I’ll be writing the show notes when I have some time.

Fair warning: The entire episode clocks in at over 1 hour 20 minutes because we had so much material to slog through. Rest assured, as soon as I am able, I’ll be posting it.

• WordPress 2.5.1 was released April 25th, and includes a significant security fix, so you should update as soon as possible if you haven’t done so already. This version does break the reset password feature, however. (Thanks to Ryan McCue for providing a patch file.)
• Matt Mullenweg announced Sphere integration into blog content to display related posts, and automatic theme-creation for photo bloggers at the Web 2.0 expo in San Francisco.
• WordPress and WordPress.com are Webware 100 award winners in the Publishing category.
• Jeff Atwood of Coding Horror took a lot of heat for his characterization of WordPress as a “Destroyer of CPUs“, and the subject of caching reared its ugly heat once again.
• Raj Dash loves WordPress, but hates WordPress 2.5. Jonathan asks for a way to change the color scheme of the admin panel.
• A new search feature allows for the search of over 3 million WordPress.com blogs. Search results can be ordered by relevancy, our magic secret sauce algorithm that’s the default, or by most recent, so you can see the latest and greatest on any given subject. There are also language-specific engines for every language WordPress.com supports.
• WordPress.com now includes many of the same features available to WordPress 2.5 users.
• WordPress.com blocked in Brazil.
• When you attempt to login to a WordPress account, you are given fairly specific error messages if you enter the username or password incorrectly. This can be helpful to an attacker if they are trying to guess usernames and/or passwords. Login Error Cleanup simply returns the message “Error” if the combination submitted is not valid.
• Widgetized Admin Dashboard is a Wordpress Plugin for 2.5+ that lets you edit the Wordpress Dashboard in the Design > Widgets area. It also removes the WordPress Developer News and WP Planet News that many consider to be “Dashboard Spam” and lets you see exactly what you want to see on your dashboard.

Episode 42 was also recorded a while back and I’ll be publishing that over the next week or so.

1. Jonathan and I briefly discuss our experiences at WordCamp Dallas
2. Technorati has decided to not index vulnerable and exploited WordPress versions
3. Will Apple bundle WordPress into the iPhone?
4. I interview John Podzazides about Woopra
5. I interview Mark Ghosh about Weblog Tools Videos
6. WordPress Dev Donncha O Caoimh’s Theme Tester plugin
7. AJAXed WordPress plugin
8. Matt Mullenweg agrees to a “Ask Matt” Q&A segment in future episodes

1. WordPress 2.5 had been released exactly 24 hours prior. Some people have experienced problems with IE7 and other plugins. Expect 2.5.1 within about a month.
2. Beginning with WordPress 2.2 incoming links were changed from Technorati to Google Blog Search. If you’d prefer to revert back or use some other link reporter, find the Incoming Links Box’s “Edit” link in the Dashboard and change it to the RSS feed of your choosing.
3. Issues with “disappearing plugins” relate to the plugin updater’s requirement that plugin authors build in additional functionality to work properly with the updater and submitting it to the plugin directory.
4. Mark Jaquith discusses the genesis of his Comment Inbox plugin. Lorelle chimes in with Comment Ninja, a Firefox Greasemonkey script.
5. We discussed security, including the possibility of an independent review of the core, as well as the direction themes and theme development might take in the future.
6. Matt expressed a desire for improved client-side JavaScript performance.
7. Ronald Huereca asked an interesting question about how developers might store data without creating new database tables.
8. Scott Ellis asked for examples of WordPress being used as a CMS or other unusual uses, and the panel offers up Automattic’s Publisher Blog, Trumors and 71 Miles, amongst others.
9. Rick Ankrum’s question about changes made to the default theme leads to an interesting throw-away comment by Mark Ghosh concerning a possible file integrity-checker making its way into future versions of WordPress.
10. Jill McKeever’s question about image borders and a “word wrap button” stumps the panel. (Did we ever come up with an answer for this?)
11. Someone asks about the future of Sandbox, and the possibility of incorporating its best features into the core. Several themes are discussed, including the Options theme and Regulus.
12. Matt expressed frustration with the way WordPress handles menus as static pages and sub-pages, raising the possibility of choosing which items appear in the navigation menu. Mark Jaquith brings up his Page Links To plugin which allows you to point pages and menus to links outside of your blog’s domain.
13. Matt also expressed frustration with the disparity between the image uploader and inserting an image from within the WYSIWYG editor, and brought up the possibility of an easy “image caption” function.
14. Jeff Chandler’s frustration with the perception of WordPress not being able to withstand the “Digg effect” leads to a minor debate on caching. Matt effectively debunks the issue, blaming bad server configurations and cautioning against reliance on WP-Cache and WP-Super Cache. Mark Ghosh cautions against the use of Bad Behavior for high-traffic sites.

1. WordPress 2.5 had been released exactly 24 hours prior. Some people have experienced problems with IE7 and other plugins. Expect 2.5.1 within about a month.
2. Beginning with WordPress 2.2 incoming links were changed from Technorati to Google Blog Search. If you’d prefer to revert back or use some other link reporter, find the Incoming Links Box’s “Edit” link in the Dashboard and change it to the RSS feed of your choosing.
3. Issues with “disappearing plugins” relate to the plugin updater’s requirement that plugin authors build in additional functionality to work properly with the updater and submitting it to the plugin directory.
4. Mark Jaquith discusses the genesis of his Comment Inbox plugin. Lorelle chimes in with Comment Ninja, a Firefox Greasemonkey script.
5. We discussed security, including the possibility of an independent review of the core, as well as the direction themes and theme development might take in the future.
6. Matt expressed a desire for improved client-side JavaScript performance.
7. Ronald Huereca asked an interesting question about how developers might store data without creating new database tables.
8. Scott Ellis asked for examples of WordPress being used as a CMS or other unusual uses, and the panel offers up Automattic’s Publisher Blog, Trumors and 71 Miles, amongst others.
9. Rick Ankrum’s question about changes made to the default theme leads to an interesting throw-away comment by Mark Ghosh concerning a possible file integrity-checker making its way into future versions of WordPress.
10. Jill McKeever’s question about image borders and a “word wrap button” stumps the panel. (Did we ever come up with an answer for this?)
11. Someone asks about the future of Sandbox, and the possibility of incorporating its best features into the core. Several themes are discussed, including the Options theme and Regulus.
12. Matt expressed frustration with the way WordPress handles menus as static pages and sub-pages, raising the possibility of choosing which items appear in the navigation menu. Mark Jaquith brings up his Page Links To plugin which allows you to point pages and menus to links outside of your blog’s domain.
13. Matt also expressed frustration with the disparity between the image uploader and inserting an image from within the WYSIWYG editor, and brought up the possibility of an easy “image caption” function.
14. Jeff Chandler’s frustration with the perception of WordPress not being able to withstand the “Digg effect” leads to a minor debate on caching. Matt effectively debunks the issue, blaming bad server configurations and cautioning against reliance on WP-Cache and WP-Super Cache. Mark Ghosh cautions against the use of Bad Behavior for high-traffic sites.

1. WordPress 2.5 had been released exactly 24 hours prior. Some people have experienced problems with IE7 and other plugins. Expect 2.5.1 within about a month.
2. Beginning with WordPress 2.2 incoming links were changed from Technorati to Google Blog Search. If you’d prefer to revert back or use some other link reporter, find the Incoming Links Box’s “Edit” link in the Dashboard and change it to the RSS feed of your choosing.
3. Issues with “disappearing plugins” relate to the plugin updater’s requirement that plugin authors build in additional functionality to work properly with the updater and submitting it to the plugin directory.
4. Mark Jaquith discusses the genesis of his Comment Inbox plugin. Lorelle chimes in with Comment Ninja, a Firefox Greasemonkey script.
5. We discussed security, including the possibility of an independent review of the core, as well as the direction themes and theme development might take in the future.
6. Matt expressed a desire for improved client-side JavaScript performance.
7. Ronald Huereca asked an interesting question about how developers might store data without creating new database tables.
8. Scott Ellis asked for examples of WordPress being used as a CMS or other unusual uses, and the panel offers up Automattic’s Publisher Blog, Trumors and 71 Miles, amongst others.
9. Rick Ankrum’s question about changes made to the default theme leads to an interesting throw-away comment by Mark Ghosh concerning a possible file integrity-checker making its way into future versions of WordPress.
10. Jill McKeever’s question about image borders and a “word wrap button” stumps the panel. (Did we ever come up with an answer for this?)
11. Someone asks about the future of Sandbox, and the possibility of incorporating its best features into the core. Several themes are discussed, including the Options theme and Regulus.
12. Matt expressed frustration with the way WordPress handles menus as static pages and sub-pages, raising the possibility of choosing which items appear in the navigation menu. Mark Jaquith brings up his Page Links To plugin which allows you to point pages and menus to links outside of your blog’s domain.
13. Matt also expressed frustration with the disparity between the image uploader and inserting an image from within the WYSIWYG editor, and brought up the possibility of an easy “image caption” function.
14. Jeff Chandler’s frustration with the perception of WordPress not being able to withstand the “Digg effect” leads to a minor debate on caching. Matt effectively debunks the issue, blaming bad server configurations and cautioning against reliance on WP-Cache and WP-Super Cache. Mark Ghosh cautions against the use of Bad Behavior for high-traffic sites.

1. WordPress 2.5 wasn’t released last week as we expected, and don’t expect it for several weeks.
2. ThemeShaper.com asked 11 prominent WordPress theme designers to predict the future.
3. WPThemeKit is a WordPress theming system where you choose from one of several htnk “blanks” representing your preferred layout of overall width, along with the number and position of sidebars.
4. WordPress is once again one of the Open Source projects chosen by Google to include in their Summer of Code for 2008.
5. Lorelle VanFossen is also jazzed about WordPress 2.5 coming to WordPress.com, details a security vulnerability for WordPress.com blogs was fixed in less than 10 minutes after initial report, Matt Mullenweg’s report that more than 800,000 blogs, or splogs, have been removed from WordPress.com, and the February Wrap-up for WordPress.com  has the latest statistics for the free blog hosting service.
6. FirstTimer Wordpress Plugin v1.0 by Bobby Handzhiev checks to see if an identifying cookie is located when a viewer views your blog, and if one if not found, displays a message you’ve written specifically for new visitors.
7. SEO Friendly Images v1.1 by Vladimir Prelovac goes throough all of the images used on your blog, checks to see if already have ALT and TITLE tags set, and generates valid XHTML tags for them based on options you’ve set.
8. MinisterMark verifies the WP Spam Blocker generates dofollow links to their site.
9. Corey Thompson points out the answer to last episode’s blogroll question.
10. Simon Jones reports back that a new service’s bot was the cause of his blog’s bandwidth problems.

Otherwise, we discussed:

1. Jonathan’s June speech at the 3rd International Plagiarism Conference at Northumbria University in Newcastle-upon-tyne, UK.
2. Charles’ presentation of WordPress for Podcasters at the New Media Expo in Las Vegas in August.
3. Continued preparation for WordCamp Dallas, March 29 and 30 in Frisco, Texas. Any attendees registering after this Friday aren’t guaranteed event t-shirts.
4. As previously mentioned, we discuss WordPress 2.5 which we’d expected to have been released to coincide with this episode.
5. Vote for WordPress in the Publishing and Photography category in the 2008 Webware 100.
6. Lorelle is away speaking to the San Francisco chapter of the Romance Writers of America, so no WordPress.com news this episode.
7. WP Spam Blocker seems useful, using AJAX and time hashes to prove your commenters are human without using CAPTCHAs, but the blatant linkage gives me pause.
8. WordPress Tweaks rolls lots of little, useful tweaks into one plugin.
9. This episodes feedback poll: “Should the podcast limit itself to purely WordPress-related news?”
10. Simon Jones asks, “Are bots are taking down my blog?”
11. Glenn Pendleton asks, “Is Install4Free on the up and up?”
12. Jonathan responds to a trackback related to U.S. copyright law.