WordPress 2.8 is is the next major release of wordpress. The new feature that I am looking forward to, and playing around with now is the new way of installing and upgrading themes.

Please note that wordpress 2.8 is in the development stage and these features may or may not change when it’s released.

With wordpress 2.8, installing a new wordpress theme, and upgrading it, ( when the author updates the theme), is easy. It is done using the same method used for wordpress plugins. One condition : The theme should be hosted on the wordpress.org website, and for that, it should be GPL compatible.

Step 1. Browse and Find a Theme.

From “Appearance” tab, select ” Add New Themes” You will get a screen like this.

Step 2. Search

Search for your theme using keywords, or browse using tags. I searched for the theme “Hybrid”

Step 3. Preview

Preview the theme that you selected. Click on the link “preview” and you will get a preview generated from wordpress.org page.

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Malayalam Blogging

Welcome to the first guest post on this blog. This post was written by pR@tz , from “ A World of My Own” . He has a Malayalam blog too. pR@tz is a MS Scholar at IIT Madras. Welcome and thanks pR@tz !!

Update

If you want to use Google Chrome to type in Malayalam, to any website, here is an easy solution. It helps you install a bookmarklet, and start typing in Malayalam

How to read Malayalam on your computer

The Malayalam computing gained popularity with the evolution of UNICODE. Swathanthra Malayalam Computing is one of the independent organizations, actively working for the development of softwares and fonts for Malayalam computing. Before the UNICODE, it was the ASCII fonts, which were used to display Malayalam characters and is still (unfortunately) used by websites like Malayala Manorama, Kerala Kaumudi, Deshabhimani, and puzha.com.

The disadvantages of ASCII font

(1) You need to install separate fonts for different sites.

(2) Its not PURE Malayalam font, but like putting Malayalam mask over Latin characters.

(3) Searching, indexing and other Malayalam computing options are not possible with ASCII fonts.

Try copy pasting Malayalam text from the above mentioned ASCII sites and try the same from Mathrubhumi site (which is using UNICODE ) and you will understand the difference. Also try Googling with the text you copied from Mathrubhumi.

Now, let see how to make your computer Malayalam-literate,

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