February 23, 2011 in Blog by VisualMob

WordPress 3.1 code name “Reinhardt” now availalble for download

WordPress has updated  to their much anticipated version 3.1. Woo Hoo! The new release was codenamed Reinhardt after legendary jazz guitarist Django Reinhardt. I use legendary loosely because I listen to some Jazz here and there and had to look him up. Which was good because I was looking for some new music to listen to today. So double good on WordPress today.

Based on the WordPress blog they have fixed and committed 828 updates to 3.1. Excellent work people! And on the blog they list all of the 180 people from all over the world who have worked to make WordPress the best CMS ever. It is truly a world class piece of software. And it is a full CMS now. The only lagging feature may be full document management, but hey, even that is better than some.

Our favorite updates

Interlinking – It seem there are some pretty great admin updates which are a welcome addition. Inter linking between posts is a major upgrade and now allows you to easily link between posts by searching via a new window. Very cool. Better than two tabs open.

Admin tool bar – Once logged in you can now see and admin tool bar with some links to helpful backend areas on the top of the page. This is another area of importance as bloggers and content managers are always going back and forth between live pages and backend screens to make updates. This really streamlines the process and helps us all makes changes quicker.

Streamlined writing interface – Perfect, we can hide some of the lesser used tools and keep the main focus on the tools you use the most. Not that the wordpress interface was bad before but heck, your in there making things awesome, why not. Since you can bring them all back by using hte screen option menu it is really just a matter of taste. Everyone loves to tell people “how they use it”. So customize away. WordPress will keep making more.

These changes along with the custom post formats, importer/exporter upgrades, and custom content types make Worpdress 3.1 a very good buy. Wait, it is still free? Go for it. This is a no brainer upgrade.

Below are the main highlights of this release.

Highlights

• Internal Linking – click a button for an internal link and it allows you to search for a post or browse a list of existing content and select it for inclusion.
• Admin Bar – contains various links to useful admin screens. By default, the admin bar is displayed when a user is logged in and visiting the site and is not displayed in admin screens for single blog installs. For multisite installs, the admin bar is displayed both when visiting the site and in the admin screens.
• Streamlined Writing Interface – new users of WordPress will find the write screen much less cluttered than before, as more of the options are hidden by default. You can click on Screen Options in the top right to bring them back.
• Post Formats – meta information that can be used by themes to customize presentation of a post. Read more in the article Post Formats.
• Network Admin – move Super Admin menus and related pages out of the regular admin and into a new Network Admin screen.
• List-type Admin Screens – sortable columns for list-type screens and better pagination.
• Exporter/Importer Overhaul – many under the hood changes including adding author information, better handling for taxonomies and terms, and proper support for navigation menus.
• Custom Content Type Improvements – allows developers to generate archive pages, and have better menu and capability controls. Read more in the article Post Types.
• Advanced Queries – allows developers to query multiple taxonomies and custom fields.
• Refreshed Blue Admin Color Scheme – puts the focus more squarely on your content.

Check the WordPress blog for more info.

Download it manually here. Or, just update from within your dashboard.

February 16, 2011 in Blog by VisualMob

I didn’t get my facebook apps text confirmation

If you are like me you may have used your google voice number for your phone number to get a text message confirmation from facebook for your apps verification.

This probably didn’t work for you since it didn’t work for me. This is where facebook kinda blew it because you hit a wall. You can’t really choose a new number.

The trick is to go to your account drop down. Then go to Account Settings.

After that go to your mobile tab.

You will now see a page where you can remove your phone number from the account!  Once you do that you can logout and then log back in and you will be able to send a new text conformation from the developer apps page to that phone number.