As of today, we’ve upgraded all our blogs to the latest and greatest version of WordPress: version 2.9.1. This new edition of the blog software features several exciting enhancements. A great video recap is here.

Here are just a few of my favorites, with notes cribbed from Weblog Tools Collection:

Image Editor

You can crop photos, resize them and more.

Post Trash Can

WordPress 2.9 introduces a much needed Trash can feature, which will allow you to undelete the posts you did not intend to.

Restoring Deleted Posts

If you deleted posts by mistake, you can always restore it by visiting the Trash menu and clicking on the restore link. You can restore multiple posts by using the Bulk options.

Embedding Videos and Images with oEmbed

You can now embed videos directly into WordPress by providing the URL of the video, instead of having to add the entire embed code into it. All you have to do is paste, say, a YouTube url, and the video embed will magically appear when you publish your post. Pretty cool, eh?

Enhanced spell, grammar, and word usage checking with “After the Deadline”

This isn’t actually a 2.9.1 addition, but I’ve used the upgrade as an opportunity to deploy this very powerful new plugin. In short, it gives you the most sophisticated spelling and grammar checking you can possibly get (better than Word or any other desktop application), built right into the WordPress “Add New Post” editor. To use it, you have two options:

1. Click on the “ABC” button when you’re done writing your post, and it’ll run the check.
2. Go to your user profile (click on your name in the top-right corner of your blog) and select the options you want the blog to review for every time you write a post. For example, you can tell it to always notify you when you’ve used a cliche or a double-negative. I highly recommend enabling this setting, as it’ll save you the trouble of having to remember to check your posts every time you compose.

More details in this “After the Deadline” video tutorial: