FOCUSer.net

WordPress 2.7.1 was released a few days ago with security fixes, and I’ve only managed to upgrade everyone to this version today. All done now — took around 2 minutes in total (+1 more minute for writing this post up :)

Just updated everyone to WordPress 2.7 this morning.

Also found that there are many “dead blogs” on FOCUSer.net, i.e. those who haven’t blogged for yonks. I might do a bit of “clean up” if blogs haven’t been updated for a few years.

WordPress 2.1 “Ella” has recently been released. Check the announcement page for new features.

• Auto-save your post while you are editing as draft.
• New WYSIWYG editor.
• New upload manager.
• … and more.

Currently all existing blogs on FOCUSer.net are running WordPress 2.0.7, and you don’t need to upgrade if you are happy with the older version. Otherwise comment here (or email me) if you wish to have your site upgraded.

Btw, does anyone have spam issue? Anyone else using Akismet here? Akismet is an automated comment spam defense system, which will help you eliminating majority of the comment spams. It is available in your plugin list, but you will also need a WordPress.com API key to activate it.

Again, ask me if you are getting way too many comment spams (say 10 a day).

Because of a SQL injection vulnerability in WordPress 1.5.2, I will be upgrading all the FOCUSer.net blog installations tonight to the latest 2.0.1.

There will hopefully be minimum downtime (if I don’t screw up anything).

WordPress 2.0.1 has just been released, and it has fixed quite a few bugs from version 2 (which was why I have been hesitated to migrate blogs here).

Many of you might have been on WordPress 1.5 for 8 months. If you like to have your blog to upgrade to 2.0, leave a comment here or send me an email, and I will get them migrated to WordPress 2 after I come back from Long Termers’ weekend away on Sunday.

Day light saving kick-started this morning at 2am. You don’t just need to remember to change your watch, change all the clocks around the house, change your computer time if Windows XP cannot manage it (usually it does) — and you also need to remember to adjust your blog time to DST!

If you are a WordPress user, i.e. all the active blogs there on FOCUSer.net, you should:

1. Log into WordPress.
2. Click on “Options” tab.
3. Under General Options/Date and Time, change “Times in the weblog should differ by” from 10 to 11.

So that your posts don’t appear 1 hour too early.

Abstract

This is a HOWTO on changing your WordPress themes, using the WebDAV service provided by FOCUSer.net

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Anyone who is interested in migrating their FOCUSer blogsite from MovableType 2.661 to WordPress 1.5 please contact me or leave comments here.

I am in the process of migrating FOCUSer blogs to WordPress for the following reasons:

• Our current blog platform is using an old (but free) version of MovableType. The feature set is getting out of date. Whole sufficient for everyday blogging, there lies an danger of security risk, as old version of MovableType is no longer supported by its vendor. On the other hand, WordPress will continue to be an open source application, and is under constant development.
• You should be able to experience much faster posting time, as WordPress does not need to rebuild.
• WordPress 1.5 has better comment-spam prevention than the stock standard MovableType installed here.
• WordPress has large number of themes and plugins, where you can easily install them yourselves without my intervention.

I can only do one conversion at a time. So please notify me if you would like to have your FOCUSer blog converted.