WordPress has had this most useful feature of upgrading plugins automatically, from within WordPress, for a while. Just one click and you are done.

However there are times you might run into an error and get this error instead:

Could not create directory. /public_html

This can have you banging your head against cyber walls for a long time. The solution, however, is very simple.

Here is what you need to do: continue reading…

This is a direct quote from Matt Mullenweg:

we’ve fixed a pretty critical vulnerability in WordPress’ core HTML sanitation library, and because this library is used lots of places it’s important that everyone update as soon as possible.

As far as I can remember, this is the first time I have ever had them send me an email asking to upgrade asap so this is very important.

If you are using one of the later versions of WP, then the upgrade process is very simple. Just go to Dashboard: Updates and update automatically.

If this does not work for some reason, download WordPress. Upload all files other than the wp-content folder and the wp-config file in the root folder. I had to go via this route and ended up overwriting the wp-config file. Not a big deal but still a minor inconvenience.

In one sentence – Upgrade to WordPress 2.8.4 right now!!

That is unless you want to leave your blog open to being hacked. If you are using an older version of WordPress, your blog has security vulnerabilities. Thankfully, these security loopholes have been fixed in WordPress.

If you don’t think this can happen to you, think again!

One of my websites which is based on a WordPress blog and was running on version 2.0.9 got hacked a while back. I would never have found out if not for Google Webmaster Tools.

So if you have not signed up for that yet, better do so asap as they have some very good tools which will help with optimizing your website/blog.
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As most of you may have realized by now, it is always a good idea to wait a while before upgrading to the latest version of WordPress.

One reason is you have to give the plugin authors time to update, if any are needed on their plugins. The second advantage to waiting is that all the security bugs get ironed out. In case you noticed, WP 2.8 was followed by 2.8.1 up to 2.8.4 pretty quickly.

I finally upgraded at 2.8.4 and all the plugins seem to be working flawlessly and I haven’t even updated all of them as yet so that is step number two.

Now for the new features:
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It seems like there is a new WordPress version every few months. This is great from one perspective i.e. we get great new features and it just keeps getting better. However, seeing from the other end of the spectrum it also means that we have to upgrade and make changes to our theme and make sure there are no broken plugins.

My last version was WP 2.5.1 and I finally upgraded to 2.7 last night. It was more or less a painless task since all of my plugins still work with 2.7. At most I had to update them via the one-click plugin update (it is more like 2 clicks but who’s counting ).

However, it did require some changes in my theme. I could have lived without these changes as my theme did not break … I just wanted some of the new features to work.

So here’s the low down on some of the main changes in WordPress 2.7 and how to deal with them:

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I’ve had that annoying yellow bar telling me to upgrade to WP 2.6.1 for a while. Today I finally decided to give it a go and just in time, too. Now the bar reads download WordPress 2.6.2. Wow! These guys are fast.

Saved from two upgrades. Phew!

Here’s the lowdown on why you should upgrade to 2.6.2

It is most important for those of you who allow open registrations on your blogs. Of course there are some bug fixes, too. So best to upgrade.

Good news! There is a new version of CForms that is out and has got great features. The best thing about it is it has got most of the features on my wish list

So here goes…

Plugin Compatibility

CForms is now completely compatible with three of the most used comment plugins.

• Subscribe To Comments
• CommentLuv
• WP AJAX Edit Comments

First Step is to install the above mentioned plugins and activate them.

Next… adding Subscribe To Comments and CommentLuv

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If you have just upgraded to WordPress 2.6 you might notice one slight problem. You are no longer able to upload your images. They show up as broken images. It doesn’t matter whether you use the AJAX option or not, the result is the same.

Surprisingly not everyone is facing this problem.

A client of mine has the exact same configuration on his blog (give or take a couple of plugins) as mine. However, he faced the broken image problem while I did not. Of course we have blogs on different servers so that might have something to do with it.

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It is amazing how many blogs do not do this. They have the messiest comments section with a zillion comments, trackbacks and pingbacks all jumbled up. And it is almost impossible to make some sense of out of the entire mess. Want to follow the conversation? Try evading the trackbacks and pingbacks along the way.

What’s the solution?

Separate the two, of course.

But How?

That’s a good question. You will find plugins that do this but if you can manage something in the theme design, it is best to do so rather than install plugin upon plugin. Plugins are best used where you cannot achieve your objective without touching the core WordPress files.

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I have already discussed a few techniques and plugins you can use to increase your comments. Here is a re-cap of some old and some new plugins I haven’t discussed before. All are must-haves if you want to explode your comments:

1. Subscribe To Comments
   I am absolutely staggered that so many bloggers don’t use this one. Don’t they want their commenters coming back? When I comment on a blog, I really want to know when there is a reply. And subscribe to comments is the perfect plugin as it sends me an email whenever a comment is posted.

   Without this option, your commenters may just get sick and tired of checking manually or not bother at all. Not everyone subscribes to the comments RSS feeds so make sure you provide this option.

   I cannot stress this one enuff!

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