One-click installation of WordPress 3.0.1 is now available for Websoftnet web hosting customers. To install, simply log into your eXtend control panel and scroll down to ‘CGI Scripts’ for a one-click install and set up of your WordPress blog.

Customers with Windows hosting still have WordPress 2.9.2 as their one-click WordPress install, but we are looking to update this in the next few weeks).

As well as replacing WordPress 2.9.2, WordPress 3.0 also replaces WordPress MU (the multi-user version), as the multi-user features have been merged into WP as standard. Other new features in WordPress 3.0 include custom post types, unique author templates (great for multi-user blogs), improved menu management, a new default theme and support for the wp.me URL shortener. You can check out the complete list of the hundreds of new features and improvements in the WordPress 3.0 codex.

If you’re wondering about how to take advantage of some of these features, How to: Enable WordPress 3.0 New Features After Upgrading has lots of great links to help you get started.

We’re changing our current default version of PHP from 4 to 5 from the 6th September. As many of you will know, to use PHP 5 at the moment you need to enable this in a .htaccess file on the server. From the 6th September, we will swap this around so that PHP 5 is the default and PHP 4 may be called via a .htaccess file in the directory you wish to use PHP 4 from.

This is unlikely to affect many people as nearly all scripts written in PHP now operate on PHP 5 (for example all the PHP scripts available in your eXtend control panel).

We’re now at a point where having PHP 5 as the default version makes more sense for users; PHP 5 was released in 2004, whilst PHP 4 hasn’t been updated since 2008. If you’re operating legacy software that will not work on PHP 5, please set up a .htaccess file with the following line in it:

SetEnv DEFAULT_PHP_VERSION 4

This needs to be done before the 6th September so that your software will continue to work as normal.

If you have any questions, please raise a support ticket from your control panel for a prompt response.

A new Firefox feature called Tab Candy is in the works. It’s still early in testing mode, as Mozilla’s Aza Raskin points out on his blog

The modern web browser relies on the ability to offer users multiple tabs. No one has just one tab open anymore, and no one wants a window open for each tab. But while tabbed browsing may have served us well for a number of years now, the problem has become too many tabs and how to deal with them.

Watch the video below for a full overview

An Introduction to Firefox’s Tab Candy from Aza Raskin on Vimeo.

bbPress  – a  streamlined, fast, and easy-to-use forum program, it integrates easily into WordPress.

We’re now offering one-click installs of bbPress. Using as a message board, it’s a great way to promote visitor interaction and also to discover what your visitors are interested in, who they are, and what else they want to see from your site.

bbPress is open source and focused on speed and security, meaning you don’t have to worry about slow loading pages or the risk of being hacked. The streamlined software is also lightweight and efficient for better use of space and bandwidth. bbPress is easy to install thanks to our one-click install solution, and the user-friendly control panel also means less work for admins and moderators once you’re up and running.

bbPress enjoys many similar customisation elements to WordPress so you can develop and install themes and plugins (e.g. for ratings, video and private forums) to customise your forums. Furthermore, bbPress can be integrated with WordPress so it has access to your blog’s functionality and users signing up to your message boards can also be users on your blog. This is especially useful for multi-author blogs, blogs with regular commenters and those looking to build up integrated site communities from an existing WordPress blog.

If you have a Premium hosting plan, you can now install bbPress just like any other one-click install. Go to your eXtend control panel, scroll down to one-click installs and install from there.

To find out more about what bbPress has to offer, check out bbpress.org.