A Smooth WordPress 2.0.4 Upgrade

Though version 2 was first released to the public on December 31, 2005, I waited until the bugs-worked-out 2.0.4 version was released on July 29 to actually upgrade my blog’s WordPress software (and, then, late at that!). I thank BrightPlanet‘s most able sys admin, Kevin Klawonn, for doing the actual upgrade. As usual, Kevin, much thanks!

As early readers of this blog know, I have been recounting my blogging and software experiences in a series of posts, now distributed as the popular Comprehensive Guide to a Professional Blog Site. It would thus only be fair to congratulate the WordPress folks for a very smooth upgrade installation. Until last week, I had been using version 1.5.2. Kevin threw the switch on the WordPress 2.0.4 (http://wordpress.org/development/2006/07/wordpress-204/) upgrade last Friday according to the very able instructions in the Detailed Instructions or How to Upgrade in Five Steps.

Like desktop productivity software such as MS Office, I reluctantly and rarely upgrade, and then only to stable versions that have been proven for some time in the marketplace. A six-month time between a major upgrade release such as WordPress 2x and its more stable follow-on is not atypical.

So far, I generally like the new version. (I discuss later the new rich text editor, TinyMCE, and some quirks about how WordPress handled its integration.) I like the posting preview feature and the (apparently better, I haven’t yet pulled the trigger! Yikes, make sure backups exist!) permalinks options. I also like the fact this new version is much cleaner in producing valid XHTML v. 1.0 code.

It truly is amazing the quality of open source software now available, isn’t it? Thanks, WordPress!