WordPress 3.0 named “Thelonious” has been released.

WordPress 3.0, the thirteenth major release of WordPress and the culmination of half a year of work by 218 contributors, is now available for download (or upgrade within your dashboard). Major new features in this release include a sexy new default theme called Twenty Ten. 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.

For a more comprehensive look at everything that has improved in 3.0 check out 3.0’s Codex page or the long list of issues in Trac.

Source: WordPress 3.0 “Thelonious”
Download: WordPress 3.0

Server Specifications
This site can be considered running on a dedicated server as it only host 30 other domains which belongs to friends and families of both Michael and I. This server is housed at M1 Connect (previously known as Qala). It has 1mbps guaranteed and 10mbps burstable bandwidth.

• Dell PowerEdge 860
• Single Dual-Core Intel Xeon 3050, 2.13GHz, 1066MHz front side bus, 2MB cache
• 2x 1GB ECC DDR2 667 SDRAM
• 1x 250GB & 1x 500GB 7.2K RPM SATA II Hard Drive
• CentOS Release 5

I also have a backup server provided by Vodien Internet Solutions which I will rysnc to manually every week.

• Dell PowerEdge 2950
• 2x Intel Quad Core Xeon E5420
• 16GB Ram
• 4x 300GB SAS RAID 10
• CentOS Release 5

If you are looking for web hosting, do check them out, their support response time is fantastic!

WordPress Theme
This theme is developed by me and hence it is not available to the public as I want to keep it unique. I am using Facybox to display single images in a modal window. Yes, I am using jQuery as well. For some of my feeds like my Twitter feed and WordPress Plugins feed are retrieved and parsed using SimplePie which is included in WordPress.

There is also a iPhone version which is optimized for iPhone viewing, just visit this site in iPhone and it will redirect you to the iPhone version.

Most if not all of the pages in this website is validated as XHTML 1.0 Strict.

WordPress Plugins
I am a WordPress plugins developer however not all the plugins I developed are used on this website as I think plugins like WP-Ban and WP-PostRatings are not necessary as I don’t wish to ban any people from my site or getting my post rated.

I modified only one plugin which is the Breadcrumb plugin by Dan Peverill to have my plugins’ breadcrumbs such as WP-Email and WP-UserOnline displayed using it.

There are also two plugins which I created personally for this website, lesterchan.net Plugin houses several of the functions used in this website and WP-GalleryViewer powers my Gallery. Both of them are not available to the public as it is highly customized to this website.

• Akismet
• Breadcrumb – Modified
• Digg Button
• Google XML Sitemaps
• lesterchan.net Plugin – Not Available
• WordPress.com Stats
• WP-CommentNavi
• WP-DBManager
• WP-DownloadManager
• WP-EMail
• WP-GalleryViewer 1.00 – Not Available
• WP-PageNavi
• WP-PluginsUsed
• WP-Polls
• WP-PostViews
• WP-Print
• WP-RelativeDate
• WP-ServerInfo
• WP-Stats
• WP-UserOnline

Full Details on my Plugins Used Page.

Tracking
I am using the following statistical tools to track and analyze my site traffic.

• Webalizer
• Google Analytics
• WordPress.com Stats
• Extreme Tracking (Depreciated)

URL Shortener
I am using lc.sg as my personal URL shortener and it is powered by YOURLS which is initially developed by me but now, it is developed mainly by Ozh himself. Ozh if you see this, thank you!

Others?
If I missed out anything and you wish to know more about it, do leave it in the comments and I will try my best to add it in.

Here is my June 2009 WordPress plugins update containing all my 16 WordPress plugins update. All of them should work on WordPress 2.8 as I did not test them on any WordPress version below that.

Now my plugins uses jQuery for AJAX instead of TW-Sack. I have also updated the widget code to make use of the new WordPress 2.8 new Widget class and that supports multi-instances widgets. The widget code has now been merge with the main plugin file so the standalone widget plugin file is no longer in use. Please delete the whole plugin folder and upload it again to avoid any error.

As WordPress 2.8 supports loading of JavaScript in the footer, all my plugins’ JavaScripts will be loaded in the footer. Be sure you have < ?php wp_footer(); ?> in your theme footer.php.

Be sure to read the readme.html and checkout the changelog for more information and most importantly NOTE THE TABS AT THE TOP

WP-Ban 1.50
» Readme/Changelog
» Download Mirror #1
» Support Forum

WP-CommentNavi 1.10
» Readme/Changelog
» Demo
» Download Mirror #1
» Support Forum

WP-DBManager 2.50
» Readme/Changelog
» Download Mirror #1
» Support Forum

WP-DownloadManager 1.50
» Readme/Changelog
» Demo
» Download Mirror #1
» Support Forum

WP-EMail 2.50
» Readme/Changelog
» Demo
» Download Mirror #1
» Support Forum

WP-PageNavi 2.50
» Readme/Changelog
» Demo
» Download Mirror #1
» Support Forum

WP-PluginsUsed 1.50
» Readme/Changelog
» Demo
» Download Mirror #1
» Support Forum

WP-Polls 2.50
» Readme/Changelog
» Demo
» Download Mirror #1
» Support Forum

WP-PostRatings 1.50
» Readme/Changelog
» Demo
» Download Mirror #1
» Support Forum

WP-PostViews 1.50
» Readme/Changelog
» Demo
» Download Mirror #1
» Support Forum

WP-Print 2.50
» Readme/Changelog
» Demo
» Download Mirror #1
» Support Forum

WP-RelativeDate 1.50
» Readme/Changelog
» Demo
» Download Mirror #1
» Support Forum

WP-ServerInfo 1.50
» Readme/Changelog
» Download Mirror #1
» Support Forum

WP-Stats 2.50
» Readme/Changelog
» Demo
» Download Mirror #1
» Support Forum

WP-Sticky 1.50
» Readme/Changelog
» Demo
» Download Mirror #1
» Support Forum

WP-Useronline 2.50
» Readme/Changelog
» Demo
» Download Mirror #1
» Support Forum

If you like or love my plugins a lot, do consider making a donation to me. My Paypal email address is lesterchan AT gmail DOT com. Thank you =D

Placed an order for my copy of WordPress For Dummies 2nd Edition by Lisa from Amazon on 5th April 2009. Accordingly to Amazon, the estimated delivery date should be on the 12th May 2009, but I guess Amazon overestimated by a lot as I received it in my letterbox today on the 16th April 2009. It took less than 2 weeks to reach me! Nice job Amazon.

Price Breakdown
Book: USD$15.74
Shipping: USD$9.98
Total: USD$25.72
Total: SGD$38.58 (USD$25.72 x 1.50)

Some Pictures

Amazon Box

WordPress For Dummies 2nd Edition

My Plugin WP-Print Mentioned

THANK YOU Lisa for including my WP-Print plugin!

BlogOut 2009 will be held on the 6th & 7th March 2009 from 10.30am to 5.30pm. It will be held at 8Q, Singapore Art Museum, 8 Queen Street, Singapore 188535. There will be 2 tracks namely the Corporate Track (6th & 7th March 2009) and the Open Track (7th March 2009). The Corporate Track cost SGD$90 per person (promotion till 28th February 2009), usual price is SGD$120. The Open Track is free and open to public but registration is required.

Organized by The Digital Movement (TDM), Blogout! ’09 aims to help make sense of the social media landscape in Singapore. It is an event to celebrate bloggers’ independent voices, emergent forms of social, web technology, to create change for their organizations, communities and society.

There’s something for everyone at Blogout! this year. If you are an executive or business owner who wants to see how social media can work for your organization, you definitely do not want to miss Day 1 (Corporate Track) where we feature some of the best speakers and practitioners in the social media scene. Here’s a sneak peak of our programme:

• See what other corporations around the world have done right and wrong
• Enough of the buzz. Get the real deal of what social media strategy will work for your company
• Maximize the effects and potentials of your social media strategy
• and more! See below for detailed program

For Day 2 (Open Track), we welcome everyone (bloggers and non-bloggers alike) to join us for a fun-filled day of learning and sharing. Topic includes “Fire your boss! Ways you can turn your blog into a business in 2009″, “WordPress as a Blogging Tool” and more!

I will be speaking at the Open Track and my topic is “WordPress as a Blogging Tool”. Hopefully, I will not speak too fast and goes out of point. lol

Register: BlogOut 2009
Official Site: BlogOut 2009