This and my other blogs have all been updated to the latest version of Wordpress, which now stands at 2.3. The biggest change is that tagging is now built into the core instead of requiring a plugin. It flawlessly imported all of my tags from Ultimate Tag Warrior (UTW) which I used previously. There are some issues with the new system such as no built-in method of managing your tags once used. However, there are already some additional plugins that handle this.
Now comes the fun part of making everything work smoothly again. This is from my backups, my blogging tool of choice (ecto), file uploads, the themes, etc.... It's not as bad as I had originally thought but it's still not something that I enjoy.
Yes yes, I realize that I go about changing the look of this page more than I change underwear (well, maybe not). However, I have yet to find 'the' one that I am looking to use as a long-term solution. So just bear with me and we'll see what happens....
A note to all out there. If you use Wordpress for your blog and have recently upgraded, there has been a security breach and you need to upgrade again immediately. All of the details are at
Wordpress.org but here's a quick snippet:
Long story short: If you downloaded WordPress 2.1.1 within the past 3-4 days, your files may include a security exploit that was added by a cracker, and you should upgrade all of your files to 2.1.2 immediately.
Longer explanation: This morning we received a note to our security mailing address about unusual and highly exploitable code in WordPress. The issue was investigated, and it appeared that the 2.1.1 download had been modified from its original code. We took the website down immediately to investigate what happened.
So if you are running that version, please make sure that you upgrade ASAP.
Vox is a new free blogging service from Six Apart, the people that brought you the excellent Movable Type publishing system. They also run Typepad as a paid-for hosted Movable Type install.
I actually initially used Movable Type back when I started blogging about the Mepis Linux distribution. It works well and is pretty flexible. However, Wordpress has since overtaken it in ease of use and the number of people developing plugins which enhance the functionality. That's what happens when you pit an open source project against a closed source project some of the time.
Six Apart has also bought Livejournal. This blogging community has been around for a long time and overall has a very loyal and rabid fanbase. However, it never was the most flexible nor user-friendly of blogging tools. Enter Vox. It's positioned to directly compete with Blogger by being very easy to pick up for beginners. It goes one step further though by offering some of the newer 'Web 2.0' features such as tagging, easy interaction with Flickr and Amazon, and allowing you to form groups of friends like Flickr as well.
I like the service but am unwilling to leave my Wordpress install. So I found a Wordpress plugin that will allow me to cross-post to Vox. I plan on making collections of pictures, music, and books that remind me of certain things as well as doing album and book reviews there since that functionality is already built in.
If anybody is reading this post on Vox, then welcome! My main blog is HERE. And of course, my Vox blog is HERE if you're on my main page.
[tags]blogging, Movable Type, Six Apart, Typepad, Livejournal, Wordpress, Vox[/tags]
