From the WordCamp Victoria website:

WordCamps are informal, community-organized events.  Everyone from casual users to core developers participate,share ideas, and get to know each other. WordCamps are open to WordPress.com and WordPress.org users alike. WordCamp Victoria offers you the chance to hear exciting speakers discuss topics that are of interest to anyone using WordPress. WordCamp is being held at the Victoria Campus of University Canada West on Saturday May 15th, 2010.

There are workshops, presentations, and discussion groups on every WordPress-related topic imaginable for beginner, intermediate, and expert.

Saturday May 15, 2010
Register: 8:30 am
Event: 9 am – 5 pm
University Canada West
950 Kings Road
Victoria, BC

Hope to see you there!

From the official WordPress Blog:

As you know over the past couple of months we have been working on the new features for WordPress 2.9. We have also been working on trying to make WordPress as secure as possible and during this process we have identified a number of security hardening changes that we thought were worth back-porting to the 2.8 branch so as to get these improvements out there and make all your sites as secure as possible.

The headline changes in this release are:

• A fix for the Trackback Denial-of-Service attack that is currently being seen.
• Removal of areas within the code where php code in variables was evaluated.
• Switched the file upload functionality to be whitelisted for all users including Admins.
• Retiring of the two importers of Tag data from old plugins.

We recommend that you upgrade your site to this new version of WordPress to ensure that you have the best available security protection.

To upgrade, you can use the upgrade feature built into the WordPress admin panel, or contact us if you require further assistance.

This is very useful for those of you Windows users who want to run a WordPress site locally on your machine; whether for development purposes, or otherwise.

What is BuddyPress?

BuddyPress is essentially a suite of WordPress plugins and themes which extends the multi-user version of WordPress (known as WordPress MU) by bringing social networking features to a new or existing installation.

Each BuddyPress component adds a distinct new social networking related feature to WordPress MU, allowing users to socially interact on your site.

The BuddyPress plugins are bundled with a default theme to get you going out of the box, and BuddyPress plugins can be themed to match your own style, in just the same way as a WordPress blog.

Some of the specific features of BuddyPress include:

• Extended Profiles: Enhanced and customizable user profiles, allowing your website members to post detailed information about themselves
• Private Messaging: BuddyPress private messaging works like internal site email. Members can message people on their friends list as well as forward and reply to received messages.
• Friends: Members of a BuddyPress enabled site can be connected together by one member adding another as a “friend” and then the other member accepting the friend request.
• Activity Streams: Activity streams consolidate all activity across a BuddyPress site. All of your friends activity is also recorded so you can check what others are doing on the site.
• Forums: The forums component allows groups to create and manage their own discussion forum. Group members can post and reply to topics all from within the group’s page.

Version 1.1 of BuddyPress contains a bunch of core improvements along with new features. One of the key new features is better integration with the bbPress forum component, making it easier to set up discussion forums. Other new features include:

• One click internal bbPress forum integration allowing you to set up group forums in less than a minute.
• A global forum directory allowing you to easily browse public facing forum posts regardless of the group they are attached to.
• Completely re-written theme handling. One theme now controls all of your installation. No hidden HTML, everything is in the template ready for you to skin.
• Easily create themes that are upgraded automatically when BuddyPress is updated.
• Total site admin control of all content within an installation. Edit user’s profiles, update avatars, mark users as spammers, manage all groups, delete site activity entries.
• And more..

If you’re starting with a brand new installation, check out the new setting up a new installation help guide.

Setting up BuddyPress and WordPress MU is definitely for those more familiar with web servers, databases, and the like. If you would like to discuss WordPress MU and BuddyPress, contact us anytime.

Aesthetically, you will not notice any significant changes. Most of the fixes were done to fix security issues reduce memory issues and a few bugs with the editor and upload capabilities. Here is a complete list of fixes.

If you are a dazil customer, you can update WordPress by clicking the update link directly in the WordPress admin panel. If you require assistance or have questions about the upgrade please contact us and an expert will get back to you.

Happy posting!