salt and lemon, with a pinch of css

It was time to sit down and concentrate on the inevitable WordPress upgrade. I always have to dedicate a couple of hours to this task, to allow time for any fixes.

I was looking forward to the upgrade as I knew that there’s been a facelift to the 2.5 interface but my first problem was encountered when I was just about to hit the ‘upgrade wordpress’ link and read the message:

‘Database Upgrade Required
Your WordPress database is out-of-date, and must be upgraded before you can continue.’

Followed by the link ‘Update Wordpress’

My database is out of date? Does this mean I’m not running the required version of mySQL? This confusion meant that I couldn’t carry on with the upgrade straightaway. A message to my hosting provider and to the Wordpress forum and a couple of hours later I was up and running.

The problem was to do with the wording of the message. ‘Your database will be upgraded now…’ or ‘Your database is out of date but you nearly there, just follow the link ‘upgrade wordpress” would have been much clearer. Usability confusion.

Next time I upgrade I will know what it means!

Microsoft has announced its decision to ship IE8 in standards mode.

Aaron Gustafson created great controversy on his A List Apart article ‘Beyond the Doctype: web standards, forward compatibility, and IE8′, which led to hundreds of comments against the idea that a meta tag should be used to render IE8 in the new standards mode:

<meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=8" />

I think MS realised the huge implications for business the new change was going to make. For now we can relax and wait for the inevitable problems ahead that IE8 will bring.

It’s good to see the guys (Tommy Olsson and Paul O’Brien) at SitePoint launching a new CSS quick guide reference. This comes with a browser compatibility table and comments by users. Already becoming a popular resource. Well done guys!

I can’t do without coffee; I get my best ideas when I’m sipping a cup of good coffee. Fair trade coffee.

If you are still not convinced of either the quality or the ethics of fair trade products, you might want to think about it during Fair Trade Fortnight.

It was an real eye-opener to watch Black Gold, a film I highly recommend, which creates awareness where the coffee we consume in the west originates from, and the small but significant difference to coffee growers we can all make as individuals.

I’ve been busy updating my blog. I thought I’d go for the full screen width this time and make use of the space. I will be adding more widgets over the coming days and weeks.

Why salt and lemon? Well, several things really… salt and lemon as in ‘margarita’, and Margarita happens to be my second name (although I never use it… till now!). In Mexico, we like adding salt and lemon to our fruit, like jícama, mangoes, cucumber, pineapple, and papaya.

Actually, we add salt and lemon (and a sprinkling of chilli) to pretty much everything! Yum!