Also, everyone be aware of some security issues with older WordPress versions. I have even seen first hand an attacked site. The lesson here is to stay updated with the newest versions of any software you use.

I really like the new admin panel in WordPress 2.5.  Most used items are placed prominently, while little used links are placed out of the way.  WordPress 2.5 also runs considerable faster for me, which is always a plus.

Now, if only Eng would update his Akismet Spam script to WordPress 2.5, I would be in heaven.

I regard author comment highlighting as a major feature or lack thereof for any theme. It should be mandatory, as it makes it easy to scan and find the original author’s comments. It also keeps a rude commenter from posting under your name and having readers believe it is actually your comment. You could also use colored comment highlighting on a multi-author blog to note comments by writers from the site who didn’t actually write said post.

Anyways, on to the details.

Note that my theme (MNML), uses Sandbox as a backend. This makes fixing this issue really easy.

If your theme is not based on Sandbox, use Matt Cutts’ howto to add author highlighting.

If your theme is based on Sandbox, follow along a couple of easy steps.

Sandbox uses lots of semantic markup, to make it easier for theme designers to style using only a stylesheet. This makes it easy for us to identify comments by the post author.

Each comment includes several css classes, including bypostauthor if the comment author is also the author of the post.

So, go to your theme’s style.css file and add the following at the bottom:


.bypostauthor {
background-color: #COLORCODE !important;
}


Change the COLORCODE to a six digit html color code and you are set.

Currently, I am using this code to set my own comments to have a red background:


.bypostauthor {
background-color: #FF0000 !important;
}


If editing CSS makes you queasy (hey, I understand, I was once a newbie, but editing CSS files makes for easy learning), try one of these many plugins.

One of the neat features of MNML is that the homepage actually allows me to make new posts, much like the amazing Twitter-like Prologue theme from Automattic, the people behind WordPress. Btw, I love the Prologue theme, absolutely amazing, I wish I had a virtual team to use Prologue with, and someone already came up with a chat bot for Prologue. Amazing. You can add this functionality to your WordPress site as well, by simply following this tutorial.

The MNML theme also has built-in CSS support for asides, which means I can more easily post links to the site for readers.

MNML is also close to being a tumblelog, a short-form weblog that allows different kinds of posts. Think Tumblr, which I have been messing around with but don’t want to use in a production environment. I think tumblelogs will become the new form of blogging, allowing people to more easily make shorter posts on a different variety of subjects (like videos, photos, chats, quotes, etc.).

MNML is named for the look: extremely minimal. Just what you and I need, and nothing else. Search, RSS, Twitter (added by me), Pages, Popular Posts, Categories, and Archives. Also, the theme comes boxed with an archive and a links page template (already put to use in my archives page). I also like the minimal look of the header, or in this case, the footer. I had to customize the pages on the right in the footer, but that was cut and paste WordPress stuff.

All in all, I like this theme. We’ll see how long it lasts, and if Ian keeps the theme updated (especially when WordPress 2.5 comes out next month). I always hate to see developers not update their themes so they work in the latest version of WordPress. But that is a different rant for a different day.

If you have any thoughts, suggestions, or complaints, as always feel free to leave a comment or reach me through the contact form.

PS – I’ve tested the site in Firefox 2, IE7, and Safari (on Windoze). Let me know if anything looks funny in your browser.