WordPress 3.2 Be careful before you upgrade!

I’ve just been notified that WordPress 3.2 is ready to be installed and as I am always happy to upgrade to the latest versions, a word of caution is important this time as the release notes state that WordPress now only supports PHP 5.2.4 and MySQL 5.0

So, you need to make sure your server supports those before upgrading.

How can I be sure?

• Log into your hosting account’s control panel and see which versions your site supports
• Or, ask your hosting support about which versions are installed.
• Or, better install a plugin called Health Check, which does the homework for you and gives you a message as to whether your server supports the latest release of WordPress or not. Simply install and activate and it does the check for you automatically.

So, be safe better than sorry.

I will prepare a video walk-through to cover the new features in WP 3.2 soon.

As for me, I’ve used the plugin, and it proved that I am good to go which made me upgrade and things ran smoothly.

Hope it works for you too.

WordPress 3.0 vs. Joomla: Round 2

After writing my article Where Joomla beats WordPress, I noticed that some readers commented saying that with the release of the new version of WordPress 3.0 the battle will have a different outcome in favor of WordPress.

So, I decided to wait until WP 3.0 has been officially released to be able to do another comparison and see who wins this time.

Wordpress vs. Joomla: Round 2

Here are the new winner features in WordPress 3.0 that gives it the upper hand over Joomla:

Read more >>

Escaping the maintenance mode trap :: WP Quick tip 6

It happened to me once and it almost drove me crazy.

I was upgrading some plugins via the automatic plugin upgrade feature and something wrong happened to my internet connection and when I tried to open my site, I got an error message says” Maintenance Mode”

I did everything I could to solve this problem but no good, and I was left clueless thinking that my site was gone.

What caused the Maintenance Mode Problem?

After doing a lot of online search I discovered that while doing automatic upgrades WordPress creates a .maintenace file that get disabled after the process is successful, however, when things go wrong during this process, the file isn’t removed and it prevents you from accessing your site.

Solution:

Going to your site files using ftp and delete the .maintenance file found in the WordPress root/base folder and everything should be back to normal.

Maintenance Mode

Hope you enjoy that.

WordPress 3.0 Thelonious is here now!

I’ve just been notified that the official release of WordPress 3.0 named “Thelonious “  is finally here!

Here is a video that tells you all about the new features and cool things it offers.

Watch it and enjoy!

N.B.:

Did you upgrade yet?

I usually like to upgrade automatically from the WP Dashboard automatic upgrade, however I like to do two things before actually upgrading.
1. Backup my database
2. Try it out onto my test projects to make sure nothing breaks, and then I upgrade my live sites. ( I know hundreds of people have been testing it for months, but I just like to be safe than sorry!)

I guess now it’s time to make a second review on the comparison between WordPress and Joomla to see who wins this time!