Matt of Wordpress.org has just announced that Version 2.6 of WordPress is now available for download, almost a month ahead schedule. Version 2.6, codenamed “Tyner” (named for jazz pianist McCoy Tyner), contains a number of new features that make WordPress a more powerful Content Management System (CMS).

With 2.6 you can now track changes to every post and page and easily post from wherever you are on the web, plus there are lots of other improvements to the features introduced in the previous version 2.5. To see all the new features visit Matt’s post on WordPress.org’s Development Blog.

You can download this new 2.6 version of WordPress from the Wordpress.org download site.

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Una is Dino Latoga’s first free public release WordPress theme. It is a fantastic new 2 column theme which is divided to give the sidebar a lot more room for you to use. It’s a great looking theme and the proportions of this theme make it a nice theme to view on a widescreen monitor.

The front page shows the latest post with an accompanying large graphic image which helps attract readers more than the usual large text titles. Below the latest post is a list of the 3 other recent posts with each post accompanied by a thumbnail image. Also, the comments and trackbacks are divided to produce a clean and organized look.

According to Dino; “this theme was inspired by a lot of great blogs out there like Web Designer Wall, Matt Brett, Avalonstar and 5 Thirty One to mention a few “.

Installation

Upload to your wp-content/themes folder as normal. But, before you activate this theme you must go to Settings > Miscellaneous and enter the following values for the Thumbnail size. Width=195, Height=155. And also make sure the “Crop thumbnail…” box is checked

Required Plugins

• The Twitter Tools plugin. Install and activate and configure.
• The Advanced Excerpt plugin . Install and activate. Go to the settings and set the Excerpt length to 25 and uncheck the img

Download

The theme has been safely tested on WordPress 2.5 and WordPress 2.5.1. The live demo for the theme is currently being used on Dino’s Blog. You will be able to see the Una theme in action there. Unfortunately Sidebar Widgets is not supported with this version of the Una Theme, but it more than makes up for it with the sidebar’s great usability.

Visit Dino’s Blog to download Una WordPress Theme version 1.0

Well worth a look !

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WordPress 2.5 is going to be officially released very soon and Matt of the WordPress Development blog has published a WordPress 2.5 Sneak-Peak that highlights some new features and changes in the new version.

Wordpress 2.5 will include a customizable dashboard, multi-file upload facility, built-in photo galleries, one-click plug-in upgrades, tag management, built-in Gravatars, fulltext feeds, faster load times and lots more.

A quick sample of what is in store for you is shown below;

Matt and the ‘Happy Cog‘ team have been working on this for several months with the aim of re-designing WordPress from the ground-up. The result is brand new 2.5 version and a new way of interacting with WordPress that should be familiar to regular users and also improving the overall Wordpress experience for everyone.

Matt says;

“We’ve re-thought the look of WordPress, as well as how it’s organized so that you can forget about the software and focus on your own creative pursuits.”

You can catch Matt’s full post on the WordPress Development Blog - 2.5 Sneak Peak. You can even download the first release canditate from the link above and try it out for yourself. I know I will!

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Get the latest Flash Player to see this player.

FLV Embed is a super WordPress plugin made to simplify the process of adding Flash videos (FLV’s) into your blog by using Jeroen’s FLV Player. For information about encoding videos into FLV and why you should use FLV, Jeroen has written an excellent article which you can find on his website.

The FLV Embed’s main features are its ease of installation and a no bells and whistles approach to getting this plugin to display FLV files instantly on your blog!

Plugin Features

• uses simple, intuitive tags to generate Flash video (FLV) movies for your posts
• supports video sitemap generation
• standards compliant: valid XHTML
• many options are configurable, such as autostart, show/hide control bar, player colour, poster image, full screen button etc.
• highly interactive admin option panel for player configuration
• supports text only output for RSS that prompt readers to visit the original post for Flash content
• supports outputting poster image for RSS if desired
• accessibility: requires Javascript to display FLV player, but will prompt user to enable Javascript when disabled
• accessibility: prompt user to download latest Flash player if it is not installed or too old
• accessibility: no annoying “click to activate” for IE users

Installation

1. Download the plugin from FLV Embed
2. Extract to the “flv-embed” folder
3. Upload the “flv-embed” folder to your WordPress plugin directory, usually “wp-content/plugins”
4. Activate the plugin in your WordPress admin panel

Usage

The great thing about this plugin is it uses one universal, standard tag style, which is;

[ flv:url width height] (remove space before flv when using it yourself!)

• url - the URL of the FLV file you want to embed, the path can either be site relative or absolute
• width - width of the FLV movie
• height - height of the FLV movie

Jeroen’s FLV Player also supports the use of poster frames or clip preview frames so that you can use a single still image from anywhere in the FLV video and have it display automatically once the flash player is loaded. (For an example of this see the video at the start of this post.)

A great time-saver when using this plugin is that if you upload an FLV and JPG image and they both have the same name, e.g. demo.flv and demo.jpg, it means you can still use the short bit of code above and it will automatically display the JPG as the preview picture for the video clip. Very Nice!

Download

You can download the FLV Embed plugin 1.0 for WordPress and try it out for yourself here.

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The latest version of WordPress Version 2.3.3 has now been released and it is billed as an urgent security release. It seems a flaw has been discovered in the XML-RPC implementation if you have user registration enabled on your blog. The flaw basically allows a registered user to employ a specially crafted request in order to allow them to edit posts on your blog.

Also, this new Version 2.3.3 release fixes a few minor bugs. There are a couple of options if you want to avoid this latest security threat to your blog. Firstly, if you are only interested only in the security fix you can download the fixed version of xmlrpc.php and copy it over your existing xmlrpc.php, or secondly, you can get the new Wordpress 2.3.3 version here and overwrite your existing installation files directly.

So, this could be a good time to update your own Wordpress installation!

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iThemes.com has just released the first of its free, professionally designed WordPress themes to the WP community!

The 2 themes released are both called iThemes Web 2.0, and the reason is that this theme comes in two flavors, either a 2-column or a 3-column design. The really great part is that both of these themes are widget-ready and compatible with the latest version of WordPress (2.3.2).

Theme Features

• Great Web 2.0 look and feel
• Text header bar for easy editing
• Widget ready sidebars

Installation

iThemes.com have produced a nice video tutorial to show you how upload and activate a WordPress theme. A great idea for those not too familiar with doing this.

Download

The iThemes Web 2.0 themes can be downloaded from here. Check it out!

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Caroline Middlebrook has just released a free ebook on how you can develop money-making niche sites with WordPress. The ebook is completely free and is available for instant download on Caroline’s WordPress Niche Sites webpage.

The ebook is very well put together and all 41 pages are jammed with useful information regarding configuration, setting up new Wordpress blogs, monetizing your blog and lots more.

So if you’re ever wondering about generating income from your blog or niche site, it is definitely a book thats worth taking a look at.

You can download your free Wordpress ebook here;

http://www.caroline-middlebrook.com/blog/niche-sites-wp/

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Chromatic Sites have just announced a brand new WordPress Themes community website which features only professionally made Wordpress themes. You can browse over a small collection of these professional themes right now at their Professional WordPress Themes website. Remember these are still free, high-quality WordPress Themes! Well worth a look.

It is worth mentioning that only themes that satisfy strict criteria will appear on this website. All of the WordPress themes published there will be inspected for;

• W3C validation,
• quality of design,
• bugs,
• profanity

If a theme passes all 4 requirements then it will be published on the Professional WordPress Themes website. This will ensure WordPress theme lovers will get high-quality, bug-free, standards compliant WordPress themes made available to them. The site is deliberately meant to look like the original themes.wordpress.net website but to have a similar website dedicated to quality Wordpress Themes is a terrific idea.

Remember, this site is brand new and so are starting from scratch. There are just a few themes uploaded at the moment. So if you are a theme maker, please do upload to this new site.

You can check them out now by visiting the Professional WordPress Themes website.

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A new version of WordPress has just been released and it features a major security fix and some other new features. The latest WordPress 2.3.2 version fixes a bug that could be used to expose draft posts and information leaks in the XML-RPC and APP implementations. It is recommecded to update to 2.3.2 to protect your blog from these disclosures.

Also in the latest WordPress 2.3.2 version, you can now define a custom DB error page. You simply place your custom template at wp-content/db-error.php. So now, if WordPress ever has a problem connecting to the database, this page will displayed rather than the default error message. Very handy!

To download the very latest WordPress 2.3.2 version you can visit the WordPress download page. It is a recommended upgrade and from what I have heard online so far, it seems to upgrade very fast. I’ll definitely be upgrading to this latest version.

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The people at BlueVerse.com have just released a new theme which firmly focuses on monetization of your Wordpress blog.

The theme is called Weblogger and is fully Adsense ready with a nice Web 2.0 look and feel. The side bars are well done and widget ready too which makes it easy to expand your blog with extra monetization code if required.

According to the website this theme does a lot of the monetization for you and just by installing it your blog will be nearly 40% monetized! The Adsense integration is great because the theme is designed to get your visitor’s attention in the first load of a page. The Adsense ads are displayed prominently at the very top of your blog where there is a much better CTR (Click Through Rate).

From the screenshot above you’ll see the top half of the theme is completely monetized for Adsense and these ads are very easy to edit as well. You will simply need to edit the pub-id code in 4 php files. These are;

• ad-header.php
• ad-nav.php
• ad-post.php
• ad-top.php

The Weblogger theme is available for download here; Weblogger Wordpress Theme

Enjoy!

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