In case you haven’t gone into a Starbucks [SBUX] store lately, there’s been a change to the look of the joint media offering card format.

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!

This is one of those rare moments, the eleventh minute of the eleventh hour of the eleventh day in the year “11″ (2011) that makes extra special this original commemoration of Armistice Day and the additional recognition for military veterans.

Let’s observe a moment of silence at this time for our servicemen and servicewomen who have done, and are doing, their duty for our country.

Also, please review the US Department of Veterans Affairs site that has interesting tidbits about this holiday.

N.B.

Previous posts (in reverse chronological order):

• Veterans Day 2010
• Veterans Day

In case you’re just tuning in…

Welcome!

Premiering tonight is a new CBS drama called Person of Interest, which brings JJ Abrams back to nighttime TV once again. Immediately, I was struck with its premise sounding hauntingly familiar.

Lessee… A guy who has unique talents, fairly communicative, is being positioned in place and time to intercede on the behalf of victims, aided by another guy who has access to various tidbits of information that is not always 100% reliable due to circumstance or gaps.

Ah-ha! Quantum Leap!

Yes, it’s not just time/space travel anymore, and there’s that personal anonymity instead of body-switching, and yes, it’s definitely got that grittier feel that makes it more up-to-date than a show from the 1989-1993 (as opposed to merely a remake of Quantum Leap, ‘natch). But all of the essentials are apparently intact between the two shows. And like Quantum Leap, it’s one of those shows that, despite the extra twists and turns, there is both a familiarity and coziness to match the curious teases and fuzziness… This is what makes Person of Interest fun to watch. Let’s see how far this journey will take us.

First observed iOS app in the wild: Shazam Encore

Hi, intrepid Starbucks [SBUX] iTunes promotion fans:

It’s been a loooong time since we discussed the favorably fun Starbucks iTunes weekly offerings, that have morphed from a simple joint experimental item between Starbucks and Apple [AAPL] into a lucrative people-attracting feature in so many Starbucks outlets worldwide.

So, here’s a new, welcome twist on the campaign: offering iOS applications! So, it beefs up the possible weekly options, from single iTunes music tracks, to individual videos, to entire digital albums and compilations, to now… applications!

And it looks like, to kick it off, there’s the big brother to the popular free Shazam, known as Shazam Encore.

While Apple’s [AAPL] online store was offline for a few hours earlier today, as reported by various news outlets, and even some blogs, it seems that it has resumed online operations.

What Happened to the Quad-Core Mac Pro?

When I went to check on the online site myself, I certainly did see the new drop down lists allowing for Twitter and Facebook toss-ups, but when I visited the Mac Pro page, I noticed that the quad-core 2.8GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon “Nehalem” based model was marked as unavailable.

Fortunately, several minutes later, with a page refresh, the model was available once again.

So… is this an example of super-real-time inventory control? Or just a fluke?

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.

If you’re a Capital One [COF] Bank customer, you may have noticed some inklings of trouble in the company today. As one of the latest of a series of customer-facing snafus and negative actions, as of less than one-half hour ago, the entire bank network is still down.

When I went to check on this, I received direct verification from a couple of branch managers that, yes, in fact the entire bank network is down, so deposits will not be honored until the system is operational again. However, there were no assurances or time estimates given as to when the network would be brought back online. Other forms of deposits, such as via ATM, will be held until processing can resume, which the SWAG from one of the branch managers, “… could be several hours to maybe a few days… who knows?”

In case you were wondering if Amazon [AMZN] has been resting on the laurels of its successful Kindle re-imaginings, rest assured that they have been taking further steps in their server-based services offerings. Today, if you have logged into Amazon.com, you were greeted with something that looks a bit like this:

Jeff Bezos' announcement about the new cloud offerings

Yep, it’s true: Amazon has finally come through and exercised their cloud-based offering with an storage service that leverages their existing capabilities… And if that wasn’t enough, Amazon also has a nice, practical application for it, in the form of bridging to their online digital music storage locker for every customer.

(And even more, there’s an Android version of the cloud music player, just in case you’re just a retro kind of person…)

While it seems that many other companies have tried, and failed, in the hosted storage arena, it’s remarkable that Amazon has finally stepped in, to revive the concept with its own interpretation of it and expand upon it at the same time.

Well, maybe you’d like to know.

While I was toying with the idea of coughing up a nice summarization of the Things That Have Come Before, the folks at Engadget already have such a post.

Of course, this means that you have gripes about their content… you should let them know.