In case you aren’t already aware, WordPress have been doing some work on the upcoming release of WordPress 2.8.
They’ve just served up beta 2 of WordPress 2.8, so if you’d like to try it, have a look here.
If you didn’t see GEEK!’s review of WordPress 2.8 Beta 1, you can check it out here.
That’s all for now. I’ll write up a review if it looks worth it. I haven’t actually investigated beta 2 yet, so it may just be bugfixes. Enjoy!
WordPress recently released WordPress 2.8 Beta, which has some interesting new features which will come in handy.
As usual I’ve tested it out, and here are the highlights:
New theme installer
This new theme installer now means that WordPress can install themes you find on the WordPress Theme Directory straight to your theme directory without the need of FTP or manual file copying. It’s very similar to the automatic plugin installation system that was implemented in WordPress 2.7. However, it is more advanced and allows the user to select certain filters to make searching easier. This will definitely be a nifty little feature to look forward to.
Widget handling
The widget handling system has been improved, with a much better click and drag interface which is much simpler to use than the previous widget handling system.
Those are the two things I find most useful. Other than that, I can’t find anything else that I would find outstanding.
WordPress has posted a Codex page with information that corresponds to the WordPress 2.8 Beta, so if you’d like a full changelog please click here.
Try it out and see what you think. I haven’t found any major bugs, but I’d recommend you don’t install it on your main blog/site. If you can, create a test blog for WordPress 2.8 beta and wait for the final release before installing it on your main blog/site.
It looks like EA haven’t won the piracy battle yet (will they ever?).
The Sims 3 has been found on public P2P sites just two weeks before the public release of The Sims 3. It can now be downloaded and played on, however this is illegal and GEEK! does not encourage you to do so.
Electronic Arts, the owner of The Sims 3, has previously tried and failed to stop piracy when it launched its last Maxis game – Spore. This was also leaked on to P2P sites before release.
The Sims 3 is currently due for launch on June 5th in the United Kingdom, but it looks as if many people may already have a copy thanks to the online torrent.
It’s a sad time for the game industry at the moment – too many profits are being lost thanks to P2P sites. The gaming industry needs to learn to work with P2P, because it’s totally obvious that the gaming industry will never win against P2P. If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em…
Microsoft has recently released a few updates – one of which fixes a bug with the Windows 7 graphics card driver on my laptop (driver for SiS M672MX), which now means I can use the Aero interface properly and without issues.
Since Aero is now working, I’ve decided I’ll take some screenshots to give people who haven’t downloaded Windows 7. I recently did a full Windows 7 review without screenshots, so if you’d like to see that instead, please click here.
Mozilla, the creator of the well-known Firefox, has set a target for the release candidate of Firefox 3.5.
The company claims that they are estimating that the release candidate of Firefox 3.5 will be readily available sometime within the first week on June. This is of course providing that there aren’t any major bugs that get in the way of the release.
Between now and the first week of June, the company will be going through a number of stages for finalising the code. Mozilla claims on this page a schedule for what’s going to happen over the next couple of weeks.
Hopefully this release candidate will be something to look forward to – personally I haven’t heard a huge amount about Firefox 3.5 (other than the fact that it’s been under discussion for ages) but I’ll be testing the release candidate when it becomes available to the public.