There is always a rush of concern when a new version of WordPress is released.  However, the latest release of WordPress 2.9.2 is not a big deal.

Version 2.9.2 simply closes a possible security problem for sites who may have subscribers registered and can add content but are not necessarily known to the site owner.  If this is not the case on your site then there's no need to waste your valuable time doing the upgrade.

If this does concern you then check out the horses mouth over at WordPress.

Related articles by Zemanta

• WordPress 2.9.2 (wordpressguru.eu)
• WordPress 2.9.2 – Should you Upgrade? (howtospoter.com)

• Cutting Expenses to Preserve a Boomer Lifestyle The markets continue to fall and nothing the President says or does is helping. The investing news for baby boomers...
• Financial Way To Make A Internet Site For Little Small Business Owner - Use Thesis Theme For WordPress I am positive that if you are visiting this page, you will be interested in thesis theme framework. Did you...

Regrettably, the aspirations of the WordPress developers seems to have got beyond their capability to manage the development process again.  The number of known bugs contained in each new release of WordPress grows each time and with the growing popularity of the WordPress platform this affects more and more users on each occasion.

As a Semiologic user I have the benefit of some guidance on the subject and Denis has just posted some advice and some free fixes for the three most common issues .

As you will see from Denis' post, his advice is always to let the new version run intil at least after the first fix, i.e. 2.9.1 before upgrading your blog.  Of course, you should always make sure you take a full back up before upgrading and then see if everything runs OK.  Deactivate all your plugins before the upgrade and then activate them one at a time.  But be ready to go back and restore the whole site when something goes wrong.

It is often quicker (and therefore cheaper!) just to Restore from your back up, report the problem and wait for a fix before attempting the upgrade again than to spend time and money trying to fix something that the techies have not yet got a handle on.

Semiologic users already have a Version Checker plugin that also removes the WP 'nag' to upgrade from their dashboard until WP 2.9.1 is issued and the package of plugins is already aligned to all the changes planned for WordPress. One of the best reasons I can think of for buying a 'paid for' package with WordPress.  At the end of the day, you always get what you pay for.

• Easy Checks To Make Before Launching A Website Your website is your biggest marketing tool and the only way to actually communicate your ideas via the Internet in...
• Finding the Best WordPress Plugins for your Blog WordPress originally saw the light of day in 2003, and is now being used on thousands of different websites in...

The long awaited WordPress 2.8 was released on 10th June and is causing the usual dilemmas for blog owners everywhere.

Do you upgrade now like a lemming following the crowd over the unseen cliff? – or wait for the dust to settle and at least have some chance of leaning over to try to pick out your landing spot before you jump?

For many bloggers the change will go completely unnoticed until they discover by chance in three or six months time that they are way behind the curve in terms of facilities available or their site ceases to function after it is hacked because they have not closed security loopholes with the latest upgrades.

There is an element of 'ignorance is bliss' in this approach. At least you can get on producing and publishing decent content to build your blog.  But there are also negatives.

You could be missing out on some decent improvements but, more importantly, the more popular that the WordPress blogging platform becomes the more attractive it becomes for hackers who frequently seem to have little motive other than creating misery for others.  And that is really not worth the risk.

However, upgrading immediately also has it's risks. Any upgrade, no matter how much testing it has been subject to, is the moment when the software is exposed to the great general public who will set about beating the holy c*** out of it as they bend, twist and shake it in ways that the developers never anticipated.

As I understand things there were some 800 or more reported bugs in WP 2.8 until recently that have been cleaned up before this latest release. While recognising the enormous efforts that must have gone into getting that sorted out, as a non technical blogger I really don't want to be spending my time living with the consequences if some of them didn't quite get properly fixed.

The other negative issue is that if you are using a whole batch of plugins from various sources then they all need upgrading as well in order to work with the new version.

Some plugin authors will be on top of the job and have upgraded versions of their plugins ready to go – while others will not. Nor are the programming skills that go into plugins of a uniform standard and you may find conflicts and glitches arising. The more plugins you are using the more potential for trouble exists.

But enough of the miseries. Let's talk about some good stuff.

Two major improvements are included in 2.8. Firstly, WordPress has gone back to being able to drag and drop widgets between different panels all of which are available all the time. This takes it back to an approach abandoned with the last version of 2.7.

Whoever made the decision to abandon the drag and drop approach in the last version I hope they have taken them out the back of the building and shot them. It was a severely retrograde step and getting back to this approach is a great improvement.

Likewise for the ability to use multiple versions of widgets and to be able to access a theme library to view available themes and download from WordPress.org directly into your site is a great improvement. Myself, I find the incredibly flexible Semiologic Reloaded theme is more than enough for my requirements and I never have to worry about what works or not – it all works.

So do you upgrade now or not?

The conservative approach!

My main reason for using WordPress is because I want to be able to get on with my marketing and not have to worry about building and maintaining websites.

So if I can reduce the risk of having to fix things that break then that matches my objectives. The simplest thing to do is simply wait a few weeks. This will give the enthusiastic lemmings the chance to find every possible way to break the software and the techies as WordPress the chance and time to fix it.

Similarly, the plugin authors will also have the time to get up to speed and make sure that the plugins you are using are properly upgraded.

At the end of the day it comes down to the same thing as most business decisions. It is not about what is technically better or preferable or has more bells and whistles, it is about managing the risks in your business.

Just hang on a few weeks. By then the dust will have settled and you have a much better chance of a painless upgrade – the way it should be.

• Free eBay Store and WordPress Plugin I've been fooling around with the WordPress Plugin API, and I decided to take a stab at putting together a...
• Retirement or College tuition? With all the press about people not saving enough for retirement, or much else for that matter (the median household...