With the recent release of WordPress 3.3, “Sonny”, there would most likely be issues during the upgrade process for some site administrators and deployers.

WordPress.org’s forum has a “master list” of tips and tricks to try to resolve those issues, preferably before filing an issue ticket with them.

Of course, if you’re going to undertake an upgrade, you should take the necessary precautions of backing up your site (including the database) first!

Here’s a nice post by Jane Wells (yes, the one of WordPress fame) about the requirements for WordPress 3.2 and some rationale about the system changes being implemented for the latest version of the blogging software.

The big news is actually not that big: the version of Oracle’s [ORCL] MySQL database and the PHP engine have been locked in at recent versions:

• MySQL 5.0 or higher
• PHP 5.2.4 or higher

For most site hosting services, this is not a problem. In fact, a lot of the services have been actively pushing their customers to upgrade their Web applications to PHP 5 and recent versions of MySQL for years. But a significant, popular software package like WordPress has enough impetus to push the holdout administrators over to more modern versions.

A new security/fix version of WordPress, 3.0.5, has been released today, as mentioned by Andrew Nacin. While it may seem like a small release, it provides some useful security patches that all WordPress systems should have.

The situation concerning the open source projects previously maintained by Sun Microsystems has been slowly degenerating since the company’s acquisition by Oracle [ORCL], and it would be nice for a better understanding about what is still “what” after this past year of consolidation… especially when it comes to the vast array of Java-related projects.

If you remember Eduardo Pelegri-Llopart, you may recall his involvement with Sun and its various projects. He has a personal blog (he’s a fellow WordPresser!) and he has assembled a list of the open source projects and their current status that may be of interest to you, gentle readers.

Later today, Apple [AAPL] will finally open its Mac App Store, which caters to electronic software distribution (ESD) for Mac software to the current install base of OS X updated Macs.

This is something that has been tantalizing software developers since the introduction of the “regular” App Store catering to the iOS devices. After all, since we’ve been treated to the little brother of OS X, why not just cut to the chase and offer the real deal?

And starting today, that’s what we’ll have.

Most likely, all of the usual suspects will appear initially, like several of Apple’s own applications that are highly amenable to ESD, like iLife and iWork apps, as well as the more pro-level apps like Aperture. But this also marks a milestone for independent studios that already leverage ESD as their primary means of delivery to their customers; the App Store is a unified way to manage licensing, updating, and re-delivery.

So, like you, we’re all waiting for the store to open… and the fun to begin!

Next stop: Windows apps to be delivered through a Windows versions of iTunes-like App Store.

Weapons testing finally improved in the Call of Duty series?

Yes!

The Past

In the past, if you were a Call of Duty gamer and wanted to test out the different available weapons, you would have to try to maximize your gameplay during the solo (and sometimes, if available, cooperative) campaign mode, or struggle with picking over corpses during the multi-player match modes. This typically involved constantly playing through the different modes over and over again, in a nasty grind, until you finally got enough exposure time on the various weapons to determine whether you actually like using it.

What We Have Now: Combat Training

It is called “Combat Training”. This new feature is available from the Multiplayer menu, as a peer to other game formats like Player Match and Private Match and Wager Match.

Such a simple concept: offer a hybrid mix of players and bots to rage it out on all of the available maps, using one of two game modes: Team Deathmatch (TDM) and Free-for-All (FFA). AND: let the users experiment with the different weapons mixes and perks and other unlocks.

Trying Them Out…

One school of thought is, of course, that Combat Training is a necessary feature because of the new CoD Point System, in which not only do you have to unlock new weapons, attachments, gear, and perks, you actually have to accrue enough CoD Points (an in-game currency) to buy each of the unlocks. This is true: it translates bad decision-making during your Custom Class design into seriously heavy penalization for your matches.

However, the more subtle benefit for Combat Training is that you now can test different weapons and attribute combinations without the hassle of real users interfering with your test trials.

But Not Perfect

(UPDATED)

Unfortunately, although two game modes would seemingly be plenty to test out the new CoD subsystems, there are a few odd issues with Combat Training, although it somewhat makes sense, albeit in a negative way.

Unlocking the Pro versions of some of the perks will be impossible if you rely upon matches that are only bot-driven; in other words, you will have to invite some friends (or other people) to help you unlock them. For instance, the trap-based unlock requirements will not be possible because the bots do not lay any traps. This is something that could be corrected by the developer (Treyarch) by combining anticipated trap points for each map and AI probability logic for planting them. After all, heat maps for K/D and entity grouping across all of the maps are already reported on the game servers, so using that data– even in a dynamic manner– should be relatively straightforward.

Good ‘Nuf

But, overall, having Combat Training is definitely a Good Thing.

Plus, it helps to keep the players in the action… without actually being in the action.

Six years ago, the first FCS release of Firefox showed up on the virtual doorstep of the Internet, wanting to be loved and adopted by people worldwide. And it was: it offered a credible alternative to the status quo and shared a proud tradition with Web browsers of yesteryear.

Much has changed since that day, including the availability of new and other updated Web browsers, but Firefox continues to maintain a utility and cultural mindshare around the world. In addition to the browser itself, it popularized the concept of add-ons for browsers, allowing for a modular approach to the browsing experience.

The folks over at the Mozilla Foundation continue to work on the software, and a new version 4 is currently available in a beta form.

Happy birthday, Firefox!

N.B.

Here’s a link from the Mozilla blog about the sixth year anniversary:

• Happy 6th Birthday Firefox!

As mentioned by Matt on his blog, Automattic has taken the big leap into domain-registrarhood.

Since WordPress.com and Automattic are inexorably tied to the blogging experience, as witnessed by the myriad of blog and blog-like sites built using the WordPress software and also hosted at the eponymous WordPress.com service, it is natural that Automattic eventually extend its reach into providing a more full-service attention toward having a more customized domain name, rather than merely:

• {name}.wordpress.com
  • where {name} represents the sub-domain name picked by the blog owner/user

Also, people who are comfortable in their dealings with Automattic will appreciate their domain registration services in the near future.

Unfortunately, the domain registration tools are not yet available online, according to Matt; so we’ll just have to wait patiently while he and his team work on it.

Just in the nick of time (well, actually, merely before the end of July), the first maintenance release for WordPress 3.0 became available yesterday. This provides some bug fixes (over 50) that were discovered since the 3.0 release, or were relegated to a lower status to not impede that major release.

If you have not yet upgraded to WordPress 3.0, you should consider taking the plunge to 3.0.1… it provides a cumulative upgrade path. However, keep in mind that you should still assess whether you have older code modifications, plugins, and themes that may no longer work with WordPress during your upgrade.

N.B.

Other related Javamancy posts (in reverse chronological order):

• Introducing WordPress 3.0
• Stop the Insanity! Or, WordPress Development for 2010, a New Year’s Resolution

Other articles of interest:

• WordPress 3.0.1 (WordPress.org)
• Version 3.0.1 (Codex @ WordPress.org)

If you have been following along about the upcoming PHP and MySQL upgrade requirements for WordPress, you may have wondered, “Hey, is my WordPress site ready for the upgrade?”

There is a way to tell (more-or-less conveniently): try the Health Check plugin for WordPress. While the description for the plugin declares that there will be more checks in the future, it currently looks at your PHP and MySQL version numbers to see if you are ready for the upgrade.