Two big announcements from WordPress today. Ryan unveiled the WordPress 2.7 Beta 1. Thats the good news, the bad news is that they are delaying the official release of WordPress 2.7 from November 10 to late November. ARRRGH! WordPress really should be more sensitive to the needs of MY students. I will have to readjust the lesson plans accordingly. The Blogging Basics students will still learn how to set up their blogs in week 2 and the lesson will be ready for them Saturday morning. Once the new upgrade is released, they will get a supplemental lesson about the upgrade changes. The Blogging for Fun, Fame and Fortune students syllabus will change. I am still working it out and will announce it later this week.
The other good news is that overall, I do feel pretty good about this upgrade. It automates a lot of things that have been intimidating to some bloggers. I think it will make blogging even more accessible to more people. I appreciate the high level of customization that the new upgrade provides and I think the workflow is more intuitive. You can see a screenshot of what the new post window can look like here.
I understand the reasons behind the delay on the release. I have been playing with the beta release a lot today and the browsers are not always playing nice. A lot of the delay is due to browser compatibility issues and the changes in the new Adobe Flash version 10. Basically that has meant that WordPress is having to make some sudden and serious tweaks to the flash image uploader in WP 2.7.
Good things come to those that wait, I hope 
In the meantime, if you want to try out the beta, it is available on the WordPress development blog. A release candidate, a not quite but almost ready for prime time version of WP 2.7, should be available on 11/10/08
Bean,
The links you provided here show the world wide excitement and anticipation. If I wanted to play with it would I have to set up a new blog?
Carol
Carol, you could install the beta version to your existing blog but generally that can be risky with a beta. I would recommend that you install a second test blog. Anita has a test blog that she uses to tweak changes to themes and to play with plug-ins. I set up one for 2.7 so Anita, Kat and I could get used to the new interface. That way you can play with some of the new features like selecting and installing plugins from the admin panel without worrying about messing up your current blog
Can it be set up on WordPress.com? I only have one mysql database.
Carol
No sorry. The update on wordpress.com won’t happen until the official release of WP 2.7.
I have been following the WP testers mail list and WP 2.7 beta on twitter today. It seems that glitches are only appearing on the admin panel and with a small number of plug-ins. Personally, I haven’t had any problems other with the media loader. You can see the front end at http://student5.lvsphp.com/ but the real changes are happening under the hood at the admin panel.
Hi Bean,
Is there a wish list somewhere for WordPress? I would love it if the capability existed to review and edit comments before you actually hit the “send” button. That capability exists with the “Blogger” software. I know that WordPress is a better piece of software, but comments can’t be reviewed and edited, so unless you catch everything while proofreading, off it goes into cyberspace, typos and all.
Elaina
I too, being a great tweaker, would love to be able to amend comments before putting them online.
On a similar subject: I also over-tweak my posts, and it occurred to me that as the directories are pinged every time you save a revision, I was in danger of being banned by some directories for spamming them. I therefore installed a widget that prevents pinging repeatedly while you edit your post. Will retrieve name for anyone interested. The author does start bothering you with publicity in an annoying way although it is free, but it is worth it for me.
I am now afraid I might already have been banned by some directories, as although I have tried to post a finished piece each time, I always re-read it when it’s online and find a fault – then another – then another….
Some very interesting and insightful thoughts. I like this.