Doesn't time fly? Today - August 12th 2016 is the 35th anniversary of the launch of the original IBM-PC. I personally remember it pretty well as I had just started to take an interest in these new-fangled computer thingies and was slowly getting to grips with my first attempt at coding - on my much loved Radio Shack TRS-80. Like me - a lot of people dismissed the first IBM-PC as there were already better machines about. We just overlooked the fact that it had an IBM badge on the front. And the rest is history.

It has not been quite that long since the last Simple:Press release but here we are again with a shiny new version - 5.7 - that sort of complements the about to be released WordPress 4.6 but is not dependent upon it.

This version is a little hard to pin down. As well as the usual and mandatory bug fixes and lots of minor tweaks and enhancements, most of the 5.7 improvements have been carried out under the hood as it were. But the major and bigger items include:

• A complete rewrite of all the front-end JavaScript, implementing a cleaner and tighter event model
• A rewrite of all AJAX calls to use the core WordPress API - removing our own, older model
• A redesign and rewrite of Profile Photos uploading and display
• Cleaner post Signature creation and display filtering
• More extensive adoption of WordPress font standards in the forum admin
• Improved support for third party login plugins from the Simple:Press login button
• Improvements to the removal of attachments in posts
• Updates to all major third part libraries
• Nearly 100 minor fixes, tidies and enhancements

Hopefully something for everyone.

PS: As my memories dwell on the old IBM PC, I can not help remembering the first time I looked up the cost of a hard disk. It was in a Radio Shack catalogue (or Tandy as they traded here in the UK). It was a massive 5 MB drive at a cost of just a little over £2000. Inevitably, I stuck with my 5 inch floppies at the time!