Don’t worry, we certainly aren’t shutting up shop.

We’re just taking some time to review, recalibrate and build on all our achievements to date.

That said, if you’ve got a new project you’d really really like to discuss and think we’d be mad to not help out with, drop us a line to our contact @ email address and we’ll see where we can help.

Held at Bond Uni, the event will be over 2 days and host 2 streams of speakers from around the world and Australia as well as a happiness bar to offer help with any of for all you WordPress.

Clare (@webbyclare) and I (@findingsimple) will be wandering around for both days so feel free to grab us and say Hi!

And here it is…

As always Matt highlights some key statistics, just to highlight a few:

• WordPress 3.2 had 500,000 downloads in the first two days, representing the fastest upgrade velocity ever.
• WordPress now has 15,000 plugins and 200 million plugin downloads, and we’re doing a lot of work to make the plugin experience more seamless.
• 14.7 percent of the top million websites in the world use WordPress.
• 22 of every 100 active domains created in the U.S. are running WordPress.

A very big thanks to Matt and each and every person to Automattic and those within the WordPress Community who help each and every day to make WordPress such a awesome platform.

Just like WordPress, this group will always be FREE. It’s for anyone interested in WordPress in the Nations Capital – from users to developers, from new to experienced. It’s about all about getting together to discuss WordPress and having a bit of fun. We’ll aim to have topics and/or presentations for all levels so please join the conversation and let us know what WordPress topics you are most interested in.

There’s already a great bunch of people who have signed up so head on over to http://www.meetup.com/WordPress-Canberra/ now and join in the discussion. We’ll update the schedule as soon as we’ve sorted out a venue and of course the first round will be on us.

If you haven’t come across the service yet, here’s how the Automattic crew describe it:

VaultPress is a subscription-based protection, security and backup service for WordPress blogs and sites. It’s built on the same Automattic grid that reliably serves over 11 million WordPress.com blogs and 250 million monthly visitors. #via

Even in beta form the service is very slick: It’s easy to install, the interface fits right in with the WordPress dashboard (to be expected) and it just works. We can’t wait to start introducing it to clients once it’s out of beta.

They’ve also bundled in a new default theme – “Twenty Ten” – that provides a solid baseline if you’re looking to get into some child theme development.

Overall it is a wonderful achievement – a big thanks and congratulations to the team at Automattic and all the contributors around the world!

For a full list of the 3.0 highlights and features head on over to the Codex. And as always – remember to do a thorough backup of your database and files before hitting that update button.

• Global undo/”trash” feature;
• Built-in image editor;
• Batch plugin update and compatibility checking;
• Easier video embeds; and
• Lots of new hooks and filters for the techies out there.

Head on over to WordPress.org to download your copy now. And remember…do a backup before upgrading!

“WordPress has been awarded the Overall Best Open Source CMS Award in the 2009 Open Source CMS Awards. This is a landmark for us, as it is the first time we’ve won this award, and it marks a shift in the public perception of WordPress, from blog software to full-featured CMS. No small contest, the Open Source CMS Awards received over 12,000 nominations and more than 23,000 votes across five categories…

Every day thousands of new people are embracing WordPress to power not just their blogs but entire sites and communities without compromising on usability or scalability (as would be the case with a legacy CMS). Every member of the WordPress community, from core developer to beginning user, should be proud to be part of this momentum: congratulations to us all!”

It’s great to see WordPress and the awesome team at Automattic getting some well deserved recognition for providing such a brilliant product. If you haven’t tried WordPress yet – scoot on over to wordpress.com to get up and running with your own free hosted version in next to no time.

• 2.8 is way faster to use
• You can now browse the entire theme directory and install a theme with one click
• CodePress editor which gives syntax highlighting to the previously-plain editor
• Completely redesigned widgets interface
• New Screen Options on every page

Overall there are over 180 new features.