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.

Hey, the gang's all here!

Remember when the note went out from Javamancy mini about the passing of the end of October without the critical update to Borderlands anywhere in sight?

Screenshot of the Gearbox notice for the Borderlands 1.41 update...

Yesterday, Gearbox announced on their site that the eagerly-awaited update (they call it Update 1.41) is now available across multiple platforms, including Xbox 360 and Windows.

Does this spell the end of Borderlands offerings? Hmm…

Oh, don't be so coy, Lilith... tell us you've got more Borderlands fun coming!

The shocking news about Borderlands… What could it be? A two-fer? A three-fer? Whoa!

The Legend

Sure, there was some “talk” (some jibber, some jabber, and even some gibberish) about the continuing saga that is Borderlands… And while the fanboys ‘n fangirls have been gushing over the mere possibility that another DLC would show up, well… let’s face it, Borderlands is one of those cutesy phenomena that just won’t– and shouldn’t– quit.

The News

But a couple of weeks ago, the official news that Borderlands would finally be getting its fourth DLC was realized, and gamers have been feverishly trying to level up in time for its September 28, 2010 release.

Of  course, others (including Yours Truly) have already reached the maximum achievements, so that glorious achievement count for the game hangs proudly in the virtual Xbox LIVE profile gallery…

Where There’s Smoke, There’s Fire

But, of course, the folks at Gearbox aren’t through with teasing us. The next big bit o’ news is that they’re releasing an update that includes an across-the-board character level increase to 69. This should come out just in time for the DLC release, or even a bit before.

And it’s free.

Oh Yeah, Just One More Thing…

For those of you who have absolutely no idea what the Borderlands escapade is all about, or you are just kicking yourself in the head for not having jumped onto the bandwagon earlier when everybody else was joining in: you’re in luck, because the new GOTY version of the game, including all of the DLC’s, is scheduled to be released in October 2010.

There’s even a rumor of at least one additional “map” to be included in the package…

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.

As many of you know, WordPress depends upon a variety of software packages to do the things that it does, as a weblog product (and some of you have extended it even further…). Two of these things are foundational items: PHP, the language and operational runtime for WordPress, and MySQL, the persistence datastore that WordPress uses.

Both of these are being incremented upward to more current versions.

For many WordPress  administrators, this will not be a dramatic issue, other than confirming your settings with your site host; some may require some configuration switches being “flipped” to use PHP 5.2 and MySQL 5.0.15. There may even be some adjustments to your site’s php.ini file.

However, if you’re a big-time hacker, and you’ve been coding in some changes to the base WordPress package (and who doesn’t these days, right?), then you will need to ensure that your code has not been exploiting some of the PHP 4 quirks that have changed in PHP 5 syntax: you will have to rewrite or redesign those parts of your code. For some developers, this endeavor may not be trivial.

On the other hand, the MySQL upgrade is generally better tolerated, since a lot of PHP developers tend to use the provided MySQL connector API. Again, however, if you are one of those who enjoys spinning up your own, parallel data persistence API or are using another package in addition to the WordPress one, you will have to ascertain the LoE for modifying your code. Also, if you have crafted some stored procedures for your MySQL 4 instance(s), you may have to re-implant them into your waiting MySQL 5 instance(s) once they are ready. Code-wise, it should be a straightforward import for most developers.

N.B.

Further reading of interest:

• PHP
• MySQL (now owned by Oracle)
• WordPress

If a picture is worth a thousand words, how many words would a video (and even one that is available in HD format, too) be worth?

Resolve this quandary for yourself, and watch this video on the new features in WordPress 3.0, which is now available.

Yesterday, WordPress 2.9.2 was released to correct a bug in which “trashed” blog posts are visible by potentially unauthorized users.

According to Ryan, this can occur when logged-in users attempt to browse the trash area; these users can view posts that belong to others, so sensitive or private information may be inappropriately accessible. Thomas Mackenzie first mentioned this on his blog a few days ago (with a lot of interesting details). An “unofficial” WordPress diff patch was posted for it to address the defect, and WordPress 2.9.2 was released shortly afterward in a couple of days.

This is a good upgrade for WordPress sites which allow for multiple users to log into the system and use different authorization levels to govern various user roles.

N.B.

You may have noticed that we’re starting to use the Tell.im URL shortener in some of our links, including in this post…

UPDATE: Thomas points out that this post had incorrectly attributed the unofficial diff patch to him. According to him, it originated from the WordPress folks.