If you haven’t already noticed, yesterday ClassiPress v2.9.3 was released which is a general bug and security patch. There are no new features as we are saving those all for 3.0 which is due out towards the end of January (assuming everything goes as planned).

I felt it was important to fix several bugs in the 2.9 branch before taking ClassiPress to 3.0. When I first started working on 2.9.3 is was supposed to have only been a small release — mainly adding support for new PayPal currencies, fixing a mail function bug, and improving the discovery of the ad thumbnail image path. Well, I ended up spending many long days cleaning up and stabilizing the product which was much needed.

So should I upgrade or not?

That’s the question most of you existing customers will ask. To contradict myself from the previous blog post, “ClassiPress v2.9.3 Coming Soon“, I recommend all ClassiPress customers upgrade to v2.9.3 because of the fixes and small security issue. If you’ve done lots of customization and don’t want to redo them all after the upgrade, I recommend manually making the upgrade by looking at the changelog.txt included with the update.

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I know most of you are patiently waiting for v3.0 but there are a couple of important fixes that need to be addressed with the current 2.9 version. They primarily affect new customers who are having trouble seeing their image thumbnails or current customers who use international characters and/or some currencies.

If your primary language is English, USD as your currency, and your thumbnail images are working fine, then you don’t need to bother with the upgrade unless you really want to.

When I started working on 2.9.3 last week, I wanted to make some other updates but I decided it was best to hold off. Once you add new code, it changes the position of all the text that needs to be translated which results in .po language files getting all messed up. I didn’t want to create more work for those who use ClassiPress in another language besides English and with 3.0 due out in January, it just wasn’t worth the hassle.

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If you haven’t heard the name Darren Rowse before then now is the time to listen. He’s a very popular blogger who makes 6-figures a year on his Problogger site and definitely knows his stuff. A while back he put together a month long series called “31 Days to Build a Better Blog” and it was such a hit, he decided to turn it into an e-book.

This downloadable e-book is designed to help you jump-start your blog by giving you 31 tasks that will turn your blog into the powerhouse you’ve always dreamed of. The great thing about Darren’s e-book is that you can do it at your own pace and in your own way. Set a goal of reading a chapter a day and take notes. I usually dog ear and highlight the important pieces and come back to them later.

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