WordPress.org blog has some reminders that all WordPress users should do before making the shift to the upcoming WordPress 2.3 release on Sep. 24 (That’s Sep 25 for all of us here in the Philippines). WP 2.3 has some major changes from the 2.2.2 version, thus it requires some special attention from all of us who are going to upgrade our installation as soon as the final download version of 2.3 comes out.

Here are the things that WP users need to do before making the upgrade on their blogs:

• as always, back up your blog. if you still don’t know how to do it, check out WP codex for a detailed instruction on how to back up your blog,
• do a plugin check. WP codex has a list of compatible plugins, and it seems that the Google Sitemap plugin has some issues with WP 2.3,
• tags and tag cloud support – this is the major feature that will be introduced in WP 2.3. The new version now supports tag and tag cloud creation without the use of a separate plugin, prepare your theme to add tag support now

If you are still not confident following those reminders and want to make sure that there would be no glitch when you upgrade to WordPress 2.3, I suggest you install the current version of WordPress into a new subdirectory in your domain, copy your plugins and themes then on the 24th, try upgrading this version first and observe if there would be some glitches. It entails added work but is definitely a good procedure to follow.
Looks like WordPress 2.3 would entail some added effort on blogger’s part. So better prepare your blog as early as now.

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