WordPress 3.3 Is Out: Here’s What’s New

by Lisa on December 13, 2011

WordPress 3.3 was released yesterday, and I thought I’d take a minute to point out what’s new. There are some really great improvements and it’s already faster and easier to use. Here are the highlights:

Media File Type Detection

You used to have to tell WordPress what format you were uploading. Now instead of clicking on a specific upload icon to determine your file type, WordPress auto-detects it for you.

Drag-and-drop Media Uploader

I’m super excited about this feature, as it’s something I’ve wanted to see happen for a long time. Instead of navigating to a file on your computer, which often means wading through multiple sub-folders to get to the file you want, simply drag files from your desktop and drop them into the uploader. You can upload files one at a time, or a bunch at once. It’s already a huge timesaver for me.

Flyout Menus

I didn’t think this would be a big deal until I saw it in action. Instead of clicking on a section then clicking on the item in the expanded menu, just hover over the section title and the submenu expands automatically. This really saves you from lot of unnecessary clicks and makes everything faster.
WordPress flyout menu

Header + Admin Bar = Toolbar

This was done to save space and make things more efficient. Hover over a toolbar item and you’ll see submenus automatically. Again, less clicks + less page reloads = quicker and more efficient workflow.
WordPress menu dropdown

Feature Pointers

When you see a new feature for the first time, you’ll get a popup tooltip. You can dismiss it by clicking on the “dismiss” link.

WordPress feature pointer

Dashboard Welcome

There’s a new welcome area on the dashboard that appears when a new WordPress installation is used for the first time. It includes prompts to complete various setup tasks. Helpful for sure – then once you dismiss it you can always go view it again in the dashboard home screen options tab.

But Wait, There’s More!

There are also other nice improvements, such as improved co-editing, a Tumblr importer, flexible permalinks, simpler post slugs, widget improvements, jQuery improvements,and more.

So go to your site and update WordPress today to see all the new features.

Have fun!

P.S. – If you’re on a Sprout New Media Maintenance Plan, this is already being done for you, so you can expect to see the new features in the next day or so.

If you’re NOT on a maintenance plan, you might want to check it out before the price goes up next month.

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Thoughts On Taming the Email Monster

by Lisa on November 15, 2011

As I write this, my email is down.

I use Google to manage my mail (because they’re…um…dependable…usually…), and when I logged in this morning I got a message that there was some sort of error with my email storage (!), and that they’re fixing it – but that it could take up to 48 hours before I can access it again.

Yikes, really? 48 hours?

My first reaction was concern mixed in with a teeny bit of panic: “Holy crap, that’s a long time! “What if I lose all my emails?” What if people are trying to reach me and I can’t respond?”

Then a different type of fear crept in

What will those people think? Will they be upset? Think that I’m some schmuck who doesn’t answer email? Will they LEAVE?

Then Rational Lisa stepped up to set me straight

“Seriously? That’s ridiculous”. Get over yourself. There’s nothing in there that is so important that it can’t wait.”

And she’s right. Email being down is not the end of the world, in any circumstance. Really. If someone needs to reach me that quickly they’ll pick up the phone.

Which leads to the question: Should we really respond to every email, and when is it ok not to?

We check email way too much, and in a society demanding instant gratification, we’ve become ridiculously impatient. I’m as guilty as you are.

We sleep with our smartphones by the bed and check email before we get up in the morning. We have auto-responders telling people where we are every second of the work day. And we feel guilty when we can’t answer every message in our inbox in a timely fashion (or at all).

Ironically, I was just reading this article the other day, where Jocelyn K. Glei talks about email guilt, and what we can do about it.

Seth Godin nailed it when he said. “It’s asymmetrical, and productivity loses to politeness.”

The tool that was designed to improve communication and make us more productive actually kills our productivity. Plain and simple.

So I’m going to take advantage of my forced email sabbatical and get some work done.

Oh by the way, if your inbox is out of control, get a handle on it with Email Triage.

Thoughts? What-if’s? Yeah-buts? I’d love to hear them. Share in the comments.

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How to Use Akismet to Protect Your Contact Form

October 19, 2011

Spammers often use contact forms as a way to spam your email. It’s easy to prevent that using the Contact Form 7 and Akismet plugins – Contact Form 7 is a simple, free plugin for creating forms, and Akismet is already installed in WordPress by default Here’s how to use Akismet to protect your Contact [...]

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Three Easy Ways to Protect Your Blog from Spam

October 18, 2011

I love getting comments on my blog, but managing them can be a pain. A friend called me recently saying, “Lisa, help me! Help! My blog is full of spam!” Sure enough, she had about 2 dozen comments on one of her blog posts, and every single one of them was spam. She didn’t know [...]

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Are you a spectator or a participant?

October 12, 2011

Today I looked at the calendar and realized that we’re almost halfway through October, which means there are only two months left in the year. Um, hello! Where did all that time go? Unfortunately, time doesn’t stop and wait for us to catch up. (Believe me, there are days when I wish I had a [...]

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