Finally I took the time and courage to update my blog’s software. It is now running WordPress 2.6.3, the latest and greatest from the good people at WordPress.org. To upgrade the blog I first had to convert the database to a utf8_unicode_ci collation. It was already Unicode, but the collation wasn’t set right. That was frightening stuff by itself, since these kind of changes can convert all my Hebrew posts to common Gibberish. Naturally I tested this on my home copy of the blog and had everything backed up beforehand, but still…
The upgrade process went very smoothly and lasted for about 15 minutes (I doubt any of the 6 readers of this blog saw the “I’m upgrading” message I put on the front page). I chose the extended upgrade instructions which include the scary step of deleting almost everything from the server. But it’s the cleaner way to go. I was pleasantly surprised to learn the WordPress now supports “Unicode connections” (or whatever the formal name is) to the database so I don’t need to hack the wp-db.php file like I used to before following upgrades.
The reason for the upgrade is my upcoming trip. I would like to use the blog to post updates and pictures from the trip. I still need to choose a solution for posting pictures. There are many to choose from.
Hebrew is still aligned to the left. I’ll get to that soon. Now… let’s see if this post goes through :)