Blogs.mtroyal.ca has been updated to WordPressMU 2.8.5.2. This release consists primarily of security fixes and users will find very few differences from the previous release for day to day usage.

Downtime was minimal, and within the scheduled window of 22:30-23:00 on November 2. If anyone notices problems please let me know asap at jstade@mtroyal.ca.

Blogs.mtroyal.ca will be briefly unavailable at 22:30 November 2 for a software update.

A plugin has been added to allow more control over the privacy of your blog. Take a look in your blog control panel under Settings -> Privacy.

Added some anti-spam measures site-wide. This should curb the volume of spam comments seen by people who allow public comments on their blogs. In particular, it will make it more difficult for automated systems to spam comments.

Added MyStats plugin. You can view stats for your blog by clicking on the link in the lower left. This is not well-tested yet, so let me know if there are problems with it (jstade@mtroyal.ca).

Updated Smart Youtube plugin to the latest version.

A patch was made available for WordPressMU this morning due to a serious security bug in previous WordPress versions. Because of this release, http://blogs.mtroyal.ca was upgraded at 11 am as an emergency change. The YouTube plugin was also updated, and has some new functionality.

If there are any issues, please drop me an email or call 6474.

~Jonathan Stade

The upgrade to WPMU 2.7 has been completed. Everything looks good so far that I’ve seen, but please let me know if you find any problems.

~Jonathan Stade

WordPress MU version 2.7 was released today. I’ll be doing the upgrade in the morning on Friday, Feb 6. You will notice a significant change in the back end interface, which was redesigned to be more user-friendly in version 2.7.

I don’t expect more than a few minutes downtime, but this is the first time doing a WPMU upgrade, so it may be a bit longer. In the case of major problems, if the upgrade isn’t complete by 11:30 am, I will revert and restore from backups.

~Jonathan Stade

Sign-ups for this pilot project are now open. Please read the information about the project in the post below, then click Getting Started at the top of the page to get your own blog!

This is a pilot project of WordPressMU for Mount Royal College. WordPress MU is a multi-user blogging platform. Questions to be examined in this pilot include:

• There have been quite a number of requests for blogging capabilities for various purposes. Is WPMU a good choice for some or all of these purposes?
• What plugins and functionality are desired from a College blogging platform?
• How much support will be required to provide this service?
• How difficult is the learning curve for new bloggers on WPMU?

WordPress MU supports most features of WordPress, which is one of the most popular blogging applications around. Many features are supplied by plugins. To start with, very few plugins have been installed; if you identify plugins that would be useful, please send a note to wwwmgr@mtroyal.ca with your suggestions. Not all plugins can be used in MU, but most can.

This pilot will be run until mid-April 2009 at which point all users will be expected to provide input. AFter receiving input, the project will be either re-tooled for long-term deployment or scrapped if the product is unsuitable. If WPMU is selected for long-term use, we hope to be able to migrate content from the pilot to production, but we can’t guarantee it.

The pilot project owner is Jonathan Stade: please send feedback and questions for him to wwwmgr@mtroyal.ca

To get started, sign up and then check your email to start blogging! (note: registration is restricted to email addresses @mtroyal.ca)

~Jonathan Stade