Once again its time for WordPress administrators to upgrade, this time to the latest 3.2 release. In this release WordPress finally drops support for IE6, given its 10 years, its about time. There’s also a new requirement on the back end to be running PHP 5.2.4 and MySQL 5.0, so just check what version your host runs before jumping into the upgrade.

According to WordPress, there’s more than 400 improvements. Check out the video below for an introduction to WordPress 3.2 Gershwin.

More info @ WordPress.org

“Squarespace V6 is a reinvention of many core Squarespace concepts that will become the foundation for our company over the years to come. It allows the extremely talented folks who work on Squarespace to create the sorts of sites they’ve always dreamed of creating on Squarespace. It incorporates a totally redesigned consumer editing experience, backend site manager, and template system.”

More @ Squarespace

In a post to Facebook, WordPress 3.1 details have been released, although it appears to be by accident. If you visit the associated page, it’s currently blank, which looks like its pulled. http://wordpress.org/news/2011/02/django/

WordPress only recently seen an update to version 3.0.5, however WordPress 3.1 is at RC4, so don’t be surprised if its officially released soon.

According to the details on the Facebook post, WordPress 3.1 will include:

• Significantly improved linking system, to allow for ‘lightening fast’ linking to previous posts
• Simplified writing interface which hides sections that aren’t frequently used, creating a simpler UI
• Admin bar reflects your most commonly visited controls
• Refreshed blue admin scheme available
• Developers can create new post formats, making it easy to create portable tumblogs..

Senior Associate Editor of Engadget, Paul Miller has just announced he is leaving. After writing for Engadget for over 5 years Paul has written a staggering 5,500 posts and more than 1.5 million words.

In a post on his personal blog, Paul sights AOL as the primary reason for leaving Engadget.

Image credit: Engadget

I’d love to be able to keep doing this forever, but unfortunately Engadget is owned by AOL, and AOL has proved an unwilling partner in this site’s evolution. It doesn’t take a veteran of the publishing world to realize that AOL has its heart in the wrong place with content. As detailed in the “AOL Way,” and borne out in personal experience, AOL sees content as a commodity it can sell ads against. That might make good business sense (though I doubt it), but it doesn’t promote good journalism or even good entertainment, and it doesn’t allow an ambitious team like the one I know and love at Engadget to thrive.

He signs off the post, Former Engadget Editor which actually really does feel like the end of an era. Although he hasn’t yet announced his next venture, Paul does say he continues to love technology. Something AOL is clearly missing is an understanding that blogs of today are not only a product of their content, but also the people who produce it. So could Paul be the first of many, now AOL employees, to leave ?

Read the full post at PaulMiller.com or follow Paul on twitter – @futurepaul

The WordPress application for WP7 just arrived in the Marketplace. Apparently WordPress thinks WP7 is so good it deserves its own website – http://windowsphone.wordpress.org/

The app works pretty much as you’d expect, providing support for both WordPress.com and self-hosted blogs. Features also include Add, edit, publish new Posts and Pages, as well as managing comments.

Update
I found a pretty serious issue with posts generated from the WP7 WordPress app. Posts created don’t structure the post URL correctly, resulting in ‘Page cannot be found’ message.

Check out my hands-on video with WordPress for WP7.

Major features include:

• Merging of WordPress and MU allowing multiple WP sites from one install
• New default theme called Twenty Ten
• Simplified, lighter UI
• Built-in URL shortener service
• Single-click batch upgrade for all plugins

Get it now from http://wordpress.org or find out more from the WordPress blog.

The theory here is that your location or the conditions in that locations may influence the way you write.

Today is a critical day in the progression and evolution of blogging, as the WordPress 3.2.1 iPhone app, ads geotag support.

Using the GPS in the iPhone, the application accesses your co-ordinates and attributes them to the post. Currently it only works with WordPress.com blogs, however the application description shows they are hard at work getting this working on self-hosted site.

It turns out this works out perfectly for my trip to the US in a weeks time. I’ll be posting content over at http://travelAU.wordpress.com

If you’ve ever wanted to operate and manage multiple blogs from a single WordPress install, there’s always been the option of running WordPress MU. Unfortunately by the time you realise you need it, you’re already many months into running your standard single instance blog.

Why would you need to run multiple blogs ? Well perhaps you run multiple sub-properties from the major overall hub. In some scenarios you may want these to be branded or themed differently. Imagine a company that produces mac and pc software for instance. Or perhaps your blog theme isn’t conducive to the photo gallery section of your site.

Good news.. As outlined in a new post from Mitchell McKenna, titled ‘What’s Coming in WordPress 3.0’ he explains that WordPress and WordPress MU are in fact merging. This means from a single install you can operate and manage multiple blogs from one central location. We can assume that the upgrade process allows for this to happen seamlessly.

Also included in the list of new features is the addition of better menus via custom Woo Themes Navigation included in the core release.

There’s also a brand new default theme, which frankly was over due for an update.

More information about all the new features @ MitchMcKenna.com

There’s lots of new goodness here, so I recommend any WordPress bloggers with iPhones go and get WordPress 2, then clumbsily go and delete WordPress 1.

Tourism Queensland have announced the winner of their ‘Best job in the world’ campaign. The lucky winner is Ben Southall from the UK, you can follow his updates and get all the info over at http://islandreefjob.com

Commiserations to my favourite Cali Lewis from http://geekbrief.tv – We’ll have to wait and see how Ben does, but Cali would have done a great job and also brought a big audience with her.