Remember, the minimum requirements are changing as duly noted on the WordPress News blog last July. The latest and greatest version of WordPress will require at least:

• PHP 5.2.4
• MySQL 5.0

We've all had nearly a year to prepare for this change. If you haven't yet taken any steps to ensure compatibility now would be a good time as the clock is ticking. At the time of this writing there is only 1 active ticket on Trac.

You should be able to see what version of PHP and MySQL your host is running by logging in to your site's control panel. If you are unable to find the information don't fret, contact your host's support department or download and install the Health Check plugin from the WordPress Plugin Directory. Of course you can also install the plugin directly from your dashboard - just search for "health check".

Once the plugin is installed simply activate it after which you will see a notice at the top of the page similar to the image below.

If you get a warning message you'll need to take action. Most hosting companies already meet the minimum requirements of WordPress 3.2. If your site is not currently running the needed versions of PHP and MySQL you should be able to change that from within your control panel. If you cannot or don't know how then contact your host's support department.

If your host doesn't meet the minimum requirements and refuses to upgrade you might want to find a new home for your blog.

WordPress 3.2, due to be released sometime in June, promises to bring speed and optimization improvements to the table among other things. For more on that check out the Codex documentation.

One of the new features that has made its way into trunk is distraction free writing. You're going to be hearing more and more about this as the days go on. But what does it mean?

When in the Write/Edit Post or Page screen simply toggle fullscreen mode where you will be taken to, you guessed it, fullscreen mode. This is where it gets interesting. In fullscreen mode there are no sidebars or menus. There is a simplified Post Editor Toolbar at the top of the screen which completely fades away leaving nothing visible but the content of your post. Move your mouse cursor and the toolbar magically reappears only to fade away again seconds later. Thus you have distraction free mode. Below I have a few screencaps and a quick video at the end of this post to better illustrate what I'm talking about.

Below is an image of the Write Post screen. Simply click the button as shown to enter fullscreen mode.

Below you can see we are now in fullscreen mode. Note the absence of any menus, sidebars or meta boxes. All that is visible is a simplified toolbar at the top of the screen. (click image to enlarge)

After a few seconds of mouse inactivity the toolbar has faded away as evidenced in the image below. (click to enlarge) All that is visible is the content of your post. This is what is meant by distraction free writing. By moving your mouse cursor ever so slightly the toolbar will return.

I have to admit at first I wasn't crazy about this new feature but the more I use it the more I'm getting to like it. It's slowly winning me over. If you'd like to follow the continued development of distraction free writing you can do so by bookmarking this ticket over at Trac.

And now as promised here is a quick little video I threw together to give you a glimpse of distraction free writing in action.

If you prefer to view it directly on YouTube click here.