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WordPress 3.7 was released yesterday. You may not notice any visible changes after updating your site, but make no mistake… this release is a milestone in WordPress development.

WordPress 3.7, code-named “Basie,” in honor of jazz pianist and bandleader, “Count” Basie, was released on October 24th, just 12 weeks after the last major release, making it the quickest turnaround in WordPress history.

Unlike previous releases, there are almost no changes to the user interface or the default theme in 3.7, but there are a number of significant changes “under the hood” that pave the way for more rapid future development.

Background Updates

Without a doubt, the most important new feature in 3.7 is the implementation of automatic background updates. From now on, WordPress will automatically apply maintenance and security updates to your site in the background, without any user interaction whatsoever.

This announcement has been met with some skepticism, as web hosting providers and site owners alike are concerned about whether automatic updates could break compatibility with a particular site’s theme or much-needed plugin.

In response to this concern, WP Engine has just announced a new feature called Automated Update Protection, which instantly creates a snapshot of your site, applies the WordPress update, then runs a series of tests against the newly-updated site, ensuring that the site runs exactly the same as it did before the update.

If anything goes awry during the update process, they immediately revert your site to the previous working version, then assign a technician to take a look.

Our friends at Page.ly have been utilizing a similar process for some time, and it’s likely that other managed WordPress hosts will do the same.

Great care has been taken by the WordPress core development team to ensure that these maintenance updates can take place in the background without disruption, and the update process within WordPress itself includes dozens of new checks and safeguards.

It’s also important to note that automatic background updates only apply to minor maintenance and security releases (3.7.1, 3.7.2, etc.). You’ll still need to click the big, blue “Update Now” button to upgrade to major releases like WordPress 3.8.

More Secure Passwords

If you’re still using insecure passwords simply because they’re “easy to remember,” shame on you. Your password is your site’s first line of defense against being hacked. It’s always a good idea to create passwords that are complex, long, and unique.

To help you, WordPress 3.7 includes a new password meter that will recognize common mistakes that can result in weak passwords: dates, names, keyboard patterns (123456789), and even pop culture references.

Better Search Results

Search results are now ordered by relevance, instead of simply by date. For example, if your search term matches a post’s title, that result will be pushed to the top of the list of search results.

Better Language Support

Until now, it’s been incredibly difficult to localize WordPress into other languages. But WordPress 3.7 adds the ability to automatically find and install the correct language packs, as well as keep them up to date.

Other “Under the Hood” Changes

Perhaps more than any other release of WordPress, 3.7 includes dozens of new features and functions for developers, including fine-grained update controls for systems administrators, improvements to date queries, and multisite.

If you’re interested in reading more about these improvements, Brian Krogsgard has written about them in detail at his site, Post Status.

There were more than 200 contributors to WordPress 3.7, who were responsible for creating and testing these new features, plus squashing 437 “bugs” along the way.

So when you’re ready to update your site to WordPress 3.7, do so with the knowledge that a small army of the brightest developers from all around the world volunteered their time and burned the midnight oil for weeks on end so that you can hit that big blue button with confidence!

NOTE: The contest is over, and winners have been announced. Thanks to everyone who participated for helping us spread the word about WordPress and WP101!

Who doesn’t love an inspiring new geek tee?

We’re at WordCamp Austin this weekend, joining about 450 other WordPress users from every level of expertise, all of us here to learn more about WordPress.

If you’ve never attended a WordCamp, we highly recommend you find one near you (here’s a list) and connect with other WordPress users. You’ll make memories, have a blast, and learn how to use WordPress more effectively.

To commemorate this weekend of learning, we’re giving away three of our brand new WP101 t-shirts. [Read more…]

WordPress 3.4 is currently at the Release Candidate phase has just been released! This brief video provides a quick tour of the new features included in WordPress 3.4, including Live Preview, the new Theme Customizer, auto-embeds for Tweets, and more.

Which new feature are you the most excited about? Tell us in the comments below…

Why are we moving?

For some time now, we’ve been experiencing difficulties with our current host. In addition to several outages in recent months, they also recently discovered a security vulnerability in the Plesk software that powers their dedicated virtual servers. This vulnerability resulted in our site being hacked temporarily, even though we’re fanatics about security, always running the latest version of WordPress, and keeping our plugins up to date at all time.

Although we’ve been a customer for years, we received horrible support during this experience, as well as several unrelated incidents recently. This was the last straw for us, so we’ve been carefully comparing WordPress-specific hosts over the past month, and we’re finally ready to make a switch!

Why WP Engine?

There are a number of reasons why we’ve decided to partner with WP Engine for our hosting…

1. Speed. Since their servers are specifically configured for WordPress sites, they can offer speed that other hosting providers simply can’t provide. After migrating a couple of other sites to WP Engine, I’ve noticed a dramatic reduction in page load times. I can’t wait to see how WP101 functions on their servers!
2. Security monitoring. WP Engine automatically scans and repairs hacking attempts on their client’ sites. They employ a number of security measures to ensure your site doesn’t get hacked in the first place, and then they continually monitor your site for hacks. If it still gets hacked, they’ll fix it for free! Given our recent woes with regard to this, I’m happy to bring some help on board in this area!
3. Automatic backups. WP Engine provides drop-dead simple, one-click backup and restore options — at no extra charge. Peace of mind at no extra charge.
4. Automatic WordPress updates. WP Engine automatically installs WordPress security and maintenance upgrades, so we won’t have to worry about keeping your site up to date.
5. The people are the thing. Perhaps most important, the primary reason we’ve decided to go with WP Engine is because of our shared commitment to the WordPress community and a growing relationship with members of their team. In the end, the people make the difference, and I’ve been more than impressed with each interaction with their folks. Customer service and support like this is rare.

Constantly improving to serve our members better.

We’re committed to continually improving WP101, and this move will provide our members with a much faster experience. Faster page load times also translate to better SEO, improving our rankings in the search engines, and helping more folks to discover our tutorials.

What this means to you…

We’re planning to migrate the site tomorrow evening, beginning at 10 PM CST. At that time, we’ll disable registrations for new members, since there will be a brief window of time when the two servers won’t be in sync. Existing members will not be impacted, and can continue to access the videos throughout the entire transition.

This migration should be transparent to our members; at most, you’ll be prompted to log in once again on the new server.

Learn more about WP Engine

To learn more about WP Engine, and even conduct your own speed comparison to see how much faster your site will run on their WordPress-optimized servers, visit: WPEngine.com*

Check Out WP Engine →

*Yes, that’s an affiliate link, and it helps keep us rolling!