Making the switch
Despite what I said in my previous post, I’ve gone and updated my WordPress installation to 2.5. The trigger for this was that one of the plug-ins I’d been waiting for (Ozh’s Absolute Comments) has now been updated. I used Fantastico to do the update - so much quicker than downloading the new version and then uploading it to my server (why does FTP take so long?) - and all went smoothly.
Having now used 2.5 in anger, as it were, rather than just on a local install I’ve been able to give it a bit more of a test and to find a bunch of things that I don’t think are really all that good. Let me run you through some of them:
Colour scheme: that new default colour scheme is so wishy-washy. It looks like its been left out in the sun too long. First job I did was to head to Users \ Your Profile and change to the classic colour scheme, which is at least a little better.
Dashboard: this has been improved - a bit more focus on your blog, rather than Wordpress - and is now widgetised. What you don’t get, though, is any way to manage the widgets. You can edit some of them, so that they show you different content, but you can’t turn them on or off. So another plug-in was called for - Dashboard Widget Manager. This is a great little plug-in that lets you control the Dashboard widgets in the same way as you do the widgets on your blog. So I’ve turned off most of the widgets now and have a lovely streamlined Dashboard.
Tags: when I first looked at 2.5, I thought it was great that they’d finally properly integrated tags as well as categories (after so long of WordPress thinking they were interchangeable items). But when you use the online editor to write a post, you don’t get a list of previously defined tags to choose from, so it becomes a little pointless to keep a track of them.
Widgets: this one seems to have been giving some people on Wordpress.com a bit of trouble. Management of widgets has had a major overhaul and, while on the whole it is not too bad (really just a re-designed layout) the one big bugbear with it is that you can only see one sidebar at a time. Fine if your blog only has one sidebar, but a pain if you have two. I quite like the new layout, but would prefer to be able to see both sidebars at the same time like I could with 2.3.
I’m sure there must be some good things about 2.5 that I haven’t come across yet (and there are a couple that I’ve already noticed - better support for Safari when using the Visual Editor and an attempt to offer tag management) and when I find them I’ll you know.
WordPress 2.5 again
For anyone who’s been wanting to upgrade to WordPress 2.5 but have been a little apprehensive about the upgrade process, good news! 2.5 is now available through Fantastico - so upgrading is just a click away. Of course, you should make sure you’ve backed up all your work before going ahead with any upgrade, just in case. Although, if I remember correctly, Fantastico does a back up before loading the new version (please check this for yourself, though; don’t just take my word for it).
If you’re feeling a little more adventurous and feel that you want to tackle the upgrade process manually, check out the WordPress Upgrade instructions. Again, make sure you’ve got a working back up before you start, and read the instructions twice. But it’s not really that difficult.
While we’re talking about 2.5, it seems that the multi-user installation over at WordPress.com has been upgraded to the new version - but not without some teething problems on behalf of the users it would seem. Since moving over to self-hosted, I haven’t spent any time at WordPress.com but from what I understand the upgrade was done over a weekend and without warning; possibly not the best way to do it. It seems that the new look dashboard is not winning a great deal of friends either.
I’ve yet to move The New Wolfs Howl over to 2.5 (still waiting on a couple of plug-ins to be updated) but from the playing about I’ve done on the local installation I’m still not sure about it. And with version 2.5.1 due to be released in the first week of May (with fixes for the bugs that were known about but not fixed when 2.5 was released), I’m thinking I’ll wait a while.
Frankly, Scarlet
If you’re a fan of Supernatual or Smallville (like me), you might want to look out for the latest hot TV project from director David Nutter. Scarlet, starring the not-at-all-ugly Natassia Malthe, is coming soon to our TV screens. Not sure yet what it’s all about (I’m guessing beautiful, successful actress has secret life as baddie basher, or something similar) but judging from this trailer it should be good:
If you want more, check out the official Who is Scarlet? website.
This post is sponsored by Scarlet
We’ve never had it so good
Now that we’re into the new tax year, the tax changes introduced by Flash Gordon in his final Budget as Chancellor have come into effect. To support a 2% cut in the basic income tax rate, the lower 10p threshold has been abolished. This means that while he’s giving back 2%, he’s taking tax on 10% which he never used to. The reasoning behind this is to generate more Treasury money to pay for the various credits and benefits that are offered to many low-income families with children, or households with elderly residents (things like working tax credits and the winter heating payments).
What he doesn’t seem to have taken account of is that single people, with no children or elderly relatives living them and who are on a wage of less than about £18,500 a year will be worse off as a result of this change. Analysts predict that the figure will be up to about £232 per year, which isn’t so much - less than £20 per month - but it comes on top of a steadily increasing cost of living and for many people could be the final nail in the coffin.
Yet according to the Party faithful, even those adversely effected by the change “will have found that on average they are £505 a year, or £9.70 a week, better off overall, as a result of all of the changes that we’ve introduced since 1997 [the year 'New' Labour came to power]“. Quite where they get their figures from, I’m not really sure. One of the first things that Brown did as Chancellor was abolish MIRAS; that made me worse off by about £17.30 a week straight away. He’s consistently raised fuel duty - to the point where a litre of petrol is now £1.07 at my local garage. I don’t remember what price petrol was when Labour came to power, but I do know that when I first bought my motorbike (2002) I could fill it up for £10 and now it costs me £17.50. At a tankful a week, that’s an extra £7.50. House prices have gone up astronomically, to the point where my one-bedroom flat is now worth about four times what I paid for it 14 years ago. That’s good when I want to sell, but bad when I want to buy. And bad for anyone trying to get on the property ladder and buy their first home; most people are finding it is simply not possible and they are having to stay in rented accommodation far longer than they would have 15 years ago. And those are just the things that come to mind straightaway. What about inflation? Interest rates? Increased redundancies? Hell, even the cost of a stamp has gone up to an all-time high today.
I don’t necessarily object to public money being diverted to support families with children or elderly relatives - I’d prefer that the system was not so open to ‘gaming’ though - but I do object to the idea that we’re all better off under the new regime when that quite clearly is not the case. In any system of Government, they’ll always be a group of people that fall through the cracks and always get the bum deal; this time it’s me and lots of other people like me and Gordon and his mates can take their Labour spin and shove it up their arse.
All the excitement is off the track
There’s lots of flak surrounding Max Moseley (FIA President) at the moment, over allegations that have been made about events in his private life. He’s called a special meeting of the FIA, after four of the major teams in F1 called on him to explain himself, and apparently he’s been asked to stay away from this weekend’s Grand Prix in Bahrain.
I’ve no idea if the allegations (supposedly about “a Nazi-style orgy in a torture dungeon”) are true, and even if they are it is his private life so shouldn’t have any bearing on his job, but for me the best part about the whole thing is the only comment I’ve read from Max himself is to deny any Nazi connotations. Which seems to imply the rest of it is true.
Ewwwwww.
Update: there’s even a video. Although - as is the way of these things - it could be anyone. And thankfully it doesn’t go into detail.
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