The first hint that something new is afoot comes right after you run the update: instead of the usual “You’re running the latest version of WordPress” message, you’ll see a handy welcome screen that gives you an overview of all the new features in 3.3.

If you’ve been feeling ho-hum about the WordPress admin dashboard, get ready to celebrate. This update completely re-thinks the Dashboard UI, adding flyout menus, a persistent admin toolbar at the top of every screen, and help tabs everywhere you need them.

The post editing tools have been updated as well; one of the most significant is the media uploader, which now features a single icon instead of an icon for each content type. This makes perfect sense, and is a welcome change – though it may be jarring if you’re used to picking a content type before you upload! If you use Tumblr, you’ll be pleased to note that there’s now an easy way to import your Tumblog into WordPress. Hint: use a theme with Post Formats to make the transition as seamless as possible.

There have been some behind-the-scenes updates as well: permalink options have been updated, jQuery has been updated to 1.7.1, and there’s a new API for working with admin screens.

Have you updated yet? Get cracking! And let us know your thoughts on the new version in the comments.

Didn’t win this time? Be sure to Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to be the first to hear about future giveaways and contests!

WordPress Visual QuickStart Guide Second Edition

You love WordPress. You love free stuff.

This contest is for you.

Win a copy of our NEW book, the WordPress Visual QuickStart Guide, Second Edition. It’s the newest and best edition yet, chock full of step-by-step instructions and clear, useful screenshots to guide you through the process of doing pretty much everything you could possibly want to do with WordPress.*

Here’s how you enter:

There are THREE WAYS you can enter to win a copy of the new book.

1. Use the Tweet Button at the bottom of this list to tell Twitter that you want to win our book
2. Become our fan on Facebook and leave a comment on our wall telling us you want to win
3. Post a link to this contest on your blog, website or Facebook page and encourage your readers to enter

Tweet

As an added bonus: if you do ALL THREE of the things listed above and post a comment on this post telling us about it, we will enter your name THREE TIMES.

UPDATE: The contest runs from NOW until October 27. We will choose 10 winners. GOOD LUCK!

*This statement is almost certainly mostly somewhat untrue. But we do walk you through a LOT.

Getting the updated site ready for the 2nd Edition launch.

Done backing up yet? Good! Let’s get started.

The new Fullscreen Mode in the post editor provides a distraction-free writing space

Here’s some stuff you need to know about the newest version of WordPress:

• Minimum requirements have changed. You’ll need PHP 5.2.4 or greater and MySQL 5.0.15 or greater.
• IE 6 is no longer supported and IE 7 is being phased out.
• There’s a new default theme (Twenty Eleven).
• The Dashboard UI has been refreshed with a brand new look – it’s cleaner, easier on the eyes and sporting some slick typography updates.
• The ‘Press This’ bookmarklet has a new UI as well.
• When creating a post, you can now enter fullscreen mode, a gorgeously distraction-free space that lets you concentrate on writing.

There are a bunch of updates to the core files as well, making WordPress much lighter and faster-loading.

For a full breakdown of the new features, check out the Codex.

Different tracking programs register hits in different ways. For example, WordPress.com stats (like the ones I have on this very site) will very helpfully tell you that they don’t count your own visits to your site in your total daily views…but if you’re checking your site from a different browser (or a different device, like your iPad) then all those obsessive clicks to see if your comment count has updated will cause your view count to soar to the stratosphere.

Some stats programs can be configured to ignore all views from your IP address, which can take care of the multiple browsers/devices problem…but if you take a look at some of your site visitors you may notice things called bots or spiders. Those are search engines crawling your site, and they are extremely unlikely to comment to tell you how brilliant you are. Being largely composed of algorithms, bots and spiders just want to make sure your content is relevant.

But that’s their whole problem. The apostrophe, it wants too much. Not content to simply show ownership, the apostrophe creeps into words in which it simply does not belong. It’s the clingy ex hell-bent on showing that you cannot possibly live without it.

Take, for example, the classic its/it’s issue. Usage should be simple: use its when you’re talking about something belonging to it, and use it’s when you’re trying to say it is. But that pesky apostrophe can trip you up. Looking at its, you think that’s not right. If it were Bob’s, there would be an apostrophe before the s. I must mean to use it’s instead. And the apostrophe nods and insinuates itself between the t and the s, despite the fact that it has no business being there at all.

Keep your eye out for the apostrophe. It’s possessive.

In his 2009 article on optimizing permalinks, Dougal Campbell wrote about this issue, saying:

If there isn’t some way to narrow down the information in the URL and map it to a specific page or post, the system must perform a lot of database searches to find the correct entry.

His article went on to cite examples of permalink structures which required extra database searches…which included our standby of /%category%/%postname%/. Apparently, since %category% outputs a text field, it takes more time for WordPress to distinguish your post from a page – which requires WordPress to store extra information in its database to compensate.

Indeed, the Using Permalinks page in the WordPress Codex has been updated to include this information:

For performance reasons, it is not a good idea to start your permalink structure with the category, tag, author, or postname fields.

We’re using /%year%/%postname%/ as our default from here on out – how about you?