WordPress 3.2 is the fifteenth major WordPress release in the project’s eight-year history. The focus in this release was to make things faster, lighter. Marshable has listed up a few nice things about the new release WP 3.2, below are the excerpt.

1. New Minimum Requirements – the new release officially drops support for older versions of PHP and MySQL. The new requirements mean that PHP 4 and MySQL 4 will no longer be supported, instead it requires for PHP 5 and MySQL 5.

2. Redesigned Dashboard – The new interface looks more professional and more polished. It is cleaner and more streamlined compare with the previous version.

3. Distraction Free Writing Mode – I like its nice new writing mode feature, which is aiming at cutting down on distractions and making it easier for users to “just write.” It also very smart and allow users to access various parts of the publishing interface.

4. Goodbye, IE 6 – many of the new features and additions just don’t play well with the aging browser in the new release WP 3.2, so they dropped of supporting for IE 6. Even you still can load the WordPress dashboard in IE 6 but it won’t look good or be very usable.

5. New Default Theme – Twenty Eleven, the new default visually is clean and modern and it supports responsive layouts, which means that the same website will look great on a phone, an iPad or desktop monitors of varying sizes.

One of the thing I did was went to visit Nouvo City Hotel, a modern boutique style 4-star luxury hotel in the heart of Bangkok’s old city district and the center of shopping, dining, and entertainment. Only a 15-minute walk to the famous Khaosan Road and the Banglumphu market, and within easy reach of  The Grand Palace, Wat Phra Kaew, Wat Pho, National Museum and other attractions.

The hotel is not that big,  only 7 floors with 110 rooms, plus top roof Sala Spa, Gym and Swimming Pool, but it really nice. I have uploaded photos on my Google+ you can go there to check them out.

Beside that, here are few of other updates I like to share with you.

1. WordPress 3.2 Upgrade

WordPress 3.2 is now available to the world, both as an update in your dashboard and a download on WordPress.org. If you haven’t update, do it now. This is WordPress fifteenth major release that comes just four months after 3.1 (which coincidentally just passed the 15 million download mark). WordPress 3.2 will finally drop support for Internet Explorer 6.

The focus for this release was making WordPress

• Faster and lighter.
• Refreshed dashboard design that tightens the typography, design, and code behind the admin. If you’re starting a new blog, you’ll also appreciate the fully HTML5 new Twenty Eleven theme. All of the widgets, menus, buttons, and interface elements fade away to allow you to compose and edit your thoughts in a completely clean environment conducive to writing.
• The new approve & reply feature speeds up your conversation management.
• As of 3.2, you’ll need to be running PHP 5.2.4 and MySQL 5.0. So make sure your blog is running compatible version of it before upgrade to WP 3.2. Just log in to your hosting account, and check to make sure you have at least  PHP 5.2.4 and MySQL 5.0.

2. Google+

Unless you’ve been living under a rock this past week, then you would have heard what practically everyone (and I mean everyone!) is talking about, Google+.

Google+ is Google’s latest attempt in gaining some market share in the social network area. Here is how Google explains the new service:

“We realize that today people are increasingly connecting with one another on the web. But the ways in which we connect online are limited and don’t mimic our real-life relationships. The Google+ project is our attempt to make online sharing even better. We aren’t trying to replace what’s currently available; we just want to introduce a new way to connect online with the people that matter to you.”

It sounds pretty cool,is it? There are 5 main features to Google+: Circles, Hangouts, Instant Upload, Sparks and Huddle.

Just over a week old, do you want to know how’s Google+ doing? Leading on from that, where can you find the most followed people on Google+, especially if you want to compare them to measure Google+ against other services?

Google+ Statistics (also called Social Statistics) seems the best place to check right now. It has a top 50 list of Google+ users (and you can go well beyond the top 50, too).

The list might be missing people. If Google+ Statistics hasn’t manually entered someone into its database, or if someone hasn’t registered themselves — then those statistics aren’t tracked. Still, the service probably has the most accurate counts you’re going to find right now.

This isn’t every single thing there is to know about Google+, it could probably be a book rather than an article, and the Google+ Project has only just begun. I have no idea whether it will succeed or not, and I’m still not quite sure how it’ll fit into the already saturated social media stage. But one thing for sure, We’ll no doubt learn plenty more about Google+ as time goes on.

Here are some quick nuggets to get you a little more acquainted with it.

• Perspective of Google+
• 29 Things You Should Know About Google+

Unlike on Twitter, where each post is the same uniform size and shape and structure, Google+ may have too much going on, with images, videos, links, reshares, hangouts, and plenty of long form content. Google+ wants you to know that these objects are different types. It’s all about leading with the differences, rather than creating a scannable, understandable whole. It’s function over form. Cognitively, I have to figure out what type of object it is before I can read it.

If you are already on Google+, let’s get connected there.

I have already sent out bunch of invitation to some of my FB connection, if you are the one that gave me your gmail address but haven’t got the invitation message, then be patient, it’s all about timing, Google+ only allow new users to sign up at randomly selected times. Normally this has been in the evening, so keep trying.

3. Facebook

Yes, I de-friended Facebook on last Sunday because I have lost trust on Fb. I had had an account for about three years. After seven months of observing my own account (both profile and page – I find my account became one of the victims for FB to testing out their new feature before rolling out to the public, they are not only massively delete my fans from time to time, they are also remove the members on a daily base to control the number grow, there over 10,810 members on board by the time I de-friended FB). Plus reading those report on Facebook scams and the privacy infringements its users who are facing daily, I came to a conclusion:

You should quit Facebook. And you should do it now.

As you might already know most of Facebook income is coming from advertising. Worldwide, Facebook’s 2010 ad revenue shoots to $1.86 billion, and is expected to reach nearly double that by 2012.

As in any online business, more advertisers means more money. And the more member data Facebook is willing to hand over to advertisers, the more they will want to buy ads. It’s an advertiser’s dream, and a security nightmare.

“The very nature of Facebook is premised on the sale of individual information,” said Andrew Keen, author of “The Cult of the Amateur.” Many of Facebook’s most popular third-party apps — FarmVille, Mafia Wars, FrontierVille — leak user’s personal data to advertisers.

That’s a privacy issue. Even more alarming are Facebook’s security problems: survey scams, bogus antivirus software, phishing attacks, shortened URLs leading to malicious websites and even flat-out malware like Trojans.

The company’s current approach to policing apps is reactive: Developers release their apps, and Facebook cleans up after them if and when users discover rogues. It treats apps as just another form of user-generated content, like photos or event postings.

Sophos’ 2011 Security Threat Report sums up the situation.

“Facebook founders and operators insist that keeping users safe from spam and scams is a top priority, and they use large teams of security experts to remove suspect applications as soon as they’re detected or pointed out by users,” the report says. “Yet, the problem continues to grow as the site’s growing user base makes it an ever richer target for the bad guys.”

“The scale of malicious activity on Facebook appears to be out of control,” it adds.

Facebook has grown so large in the social-networking sphere that it’s allowed to set its own rules — and force its users to live by them.

Jemima Kiss of The Guardian said more privacy infringement is what users have to look forward to as the company continues to shape the very meaning of the word “privacy.”

“Facebook’s incredibly rapid development and growth has much to do with this process, and these kinds of ‘adjustments’ are a sign of a company continually pushing its own business forward,” Kiss wrote in a Jan. 18 article. “The tension arises where that business overlaps with our sense of what is public and what is private — an area where Facebook is on the front line, redefining what privacy means to us.”

I got away from Facebook before anything bad happened to me. I went through the process of deactivating my account, and then not logging in – from any portal, be it a computer, smartphone or embedded “Like” buttons on other websites. At this point, there’s nothing that could persuade me to sign back up.

Till next time – Cheers!

I have just upgraded all of my sites to the latest wp 3.0 version, very cool

If you’re already running WordPress 2.7 or later, upgrading to 3.0 is as easy as clicking the “Update Automatically” button. But before you click on it, for just in case, make a full backup of your current WordPress files and MySQL database first.

The most dramatic change in WordPress 3.0 is the ability to host multiple sites – the fusing of WordPress Multi User (MU) and the core WordPress install. WordPress MU is a fork of WordPress that allows for one install to administer multiple (even millions) of blogs, it was separate from ‘regular’ WordPress before, but now with the wp 3.0, you’ll get the functionality of both from the same install. Just using one installation of WordPress 3.0, thousands of users can each have their own blogs under a common domain name. You can find the detail info in the article WordPress 3.0 Adds Better Customization.

Beside that, version 3.0 makes it easy to bring your old blog with you from another platform as well, which means the new version has the compatibility with the most common blogging services, including Blogger and LiveJournal, come pre-installed; others, such as Posterous and Vox.com, are just a click away.

If that is the case, then WordPress Wizard 2.0 is just what you’re looking for. This is a video coaching program that answers all those questions that you probably too ashamed to ask for whatever the reasons.

The normal price of WordPress Wizard 2.0 is a one time payment of only $97. However, they’re offering a $30 discount if you sign up this week. After this Friday, the price will go back to $97.

WordPress Wizard 2.0 is covered by a 60 days no questions asked money back guarantee. If you’re not 100% satisfy with the product for any reason, let them know within 60 days and they’ll send you your money back.

Beginning in the year 2002, blogs molded the online marketing world. While most people at that time started with various blogging systems, eventually most of them shifted to WordPress. WordPress has become so much more since a powerful website CMS that emerged from the need for a better blogging systems.

If you read any popular blogging tips online, WordPress is often positioned as a tool toward creates a blog. But the fact we see is – an increasing number of marketers are finding that you can also use it as the most important tool to upon which you can grow a profitable business empire.

The most powerful function of WordPress itself lies in its ability to manage large amounts of text, audio and video content. You can easily use it to transform create a static website, an article directory, a WordPress based membership site system, a complete e-commerce site, an auction sites, a portfolio site and so much more. As a matter of fact you can also just about use it for anything.

The best thing about WordPress is its flexibility. You can easily switch between WordPress themes, and improve its functions by using plugins and even some custom programming. They are all free.

Thus, if you’re new to blogging and looking for an easy step-by-step video guide on how to create, market and make money from a blog, this is it.

WordPress Wizard 2.0 is made up of six modules that will take you from how to register a domain name to RSS and email marketing.

Every video tutorials were made with the absolute beginner in mind. You’ll never feel like you’re listening to some rambling tech geek.

Once you finish the first two modules, you will be able to get a new WordPress blog up and running. Then you’ll learn how to get traffic and make money from your blog.

You get access to all 50+ videos at once. There’s no waiting until next week to get the next video. This way you can skip over the stuff you already know and learn the stuff that you don’t.

If you aren’t using WordPress you should, the learning curve has reduced substantially in the past 3 years. At the moment it’s so easy to use even a six-year old kid can figure it out. So to power your business, go ahead and order your WordPress Wizard 2.0. And remember to take the advantage of the $30 saving.

The famous feature “Hello World” post is declined in the new WordPress 2.9 version, and the first post on any new installation is now titled Welcome and includes tips for new users, lovely.

Other changes in this new release version,

* Display comments in descending date order
* The beginnings of a WordPress() image editing tool (cropping, scaling, and rotating), simpler video embeds
* Make codex link open in a new window
* Trash status for posts, pages, and comments (includes restore and permanent delete)

For an in-depth overview of what’s new, check out WordPress guru Aaron Brazell’s 10 Things You Need to Know About WordPress 2.9.

Do you know you can actually make wordpress blog get its own content and post it without you do anything at all after you set up? In this part 3 video, you will learn how to using wordpress to do auto-blogging.

If you missed the video Part 1, you can watch it here.

To the extent that a content management system can, wordpress thinks like a writer. You can set up wordpress to automatically ping all the RSS and blog feed directories every time you make a post. This is a very powerful feature if you want your blog to get a lot of traffic right away. On top of that, you’ll be quickly developing backlinks to your blog almost automatically.

Just think about how long will it take you to build a regular site, get the search engines to index it, get backlinks to improve your listings, and then start getting traffic? It will take long time. But with a blog by using wordpress – it can do all that “grunge” work for you automatically.

Although WordPress is free, its development is overseen by a commercial company, Automattic, and they bring commercial savvy, financial resources, and slickness to the project. It has a huge community of developers and enthusiasts behind, which means that there is a mass of online documentation and any number of plugins and themes for you to use.

WordPress has a very rapid development cycle, which keeps it at the cutting edge as far as features are concerned, and any bugs or security holes are rapidly squashed. Plus it has a focus on usability and user-testing which many open source projects lack.

More than that, wordpress also allows the use of Categories. Categories are a very powerful way to improve the structure of your site both for human visitors and for the search engines.

Below this step-by-step video guide will teach you how to set up your own wordpress blog on your server. Part 2 and Part 3 will coming soon.

WordPress blogging is perhaps the easiest and most popular way to start making money with online advertising. The software is free and the interface is very user-friendly and you don’t have to be an expert to be a make or maintain a website.

And did you know there are more than 12,000 searches for the term wordpress each month, hunting for WordPress themes is a waste of your time! Instead of trying to constantly hack your WordPress theme to get what you want, shouldn’t you be spending your limited time writing more good stuff for your readers?

If you’re skeptical and confused with the thousands of free but inferior and ugly WordPress themes out there, I believe you want to Download these 5 ready-to-use niche wordpress themes blogging templates, here are the niche themes you are going to get:

1. Health
2. Best Membership
3. Software_Sales
4. Self Sufficiency
5. Script Sale

Just download and they are free. After you download, unzip it and upload to your website. If you need any help in terms of how to upload the files by using FTP to your site, this step-by-step Video Guide could help you.

Using above niche theme templates to create multiple blogs allows you (a website owner) to earn extra money quickly with very little effort.

You can instantly install these themes on any wordpress blog that you create,

1. Simply create an adwords blog at your hosting space (most Hosting Packages have an automated WordPress blog setup).

2. Log into your WordPress admin panel and upload one of your new themes – it normally takes less than a minute or two.

3. Add some posts or articles for your new site. If you do not want to create your own content you can grab relevant articles from any of the dozens of free article sites listed on the search engines.

If you are interested to make money from Adsense, you can,

1. Sign up for a Google AdSense account. This is very easy, free and takes only a few minutes.

2. After one of your new sites is approved for the program, you can grab your javascript ad code and publisher ID by logging into your Google account. This code can be placed on any or all of your new template based websites.

3. When people start visiting your website, you’ll start earning in an income from your AdSense or other ads if there any.

These 5 ready-to-use niche templates with some well written content makes it easy to earn a nice residual income from your website with very little continuing effort.