I’ve just checked the code for version 1.3 of the WPBook plugin into subversion, which means it should shortly be available for auto-update in your dashboard/plugins page, or for download here. (Remember that your dashboard/plugins page only checks once each 24 hours for new plugins, so you may not see it until tomorrow).

Changes in this release:

1. Improved Admin UI – options sorted into categories, with help text
2. More options: ability to include date with post title, option for custom header/footer including custom date/time formats, tags, categories, and author names
3. Style cleanup on the “view post on original blog” link (now matches the share this post link)
4. Bug Fix: No more duplicate blog name on the top of the “Invite Friends” page
5. Bug Fix: When profile boxes are updated as a result of a new blog post, the permalinks were pointing to the blog outside Facebook, rather than the Facebook urls

I also cleaned up the installation instructions (included in the plugin as an html page and PDF document) to reflect the new options screen and some facebook side changes.

NOTE: This will be the last version of WPBook that will support PHP4.

The Facebook client is only officially available in PHP5, and I need to add some exception handling for cases where the Facebook client fails to update the users profile FBML. (Right now that case, when it occurs, throws a very dramatic if harmless “Uncaught Exception” error in the WordPress interface).

If someone wants to create an alternative version of WPBook for PHP4, they can do so using this release as the place from which to branch, but when WPBook 1.4 comes out, I will no longer include PHP4 support.

Apologies to those of you who rely on PHP4, but it’s time to find a host that can enable PHP5.

Special thanks in this release to Brandon Dukes, who wrote most of the updated code in it. Sorry it took me a week to get it tested, packaged, and released.

Here’s a screenshot showing some of the new customization options:

Options available within WPBook for customizing the user's experience

Here’s the “advanced” options screen:

Advanced Options screen - click for full size

Next version, 1.4, I hope will include the ability to post notices into the Facebook status feed and/or news feed when you publish a blog post and (potentially) when comments are published. Not sure what the timeline on that will be, however.

Thanks for the notice from the MobileViews Blog:

I thought this Daylight Savings issue was fixed in last year’s patch. Guess not. Here are the links for the CAB file download as well as the desktop (setup.msi) installer version.

Update for Windows Mobile for PC (KB949168) (SETUP.MSI)

Update for Windows Mobile for PC (KB949168) (WMDST2008-1.CAB)

FYI: I just installed the CAB file installer version on my Dash. It restarted my smartphone without even giving a warning that it was about to do so.

So now I have to go figure out which update I’m supposed to use, and apply it, or else my phone will be off by an hour for much of SXSW next week.

How soon will either an Adroid phone be released or the Nokia N810 line include cell connectivity, so I can use it as a phone – I’d buy one of those easily.