Support Blog

Two releases right in a row. Time to upgrade - let us know if you need help!

WordPress 2.9.1
Posted January 4, 2010 by Ryan Boren.

After over a million downloads of WordPress 2.9 and lots of feedback from all of you, we’re releasing WordPress 2.9.1. This release addresses a handful of minor issues as well as a rather annoying problem where scheduled posts and pingbacks are not processed correctly due to incompatibilities with some hosts. If any of these issues affect you, give 2.9.1 a try. Download 2.9.1 or upgrade automatically from the Tools->Upgrade menu in your blog’s admin area.

-Tony

Over the weekend, WordPress 2.9 came out. This looks like a nice upgrade with lots of new features:

WordPress 2.9, oh so fine
Posted December 19, 2009 by Matt. Filed under Releases.

I want to make you mine, all the time… oh wait. Hello. I’m here on behalf of the entire WordPress development team and community to announce the immediate availability of WordPress version 2.9 “Carmen” named in honor of magical jazz vocalist Carmen McRae (whom we’ve added to our Last.fm WP release station). You can upgrade easily from your Dashboard by going to Tools > Upgrade, or you can download from WordPress.org.

2.9 provides the smoothest ride yet because of a number of improvements under the hood and more subtle improvements you’ll begin to appreciate once you’ve been around the block a few times.

2.9 has been an exciting development cycle, and I must say it has whetted our appetite for 3.0, which is coming next (probably this spring) and will include at the very least the merge of MU with the WordPress core, and a new default theme.

If you need help upgrading your WordPress website, please let us know. We're here to help.

-Tony

Here's the latest WordPress release that we saw coming:

WordPress 2.8.6 Security Release (wordpress.org)
Posted November 12, 2009 by Ryan Boren. Filed under Releases, Security.

2.8.6 fixes two security problems that can be exploited by registered, logged in users who have posting privileges. If you have untrusted authors on your blog, upgrading to 2.8.6 is recommended.

The first problem is an XSS vulnerability in Press This discovered by Benjamin Flesch. The second problem, discovered by Dawid Golunski, is an issue with sanitizing uploaded file names that can be exploited in certain Apache configurations. Thanks to Benjamin and Dawid for finding and reporting these.

Most WordPress sites are running on Linux type servers that use the Apache web server. Web hosts find those servers to be more reliable and easier to manage. This means that they need to upgrade and everyone should definitely upgrade their versions of WordPress.

If you have multiple WordPress websites, maybe on mulitple webhosts, doing these upgrades can take a bit of time. It may be time you do not have or time you do not want to give to a mundane task. It's also a good time to make sure all your WordPress plugins are up to date. If you'd rather not take your precious time to do these updates, let the experts at Webstix, Inc. take care of it for you. We take backups of both the files on the site and the database before we do the upgrade. We'll also test your website and make sure your plugins are working properly after the upgrade since sometimes there are problems. Get more information on our WordPress Upgrade Service.

Have a great weekend, everyone!
-Tony

I just got a security advisory about 2.8.5, so I'd expect 2.8.6 to be out in a day or two.

-Tony