At last, after my long wait for version 2.7, my blog is finally upgraded. I just did the upgrading this morning and man I’m glad there are no glitches. I suspended my upgrade for a year because I was getting really tired of all the hasty new versions that are being produced (its not easy to upgrade you know) especially with all the plugins that are not yet compatible with the current Wordpress version. But I may say that its all worth the wait. My dashboard is so cool that you can move the features like a widget. The links and menus are less exhausting with the execution of less number of clicks required to pull a feature out. And then of course one of my favorites, shrinking the sidebar from menu mode to icon mode hehe. Pra kang naglalaro.

But what is actually missing on my dashboard is the incoming technorati links. Actually wordpress decided to replace the technorati links with that of Google Blog Search. BUt if you happen to notice, there are more glitches in google blog search than technorati. Google blogsearch links even lists links that were already listed months ago. for example, if you are already linked on a blogroll and then the owner added a new link to his blogroll and publish it, you will automatically receive an alert in the dashboard from that blog. Thinking its a new link but actually its not. Thats why I prefer the Technorati links instead.

I search the net for two hours for its plugin and after exhausting myself, I finally found it. There are string function issues in it yet better than having none. I will just wait for someone to come up with another similar plugin. But as of now, I still prefer to use the glitched technorati plugin rather than having none at all

So maybe you were wondering how I was able to pull off the upgrade smoothly? Actually I was supposed to take the advice of Ambo on Mahalia’s blog about the usage of Automatic Wordpress Plugin because he assured me its Glitch free. Noon kasi there were so many rumors about the destruction which this plugin caused in the blogosphere pero I gave Ambo’s advice a second chance thinking that maybe the plugin has already been perfected. But lo and behold I stumbled upon this forum about people who used the plugin telling so many horror stories of how their blog just vanished, rendered blank etc. So I decided to upgrade my blog the way i used to upgrade it: Manual mode. But of course, it depends on every blog. But its not worth the risk.

I have my personal reasons why I use the manual mode instead of the automatic plugin.

1. In Automatic upgrade, the old folders and files are only replaced by new ones and wordpress always comes up with additional files. If files and folders will just be overwritten by the new ones, the old files which are already obsolete would stay on the directory. and sometimes these remnants causes fglitches because of incompatibility issues. So the solution is CLEAN UPGRADE which means that you have to delete the entire old files and upload the new ones so that every remnant files and folders are removed.

2. Using the Manual mode is a learning experience. You will appreciate your blog better because you yourself know the inner dynamics and mechanism of your blog. In contrast to automatic upgrade, when emergency happens, and mostly it reauires manual tweaking of the files and folders including the permissions, the automatic plugin will render you dependent on it. You own a blog yet you dont know how to fix it from the inside. In blog troubleshooting, there is no such thing as automatic. Everything is manual. And it would be handy if you know a little bit about the directory of your blog.

Actually if you are a newbie or if this is your first time to upgrade, i will definitely recommend you to use the manual mode so that you will learn better.

Some who will upgrade their blog for the first time are actually scared of the idea. But the truth is, it is not something to be scared of. Wordpress.org has already written tons of complete resources and steps in upgrading one’s blog to a new version. You only have to read and follow the instructions very carefully.

If this is your first time to upgrade, follow these steps by wordpress and you will never have any mistakes.