On November 16th I will be attending WordCamp Israel 2008in Tel-Aviv. For the event, Sharon Gefen and I have prepared the graphics and script that will produce nice little blackdark blue Gravatar enabled name badges. The main problem was, big surprise, the use of Hebrew fonts with the fpdf library. After some time playing around with it I have managed to produce the following sample:

I hope Andy can find a place to use the Hebrew name badge I have prepared for him with the WordCamp Israel 2008 template:

If the budget will allow us, we will print these name badges for everybody at the camp. In the meanwhile please make sure that you register or update your Gravatar.

Beside the WordPress usual issues, this year, we are devoting part of the camp to social involvement stuff like non-profit organizations - this should be interesting.

Please help spread the word.

No date had been set yet but I will post about it once a date and location will be determined. Also, a message will be post on the WordCamp site.

<?php
function new_blogs_setting( $blog_id )  {
//set your options here:
add_option('gmt_offset', 2);
// stop editing here
return;
}
add_action('populate_options', 'new_blogs_setting');
?>

Download here.

Some of the new features in this release of MU:

1. Version number is 2.6 rather than 1.6 because it just makes sense to synchronise the major version numbers.
2. Signup page now has a nonce which should help in the fight against spammers, for a short while anyway.
3. Redirecting to the signup page for 404s and for unknown blogs is not enabled by default. Check out wp-config-sample.php for instructions.
4. “allowed_themes” filter, much like the plugins filtered added previously.
5. New functions: get_id_from_blogname(), is_main_blog().
6. get_blog_details() can now take a blogname as well as a blog_id.
7. Custom first posts didn’t always work. Now they do.
8. Blognames in the “Add blog” form in wpmu-blogs.php are now sanitized.
9. Added “pre_site_option_*” and “site_option_*” filters like the similar option filters.
10. Meta fields will be passed on signup again.
11. Added an “admin_header_navigation” filter so the top right navigation in the backend can be customised.
12. The signup page uses “blogname” instead of “blog_id” to avoid confusion with the global variable of the same name. Plugins will break if not updated!

Grab it here.