I finally took the plunge and upgraded this blog to WP 2.5.1

Since my previous version wasn’t very old, either, this was a pretty smooth transition. All the plugins were still working although some had newer version. This brings me to one of the best features of this version - you can update plugins automatically from inside the control panel by just clicking one link. Oh and you also need to add your ftp info so it can unzip and add the new files. Is that cool or what!?

However, if you upgrade from an older version and I mean a much older version then there might be some changes to be made. For example some plugins might be outdated especially tag related plugins as WP 2.5.1 has its own inbuilt tags option now and a pretty good one at that. For those of you who were using the wp links tag, will need to shift to wp bookmarks.

But mainly it is just little tweaks and so worth the effort. WP 2.5.1 offers a great new interface and some unique and intuitive new features. I’ll say it is a major improvement and one you will notice in an instant.

Since I design custom blogs for my clients, I have to keep a lookout for plugins that can achieve any effect under the sun. Following is a list of some of the most used plugins:

1. Akismet: This plug-in helps you in stopping comment spam. It also keeps note of comments you mark as spam for future blocking. This is a part of your Wordpress download. You need to install and set it up, though.
2. Search Everything: This plug-in adds search functionality to include pages, tags, attachments, drafts, comments, excerpts and custom fields. It also lets you exclude categories and posts from search.
3. WP-Contact-Form: Give your visitors the option of contacting you via a simple form. The modified version of this plugin comes with a very useful Spam Protection option. See an example

4. Add This: Social Bookmarks allow your visitors to easily submit your posts to social bookmarking sites. Many plugins are available for this purpose including Social Bookmarks, Gregarious and Sociable. I just recently found Add This and although it adds a link to their site, it is less intrusive and less cluttered than the others. You can see the result at the end of this post.

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