Scoop’s Views

WordPress 2.2.1, the latest version of one of the most popular blogging tools, has been released to the public.

The new release, which comes just over a month since the release of WordPress 2.2, brings mostly tweaks to the “2.2 series,” as Ryan Boren points out in the official announcement on the WordPress site.

Boren notes in the official announcement, WordPress 2.2.1 was supposed to be only a spit-shine to WordPress 2.2. Some of the fixes from the predecessor include:

• Atom feed validation fixes (#4274, #4307, #4381, #4382)
• XML-RPC fixes (#4314, #4329, #4315, #4469)
• Widget backward compatibility fixes (#4275)
• Widget layout fixes for IE7 (#4264, #4268)
• Page and Text Widget improvements (#4302, #4259)

If you’re interested in checking out the complete bugs-fixed list, visit WP 2.2.1 bugs-closed TRAC page.

Security issues addressed

It seems WordPress 2.2.1, despite being a buff-and-shine release, also is addressing a few security issues that make the upgrade to the latest version a mandatory, rather than optional, upgrade, at least for security’s sake.

According to Boren’s announcement, WordPress 2.2.1 addresses the vulnerabilities, listed below, but discussed in greater detail at the links provided.

• Remote shell injection in PHPMailer
• Remote SQL injection in XML-RPC
• Unescaped attribute in default theme

Crazy fast upgrades-made-easy

The easiest and fastest of all ways to handle this and any future upgrades is to use Alex Günsche’s Instant Upgrade for WordPress.

I opted to update my primary blog the old-fashioned way: via FTP after deleting specific files and folders. On several other blogs I own and/or manage, I used Instant Upgrade for WordPress. In all cases, Instant Upgrade for WordPress took less than 60 seconds to validate the current install, check all existing files, then download, install, and re-validate the site.

Can you guess how I will be handling all future upgrades? Just in case you haven’t figured it out: I will be using Instant Upgrade for WordPress.