Category: Blog Response

WordPress MU 2.6.5 update finished successfully

Today, we have successfully updated our weblog infrastructure to WordPress MU 2.6.5. Within the next days, we have to to some more small adjustments which should not interfere with your work on this service. Unfortunately, we observed a performance problem with the new WordPress version on our infrastructure which slows down the response time of our service. We try to solve this issue as soon as possible.

What’s new in WPMU 2.6.5. ?

Quite a bit! I quote the feature list from the posting “WordPress 2.6” in the official blog of www.wordpress.org:

  • A new standard layout
  • Version numbers of WordPress standard edition and WordPress MU are now the same
  • Post Revisions: Wiki-like tracking of edits
  • Press This!: Post from wherever you are on the web
  • Blgging with your iPhone
  • Shift Gears: Turbo-speed your blogging–> See the link “Turbo” on the header of your dashboard
  • Theme Previews: See it before your audience does
  • Word count! Never guess how many words are in your post anymore.
  • Image captions, so you can add sweet captions like Political Ticker does under your images.
  • Bulk management of plugins.
  • A completely revamped image control to allow for easier inserting, floating, and resizing. It’s now fully integrated with the WYSIWYG.
  • Drag-and-drop reordering of Galleries.
  • Plugin update notification bubble.
  • Customizable default avatars.
  • You can now upload media when in full-screen mode.
  • Remote publishing via XML-RPC and APP is now secure (off) by default, but you can turn it on easily through the options screen.
  • Full SSL support in the core, and the ability to force SSL for security.
  • You can now have many thousands of pages or categories with no interface issues.
  • Ability to move your wp-config file and wp-content directories to a custom location, for “clean” SVN checkouts.
  • Select a range of checkboxes with “shift-click.”
  • You can toggle between the Flash uploader and the classic one.
  • A number of proactive security enhancements, including cookies and database interactions.
  • Stronger better faster versions of TinyMCE, jQuery, and jQuery UI.
  • Several bug fixes…

We are looking forward on your comments!

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Posted on by Thomas Piendl

Blog Service is fully operational

During last night and this morning we received several legitimate emails regarding the “true” operating status of our weblog service. Here a summary of the frequently asked questions and their answers:

  • Are really all data and changes between 19 December 2007 and 01 February 2008 definitely lost and could not be recovered?
    Up to our present knowledge, they are lost and not recoverable. We are really sorry about this.
  • Although rather unlikely, if there would be a chance in the near future to salvage some of the lost data, what would happen to our blogs?
    In this case, we would contact the blog owners individually and ask if and how they would like to get the data back into their blogs. Anyhow, this would be an individual action per blog and would not alter the weblog service as a whole.
  • Is it now safe to post new entries, comments, start new blogs, etc?
    Yes, the weblog service is again fully operational since midnight. The faulty backup procedure has been corrected and works fine.

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Posted on by Thomas Piendl

Podcast: Weblogs in Education

In the April edition of the E-Learning Podcast of the ETH Zürich, the ETH Weblog Service will be presented along with various other subjects.  It will be worth your time to listen (Sorry, only a German version is available at the moment).

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Posted on by Roland Dietlicher

Who is behind the ETH Weblog Service?

The ETH Weblog Service is a joint project of the ID-Basisdienste and the NET office. The main project members are:

  • Yves Serrano, ETH Theme, User Support, ID-Basisdienste.
  • Peter Bircher, System Engineering & Design, ID-Basisdienste.
  • Swen Vermeul, nethz Integration,  ID-Basisdienste.
  • Dr. Matteo Corti, LDAP Integration, ID-Basisdienste.
  • Pit Meurer, a wizard from the Blogosphere, NET freelancer.
  • Julia Kehl, Help pages, NET.
  • Dr. Thomas Piendl, co-project leader, NET.
  • Roland Dietlicher, co-project leader, ID-Basisdienste.

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Posted on by Roland Dietlicher

The ETH Weblog Service is now in operation!

Starting now, all members of the ETH Zurich can open a Weblog.

With these “public diaries”, researchers can give others a peek into their laboratory work. Field teams can release reports and photos for the people at home. Instructors can accompany their students on-line throughout the semester. E-learning becomes an attractive and simple tool.

The first steps to using a Weblog are simple. It takes only minutes to register and set up a Weblog. Try it out!

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Posted on by Roland Dietlicher