If you're not reading this in an aggregator you have probably already noticed the new site layout! ;)

It is a work in progress. The navigation needs to be redone and many pages still have the old layout. But someone once said "release early, release often". And that site has definitely been lacking some new releases for some time...

Feel free to comment...

PS: the site now runs on b2evolution version 1.9

In case you're looking for a host (or a new host) for your b2evolution blog, we have worked something out with HostIcan which you may want to check out...

Hosting plans start at $6.95 / month and give you everything you need, including a free domain name as well as b2evolution automatic installation.

This also includes 800 GB / month bandwidth which is more than most of us could possibly use. (If you need more than that, you can get unmetered bandwidth for $10.95 / month)

Now, the best part: b2evolution users get a $10/$20 discount B) Just use the coupon codes below:

Hosting plan	Billing period	Discount	Discount code
Base-Host	24 months	$ 10	b2evo-base-24
Tera-Host	12 months or above	$ 20	b2evo-tera-12

The exciting release time has come again. "Phoenix" has moved to something more mature we now call the "Summer Beta" and it is available for download today:

Download here

As said, it is a Beta, which means there are still issues (like pesky bugs) but nothing critical though. It is strong enough to run this site as well as the developpers' sites... so there's a pretty good chance it's ready for you too! ;)

New features include:

• Validation of email address to activate user's account on registration (enabled by default) (blueyed)
• Users and anonymous visitors can opt-out to receive emails through message form (blueyed)
• Extended plugin architecture: (blueyed)
  • Event-driven instantiation of Plugins
  • Interface for Settings and UserSettings
  • Easy setup for a database schema a plugin wants
• Antispam:
  • Basic guestbook spambot defeating techniques -- basic spambots account for over 90% of the comment spam!! (fplanque)
  • Comment moderation (enabled for each blog by default) (fplanque)
  • Broadened keyword matching (fplanque)
  • Publish/Delete comments based on spam karma threshold, reported by plugins (blueyed)
  • "Basic Antispam Plugin":
    • Double-checking referers moved there (blueyed)
    • Option to check content in trackbacks about link to your blog; enabled by default (blueyed)
    • rel="nofollow" is now optional
    • Option to disable feedback from anonymous visitors (blueyed)
  • DNS Blacklist antispam plugin (blueyed)
  • Blocking requests where the referer has been detected as spam is now optional. Also it does not block requests to the backoffice any longer. (blueyed)
• Usability:
  • "Exit to blogs..." link respects selected blog (blueyed)
  • Preview for comments in frontoffice (blueyed)
• ItemList2 class which will replace ItemList. Better performance, security, stability and new features:
  • Filtering of posts on assignees with assgn=1 or assgn=1,2 or assgn=-1,2 or assgn=-
  • Filtering of posts on extra statuses with status=1 or status=1,2 or status=-1,2 or status=-
• Scheduled tasks (cron) framework (fplanque)
  • Automatic retrieval of antispam blacklist (fplanque)
• db_delta() functionality that allows easier upgrading (blueyed)
• MySQL 5 strict mode compatibility (blueyed)
• Fixed/Rewritten Auto-P plugin (blueyed)
• ETag-header- and GZip-compression-support moved into transport optimizer plugin (blueyed)
• Removed no longer supported Geeklog and Miniblog upgraders. (It is still possible to upgrade from those by upgrading to b2evo 0.9 and then to b2evo 1.x
• Added /conf/_basic_config.php which holds just the basic settings (as _config.php before, but without the including the other files). You should merge your settings from _config.php to _basic_config.php.
• Many many many bug fixes...

Enjoy! :)

After the W3C, we're also proud to mention that Novell is using b2evolution for their PR blogs. B)

I wish those other large entities using b2evo would step forward! ;)

So... this site is now running on b2evolution version 1.8 ...

... which will show us if this version is ready for production or not... :roll:

One thing's for sure though: it will trap all the spam! And all comments will be moderated from now on... :-/ Sorry about this, but once you let one comment spam through it gets indexed within the day and then attracts a bazillion other spammers.

Please report any issues not working on the upgraded site.

-François.

There we are. The latest and probably the last of the 0.9.x series is available now.

Download here.

If you are running version 0.9.1, here are the news:

• Bug fixes

• More spam detecting techiques

• More locales: Basque eu_ES, Icelandic is-IS, Polish pl-PL, Estonian ee-ET, Russian ru-RU

Plus, you'll probably never get a 0.9.x update again! From now on, all efforts will go onto the new 1.8 "Phoenix" release.

Note: You still want to run 0.9.2 on heavy loaded production servers because it's still more efficient than the feature packed Phoenix releases. If you have CPU to spare on your server though, then you may want to upgrade to Phoenix in a couple of weeks.

Update: Thanks to Vee, we now have a small download available which contains only the files which have significantly changed since verison 0.9.1 (comment changes have been left out).