I got the notice last night that WordPress 2.8.6 was released to fix a pair of security holes.  So I hopped right into the admin console from my Iphone and in 2 minutes, it was updated.  If you have a WordPress installation, I urge you to update right away as well.

This will almost certainly be the last release prior to the much anticipated release of 2.9 which is our next major (feature related) release.  Aaron Brazell had a great preview on his site yesterday, and since I’m not currently running the beta, I’ll leave the full on feature review to him.  Here are the major bits to expect:

• Enhanced image handling – scaling, cropping, and thumbnail sizing on a per picture basis.
• Trash Can – this really goes back to the old notion we saw in newspaper editorial systems, delete doesn’t really delete, it just hides.  This will come in handy.
• The_post_image – if you’ve ever tried to add an image to an excerpt of a post you will know why this is important.
• oEmbed – video support, which I’ve had for years using Vipers Video Tag Plugin.
• Custom Post Type – this is one of those CMS type functions.  It’ll make my life easier, although honestly in the past I’ve been able to make categories do my bidding with little trouble in WordPress CMS settings.
• Comment Meta – I have no idea what to think about this one.
• Metadata API – Another feature I’m sure I’ll use, but currently I can’t think of anything I’d use it for.  I guess this is like custom fields for everything, not just limited to posts.
• Theme System Modification – this will allow developers to work on one theme, while real users look at another.  This has been needed for some time.
• Rel=Canonical Optimization – seems like a little thing, but it will help a lot with SEO.

Check out the preview at Technosailor.com for the full scoop.