Recently i wrote how good the new wordpress 2.5 was in each and every aspect.  But it has a such a big security issue. Only advance techies noted that. And then of course there was the media library upload issue with wordpress 2.5.

Anyways, with many bigs and problems and reports, Wordpress had to come with a new version and today they launched the new version 2.5.1. Three big bug fixes including the media bug, one major security fix and around 70 other bugs fixed. This is what you will be getting in 2.5.1

I think i read somewhere that they also enhanced performance for Dashboard, writing post,editing comments and widgets administration. Good thing is that new wordpress has the fix for Internet Explorer layouts issues. So probably, this is a much more stable release. And it’s not a rocket science, but you better upgrade your bloggies to this version fast. At least for the security issue sake! Good luck!

It’s been a lot many days since the official Wordpress 2.5 was launched. As and when it was available on my webhost’s fantastico upgrades, i as usual, upgraded one blog immediately. Just to see how the thing were with the new version. To my surprise, this update was not just any usual bug fix or something. It’s a total revamping of the script inside out. The login panel, the design panel, everything has been changed. And i was like Wow!!! wordpress is really up to something this time

Anyways, after browsing all the features, trying out all the different things and heavenly satisfied with the new version, i logged in again to al my 5 webhosts and upgraded all the wordpress blogs that i have to the new 2.5 version! Upgrades very pretty neat and all went smoothly. And i was very very happy about the new wordpress.

Now came the next day and i wanted to start a new blog which is somewhat related to MoBikes. Each and every post is bound to have some pics or few of the talked about motorcycles. So i wrote whole of the content, added the tags and all and then checked the add media which was a wonderful thing. All AJAX and very comfortable. I just selected the pic and clicked on upload….and then this bastard comes up….”Crunching” and next thing you know, the image wasn’t uploaded and there is an HTML error. I tried more times with the same process but would that ever do any difference. No… i saw the same errors again. Anyways, i then went to wordpress support forums and searched for the crunching error and no surprises, as i found two long threads already there. One was a useless discussion of PHP with no one making no progress and heading nowhere. So i closed that thread and went to other thread. In that thread the same problem was discussed. The second reply came from a guy with the weblog “D Technology Weblog”. I think it’s a pretty big blog but honestly been there first time. Anyways, this guy gave the solution to add some code to .htaccess file. I did that and yes it certainly fixed the bug! And now again, Wordpress is a beautiful script. You will love the Media Library and the AJAX upload system. I am glad i found the bug fix. Else i would had to downgrade all the 2.5 versions to whichever lower version that worked best.

By the way, here is the code that i added in the .htaccess file on the root.

<ifmodule mod_security.c>
<files async-upload.php>
SecFilterEngine Off
SecFilterScanPOST Off
</files>
</ifmodule>

All Credits to D Technology Weblog.

Alright, so i hope you don’t get this error but if you do, then you know what you need to fix that bug. If you still can’t fix it with the above method, then may God help you. And hey, there is another method out there to fix this bug, which actually disables your AJAX upload system. Please do not try that and spoil all the beauty of your wordpress admin panel. Good day!

Christmas is just around the corner. Shopping and decorations have already started. So why should webmasters stay behind. All are decorating their homes and i guess webmasters would like to decorate their websites and weblogs as well. With this thought in mind i started searching the web to find out some good wordpress themes for the festive season. Then i thought why not collect all the popular themes we have for the season. So here are some of the popular wordpress themes for Christmas.

Christmas Days : It is one of the my favorites among the Christmas themes. It’s a two column wordpress theme named “Christmas Days”. It is designed and distributed free by Design Disease. It’s coded for the latest version of wordpress and thus support the “tags” feature. It’s also a widget ready theme. Another good feature of the theme is that there is space in sidebar for your Flickr photos. You will have to use Flickr plugin with this theme, but the feature add lot of grace to your blog. The color combination is great and goes well with the mood of Christmas. This is one theme that you should definitely have on your blog, at least this Christmas. Visit Author’s Page - Download Link.

Hot Screensaver’s Christmas Theme : While writing this post, i searched for more themes on net. And this new theme came up after much searching. And i am glad i found it. This theme really rings the bell this Christmas. I will put it right in the best free wordpress themes available this season for Christmas. Do checkout the theme. Full credits to the designer. Gosh, they went in so much detail, even the “Submit Comment” button is designed for Christmas. I guess this one is perfect for Christmas. It is designed by Hot-Screensaver. A three column theme with two right sidebars. Widget and tags supported. Striking features includes easy change of header image via wp-admin and pretty nice adsense or any other publisher ads integration. Yup, adsense ready theme. I have made up my mind. I’m going to use this theme for Christmas on few of my blogs. You can visit Author’s Page - Download Link.

Christmas Gift Wordpress Theme : It’s a great looking wordpress theme for Christmas. The header part is very well designed. The first look at it will tell you that’s it’s Christmas in the air. The rest of the theme is sweet and simple. It’s a three column theme with a left sidebar and a right sidebar. The Christmas Gift theme has been designed by Rahmat Blog. The heading parts for categories, blogrolls etc. has been well designed as well. Theme is compatible with latest version of wordpress. Also it is CSS and XHTML valid. It is widget ready theme. I would say that overall it is a very good theme. For more details and live demo you can visit Author’s Page.

Merry Christmas Wordpress Theme : Ahh! Finally a dark colored theme. 1 Column theme, literally.I mean there are no sidebars etc, just a footer bar as one can call it. It’s a dark colored theme. Probably one can say that the theme depicts the Christmas night. What matters more is that there is Santa Claus, there is moon and there are colors in this theme. The theme is well designed. It’s a good looking theme with different concept than the other themes that i have listed. Propbably that’s the reason i chose it in this list. I have no info if the theme is widget ready or if support tags feature of wordpress as the author didn’t mention that on his blog. You can visit Author’s page for download links and demo.

I just came across these quality themes till now. If you know about more themes that are free, for wordpress and are quality themes, then please let me know and i will add them to the list. Until then, enjoy the themes and Christmas shoppings

Finally, i think it’s all been done. The designing and coding part has been over. I had a pretty tough time making the theme work on Internet Explorer 6. All the coders must be knowing, how difficult it is to get your theme right, specially adjusting the alignments and css problems one faces, in Internet Explorer 6 web browser. Anyways, now i can say “Been There, Done That!!!!”.

I guess the sidebars and header will continue to fill up day by day. That’s a dynamic thing and would take it’s own time to complete. Rest all is finished. *I Think*

Now i guess it’s time that i officially announce the new design on my blog. I would like to invite comments, feedbacks, tips and suggestions from my friends, colleagues, wannabe friends and new visitors on the blog design and the way i blog. Also let me know if you face any problems with navigation or colors or anything. Critics to a certain extent would be welcomed as well.

So please let your comments flow in! That would be much appreciated. Great thanks!

BTW, Now that you’re here, i would appreciate if you join MyBlogLog Community. Thanks!

Credits For The Theme:
Design By Atif. You can find him on Ally Creations. He is the best designer i have known.
Coding By: Dr. Gauresh. (igauresh at DP). Really very helpful and talented.

Great Thanks to both of you!

Well, this has been a week with some important news and updates. I won’t go in each and every detail, but just few tits and bits.

• Google continues to play childish. It again strikes directories and paid links sites. Many inner pages of directories went down to PR0 or a gray bar. Some unlucky directories even got PR0 on their homepage. Yeah, i know how disgusting this is. But anyways, we just found one more reason to say “Goodbye Google Pagerank“.
• Larry Page, The co-founder of Google Inc has decided to tie a knot with his girlfriend next month. Larry and Lucy Southworth, his girlfriend, will get married on 8th of December’07. The location is still undisclosed. Larry is one of the world’s wealthiest man. As a matter of fact, he is the Silicon Valley’s richest bachelor with a fortune worth about $20 billion. Well, the couple will definitely be showered with all webmaster’s blessing… even from web directory owners..
• India won the Indian Oil Cup in cricket. It was a 5 match series against cricket rivals Pakistan. They clinched the series 3-2 and very convincingly. All of a sudden, Indian cricket looks promising with likes of Mahindra Singh Dhoni, Yuvraj Singh, Robin Uthappa, Master Blaster Sachin Tendulkar and Gautam Gambhir. Well, i wish them more success in the future.
• Matt Hulett, WidgetBucks‘ CEO announced that traffic from outside US and Canada (which they term as “International Traffic”) is unlikely to buy from a U.S merchant website because of various obvious reasons. This resulted in dropped RPC (Rate Per Click). From now on, merchants will not pay for the clicks from International Traffic and neither will the publishers get credits for any clicks coming from the same traffic. So best way out is to implement a geo-based ad placement service to determine when to display a WidgetBucks ad widget and when to display other advertising options. This new announcement however does not effect the Ocyober and first half of November earnings, by the way.
• Wordpress 2.3 (The latest version) was a nightmare for many wordpress powered blog owners. Specially for the ones who upgraded their blog from previous wordpress versions. The new version has many new and exciting features. The built in tag option is an excellent feature. But problems came when the blog were upgraded from 2.2.x version to 2.3 version. Everything in admin panel stopped working. All one could see were bugs and lot of errors. Many wordpress plugins proved to be incompatible with this new version. Some even faced problems with the themes they were using. Well, a solution would be out soon, like probably a Wordpress 2.3.1 or something. But if you’re upgrading your blog’s wordpress version, you better be taking backups before doing so.
• From the Formula One corner, well Fernando Alonso quit McLaren couple of weeks back. The news i last heard was that his former partner, Renault, are trying hard to convince Alonso to join them, once again. Other than Renault, there are good amount of talks going on between Alonso and Red Bull as well. Fernando Alonso hasn’t decided anything yet. It’s just a matter of time. I think he will go with Renault, with whom he won the 2005 and 2006 Drivers’ titles.

On my end…well i am thinking about dropping my idea on “Google Friendly Web Directory“. My “FREE” directory lost all it’s PR and finally came down to PR0. Remember, it’s a free directory and not a paid link selling directory. The Google’s PageRank algorithms and the kiddish behavior on paid links sucks big time. So there is no point making a blah blah friendly directory.

That’s all this week. I hope the forthcoming weeks have something good in store for me…. and us!