If you are following the WordPress releases and development at all, you will know that WordPress 2.7 will feature a totally change in layout in the admin page, making it so customizable. I’ve been trying the 2.7 betas on my personal blog at KianAnn.com, and I think the interface looks great.

Anyway, today on the WordPress development blog, Ryan Boren announced the release of the WordPress 2.7 RC 1 – and according to Ryan, RC1 is ready for everyone to try out. This release also features new menu icons created by the winners of the WordPress icon design contest.

Go get WordPress RC1 and experience the cool interface behind 2.7!

If you’ve logged in to your own WordPress admin panel you would have noticed this post linked from your dashboard, but I think it deserves reiteration.

Here’s what Mark Ghosh had to advice, and I think it is very good advice.

1. Always download core WordPress code from http://WordPress.org
2. Try to download plugins and themes only from the official WordPress Extend
3. Never download ‘hacks’ or ‘patches’ to WordPress from anywhere.
4. If you find a cool new trick, theme, plugin or hack for WordPress via a Google search, please be careful. I know the following is a cliche, but if it looks too good to be true, it probably is.

Be careful when you are dealing with open source code.

Especially if looking at HTML and PHP code turns you off.

Open source code like WordPress is good. Its free. Its stable… if you get it from the source. Because not everybody has a big a heart as Matt and his team.

There is so much at WordPress extend. Enough for whatever you may need. 🙂

If you are like me, holding a full time job and spending most of my waking hours out and away from a home computer, you might find that it might not be easy for you to maintain a blog – or rather, at least one that has consistent updates.

Then pre-scheduling your posts might be the way for you to go!

To put it very simply, pre-scheduling posts in WordPress allows you to queue your posts at one go (when you have the time to write) but let the post only appear at the time you have set them to.

Here’s how to do it in 4 simple steps

Pre-Scheduling Posts in WordPress

Write you post like you would for a normal, regular post.

Before you hit publish, check out the “publish status” section (just above the publish button!). There should be a “publish immediately” and a hyperlink to “Edit”. Click on edit.

A small section will be revealed – and from there you can specify exactly when you want the post to be published. Edit the date and time to your needs.

Then click publish!

Simple?

So, how do you put this to use practically?

If you want to seem like you post everyday but you don’t have the time to, here is how you can put this to good use.

Obviously, cracking your head for 5 blog post ideas over the weekend might be something quite daunting. So, what I would recommend is this:

1. Keep a small notebook with you or use your PDA, as your “blog post ideas” list.
2. Anytime you catch an idea about a blog post, just jot down a few notes. Things you might want to jot down are:
• What is the message you want to put across?
• What are the key points?
• What might be an interesting post title to grab attention, or for it to be a very keyword targeted post?
• What story can you tell?
3. When you have pockets of spare time (e.g. travelling), fine tune these notes.
4. Then spend some time over the weekend crafting your actual posts, using these notes as a reference. You will find you will be able to write your blog posts a lot faster!
5. Pre-schedule the post – maybe one a day, or one in 2 days.
6. Let it run over the week! While you live you regular daily life – away from the computer, WordPress will be working hard for you, giving your readers regular updates!

Yes, hot from the oven, WordPress 2.6.2 is out! Its an upgrade for security fixes and bug fixes, so go get it.

Remember to disable your plugins and backup your old database before you make any upgrades or changes to your WordPress installation. Its easy to say “nah, it won’t happen to me”, but when it does, you will go “oh shoot!”

Just listen to the banal but very wise typical IT consultant’s advice – “Backup is always good!” 🙂

Recently, I’ve been re-looking the theme for this blog and I realise that it is actually one of them most lightweight themes I have ever created.

As you probably have noted, I am not a fan of fancy graphics and functionality… call me boring, but as long as the theme works to highlight what is necessary to the reader, I’m glad. Heh, I learnt usability in my school days!

I have received a couple of requests for this theme over these two years of blogging, and unfortunately I have not released my theme to any of the requests – simply because many things are still hardcoded, because I didn’t believe in having too many plugins at that time.

I remember I started with nothing but Akismet! Everthing else was hardcoded into the theme!

I still don’t like having too many plugins. Haven’t you come across situations where your blog was upgraded and the plugin didn’t follow? It would be alright for “good to have” plugins like Share This… but I just feel it will really mess up your blog if it is a critical functional plugin something like All in one SEO pack.

But, having said that, over time I’ve also gotten to know that some plugin authors are really committed to keeping their plugin up to date to the latest version of WordPress… and I’ve “given in” to the temptations of the functionality availiable in the more popular plugins.

So, I did some plugin shopping yesterday… and the good news? I can forsee the blog theme becoming more “normal”. Which means you people might get a chance to download the blog theme soon!

But I’m busy, so keep bugging me for it.