Upgrading Wordpress has been one of my greatest fears since my first upgrade back in October of 2007 - after all, I nearly lost my blog in, what I’ve dubbed, my near Wordpress disaster. For that upgrade, the wonderful Automatic Upgrade Plugin wasn’t working for some reason, so I had to do it manually - nearly resulting in disaster.

However, this time around, the Automatic Upgrade Plugin worked and upgrading was a breeze.

Thoughts on Wordpress 2.5

Though I have only been using Wordpress 2.5 for a few minutes, I must say it’s beautiful. The interface is wonderful - user friendly and very versatile.

The Dashboard’s Re-Design

While the blue is a little too ‘baby blue’ for me…
They layout is extremely well designed and easier to navigate.
There are also many new subtle (and very nice) features - but if you’re curious to what they are… fire up the Automatic Upgrade Plugin and give it a whirl.

My One Problem

I do have one problem with Wordpress 2.5 - though the blame isn’t entirely at the geniuses over at Automattic…

The Popularity Contest plugin does not work. I’m hoping that Alex King (the author of the plugin) fixes it soon - because I would have no clue where to begin.

In the mean time, I look forward to exploring the many new features of Wordpress 2.5 and can’t wait to launch my new look - because this one is really starting to bother me…

Yep.
The time has finally arrived.
I am seriously going to have a fully custom look for plainbeta.com.

I have it drawn up in PSD format and have a static XHTML and CSS version.
Over the next few weeks I am going to start putting it in a format for Wordpress. It’ll take a while because I have a bunch of custom feature I am going to employ.

In the mean time I thought I’d share a preview.

plainbeta’s new look is going to be a dark grid based layout.
The grid is absolutely beautiful, I am surprised I came up with it.

There it is - though I have all of the content fields covered. So it doesn’t look that great… but the grid is still beautiful.
It shall be employing a few elements I have never seen used and several that I rarely see.
So this layout could be considered an experiment - I hope it goes well.

I am also still working on the World Design Association and the blog should be ready by the end of the week with the launch to come a few weeks after that.
I’ll keep y’all updated on that.

Until next time!
brianpurkiss

Hey y’all!

I’m at Photoshop World and I’m loving it!

Unfortunately, both the convention centre and my hotel don’t have free wireless internet - and I’m not about to pay $24.95 to use the internet for one day.

So unfortunately I won’t be able to post updates, tutorials, and the like until I get back. (I’m using a computer Photoshop World provided)

UPDATE: I have found a free hotspot!
I will probably post about the Adobe Keynote later tonight. Right now I’m tired and I’m going to go up to my room, take a nap, and prep the post.

I have a lot of material that I want to share.
Look forward to a post-a-day for at least a week when I get back!

For a quick teaser of all the cool stuff I’m seeing… Check out Adobe’s latest free service: Photoshop Express
I got to see the Adobe Keynote that unveiled this internet marvel!
I’ll post an overview of that when I can.

Until then!
brianpurkiss