version of the browser available today and over the next few days partners such as Weather.com and USA TODAY will offer their own customized versions. These versions will tailor the user experience with specific toolbars, additional search engines, favorites, and RSS feeds.

I want to thank everyone who provided feedback as we developed and fine-tuned Internet Explorer 7. Over the 20 months since Bill Gates first announced our commitment to deliver IE7, we released five betas and a release candidate to millions of users worldwide. With each release, your feedback helped us make IE7 better. Your contributions, ideas, and direct comments were crucial in helping us prioritize and focus our work. I can’t imagine delivering this product without the tremendous cooperation we enjoyed from so many of you as well as developers and partners.

That said, we’re not done. Even as we put the finishing touches on Windows Vista and release all the remaining language versions of IE7, we have already started work on the next versions of Internet Explorer. We’ll post more here soon about our plans for the product and our plans for listening to you.

Thanks,

Dean Hachamovitch
General Manager

I find it interesting that there are “Branded versions” of the browser available- instead of allowing the user to customize the experience for themselves- through skins, themes, plug-ins and extensions- you can get a “custom version” from Yahoo or USA Today. Interesting new twist that will need further investigation.

In the mean time- please start downloading away- so you can learn the joys of tabbed browsing and RSS.