WordPress.org just released the latest version of their popular blogging platform, WordPress. The new 2.8 version has quite a lot of new features compared to the previous 2.7.1 version.

WP 2.8 is a major update. It’s much faster than any of the previous versions because of a new way of scripting and lots of tweaks to the styling. One major update is the way themes can now be installed. Remember when WordPress 2.7 brought installation of plugins from within the admin menu? We can now install themes in pretty much the same way. Just browse or search for the theme, and hit install.

Here are a few highlights of the changes in the new version:

• New drag-and-drop widgets admin interface and new widgets API
• Syntax highlighting and function lookup built into plugin and theme editors
• Browse the theme directory and install themes from the admin
• Allow the dashboard widgets to be arranged in up to four columns
• Allow configuring the number of items to show on management pages with an option in Screen Options
• Support timezones and automatic daylight savings time adjustment
• Support IIS 7.0 URL Rewrite Module
• Faster loading of admin pages via script compression and concatenation

The full list can be viewed here. Download WordPress 2.8 here, or you can just upgrade from within the Admin menu by going to Tools->Upgrade.

Google just launched a stand-alone Java app for mobile phones that now enables you to quickly use Orkut on your Internet-enabled mobile phones.

Some of the features of the mobile app are:

• Upload photos to orkut on-the-go, directly from your phone.
• View scraps, friends’ updates, and photo albums while you’re offline.
• Share your orkut albums with all of your friends whether they use orkut or not (via SMS).
• Easily call or SMS your orkut friends and address book contacts from within the app.
• Get automatic updates when your friends change their contact information or orkut profiles.

Below are some of the screenshots of the app from the Official Orkut Blog. The app should work for almost all the new phones out there with support for Java ME (J2ME), MIDP 2.0. Hope we can see an iPhone version come out soon. =)

To install the Orkut mobile app (available in English and Portuguese), head over to m.google.com/orkut on your phone browser.

Microprocessor manufacturer AMD celebrates their 40th anniversary today and as part of the celebrations, they’re holding a couple of contests.

May 1, 2009, marks AMD’s 40th anniversary. Formed by Jerry Sanders and seven co-founders in 1969, AMD is a company with a rich and colorful history. In the past 40 years, AMD has transformed from a second-source supplier that worked within the confines of other companies’ designs, to an innovator that has helped drive the market forward and kept competition alive and thriving in one of the most important technology sectors. AMD takes great pride in our role of igniting next-generation technology solutions, as well as our ability to see where customer and end-user needs are headed next and then collaborate with the industry accordingly.

The two contests being held are the Video Contest and the Photo Contest.

The Video Contest is for the AMD community and you need to create a video up to 60 seconds in length, wishing AMD a Happy 40th Anniversary. The video needs to be uploaded to YouTube and the link emailed to them. Three lucky  ‘grand prize’ winners will receive the ATI Radeon HD 4890 graphics card, and 40 ‘first place’ winners will receive the ATI Radeon 4650 graphics card.

The second part of the contest, the Photo Contest, participants need to send their most creative expression of love of AMD. Five “grand prize” photo submissions will each get a new AMD Phenom™ II X4 Black Edition processor and an ASUS M4A78T-E motherboard. Eight “first place” photo submissions will each receive a new AMD Athlon 7850 processor and a Gigabyte GA-MA780G-UD3H motherboard.

How to Enter:
To enter, email your photo to us at amdcontests@bitepr.com. Be sure to check the contest rules found here for eligibility and more information about your photo submission and the judging criteria. Be sure to submit your entries by 5pm PDT on Friday, June 19, 2009.

Eligibility:
Sadly, the contest is open to United States residents only, 18 years and older.

I’d like to personally wish AMD a very happy 40th anniversary. May they come out with more amazing products like the ATI Radeon 4770, and the Opteron processors that we fanbois so loved years back.

P.S. – this article was written on an AMD powered machine.

The good people over at WordPress released WordPress 2.6.2 today. And unlike the previous 2.6.1 release, this release is a mandatory release, to fix a loophole which occurs if your blog has registrations open.

From the horse’s mouth:

If you allow open registration on your blog, you should definitely upgrade. With open registration enabled, it is possible in WordPress versions 2.6.1 and earlier to craft a username such that it will allow resetting another user’s password to a randomly generated password. The randomly generated password is not disclosed to the attacker, so this problem by itself is annoying but not a security exploit. However, this attack coupled with a weakness in the random number seeding in mt_rand() could be used to predict the randomly generated password.

So if you want your blog to remain harmless, upgrade to 2.6.2 ASAP! Hey if you don’t know how to upgrade, don’t sweat! Here’s an easy and harmless way to upgrade your WordPress installation