A new version of WordPress is frequently released to plug holes and to fix bugs. Due to security considerations most web applications cannot update themselves as easily as desktop applications can. I was afraid this means I have to go download each new version and move all custom files such as themes, plugins and configuration options.
Fortunately there is an easier solution! If you are having command line access to your web server and a Subversion client installed you can just checkout the latest version of WordPress from the Automattic repository in seconds. Subversion knowledge helps but is not necessarily required. Detailed instructions can be found in the Wordpress Documentation.
The leap to a new updated WordPress is shorter now and I don’t mind if new versions are released weekly!



OpenID Commenting Now Enabled
As anticipated by TechCrunch DE for a long time already, OpenID is welcoming funkfeuer.net to the club besides other important industry players such as Microsoft, Google, Yahoo, IBM and Verisign. This blog will of course not be providing OpenIDs, but from now on you can authenticate yourself at funkfeuer.net (and about 10,000 other websites) with your OpenID when writing comments.
To get OpenID authentication running I just had to download and activate a Wordpress plugin. There have been some hiccups but after disabling the Live Commenting feature of the K2 theme everything is working now. Thanks WordPress!