ulyssesonline.com

I finally upgraded to WordPress version 2.0.5. Wohoo! That’s ten days after the WordPress development team announced version 2.0.5 was available to the general public. Well, it’s about time. Yes, I took my grand old time to upgrade to version 2.0.5 even though the latest WordPress release involved a security patch. You could tell I wasn’t worried with my site being hacked. Personally, I don’t think there was such a danger. The real reason really was just laziness to perform a manual upgrade.

WordPress upgrade is a manual process of deleting older files from several directories such as: wp-admin, wp-includes and the root directory of your blog and then uploading the new WordPress files. WordPress recommends disabling the WordPress Plugins and then re-enabling them once the new files have been uploaded. I totally skipped this process this time around. That’s right, I’m such a rebel.

Finally, I was asked to run the upgrade.php script to update the WordPress database when needed. The entire upgrade process normally takes 15 minutes more or less to complete. No big deal. The problem is I have five WordPress instances scattered over several directories and other domains. This is the main reason why I postponed upgrading WordPress, because each upgrade was an long arduous process, about 15 minutes each. There has to be a better way.

My domains are hosted at Dreamhost. Dreamhost happens to have one-click software installs. WordPress just happens to be one of the available programs. So, I converted several of my WordPress blogs using Dreamhost’s one-click installs. I wanted to test how easy it is to upgrade for future WordPress releases. I had to wait for the next release of WordPress to confirm the upgrade process, then came the version 2.0.5 announcement ten days ago.

Dreamhost gave me an upgrade link on their web panel to click to start the upgrade process. A minute later, I received an email saying the upgrade was a success. Really? It was. It worked. When I logged in to the WordPress Admin, I was told to click on another link to run the upgrade.php script to complete the WordPress upgrade. Database was updated. So, it takes two clicks to upgrade WordPress. I love it.

Wait, there’s more. Dreamhost even keeps an older copy of your WordPress files by renaming the previous directory “directoryname.old.” So, you always have access to the previous files if you have issues with the current WordPress release. You can delete the old versions later at your convenience.

So, the only thing left to do now is to convert this blog, ulyssesonline.com to an one-click WordPress install. Once converted, all WordPress upgrades will be a pain-free 2-click process.