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Wordpress is just a friendlier tool for bloggers. Wordpress would have to be one of the most exciting programs that I’ve worked with in a long time and it’s OS. With the lastest release of Wordpress 2.5, every bloggers will be busying upgrading. However many run into trouble in the process.

So here is a short report by Scott Frangos on 5 important mistake to avoid, so your upgrade goes smoothly.

1. Failure to Back-up your WordPress data: You should have a plugin installed to do this on a regular basis for you automatically. The one I use is at http://www.ilfilosofo.com/blog/wp-db-backup/. Before upgrading, download an up-to-date back-up to your hard disk. TIP: Then do a second back-up for good measure using the “Manage>Export” function in your Admin. area to download an XML file of your data. Now you’re double protected.
2. Failure to Turn Off Plugins before Upgrading: Just go to your plugin area in WordPress Admin, and turn them off to avoid conflicts in the new version. TIP: All plugins may not be updated and ready for the new version, so be sure to check at the author’s sites for the latest version notes.
3. Reliance on Automatic Update Programs or Plugins: Sometimes these work ok, sometimes they don’t. Hosting companies provide automatic updater/installers like “Fantastico” which can be a big mistake if your last upgrade was done manually. Sometimes the automatic program does not offer the newest version for upgrading for several months. I used to use a plugin for updating WordPress, but learned the hard way not to trust it. The moral? Do it manually — find the instructions here: http://codex.wordpress.org/Upgrading_WordPress
4. Failure to Save your wp-config.php File: Use a good FTP program to save the wp-config.php file, making sure you don’t write over it when you upload the new version of WordPress. Why? That’s the file that contains your database hook-up information (WordPress needs to hook into a MySQL database). If you already made the mistake, there’s a way to fix it. Learn your database username, password, and host server (contact your hosting company). Then use the “wp-config-sample.php” file to input the information — you’ll see instructions when you open the file. Save-as wp-config.php and upload to your server… that should get it.
5. Failure to Protect your wp-content, themes, and plugins Folders: Do not overwrite these folders with folders of the same name in the new installation. Why? All your particular themes, plugins and special folders in wp-content will be gone. FTP a backup of those folders to your hard-disk first. Study the upgrade instructions at http://codex.wordpress.org/Upgrading_WordPress again. Upload only new items to those folders.

Back-up. Turn off plugins. Upgrade WordPress manually. Save your wp-config.php file and themes, plugins and wp-content. There you go. Good luck, BlogMasters.