WordPress 2.2 is out and has at least one really useful feature that I’ve already used.
I backup my blog software and database on a nightly schedule. The whole works, database and files gets copied to my backup server on a VPS.
Testing the backup is a pain since the database points to the real URL and hostname. Now with 2.2 you can override the site url and wordpress home with these two lines in your wp-config.php file:
define(‘WP_SITEURL’, ‘http://www.sample.com/wordpress’);
define(‘WP_HOME’, ‘http://www.sample.com’);
I created a new backup and restored it on my VPS server. I made that change to the wp-config.php file to point to the name and location of the backup server. Now all the links and administration work fine referencing the real hostname.
See http://codex.wordpress.org/Version_2.2 for more information. This feature lets you test your database on another server and play around without impacting your real blog.