WordPress 2.0 is now officially released. WordPress 2.0 is also dubbed the “Duke” release in honor of jazz pianist and composer Duke Ellington.

Most of the changes in this release are “under the hood” so the average use will notice many changes. A lot of the engine running WordPress has changed mostly to make the life of plug-in developer much easier.

Some of the changes geared at users:

• Faster Administration
• WYSIWYG Editing
• Included Spam and Backup Plugins
• Resizable Editing
• Inline Uploading
• Faster Posting
• Streamlined Importing
• User Roles
• Header Customization

Some of the changes geared at developers:

• User Level Options
• Improved Abstraction
• Built-in Caching
• Plugin Hooks Galore
• Import Framework
• Theme Functions
• Theme preview images
• Hundreds and Hundreds of Bug Fixes

Check out Matt’s official announcement.

In a hurry download WordPress 2 right now.

Today I have a somewhat minimalistic edition of the Daily Friction. Just sit back and relax before New Year’s.
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Some leaked scans of Computer Games Magazine February 2006 Issue confirm the Draenei to be the new Alliance race in the Burning Crusade expansion pack to World of Warcraft.

This was pretty much bound to happen, no one believed the new alliance race coming out in the Burning Crusade, the new expansion pack for the very popular MMORPG World of Warcraft would stay secret all the way to launch.

Here is part of the article as viewed in the scans:

WHY?
*You’ve hit that wall known as Level 60, at least once if not multiple times, as WoW has been voted “Easiest MMO to Cap Out Ever”; Blizzard’s new level cap of 70 will at least give you something higher to shoot for.

*They’re not just upgrading spells and skills (like Conjure Water rank 32, or Kidney Shot rank 19); they’re adding brand-new ones, as well as additional tiers in the talent trees.

*The socketed item phenomenon that was sort of “coined” by Diablo will be implemented and Jewelcrafting added to the tradesperson skill set.

*Alliance players will enjoy playing as Draenei, and the new Blood Elf race gives the Horde faction its first exercise in what humans perceive as sex appeal (even though those Troll females are pretty cute).

*If you’re bored with the same old continents and dungeons — which you probably are — Burning Crusade adds the planet of Outland, formerly Draenor, around which Level 70 characters can fly on Nether Dragon mounts.

WHY NOT?
*You can’t fight on your Nether Dragon, nor use it outside of Outland, and it’s slower than the current flying contingent of Griffons and Bats.

*They’re not planning to add new classes at this juncture, nor will the “hero class” be ready to launch.

*Those of you who’ve spent the last several hundred game hours getting those epic armor sets and Arathi stuff might be disappointed that they won’t be the end-all and be-all anymore.

*And will the current zones all of a sudden become deserted when people flock to the new areas? (Have you been to the n00b zones in EverQuest in the past thousand years? The NPCs are there, but they’re awfully lonely.)

The Draenei were one of the races speculated to be the new race for a while now along with Furblogs, naga, etc.

So who are the Draenei?

The Draenei are one of the three primary races native to Draenor (along with Orcs and Ogres). They once populated the planet heavily, but were slaughtered by the Orcs shortly after their corruption by the Warlock Gul’dan. A small number of Draenei survived, using a recessive cloaking ability. Severely mutated in the destruction of Draenor, they were thought to be extinct, but Illidan and his forces discovered and liberated one of the last surviving Draenei villages among the wastes of what is now known as Outland.

The Draenei are known for being stealthy spies and assassins as their warriors can Shadowmeld at all times of day, even while moving.

Disclaimer: There is no confirmation from Blizzard Entertainment regarding this information.

Did you see the new MSN Beta homepage? Be careful, it might burn your eyes. This must be the ugliest, most badly designed Big Company Portal I have ever seen. It’s not only badly designed, it’s also horribly aligned; The headlines are not aligned, fonts are screwed up, some links do not seem to be in the right place.

Frankly this Beta site looks like nothing that suppose to be out there in the open.

The least they can do is recognize Firefox (or none IE browsers) and have a disclaimer saying it is not supported yet.

Microsoft is asking for feedback on this page. Go there and let them know what you think.

Not long ago I came across this post which basically claims that Sony’s PlayStation3 will go the way of Dreamcast. I must say that I strongly disagree. I took his (mostly unproven) points and wrote a rebuttal of sorts.

He says: The Xbox 360 is already out.

I answer: That could have a meaning when one console beats the other on a one to two month scale, Sony didn’t plan to launch it’s console this year to begin with. On the next holiday season guess what children will ask Santa for, you got it the brand new PS3.

He says: Blu-ray. The discs are darn expensive to manufacture.

I answer: They are expensive to manufacture now, the same as all new hardware technologies when they begin. Manufacturing CDs wasn’t cheap when they first came out.

Not only that, the Xbox 360 coming out with a standard “old” DVD drive has become a joke. As reported before, an unnamed Xbox360 game title is said to occupy full four 9Gb DVDs. I’m not even going to mention the minimalist 20Gb hard drive that can hardly hold a full HDTV movie.

He says: The controller. The 360 really hasn’t innovated in that region. The previews for the PS3 controller appear to taken a step backward in that area. A long, bent tube with a joystick or two on it will not be comfortable.

I answer: This is based on what? As far as I know many testers liked the new design, aside from the fact that you can always go back to the good old, “close to perfect” PS controllers.

He says: Nobody trusts Sony. After the Sony-BMG Rootkit scandal, nobody is going to trust them with their media, let alone their games. The level of trust in Sony has dropped significantly, and I think that will affect sales big time.

I answer: This is just a bump in the road. The truth is that most people (who understand the Rootkit issue) know the difference between Sony electronics and entertainment division and the media division (which BMG is part of). Followers of the industry know of the internal struggle between the hardware divisions who want to push new technologies and the media divisions who want to limit them.

He says: Reports are surfacing that the PS3 will be ten times slower than it claims.

I answer: Reports? Which reports? What sources? I never heard of a such reports, the current specs put Sony at #1 as far as performance. I’ll believe any such reports when proven benchmarks come out.

He says: Sony is losing even more money than Microsoft per console. Not only that, but Sony’s low-end model is the same price as Microsoft’s high-end model.

I answer: While this is probably true, the PS3 shelf life is going to be much longer than the Xbox 360. If only for the fact that the Xbox 360 is coming out with a DVD drive and a miniscule HD. The Xbox 360 is using current technologies while the PlayStation 3 is using standards that will remain current for the next few years. That means that for each console sold, more games will be bought in the coming years, and as we all know, games is where the real money lays.

He says: Developers are claiming that the PS3 is much, much harder to develop for, making performance a lesser priority.

I answer: That was true for previous Sony consoles as well. It never stopped any studio and will not start now. Besides from the fact that Sony inked agreements with almost (if not all) game studios developed for the older consoles.

He says: Sony is still hurting after multiple lawsuits over their sneaky behavior. Poor sales in America or Japan could be potentially disastrous for Sony as a company.

I answer: Hurting? Sony? What does it have to do with selling the PlayStation 3?

It is important to remember that Sony’s real challenge is winning the next disk media format battle. Blu-ray is a very large part of Sony’s future and you can bet they are not going to give up easily. The PS3 is just one of many fronts where Sony tries to push Blu-ray forward, and you can be sure they will have their entire horde behind it.

Most bloggers post comments on other people’s blogs (and other sites such as forums, article talkbacks, etc.). The question is, does those commenters follow up on their comment? Meaning do you go back to a comment you posted to see if it got any reaction or just leave it be and never look back?

Here’s the holiday edition of the Daily Friction. What different? Well, it’s an Extra-large version of it. The fun is spread across all sections today, be sure to check it all.
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On one side rumors are running wild that Microsoft is about o buy Opera. On the other side Opera denies a Microsoft buyout.

Seems like analysts are already jumping on the so called “news”.

Opera my have some good reasons to get bought, I’m not sure Microsoft have enough good reasons to want to buy Opera.

For the past 17 hours or so I’ve been getting duplicate entries of the Engadget RSS feed. This is really irritating. Jason, are you awake?

After a short break the Daily Friction is back. Check out the first update to OpenOffice, check your LCD screen with the Dead Pixel Locator. Secure your MySQL with Mysql Clustering and much, much more.
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