Here’s why:

Doggo demonstrates an alternative use of WordPress as a CMS using custom search functionality integrated with Google Maps to provide a unique and useful way to find somewhere to take your dog within Australia.

A big thank you to everyone who supports and uses Doggo!

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.

In the mean time here is a selection of some of the great new sites we’ve been helping out with:

• Daylight Design
• Omigoddess
• Viking Books
• Kosciuszko Alpine Way
• Tender Bytes
• Webby Clare
• Supersmile Superdontist!

• 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.

Some plugin developers haven’t had the chance to catch up just yet – for example we have found that both the Ad-minister and cformsII plugins have a few issues when creating widgets in 2.8.

So… to help everyone out that uses these plugins (ourselves included) we have thrown together a couple of very simple widgets  as temporary fixes until new versions of the plugins are released.

Please note: There is nothing fancy about these widgets, they are just temporary fixes and have no warranty or support what-so-ever and are only compatible with WordPress 2.8.x

Ad-minister Widget

This plugin adds an additional widget called “Ad-minister Widget” that lets you select (from a drop down list) the ad position that you would like to display.

As it is using the new API you can use as many of the widgets as you want. Please make sure you have ad-minister already installed and ads created before using the widget.

Works with Ad-minister 0.6

To install: unzip and copy the downloaded php file into your plugins directory and activate through the WordPress plugin interface.

Download here: [download id="1"]

cformsII Widget

This plugin adds an additional widget called “cforms2 (fs)” that lets you enter a title for the widget and the number/id of the form you would like to display.

Please make sure you have cforms installed and forms created before using the widget.

Works with cformsII 10.5.2.

To install: unzip and copy the downloaded php file into your plugins directory and activate through the WordPress plugin interface.

Download here: [download id="2"]

• 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.

Do you do any support for Internet Explorer 6?

When IE6 first came on the scene in in early 2001, websites were built with tables and I could bring toe-nail clippers on an airplane. Web Standards was still just a dream to many designers and Microsoft controlled much of the market share (close to 95%). Fortunately, that was almost ten years ago… and surprisingly the internet has changed. Sadly, IE6 delivers such a poor view of the internet that some foreign dictators have been known to offer prison time to anyone caught surfing with it. The latest statistics have shown that IE6 is loosely connected to permanent brain damage, global warming and the recent economic hardship that much of the global economy is experiencing. That’s why every one should upgrade to FF or IE7.

So in short. No I don’t. Sorry.

Hear, hear.

The new site features a blog, a number of RSS feeds, and YouTube video clips – which all reflect the new administration’s focus on communication, transparency and participation. The design looks great too – fresh, clean, and easy to navigate (with some nice design features, like gradient shading for backgrounds and borders). For the more geeky readers, kottke.org notes another ‘small and nerdy measure of the huge change in the executive branch of the US government’ are the changes to the whitehouse.gov robots.txt file (which tells search engines what to include and not include in their indexes).

The prompt and obvious re-design of the whitehouse.gov site is a good reminder of how important it is for your website to reflect your own values, culture and goals (not those of a competitor, previous owner or website designer). If your business or organisation has a change in leadership, direction or the products and services you offer, don’t let updating your website be something you get round to doing later, make it a key part of your communication strategy from day one.

While consumers may be purchasing less frequently than when the dollar was strong, e-commerce will remain important for many businesses, with Australian and New Zealand consumers showing the second highest rate of online sales conversions behind the US.

With more Australian consumers looking to local websites for their online shopping, should your business be thinking about offering your products online?