If you have already installed Beta 1, you can easily update to Beta 2 using the Tools > Update panel in the admin area.

I have really been impressed with the changes and new features in 2.7 and can’t wait for it to go final release and start pushing out to my sites.

control panel and created a new subdomain for the site, wpbeta.jeremyfilnt.com. Then I created a new SQL database so that the installation was completely self contained.

I still had the problem of needing data in the blog. For that, I turned to Super Satellite’s excellent WP Content Framework.

It comes with pages and sub-pages, categories and sub-categories. There are comments, there are formatting elements. In short, most everything to make sure that you get all your formatting elements covered when designing a Wordpress theme.

I downloaded the XML file for the framework and imported it into the installation. The result was a complete site, with categories, posts, comments, images and more. You can check out the site with the content installed at http://wpbeta.jeremyflint.com.

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They also announced that the final version will not be released on November 10 as they are behind schedule about 2 weeks.

I will do some posts talking about the setup of my sandbox and initial thoughts on the beta soon.

There are several methods for upgrading your WordPress installation: Manual upgrade, WP Automatic Upgrade plugin, and through your webhost.

Manual Upgrade

This is really exactly what it sounds like. When you are ready to upgrade, you go to the WordPress website, download the lastest release, unzip it and copy the needed files to your server. If you are comfortable with FTP, this is probably the method for you. This is also a good option if you are using highly customized themes and lots of plugins.

Several things you should do before starting your manual upgrade. First, make sure you have a backup of your WordPress files and your database. All you need is a dropped connection during an FTP transfer to mess something up. If you have a backup of your files, you can easily fall back on them if needed.

The WordPress Codex has some great tips on backing up your WordPress site. There are also several plugins available that will regularly backup your WordPress database and save the file to your server or email you a copy.

Once you have everything backed up, start the upgrade process. Again, the WordPress Codex has some great documentation on the various types of upgrades that are available, depending on your specific scenario.

WP Automatic Upgrade Plugin

This plugin has quickly become one of the most popular plugins downloaded from the WordPress Plugins site. It completely automates the process of backing up your site, downloading the lastest version of Wordpress, unziping it, installing the files, restoring your database, and cleaning up any of the installation files.

Unfortunately, the plugin author officially suspended development of the plugin in September 2008, shortly after an update was released to let the plugin work with WordPress 2.6. Why would they kill development on a plugin that over 150,000 people where actively using?

When major features of WordPress 2.7 were announced, automatic upgrades from the admin panel were one of the confirmed features of this next major release, scheduled for November 2008.

Automatic Upgrades From Your Host

I host all of my sites on Dreamhost. They have been great for my needs for almost 5 years now. One of the great features they have are One Click Installs, and WordPress is included as one of these installs.

Whenever you want to set up a WordPress blog, you select the domain, fill in the name, username, and password you want for your database, and Dreamhost takes care of the rest. Within 10 minutes, you will receive an email with a link to your new WordPress blog and the admin username and password.

When a new version of WordPress is released, Dreamhost makes it just as easy to upgrade. You simply go to your One Click Installs panel, select the upgrade option, and then select which blogs you want to upgrade. Again, Dreamhost takes care of the rest. They will even take a copy of your current blog install and make an archive on it, just in case something goes wrong and you need to restore.

Keep It Current

No matter how you decide to do it, make sure you keep your WordPress blog updated. You don’t have to be on the bleeding edge, updating as soon as a new version is released, but don’t let it lag too far behind the current release version.

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I love Gmail. I use it for all of my email that is not work related, funneling just about every other address I have into it. I also use Google Calendar to manage what is going on with myself, the family and work. I have never really used iGoogle for some reason, but I spend a lot of time in Gmail and have always wanted a way to show my upcoming events in Gmail.

Looks like Google has finally come through with 2 new additions to their Gmail Labs widgets. The first is a calendar widget that puts your calendar right in the sidebar in the agenda format by default. If you like, you can add a mini calendar to the widget and even select which calendars you want to show. You can also add events right from the widget, which is helpful.

The other widget is Google Docs. You can search your documents right from the sidebar and even start new documents (spreadsheets, etc) right from with widget. Very handy.

One other lab feature I would suggest trying is the Navbar drag and drop. This gives you the ability to rearrange the sidebar and even move items to the right side of the interface. I have moved my Labels panel over to the right side as well as chat, which I rarely use in the Gmail interface.

Check them out and enjoy.

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There are plenty of calendar plugins available, and I have used many of them (or at least attempted to) and picked 3 of my favorites.

Calendar

Calendar is a relatively new plugin that was released about a month ago. It is a simple approach to a calendar, removing its data from the Loop and giving you a simple interface for adding events, creating categories, and setting a few options for display, styles, and management. Here are the list of official features from the author Kevin Oshea:

To implement this calendar in your site, all you have to do is create a page and add {CALENDAR}. Save and view the page and your calendar should be there. It seems to be fairly flexible in regards to layout, stretching to fill whatever space you put it in.

If you are looking for a simple, web-based calendar for showing events on your site, this is a great choice.

Event Calendar 3

The Event Calendar plugin (also known as WPCal) works in quite a different way. It uses the default WordPress calendar - the same one that is used to show when posts were made.

After installation, you create or select an existing category to serve as your events category. Every post you make to this category will be used by Event Calendar. It will display your events on a small grid calendar or as a list of upcoming events.

To use this plugin, you have to actually edit your source code to include the call to the php function for the calendar and/or event listing. It also doesn’t show you a full grid calendar. Rather, it shows you a mini-calendar and you mouseover dates with events to view details in a pop-up format. You can also just show a page of all your posts in the events category.

One nice thing about the plugin is that you can subscribe to the events feed via iCal format. It also has some great documentation on using advanced queries and tweaking the template functions.

An advanced implementation of this plugin can be seen on the Birmingham-based website The Terminal in their new Destinations section. They are using this plugin along with some custom fields to allow folks to submit events for approval and add them to the calendar.

So if you are looking for a more advanced implementation of a calendar with Loop integration, this is a great option.

Events Calendar

Not to be confused with Event Calendar, the Events Calendar plugin takes yet another approach to events. It is really a combination of Calendar and Event Calendar 3, giving you options to show a full-grid calendar, a widget with upcoming events, and a small-grid calendar.

In addition to creating an event for the calendar, it gives you the option of creating a post for the event as well. If your theme is Widget-aware, you will get an options panel in the Design > Widgets area for tweaking the sidebar widgets to display as a calendar or a list along with other options.

Fin

So there you have it. Three Wordpress event calendar plugins, each with their own strengths and weaknesses. If you have used one that I didn’t cover, let me know about it in the comments and I will take a look at it. It would be nice for the Automattic folks to add an official calendar component to the WordPress package since so many folks are using it as a full-site CMS now, but these plugins fill the gap nicely.

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If you want to get a sneak peek at the new admin panel, Automattic has just released WordPress 2.7 wireframes showing the new admin area and documenting the reasons for the changes.

So what changes are we in store for? Changes in the navigation, the dashboard and the Post > New pages all look like they are getting major overhauls.

Download the PDF and have a look for yourself. Remember that these are just wireframes so the final product may be a little different.

Firefox is my favorite browser. I have been using it since it ws known as Firebird (pre 1.0). When I switched to Mac, I decided to make Firefox my browser of choice over Safari, Mac’s native browser.

The main reason I like Firefox so much is its extensibility. As a web designer and developer, there are several addons and tools that I rely on every day. Most people already know about the popular addons like Chris Pederick’s Web Developer Toolbar and the excellent Firebug. I thought I would mention a few that I use that might have slipped under your radar.

ColorZilla is a great addon that allows you to grab any color from your browser for use in another program. You can also launch a color picker that will allow you to adjust the color if needed. It also has other functions like page zoom, DOM color analyzer, and Firebug integration.

Screegrab! is an excellent tool for, well, making screengrabs of web pages. Before this addon, I would have to do a screenshot, scroll down, do another screenshot, and stitch them together in Photoshop. This addon will save an image of the entire webpage, only the portion you can see, or you can select what you want it to save. Pretty useful for grabbing images of other sites you like for inspiration.

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In older browsers, like IE6 and Firefox 2 (and pretty much anything that came before them), when you wanted to increase the size of text on a page, that is exactly what the browser did - it increased the text size. The only problem was, it didn’t increase everything else. So at some point you would end up with a broken layout (the most common was the last item of a horizontal menu bumping down to the next line). The exception to the rule was Opera. They have implemented page zoom for a while now.

Another kink in this equation is that IE did not support the scaling of text sized with pixels until very recent. So various methods were developed to accurately size text and still allow it to scale, especially in IE since it is the most popular browser. Everyone seems to have their favorite method and there are pros and cons to all of them. (I personally use the 62.5% method).

So a discussion has started now about how much longer these methods should be used. Dave Shea published a post talking about this issue saying that the introduction of page zoom as the default “zooming” action in most modern browsers takes “the responsibility for ensuring page integrity and legibility is moved out of the designer’s hands, and placed fully on the browser.”

Dave was only opening up discussion on the subject without stating his personal preference. Jeff Croft has joined in on the discussion as well. Steve Smith over at Ordered List has already declared pixel font sizes safe to use once again.

How will using pixels as a sizing method affect the accessiblity of a site? Should we be delivering different methods based on which browser someone is using or just go all out with pixels?

I recently finished reading an excellent book by Joshua Porter, Designing for the Social Web. At first glance, you may think this book is all about how to create starbursts or the coolest new “web 2.0″ trends.

Actually, this book is all about designing your site for maximum social interaction, especially between a business and its customers. Joshua starts out talking about how the web got to where it is from a social media perspective.

One of the best examples he uses - and one of my favorites - is how many folks use Amazon to search for products, even if they are not going to buy it there. Why? Because they can look through the customer reviews to see what others think about a product and make their decision based on those reviews. That is what makes Amazon so great. It allows for customers to post reviews - good and bad - about products they have used.

He also talks about how sites promote themselves by showing successes that others have had using products, how to encourage folks to sign up for a site, and more.

If you are starting to break into the social aspect of the web, whether for yourself or a client, this book is definitely a great guide in what works and what doesn’t, using real-world cases for both.

If you want some insite into the book, Joshua has posts up at his site talking about many of the topics covered in the book. Just head on over to his blog, Bokardo.com.