Welcome to my blog! If you happen to hit keywords on the search engine to know how to install your WordPress, I recommend you to read the README files from the installation. However I don’t mind to answer any question you might have. Hopefully I’ll be helpful to you ehem! *Smile*

Finally, I’ve upgraded to WP 2.3.1! I really admire the developers and I’ll continue using WP – until something better replaces WP, obviously. There are few other developers but right now WP is still 100% kickass!

Download latest WP
After “wget http://wordpress.org/latest.tar.gz” and “tar -xzvf latest.tar.gz” all files are into right places, nicely done. It takes some time for me but less than 5min. I just wants to be careful of every steps, it will be useful for me to trouble shoot should the upgrade doesn’t work. (I’m not Pro “ma”… so have to do it slowly) The installation package “latest.tar.gz” will always be same file name so just “wget” away from your shell.

PlugIns

After the upgrade, my WP Plugins immediately need new version upgrade. WP will prompt you for the upgrade which is very, very useful! Your previous plugin may not work on WP 2.3, (pity you) but normally the programmer of the respective plugins would response to it fast and friendly. I have upgraded akismet, Get-recent-comments, Subscribe-to-comments, Wp-footnotes, & Wp-useronline.

Of the entire plugin, wp-useronline doesn’t work the way I want. New version of Wp-useronline allows you to uninstall the plugins from within which kind of cool but for some reason I didn’t use it. I still delete the whole thing from my shell manually. So, I’m not so sure if the idea to have “Uninstall” feature was really useful or maybe it’s good to have. Anyway, I still stick to wp-useronline 2.11.

Write Post with Tags

Wow you’ve got “advanced toolbar”! Seriously, I think I won’t use it often other than the colors selections. Launch advanced toolbar with Alt + Shifts + V and you get tools that very familiar to you – as seen in your MS word. Important tools E.g. Format, Underline, Align Full, Font Colors and etc can be found within the toolbar. If you have been using Live Writer, you should quite familiar with it. I’m not really a fan of WYSIWYG tools, these tools generates useless codes that add more weight or broken your blog code. For me, learning the coding it self gives you more control over your blog. Don’t get me wrong, there are good WYSIWYG tools out there. Dreamweaver is one of the fine examples.

Two special writing tools added to WP 2.3 would be the “Paste as Plain Text” and “Paste from Word” this is good for those of you who having problems with your cut & paste that screw up your blog. Choose between these two tools to cut & paste your works to see if it displays the way you want it. I hope these features are up to the challenge. A custom character tool was also included in this new version. One question though, how many bloggers would actually use it?

I like to mention the most welcome feature in WP 2.3 is “Tags” (not meme). The pass versions of WP do not have this feature and I bet lot of bloggers uses more than one “categories” in their post. (I did too, but I’ve delete it. Look silly, Ya know! LOL) “Categories” is equivalent to a “folders” in your PC (Ideally, but some argue about this) “It’s not a norm for users to store same documents to different folder. “Do you?” “I won’t, unless I’ve forgotten the similar folder already been created”

So now, if I write a post about “Speedcat Hollydale” I can tags away E.g. Cat, golf, chicken, naughty, hilarious and etc… However, you should only put tags that’s has a story about a post. You do not want to tags “fridge” and “chicken” to lure your hungry reader’s to-open-fridge-but-no-chicken. Am not so sure if you are ready for your hungry readers to go away!

Pimp My Blog
If you love to “Pimp Your Ride” in UK style or American style… You got to love to Pimp your Blog with WP style. Widgets serve as your gadget in WP. After you have install & activate your plugins you can easily position your design by using the widgets in WP. You don’t have to know coding to make your blog look cool. Plug & Play, kind of.

Import & Export
I didn’t pay attention to these functions from the previous version but I notice something. WP has included more list of blog host or system to help you to import your existing blog to WP. Interestingly, you can also import tags, comments and even categories! E.g. Bunny’s Technorati Tags “Wow… that’s really come in handy eh!” *smile* If you plan to leave, WP will buy you train ticket too! Save it to your PC if you wish.

Too Many cool things about WP
For a new user, you need times to get use to WP. With the compact tools and features you will get lost at times but always tell yourself one step at a time you will master WP in no time at all. I can assure you, what I have covered here in my blog is just few of the features that I think worth mentioning. Now, it’s up to you to discover the rest of the features.

WP is recommended for all monetize blog, self hosted blog, hardworking people, multiple bloggers, control freak, and etc… you will be a very happy person by using WP. *ROTLF*

My last word for those of you who self host WP; Do not enter your wordpress.com account onto “WordPress address (URL)” on your self host WP! I bet you will hate what happen next…