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Month: January 2007

WordPress 2.1 “Ella” released

For those who run WordPress-powered blogs, you may be interested to know that version 2.1 of the software has been released.

New features include:

  • Autosave makes sure you never lose a post again.
  • New tabbed editor allows you to switch between WYSIWYG and code editing instantly while writing a post.
  • The lossless XML import and export makes it easy for you to move your content between WordPress blogs.
  • New visual editor also now includes spell checking.
  • New search engine privacy option allows you take you to indicate your blog shouldn’t ping or be indexed by search engines like Google.
  • You can set any “page” to be the front page of your site, and put the latest posts somewhere else, making it much easier to use WordPress as a content management system.
  • Much more efficient database code, faster than previous versions.
  • Links in your blogroll now support sub-categories and you can add categories on the fly.
  • Redesigned login screen from the Shuttle project.
  • More AJAX to make custom fields, moderation, deletions, and more all faster. The comments page, now lets you approve or unapprove things instantly.
  • Pages can now be drafts, or private.
  • Admin area has been refreshed to load faster and be more visually consistent.
  • The dashboard now instantly and brings RSS feeds asynchronously in the background.
  • Comment feeds now include all the comments, not just the last 10.
  • Better internationalization and support for right-to-left languages.
  • The upload manager lets you easily manage all your uploads pictures, video, and audio.
  • A new version of the Akismet plugin is bundled.

I should imagine that these enhancements will make WordPress even easier to use for educators, especially the options to make it more like a Content Management System and the autosave feature. Every teacher should have their own blog, in my opinion…

This blog is running version 2.1 and the upgrade went without a hitch! 😀

Human-computer interfaces of the future

I thought I’d seen or heard pretty much all of the TED Talks so far, but one by Jeff Han on interface-free human-computer interaction must have slipped through the net. The video has to be seen to be believed – I can’t wait until I can teach with a device like the one shown! Imagine using Google Earth with that type of technology… via Tom Barrett

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