Personas is one of the new features that came with the release of Mozilla Firefox 3.6. Personas are easy-to-use themes that allows users to customize and personalize the look of Firefox, they work the same way as Google Chrome themes. If you’re a WordPress user, advocate or fan and Firefox is your web browser of choice, then you’ll love this new set of Firefox Personas.

From the WordPress Blog:

We recommend open source software whenever we can, and the Firefox browser from Mozilla is one of our favorites. Firefox 3.6 recently came out with persona support, allowing users to skin their browsers with favorite designs and brands. WordPress users everywhere seem to love the W symbol (at WordCamps it shows up on everything from t-shirts to iPhone skins), so it was only natural that WordPress personas would come along.

With the help of designer Chad Pugh, WordPress has released two Firefox personas based on the WordPress brand: “Vintage Press” and “Inkwell“. If you love WordPress like I do, this is a great way to show how much you love WordPress and a good way of promoting WordPress to your friends and other people.

Vintage Press

Inkwell

Among the two Firefox personas, I like Vintage Press better and have installed it on Firefox. Here’s a screenshot of my Firefox web browser using the Vintage Press Persona.

Personas are a built-in feature for Firefox 3.6, so all you need to do is visit the Firefox Personas Gallery and find a persona. To preview a Persona, just hover your mouse on it and Firefox will temporarily “wear” it. If you find a Persona that you like, just click on “Wear It” and that persona will be installed on your Firefox browser. Btw, if you’re running an earlier version of Firefox, you’ll have to install the Personas addon first before you can install and use Personas.

For those who use Firefox, do you use Personas? What Persona are you using right now? Which WordPress Persona do you like better – Vintage Press or Inkwell?

Check out the WordPress Personas for Firefox

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The WordPress dev team just released WordPress version 2.9.2 a few minutes ago. This is a security release that addresses an issue where logged in users can peek or view “trashed” posts that belong to other users or authors.

For those who aren’t familiar, one of the new features included in the release of WordPress 2.9 is the “trash status” for posts, pages and comments. With this feature, users have the option recover or permanently delete posts, pages and comments that have been deleted.

If you’re running WordPress 2.9 or 2.9.1 and have a multi-authored blog or have registered users whom you don’t trust, then you need to immediately upgrade your install to WordPress 2.9.2. You can do the upgrade automatically via the WordPress dashboard – Tools > Upgrade menu or do it manually.

Download and upgrade to WordPress 2.9.2

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I have the WordPress app installed on my iPhone and although I don’t use it to write and publish blog posts, I like having it because it lets me access my blog and moderate comments when I don’t have my laptop with me. I also keep it there because I might need it one of these days, when I have to publish something quickly like during an emergency.

Previously, the WordPress app was only available for iPhone and BlackBerry users. If you’re a WordPress user who owns a Android-powered device, there’s good news for you! Yesterday, the WordPress dev team officially announced the release of the WordPress for Android app.

Features include:

• Configure and manage multiple blogs
• Comment moderation including the ability to reply to comments
• Create and Edit Posts including categories, tags and photos
• Create and Edit Pages
• Get notified of new comments in the Android notification bar

Here’s a short video showing the WordPress for Android app in action:

For those of you who have been using the wpToGo app for Android, the transition to WordPress for Android would be smooth because the source code used for creating the official WordPress app was taken from wpToGo itself. Users should also take note that the wpToGo app will be discontinued because all efforts will be focused on the development of the Open Source WordPress for Android app.

The WordPress for Android app can be downloaded from the Android Market. Just use your device and visit the Android Market and search for “wordpress“. Make sure that the app you install is published by Automattic, Inc.

Anyone here who’s a WordPress user that owns an Android-powered device? Are you using the wpToGo or WordPress for Android app? Do you like using a mobile app to create and publish blog posts?

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What is a brand? How important is it for marketing strategy? The American Marketing Association defines brand as a name, term, design, symbol, or any other feature that identifies one seller’s good or service as distinct from those of other sellers. The legal term for brand is trademark. A brand may identify one item, a family of items, or all items of that seller. If used for the firm as a whole, the preferred term is trade name.

Branding is the main reason why I had a designer create a blog mascot for JaypeeOnline. With the help of the mascot, I wanted people/visitors to be able to identify and differentiate my blog from other blogs. To make it stand out, be unique and have its own identity.

WordPress is very particular with its own branding and trademark. That’s why they have a dedicated page for the official WordPress logos and graphics. One recent addition to this page is this particular line and the image below it:

Fight the Fake Logo

Friends don’t let friends use the wrong WordPress logo. If you see one of these in the wild, please gun it down.

Maybe some of you have already noticed this and some may take this lightly and think this isn’t important but personally I like this concept/idea. I’m sure there are still a lot of WordPress users out there who aren’t aware of this and can’t tell the difference between these two logos. As a user and advocate of WordPress, I want to help spread awareness about WordPress including the real WordPress logo.

To be honest, I think I might have been guilty of using these fake logos in the past. So in the next couple of days, I’m gonna go over my old posts, filter out and take down any fake WordPress logos that I will find.

You are my friends and as your friend, I won’t let you guys use the wrong WordPress logo. ;)

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The WordPress Foundation was officially announced yesterday with the launch of its official website. Started by Matt Mullenweg, the WordPress Foundation is a charitable organization founded to help and support Open Source. I found out about it late yesterday when Matt announced it on his blog. To get a better understanding of the WordPress Foundation, its purpose and what its about, here’s a little information I gathered from its official website.

What is the WordPress Foundation?

The WordPress Foundation is a charitable organization founded by Matt Mullenweg to further the mission of the WordPress open source project: to democratize publishing through Open Source, GPL software.

What is the purpose or goal of this foundation?

The point of the foundation is to ensure free access, in perpetuity, to the projects we support. People and businesses may come and go, so it is important to ensure that the source code for these projects will survive beyond the current contributor base, that we may create a stable platform for web publishing for generations to come. As part of this mission, the Foundation will be responsible for protecting the WordPress, WordCamp, and related trademarks. A 501(c)3 non-profit organization, the WordPress Foundation will also pursue a charter to educate the public about WordPress and related open source software.

We hope to gather broad community support to make sure we can continue to serve the public good through freely accessible software.

The WordPress Foundation was inspired by Free Software Foundation – the creator of the GNU GPL license we use and promote, the Open Source Applications Foundation, which creates Chandler and the Mozilla Foundation, making the web and email more accessible and built on open standards.

As a WordPress user and advocate and also as a supporter of Open Source, I’m very happy and excited about this development and I can’t wait for the other “interesting” things that will be coming to the foundation as Matt mentioned on his blog.

As a side note, the WordPress Foundation website runs on the developmental version of WordPress 3.0 and is using the new default WordPress theme – 2010.

Check out the new WordPress Foundation website!

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As an avid fan and advocate of WordPress, it immediately caught my attention and I clicked on the link to check out the list. I wasn’t surprised to see the likes of Lorelle, Darren Hoyt, WP Tavern, WP Engineer, Justin Tadlock, WP Recipes, WP Hacks and a few others, but I was definitely surprised to see JaypeeOnline on the list. Another pleasant surprise was finding out that my blog’s Google Pagerank is now back to 4. I was aware of the recent Google PR updates but I wasn’t expecting mine to increase.

Anyways, here’s a screenshot I took of the Best WordPress Related Blogs list from WP Ninja.

I’m not sure how often this list is updated but from what I can see, it uses a script to automatically check and fetch the Google PR and Alexa ranking for each blog/URL. Btw, aside from Pagerank and Alexa, you can also sort the list according to the number of Feedburner subscribers. I wonder why my blog along with a few others aren’t displaying anything except a N/A. To see the list for yourself, go to Best WordPress Related Blogs.

There are a few other WordPress related blogs that aren’t included on the list yet and one of those is my friend Leland’s blog – ThemeLab. Oh yeah, I wonder why Weblog Tools Collection and Yoast aren’t on the list? Maybe the author hasn’t updated the list yet. Overall, I’m just happy and honored that JaypeeOnline is listed alongside the best WordPress related blogs in the blogosphere. Anyways, if you want to keep track of the recent WordPress news and developments, this list is a good place to start with.

Do you know of any other WordPress related blog or blogs that aren’t on the list? If you do, please do share it with us or contact the author about it.

Copyright © 2010 JaypeeOnline.net. This feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this material in your news aggregator, the site you are looking at is guilty of copyright infringement. Please contact me so I can take legal action immediately.

2010 is here and for WordPress, it means that a new set of WordCamps are gonna take place different locations across the globe this year. If you’re a WordPress developer, user or fan, this one event that you shouldn’t miss. To check if there’s a upcoming WordCamp in your area or if you plan to organize one, make sure to check out WordCamp Central.

Here’s the official list of the upcoming WordCamps scheduled for this year:

WordCamp Atlanta

January 8–9
Savannah College of Art and Design
Atlanta, Georgia, USA

WordCamp Boston

January 23
Microsoft New England Research & Development Center (”The NERD Center”)
Boston, Massachusetts

WordCamp Indonesia

January 30
Gunadarma University Auditorium
Jakarta, Indonesia

WordCamp Greece

January 30
Greece

WordCamp Ireland

March 6–7
Langton’s Hotel
Kilkenny, Ireland

WordCamp Toronto

March 27–28
Centennial College Student Centre
Toronto, Ontario

Last year, WordCamp Las Vegas was held in early January the same time as CES 2009. I’m a bit disappointed that for this year, there’s no schedule yet for a WordCamp in Las Vegas or even a WordCamp LA. I sure hope that the organizers for both areas would be able to setup one for this year. I’m looking forward and really hope that I could get to participate in one or two WordCamps this year.

How about you guys? Anyone planning on joining a WordCamp that’s happening in your area?

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UPDATE: Because of the scheduled posts bug on WordPress 2.9 caused by a conflict with some versions of PHP’s curl extension (scheduled posts and pingbacks are not processed correctly), users are advised to upgrade or skip to version 2.9.1 Beta 1 to fix or avoid this problem.

A couple months back I blogged about WordPress 2.9 features including the ability to update/upgrade plugins by batch. Now WordPress 2.9 is finally here!

If you were busy or away from the computer last weekend, you might have missed the release WordPress 2.9 “Carmen”, which is named after jazz vocalist Carmen McRae. I saw the release notification but I was busy with stuff so I wasn’t able to upgrade my WordPress installation until today.

Here’s a video that provides short walkthrough of the new cool features of WordPress 2.9

If you’re a regular WordPress user like me, then you’d be thrilled with the following new stuff included in WordPress 2.9:

• Global undo/”trash” feature, which means that if you accidentally delete a post or comment you can bring it back from the grave (i.e., the Trash). This also eliminates those annoying “are you sure” messages we used to have on every delete.
• Built-in image editor allows you to crop, edit, rotate, flip, and scale your images to show them who’s boss. This is the first wave of our many planned media-handling improvements.
• Batch plugin update and compatibility checking, which means you can update 10 plugins at once, versus having to do multiple clicks for each one, and we’re using the new compatibility data from the plugins directory to give you a better idea of whether your plugins are compatible with new releases of WordPress. This should take the fear and hassle out of upgrading.
• Easier video embeds that allow you to just paste a URL on its own line and have it magically turn it into the proper embed code, with Oembed support for YouTube, Daily Motion, Blip.tv, Flickr, Hulu, Viddler, Qik, Revision3, Scribd, Google Video, Photobucket, PollDaddy, and WordPress.tv (and more in the next release).

If you want to know more about “Carmen”, make sure to read the official post on the WordPress blog.

If you have the time to do it, then you are strongly encouraged to download and install WordPress 2.9. If you’re a bit apprehensive about upgrading your WordPress installation, you could probably put it on hold and wait for a couple weeks for developers to find additional bugs and learn from the issues, problems and mistakes of other WordPress users who’ve done the upgrade.

But if you’ve made up your mind, you can download WordPress 2.9 here.

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I was first introduced to WordPress about 5-6 years and it was love at first sight. From the time I started using it, I’ve never looked back or thought about shifting to another blogging platform/software. WordPress has gone a long way since then and I’ve witness it grow and mature from a blogging software into a full-featured CMS.

Being an avid WordPress user and advocate, I was happy when I found out that WordPress was recently awarded the 2009 Overall Best Open Source CMS Award by the Open Source CMS Awards. Matt Mullenweg himself was very excited about the award.

I was very excited last week to learn that WordPress has been awarded the Overall Best Open Source CMS Award in the 2009 Open Source CMS Awards. This is a landmark for us, as it is the first time we’ve won this award, and it marks a shift in the public perception of WordPress, from blog software to full-featured CMS. No small contest, the Open Source CMS Awards received over 12,000 nominations and more than 23,000 votes across five categories.

Aside from winning the Overall Best Open Source CMS category, WordPress was also 1st runner-up for the Best Open Source PHP CMS category. Making it to the #2 spot this year is a great feat considering that WordPress wasn’t even in the top 5 last year and puts WordPress ahead of Joomla. Another thing to note is that Drupal, the winner of the Best Open Source PHP CMS category, outranked WordPress only by a very slight margin, which means that WordPress has really become more popular with the users and developers over the past year.

I like Matt’s ending statement:

Every member of the WordPress community, from core developer to beginning user, should be proud to be part of this momentum: congratulations to us all!

As a user, advocate and a member of the WordPress community I’m happy and proud for this recent achievement of WordPress and I certainly feel that I’m a part of this success. Even though I’m not a core developer or theme/plugin developer, I believe that I’ve done my part with my WordPress news/updates, WordPress theme & plugin reviews and other WordPress-related posts which are my contributions to the community.

Congratulations to WordPress, the Automattic team and all the WordPress core developers, theme/plugin developers and users!

Btw, I just remembered that WordPress won Best Open Source Social Networking CMS in the 2007 Open Source CMS Awards two years ago.

Copyright © 2010 JaypeeOnline.net. This feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this material in your news aggregator, the site you are looking at is guilty of copyright infringement. Please contact me so I can take legal action immediately.

Just as I finished publishing my previous post, I saw the notification that WordPress 2.8.6 security release is now available for download. Here’s what the official WordPress blog has to say about this new release:

2.8.6 fixes two security problems that can be exploited by registered, logged in users who have posting privileges. If you have untrusted authors on your blog, upgrading to 2.8.6 is recommended.

The first problem is an XSS vulnerability in Press This discovered by Benjamin Flesch. The second problem, discovered by Dawid Golunski, is an issue with sanitizing uploaded file names that can be exploited in certain Apache configurations. Thanks to Benjamin and Dawid for finding and reporting these.

If you were having problems accessing this blog earlier, it was because I was upgrading my WordPress install to 2.8.6. Although I trust the other authors on my blog, there’s always a possibility that some hacker or malicious user can obtain their login details and use that to compromise my blog. I just want to be sure, play safe and prevent any problems or headaches. As I always say, “better safe than sorry”. If you have other authors on your blog other than yourself, I strongly encourage you to upgrade to WordPress 2.8.6 now.

Get WordPress 2.8.6.

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