On the Template Monster blog there's a recent post looking at some of the upcoming features in WordPress 3.0 that many WordPress site owners have eagerly been waiting for.

Alright bloggers, web surfers and simple web enthusiasts, we've got some fascinating news for you all. Yes, Internet community can't stop buzzing about the forthcoming release of the new version of #1 blogging software '" WordPress 3.0. [...] The official release is scheduled for May 2010 but now we have opportunity to mark the major advantages that this release will bring.

They list a few of the major enhancements that'll happen in the new release including:

• a built-in multi-user option
• custom post types
• a new default design/theme
• and changes related to security concerns

You can find out more about this upcoming release from this post to the man WordPress blog.

If you've been using your WordPress installation in a single-user fashion and have been looking to get more people in on the fun, you'll probably want to update to the WPMU edition of the popular blogging engine. It's not the easiest thing to accomplish, so the WordPress Arena site is here with a guide to walk you through each step of the way.

[WPMU] is most famously used for WordPress.com where it serves tens of millions of hits on millions of blogs each day. Many bloggers interested in using WordPress MU already have a WordPress blog. Unfortunately, I think it is not possible to turn WordPress installs into WordPress MU installs directly uploading new files and upgrading.

The post includes a 17-step process you'll need to follow to get your current WordPress installation migrated over intact (with a few sub-steps along the way). At the end, there's a brief tour of the new panels you'll have for things like the blogs, users, themes and administration.

WordPress users, listen up, Alison Gianotto has a few suggestions you should listen to (and maybe prepare for ahead of time) to do when your WordPress blog gets hacked.

It happens to most bloggers at some point your Wordpress blog gets pwned, and you're not sure where to even start. [...] This article will deal with how to restore your Wordpress install, and perhaps more importantly, where to look to try to determine the nature of the attack so that you can make sure it won't happen again.

She talks about what kind of impact a hack could entail - lost time spent restoring, site downtime, etc - and a few things you can do to help minimize these problems:

• Keep Wordpress and Plugins Up to Date
• Ask Your Web Host Where Your Log Files Live
• Backup, Backup and Backup again
• Early Detection Equals Better Reputation Damage Control

She also talks about what to do in the aftermath - finding out exactly what happened, disable all incoming traffic, check modifications dates and record the information. Only then should you restore from backups and keep an eye on the logs for anything suspicious.

As is mentioned in this new post by Paul Jones the Solar framework project has reached its "beta" status on December 18th, 2009 and has just hit another milestone - beta2.

Along with the release comes updates to the manual including a new blog tutorial that walks you through the creation of a simple blog that shows you how create the basic application structure, add actions/views for the CRUD (Create, Read, Update, Delete) of articles and work with local strings.

If you're looking for what changed in the two betas, check out the release notes for beta1 and beta2 (download link for the beta2 release).

If you'd like to keep up with a daily recap of some of the things going on around this year's ZendCon conference, Eli White, Editor-in-Chief of the Zend Developer Zone, will be posting videos all week long about the event.

He's added T-2 Days and T-1 Days so far and you can keep up with more of the video posts as they come out on this page of the Zend Developer Zone website.

On his blog Hari KT has posted a detailed tutorial for getting a blog up and running with the 1.9 release of the Zend framework:

I have been trying to work with zendframework 1.8 and now with 1.9. I have created a simple blog application. When I say a blog application , never expect it, something like wordpress. Its a simple application which can add posts, add comments.

He uses the command-line "zf" tool to do most of the initial heavy lifting - creating the project, setting up controllers and their actions - then follows it with more specific code, changing of a few config settings and setting up the models and views. The end result is a blog that allows users to log in and and comments and posts, depending on their access level.

php|tek 2009 is still going on but several people have already actively blogged about some of their experiences. Here's a few so far:

• Keith Casey on the Blue Parabola blog
• Eli White on the Zend Developer Zone, Day 2, Days #3 & #4
• Brandon Savage, Day #1, Day #2
• Rafael Dohms, Day #2, Day #3, Day #4, Summary
• Lorna Mitchell, Round-up
• Michelangelo van Dam
• Wez Furlong
• Cal Evans
• Keith Casey
• Stefan Koopmanschap
• Michelangelo van Dam
• Elizabeth Naramore
• Ibuildings techPortal (by Lorna Mitchell)
• Jason Sweat

Keep an eye here for more blog posts from these and other bloggers through out the week!

You're all thinking it - Cal Evans finally just put it into words with his list of "lists [he] never wants to see again" in the PHP world.

Lists are all the rave these days for bloggers. The reason is obvious, they require very little thought or research to create. So, in keeping with the current trend, here is my list of three lists never want to see again.

His list of three are posts that contain:

• 5,000 PHP classes and tutorials
• 50 new PHP tricks you didn't know, didn't want to know, and will get you fired if you ever use them on the job
• Top PHP Frameworks

Blog posts should be about real content, not just spitting back out something anyone could put together in ten minutes with a little copy and paste. As Cal puts it:

If you are using a new PHP class, CMS, framework, or have a new technique you want to share, share it. Write a blog post and tell me how or why it solved your problem; bonus points if you describe the problem that it solved. You are not adding to the conversation is you are just recapping what others have said.

Justin had written up a previous article with a few quick ways to secure your WordPress blog and he's come back with a few more helpful hints on how to keep you and your blog safe.

The following is a list of some additional changes that you can make to improve the security of your wordpress installation (Backup wp-config.php and your db tables before trying the following).

Here's his new list of recommendations:

• Change the default table prefix
• Install WP-Scanner
• Change permissions on the WordPress to only be writable by you and root

Justin has a few suggestions - six of them - to help you improve the security of your WordPress blog.

Here's the list:

• WP Security Scan
• Change all accounts that have known usernames (example: admin).
• Remove Wordpress Version
• adminSSL
• askApache Password protect
• Wordpress firewall

For each of the items that are plugins, links are provided for direct download and installation instructions.