Ever since my site was hacked a few months ago, I’ve known I had to update WordPress to the latest release to improve my site’s securtiy.
Unfortunately, I actually know about as much about the code that makes this blog run as I know about the drive system in our new Prius, which is to say I know virtually nothing at all except that I like how they look and how they run.
I spent considerable time in the last two weeks collecting and reading the information on how to use phpMyAdmin so I could save my database (which includes all the articles and your comments) in case something went wrong with the upgrade.
So last night after a couple of failed attempts I did manage to save my mySql database and a backup of my whole site in case I needed to restore my site.
After fiddling around and stalling for nearly two hours, I took out the directions and started deleting WordPress files so that the update would go seamlessly. Then I started up my ftp program, uploaded the new files, found the online installer script, reactivated some plugins, and here we are back where we started.
Hopefully you didn’t notice at all.
Except for feeling a little embarrassed about all my fear and trepidation, it was a relatively painless experience, and confirms my overall satisfaction with WordPress.