Recently Automattic (WordPress.com Parent Company) added a new feature to WordPress.com called Post By Voice. Post by Voice is a way to publish audio posts to your blog from your phone.

In order to enable Post By Voice you (WordPress.com users)  will need to Visit your Dashboard then Go to My Blogs and then Locate the Blogs that you wish to post and then click Enable.

A secret code will be then generated for your blog. That code is unique to your blog and must be kept secret because if it is compromised by others then anybody can post in you blog.

All you need to do to post is call the number listed in the My Blogs, enter your secret code when prompted, and follow the instructions. After you’re done, the audio file from your phone call will be posted to your blog for all to listen to and enjoy.

Currently this feature is free and allows recording lengths up to sixty minutes but the recording length may go down in future.   Also it is worthwhile mentioning that while calling if there is 10 seconds of silence, the recording will end.

The Post By Voice feature is powered by the Twilio API. Normal calling rates will apply for the phone call.

It seems this feature is quite similar to the “Voice Post” feature that LiveJournal, one of WordPress.com’s competitor already offers from a long way before.

P.S: Once again I repeat, This feature works only for WordPress.com users and not self hosted WordPress.

Read more about Post By Voice here

As we all know and may also have tested out in the Beta versions, this new WordPress 3.0 has a new default theme called Twenty Ten which is a totally breathtaking theme. Theme developers have new APIs that allow them to easily implement custom backgrounds, headers, shortlinks, menus (no more file editing), post types, and taxonomies. (Twenty Ten theme shows all of that off.) Developers and network admins will appreciate the long-awaited merge of MU and WordPress, creating the new multi-site functionality which makes it possible to run one blog or ten million from the same installation. As a user, you will love the new lighter interface, the contextual help on every screen, the 1,217 bug fixes and feature enhancements, bulk updates so you can upgrade 15 plugins at once with a single click

You can also watch the following video to understand what new has come up in this version

You can download WordPress 3.0 from here or you can just update from your very own Dashboard

Read what the WordPress team has to say about this version in their blog :

“As Matt teased earlier, the first release candidate (RC1) for WordPress 3.0 is now available. What’s an RC? An RC comes after beta and before the final launch. It means we think we’ve got everything done: all features finished, all bugs squashed, and all potential issues addressed. But, then, with over 20 million people using WordPress with a wide variety of configurations and hosting setups, it’s entirely possible that we’ve missed something. So! For the brave of heart, please download the RC and test it out (but not on your live site unless you’re extra adventurous).”

The RC1 version has the following things sorted out:

• Custom menus are finished!
• Multi-site is all set.
• The look of the WordPress admin has been lightened up a little bit, so you can focus more on your content.
• There are a ton of changes, so plugin authors, please test your plugins now, so that if there is a compatibility issue, we can figure it out before the final release.
• Plugin and theme *users* are also encouraged to test things out. If you find problems, let your plugin/theme authors know so they can figure out the cause.
• There are a couple of known issues.

If you are testing the RC and come across a bug, you can:

• Report it on the wp-testers mailing list
• Join the dev chat and tell us live at irc.freenode.net #wordpress-dev
• File a bug ticket on the WordPress Trac

For those who do not know, we have already reviewed the WordPress version 3 Beta releases in our blog post here WordPress 3.0 Beta Demo and now we are waiting for the final release.

Download it and  Enjoy!

Download WordPress 3.0 RC1

The new Beta version comes with the following added features:

• Revised menu user interface
• Changes to the WordPress exporter and importer to make it more flexible

If you Already have a test install that you want to switch over to the beta then Try the beta tester plugin.

Testers, don’t forget to use the wp-testers mailing list to discuss bugs you encounter.

Even though many people were expecting the final version to be released this May, it turns out that we will have to wait a bit longer.

You could Download the WordPress 3.0 Beta 2 now and try to play around it in a demo server. (Please do not install it in a live website. Things are not ready yet. )

This is good news after an already good news. The first good news being the Google Update today.  As word goes this version of WordPress comes with a lot of new features including a new default theme TwentyTen. And as far as I know the WordPress team are also getting help from the Woothemes team for the Menu development (woo nav – navigation bar). For those who do not recognize Woo Themes, they are one of the best WordPress theme development and designing company.

In this beta release, You should consider that:

• The custom menus system (Appearance > Menus) is not quite finished. In Beta 2, the layout will be different and a bunch of the functionality will be improved, but we didn’t want to hold things up for this one screen. You can play with making custom menus, and report bugs if you find them, but this is not how the final screen will look/work, so don’t get attached to it.
• The merge! Yes, WordPress and WordPress MU have merged. This does not mean that you can suddenly start adding a bunch of new blogs from within your regular WordPress Dashboard. If you’re interested in testing the Super Admin stuff associated with multiple sites, you’ll need some simple directions to get started.
• We’re still fiddling with a few small things in the UI, as we were focused on getting the more function-oriented code finished first. For example, we’re getting a new icon for the Super Admin section.

You can download the beta WordPress 3.0 for testing purposes here. Please do  not use it for live sites since it is a beta version and only meant for testing

WORDPRESS 3.0 TESTED

After getting the news of the release of WordPress 3.0 I felt the need to test it. So I installed it in an unused hosting account of mine and used a free .tk domain “http://www.wordpress3.tk   . I upload the files and started installed it. Lets see what new features does the WordPress 3.0 release brings with it.

Installation

Now you do not need to install with the default “admin” username, you can change it to anything you want, any username you want and any password.

Default blog URL:

The default blog URL after installation is http://www.wordpress3.tk instead of http://wordpress3.tk

Default Theme:

The TwentyTen default theme looks extremely awesome.

Change in theme Admin Menu

There has been a design change in the tabs of the theme  admin menu

Navigation Menu

A new way to add menu to your navigation bar. This feature has enabled adding a page, a category or an external link into the same navigation bar. Simplified maintain navigation menu.

Custom Post Types

Even though I  have not tested this feature live in the blog since it requires some editing of the code. But never the less have heard a lot about this feature. This feature will come helpful for people who install and customize WordPress Clients. You wont need to learn  how to fiddle around with custom fields, or add stupid meta boxes in the Edit Posts page and then teach our clients and/or content managers to use them? Why not just get rid of all those stuff and have them seperately in your main menu, and the meta boxes are customized to match the exact needs of certain post types.

Instead now you can add posts in the form of a catalog, like an excel spreadsheet containing columns for adding information.

As source kovshenin.com writes about the Custom Posts Function in his blog Post:

Say you run an online store which of course has some static Pages (such as Contact, About, etc), some blog Posts, cause we’re so 2.0, remember? And Products, which would be a custom post type that contains the product name, description, product price, stock availability, and could even contain inquiries in forms of user comments!

One more example – a Real Estate Agency, same story – Pages, Blog Posts, News stories, property For Sale, property For Rent, Land for sale. The last three would contain extra taxonomy in forms of Country, Region. Custom fields such as price, total area, etc. The Edit Property page could even contain a Google Map where you could point out its location! Here’s a screenshot:

To read more about how to add custom post types read at Kovshenin.com

Source: Kovshenin.com

Multi User – WordPress and WordPress – MU Integretion.

Now this is the most awaited feature using this you can make a network of blog under the same domain.

For example through my single installation www.wordpress3.tk I can allow any other user to have a new blog at www.new.wordpress3.tk or at www.wordpress3.tk/new and I will not need to install WordPress again and again in the new sub folders. This allow us to make a blog network like Blogger.com or WordPress.com

By default this features is disabled, we can enable it by adding

 define ('WP_ALLOW_MULTISITE', true  ) ;

to the wp-config.php file

This will enable the Network menu item to appear in the Tools menu.

You need to do some bit of work before you will be able to provide blogs on your domain to users. To read more about how to install a network in WordPress 3 check this tutorial out.

Category to Tag and Tag to Category Conversion

Yes using this feature you can convert your blogs individual categories to tag and tags to categories

You can check out my installed demo at http://www.wordpress3.tk . I an even give you admin access if you want to play around a bit with the admin panel for testing purposes. Just contact me at androidwebsolutions@gmail.com.

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