Shanghai Tech Writer

I use BlueHost for all my web hosting and they recently added SimpleScripts to their cPanel. SimpleScripts is an automated script installer. This tool makes installing open-source scripts such as WordPress, Drupal, and phpBB so easy even my grandmother could do it. Previously I used Fantastico for all my script installation, but SimpleScripts is so much easier to use! Best of all, I can install the newest version of WordPress!

Prior to migrating this blog to ShanghaiTechWriter.com, I was using WordPress 2.2 for NISH, installed using Fantastico. I’ve been wanting to upgrade to WordPress 2.3 for some time but I was afraid I’d break or mess up the template. Then, WordPress 2.5 came out recently and I was even more afraid to upgrade. But when I decided to create a new domain and migrate this blog to the new site, I thought I might as well upgrade WordPress. I used SimpleScripts to install the WordPress template on the new domain. I could always reinstall if migration wasn’t smooth and I’d still have my old NISH site to refer to.

The migration was mostly successful! I was able to import all my posts and data to the new site. The tags and categories didn’t migrate as smoothly as I’d like because the tagging/category structure for WordPress 2.5 is very different. I spent a bit of time fixing and re-entering all the tags and categories. In the end, I gave up on the categories because categories are becoming obsolete. Tagging is the way to go now.

I’ve completely finished all my migration tasks and had some time to explore the new version of WordPress. So far, I like it a lot! From the front-end (what you see), there’s not much of a difference from the previous version. Most of the changes are done on the back-end, called the WordPress dashboard. The dashboard is easier to navigate and it’s much easier to add/edit/manage posts as well as add various items like media to posts.

Some new features in WordPress 2.5:

• Automatic plugin upgrade—This is my favorite new feature! You can now upgrade all your plugins via the dashboard without having to download, upload, and activate each plugin. The one-click upgrade does everything for you!
• Tag management—You can easily add, edit, and manage tags without installing additional plugins.
• Tag suggestion—As you enter tags, WordPress will query the existing tag database to see what tags or similar tags you’ve used before.
• Multi-file upload with progress bar—You can upload multiple files simultaneously! Before, you could only upload one file at a time.
• Built-in galleries—You can upload your images and organize them in galleries. This feature makes it easier to add images to your posts.
• Visual editor—The new visual editor makes it easier to edit posts.
• Insert embedded media—You can easily embed media content like flash, QuickTime, and Windows Media to your posts.
• Dashboard widgets—You can customize the dashboard homepage with various widgets.

Last but not least, the dashboard looks very slick with all these cool ajax widgets. Very Web 2.0!

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