WordPress 2.6 released!

WordPress 2.6 has been released, and has some great new options that will increase usability. Check out the video:

I love the new "Press this" feature, and I really hope "Gears" for Safari will be available soon - I need all the help I can get with my slow connection! The word count and image captions will be very useful, and the new image control and drag-and-drop reordering of the galleries will make orgainizing things much easier. The ability to select a range of checkboxes by shift-clicking was a good idea, but unfortunately I noticed that it only works if the checkboxes you select after the first one are below it, and not above it. You can read more about the new features at the official post.

Before upgrading to the new version, be sure to create backups of your posts and database. You can use the WordPress Automatic Upgrade plugin, or the WordPress Database Backup plugin if you want to upgrade manually. But be warned - I have used WordPress Automatic Upgrade twice now, and both times it has failed to reactivate my plugins. So before upgrading, also make a list of your activated plugins so that you can quickly reactivate them if WAU fails to do so.

Upgrading to the new version of WordPress will also replace your smilies with the default ones, so if you have replaced them with custom smilies, be ready to reupload them after the upgrade.