Plugin Central seems to be taking WordPress users one step closer to tossing out the ftp client for good. It works right out of the dashboard.

Note: it only works with WordPress 2.5.

Now if only there was only something like this for WordPress themes.

I’ve upgraded to WordPress 2.5 and am trying out various things to see what changes have been made.

One thing I like right away is that it provides the option to automatically upgrade a plugin (instead of having to download the plugin and ftp it to the right directory). It works pretty much immediately which is much more convenient. I’d like to see a similar process created for themes - so that I could try out new themes without having to manually upload/download files. I’m using a theme that was created for a previous version of WordPress - so I imagine it will be time to upgrade to a different theme. I’ll be looking at the possibilities and hopefully the right thing will pop up.

I’ll have to get used to the new interface. It’s more colorful and in some ways seems ‘busier’ in its appearance. I liked the old simple blue color scheme - something others occasionally complained about. My gut instinct is that the interface will go through more (substantial) changes and tweaks before it’s in the right place. Still, the interface is new to me and as I get acclimated to it better I may find reasons to like what has been put together.

That’s all I have for now in response to the new version of WordPress.  I may have additional comments later.

I was checking out a post at Tachyon City, a post with some great pictures of hand-carved pumpkins. I liked it and thought I’d leave a comment and then got the following message, a message I’ve never seen before as a response from a WordPress blog.

“Your comment was rejected as your browser’s user agent has changed since you viewed the post.”

Honestly, I have no idea what that means. Maybe a coder or techie out there could enlighten me.

WordPress.org, WordPress.com, Automattic

Now Automattic has purchased Gravatar …

I try to pay attention to Matt Mullenweg’s online projects, whatever they are - because he and the WordPress people have great ideas and a skilled community of people who are willing to make amazing things happen.

I think it will be very interesting to see future developments with Gravatar and how it’s features are integrated with WordPress (and other programs/platforms as well).