This is just a quick post to let everyone know that it looks like WordPress 2.6 is already available to people that choose to upgrade their WordPress installation via Fantastico.  

I’m not actually sure if availability varies by web host, so for the record I have only confirmed it with Hostgator, which is my web host of choice.

Here are a few WordPress-related links I’ve enjoyed over the past few weeks:

• How To Display Code in WordPress Posts - Leland of Theme Lab has posted some tips/plugins you can use to help you display code in your WordPress posts.
• 40+ WordPress Tricks and Hacks - Hongkiat has another good collection of WordPress hacks and other guides, including a few of ours.
• WordPress 2.6 Disabling XML-RPC By Default? - James Mowery of Performancing takes a look at the effects of WordPress 2.6 coming with XML-RPC disabled by default, which will hopefully reduce security risks.  Unfortunately, this will also pose a problem for people that write their posts in 3rd party blogging software such as Windows Live Writer and will have to be manually enabled.
• 20+ Must Have WordPress 2.5 Compatible Plugins - Mashable has posted over 20 WordPress plugins that are compatible with WordPress 2.5.

It seems like every day I’m discovering new WordPress plugins that I have a need or desire for.   Today was no exception!   If you are someone that has made a number of downloads available to the public on your WordPress blog (WordPress themes, WordPress plugins, eBooks, etc.), you will probably also find this plugin very useful.

The plugin I am referencing is the WordPress Download Manager plugin, which was designed to help you give you statistics and manage your downloads.  Once activated, this plugin gives you a download manager in your WordPress dashboard that supports the following extensions:  .zip, .pdf, .mp3, .rar.  You can upload multiple downloads, create download categories, and even make your own custom download URL’s.

This plugin also calculates your downloads for you and displays your download statistics on the front page of your dashboard.

For those of you that love upgrading your WordPress install, you’ll be happy to know that WordPress 2.6 is now available for download!   Here is a quick video provided by the WordPress team (3.5 minutes):

New features include:

• Google Gears integration
• Press This! bookmarklet
• Wiki-like Edit Tracking
• Theme Previews
• Plugin Bulk Management
• Post Word Count
• Plugin Update Notification Bubble
• 194 Bug Fixes, Security Updates, and more!

If your concerned about upgrading to the newest branch of WordPress, don’t be:

2.6 is pretty much identical to 2.5 from a plugin and theme compatibility point of view, so upgrades from 2.5 should be pretty painless. The 2.5 branch will no longer be maintain so everyone is encouraged to upgrade.

Now, I’m off to start upgrading my WordPress blogs!

Though WordPress has been around for quite awhile now, I would guess that a majority of WordPress users are fairly new to the platform (using it less than 2 years).   It wasn’t until about 2006 that WordPress really became widely recognized within the blogosphere.  If you are new to WordPress, have you ever found yourself wondering when or how WordPress got started? 

Yesterday our friend Keith, who is a writer for Weblog Tools Collection, recently wrote about the evolution of WordPress in his post B2/Cafelog to WordPress 1.0.   He chronicles the early years of WordPress (May 2003 through January 2004) and talks about the features that were introduced, many of which we now take for granted. 

I think posts like this are fun, but they also help us to appreciate things as they are now and to see how far both WordPress and blogging has come.   I switched my first blog to WordPress when WordPress 2.0 was originally released.  Within 2-3 days I was hooked and haven’t look back since!   Now I even use WordPress to develop most of my non-blogging websites as well. 

So, how about you?  What was the first version of WordPress you used?