The team at WordPress starts you out with a new HTML 5 default theme called new Twenty Eleven. HTML 5 will help you run on mobile devices a lot easier. The updated editor nows allows you to chose the entire screen when in the edit mode, avoiding the clutter of the admin screen items.

The performance improvements are made possible by the new minimal requirement you run PHP 5.2.4 and MySQL 5.0. If your hosting company is running something less then you might want to contact them and see about bringing your hosting plan up to date.  If your host replies that they can’t update to these versions, it might be time to look for a host that is keeping up with technology, not to mention running a secure hosting platform.

With this new version folks using IE 6 or outdated web browsers will see a pop up function called Browse Happy. It will indicate your browser is out of date and recommend an upgrade path. In addition there is now the ability to have multiple rotating header images. All these fixes and improvements are an example of a healthy Open Source software community.

If you plan on upgrading your WordPress site be sure to back up your database and all your WordPress directories, subdirectories and related files. See the offical WordPress backup page at http://codex.wordpress.org/WordPress_Backups

Need some help upgrading and or backing up your WordPress site?

Contact Michael at (206) 217-0500 or use the contact form.