Summer is gone and Fall is here on the West Coast. Can you believe it? September has come and passed, and now we’re all one month closer to the new year — man times flies! We have yet another great roundup of all the best WordPress related posts in our September 2014 Edition of This Month In WordPress.

So without further ado… here ya go!

WordPress In September

Have You Met Benny?

Well, September certainly started out with a bang. With rumors of a new release of the beloved WordPress Core Software, many felt as though they had been waiting around for quite a while for the actual release. Thankfully, the rumors proved true and WordPress 4.0 came knockin’ at the beginning of the month.

The new release, nicknamed Benny, was less of an overhaul to the software, and more of a fine tuning to some user experience aspects of things. In 4.0, finding plugins from the WordPress directory is easier than ever before with the new browsing layout.

Personally, I had hoped to see the option to add borders to photos put back in the advanced options in the photo editor, but it seems that the feature is gone for good, at least for the time being — unless of course you wanted to use a plugin. (Does anyone else miss this feature, or just me?)

As far as releases go, this one was pretty underwhelming and yet, it was still a step in the right direction. The interface is a little easier to navigate which will be great for first time users of WordPress, and the ease that comes with embedding videos in WordPress is sure to make more than one person happy.

iThemes Security Breach: Knock-knock. Who’s There? A Hacker…

Bad news for all you iThemes users out there. Back on the 23rd, the iThemes team noticed “some suspicious activity” on their servers, and quickly realized that there had been a “significant attack” with regards to their membership database. From what they could gather, the attackers managed to get quite a bit of information: usernames, passwords, email addresses, IP addresses, etc.

Thankfully, no credit card information was stolen, so iThemes users can rest easy knowing that.

If you have an account with iThemes, then you should undoubtably make sure that you change your password, if you haven’t already done so. The team at iThemes has urged all users to create a unique password for their accounts. They also recommended that if your old password was used anywhere besides iThemes that you should be sure to change the passwords on those accounts as well.

This is likely to be a headache for some users, but it’s better to walk on the side of caution.

Have A Slice Of “Patsy”: BuddyPress 2.1 Release

On a much happier note, all BuddyPress users have reason to rejoice with the deceptively small update to the plugin. The 2.1 update — or, Pasty, as it has been named in order to honor a pizzeria in East Harlem, New York — now has a more user friendly approach to using @mentions. Before this current release, you had to know the exact username in order to have the @mention work properly. However, the “Patsy” update now makes such mentions more fluid and thus, easier for users the world over. Hooray to that!

The Daily Post: Blogging 101 and Writing 101 Back In Action

New to blogging? Then you’re sure to love The Daily Post — an extension site of WordPress.com that helps new bloggers take their blog and writing to the next level. At the beginning of September, The Daily Post opened its doors to two Blogging U courses that covered blogging and writing basics for new bloggers — all for free mind you.

Though the courses have neared their end, there is still plenty to benefit from on their site. If you’re looking for help with your blogging, this is a great free resource to really help you get things rolling.

 Other Great Articles From Around The Web

• WP Photographers | Any photographers out there that want to start a WordPress site for their business? Then you are sure to love the new site, WP Photographers. They have a rundown of how to get started with WordPress, as well as things like, picture optimization, and picking the right web host provider for your site. As mentioned before, it is a rather new site, but it’s sure to help quite a few photographers that are new to the WP platform.
• 3 Minutes to Get 120% More Emails on Your WordPress Site | Noah Kagan walks through how to set up various plugins and online services to help increase conversion for your email list. If you’ve been struggling to grow your email list, then be sure to read over his post.
• Stop WordPress Comment Spam With These Pro Tips | Just about everyone hates spam — myself included. Kevin Muldoon gives some great pointers on how to lessen the blow of spam bots attacking your WordPress site. He also lists some awesome spam blocking plugins that you can use in the backend to help keep spammers out.
• How to Install and Setup WP Rocket and MaxCDN in WordPress | MaxCDN is one of the top choices for many when it comes to picking a solid Content Delivery Network (CDN). Many WordPress users flock to them to help boost site speed and SEO for their WP blogs. However, actually getting things set up and running can be a bit tricky. Devesh over at WPKube gives a detailed tutorial on how to get things working. If you want to use MaxCDN, then this is a great walk through to speed up the installation of it on your WordPress powered blog.
• 7 Things You Need to Do Before Launching an Online Store | WooCommerce has become one of the leading E-Commerce plugins on the WordPress market. Whether you’re using this, or another WordPress product for you’re online store, this post is sure to be insightful. Tow Ewer touches on 7 points that should be considered in your store’s pre-launch.
• The Ultimate Guide To Pages, Posts, Categories, and Tags | Al Davis gives a breakdown of what the differences are between pages, posts, categories, and tags, and how to use them.
• A Guide To Becoming a Respectable WordPress Professional | Many have consider quitting their humdrum 9 to 5 job, and jumping into a career in web design with WordPress. If you’re considering something like this, then be sure to read this post by Freddy. He touches on multiples points that have helped him to become a WordPress professional, and his tips are ones that can help you get started in the right direction.
• Getting Started With Easy Digital Downloads | If you’d like to use the Easy Digital Downloads plugin, but you are having issues with getting things running, then this tutorial by Sam Berson is sure to help. Sam walks through how to install, set up, and configure the plugin on your WordPress site.

Highlights From The Elegant Themes Blog

• Creating A Killer Online Portfolio Website Using WordPress | Brenda briefly explains who needs to use a portfolio, and then highlights multiple WordPress plugins to help you build a stunning portfolio for your site. If you’re thinking of building an online portfolio, then you’ll want to check out this post.
• How To Enable, Disable And Manage Your Comments In WordPress | Ever run in to a conundrum regarding comments in WordPress? Many have, and many will continue to vacillate between turning on, and turning off comments on their blog. Jay touches on the “double edge sword” of comments in WordPress, and lists some actionable steps for managing the comments on your site.
• WordPress.org vs. WordPress.com: What Features Are You Missing? | Joyce takes an in-depth look at both the .com and .org platforms of WordPress to give readers a balanced view of what each has to offer. If you ever run in to someone who wants to know the difference between the two, then direct them to this post. They’ll be happy that you did.
• Web Design Trends To Look Out For In 2015 | If you’re a web designer, then this post is sure to strike a chord with you. Nathan expertly covers design trends that will likely gain popularity in the coming year. Be sure to read this over — his tips and opinions are very enlightening.
• A Look At Some Of The Best Rating & Review Plugins For WordPress | Ratings and reviews on a blog can increase both your overall Click Through Rates and interaction on a blog. This post covers the upsides to using ratings and reviews, and lists multiple plugins that you can use to integrate reviews on your blog. This also includes plugins that feature Rich Snippets — something that can appear in the search results of Google. (Yeah!)

Wrapping It Up

The WordPress community was certainly busy this month! But all that hard work has paid off in some pretty amazing new updates and great content that we’ve all been able to enjoy in September. Though October is sure sign that Summer is really gone, we all still have quite a bit to look forward to before saying goodbye to 2014.

And as always, we will have more great posts coming to the blog. Is there anything that you would like to see here on Elegant Themes? Be sure to leave a comment. Your ideas may just turn into a post on the blog!

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