A post made yesterday by Ryan Boren points to the next, major release of WordPress could be launched as soon as tomorrow.

Version 2.6 has more fixes on the horizon, but there are a number of new features as well. Some worth noting are built-in support for image captions, support for Google Gears to increase page load time, and better notification of plugin updates in the WordPress Dashboard.

I have had a little time to install WP 2.6RC1 and give it a little bit of experimentation. For the most part, it’s not a huge departure from the latest version, 2.5.1, but the addition of image captions will be an added boost for many users who are not the best when it comes to adding such things by writing HTML and CSS into their posts. See a post on my personal blog that I made a while ago about using CSS to attribute photos in your blog posts.

Granted that any other major bugs are not found in this release, watch for WordPress 2.6 to land as soon as Monday, July 14, 2008. We’ll be paying close attention for sure.

Pano from Trainharder.com contacted us a few months ago with great aspiration for his website which he wanted to grow into an all-encompassing resource for the outdoor community. He has been blogging on his WordPress-based site for the last few years and the overall design was something he wanted to rethink in the hopes of expanding his readership. Having the basic idea and concept of what he wanted to achieve, he looked to sixty4media to help him reach that next step.

The previous design of the site was a four column layout that had outgrown Pano’s vision of Trainharder.com. Cranking out great content relating to “an adventure resource and news site for people who like to get outdoors in B.C.” takes a lot of work, especially for someone who is getting outdoors himself on a regular basis. On top of regular posts, there is an events listing to create an on going hub of information relating to outdoor races or gatherings. Doing this on a small scale basis is a large task, to say the least so optimizing the content output and the flow of the site was key.

sixty4media’s custom theme cleaned up the overall design of the site, giving more focus on the content. The front page was revamped with a three column design while a two column design was applied to the individual posts and pages. The idea was to cater to two specific groups of audiences: those who are frequent visitors to the website’s front page for visual appeal and those who are RSS subscribers that tend to pay more attention to getting the raw information out of the content.

Elements were specifically tailored for this WordPress-powered site and by using the events calendar plugin, we were able to customize listings, which helped to make this portion of Trainharder.com more effective as a resource. Essentially, if there is a foot race or trail running event in B.C., there is a good chance that it will be listed here.

Last but not least, we brought the WordPress install up to the latest version of 2.5.1, a much needed upgrade to the back end of the site.

Feel free to visit Trainharder.com if you are interested in seeing how the plan came together. Pano is actively building a community based on this unique market, making this a very strong online portal for folks who get outdoors and away from their computers. It’s very cool stuff.

Bryan Tasaka from Mind Over Mountain Adventure Racing (MOMAR) contacted us a while ago about what it would take to get a WordPress blog integrated into an increasingly successful site for their outdoor racing events.

At the time, there was a blog page on the site however being hard-coded in HTML it lacked core blogging elements. Bryan realized a long time ago the effect a change of this calibre could have, but struggled to find something that would coordinate with his main site in terms of function and design. The goal was to integrate a fully functioning WordPress blog that would seamlessly provide more function and interactivity for readers.

When Bryan contacted us, he knew that he wanted to go with a WordPress install on the back end of his site. We did our best to not only give him the tools to easily update his site, but the custom theme we built for the WordPress blog slipped in smoothly among the main site infrastructure. The custom theme was enhanced with social media tools yet we preserved the existing Flash header as requested as it was a crucial part of creating fluidity with the rest of the MOMAR site.

Working with Bryan was a pleasure and he is very excited to begin using his new WordPress blog. We are proud that we could bring in additional functions for his site that are going to help him promote his organization, increase community, and be search engine optimized for potential, new, and existing audiences.

With the integrated blog, Bryan’s publishing productivity has been increased dramatically compared to the time it used to take to custom code each entry on the previous design. Our custom WordPress theme and install allows him to produce and publish content on the fly, from any location, and communicate with his audience while expanding his reach into and beyond the adventure racing community.

It was a lot of fun to design this site, and I know as John is a bit of a trail runner he was amazed at the level of commitment these MOMAR folks have when it comes to adventure racing. We think the work we did for them will only help make that community stronger. After all, you never know who might stumble onto his blog from a Google search and make the trek for one of the events from another continent.

Feel free to visit the MOMAR blog and see our work in action.