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New features include easier searching and installation of themes.  It also gives a better user interface for organizing widgets all within a single screen.  Wordpress also claims the platform is faster and fixes over 790 bugs.  Also new to 2.8 is the ability to customize the UI which builds upon the changes in version 2.7.  View the video below to review some of the new features in the updated system.

When I install beta software on any device, I realize that there could be bugs.  I take a look at the software and see if it will prevent me from doing my daily tasks and are the features worth trying out in testing mode.  With the iPhone I figured if I could still make and receive calls, get my text messages, and use my daily applications like Brightkite and Facebook, then it would be worth installing and seeing what's new.

I logged into the developer site on Tuesday which was getting hit pretty hard, but after a few attempts I was able to download and install the software successfully on my iPhone 3G.  After initial install it seemed kind of slow, but I think it could have been indexing the content in the phone for searching.  Apple claims there are over 100 new features, but I don't know all 100 and I think only the ones that really stand out are important to discuss.

The first feature worth noting is the one I just mentioned, search.  If you are on the first page of home screen, sliding to the left or pressing the home button will bring up the search page.  It's a system wide search and it's overall pretty quick.  It lists search results categorized by application.

Cut and paste is a big feature people have been waiting for and it works well.  There's only been a couple of times where I've needed to cut and paste things.  For example when someone sends me a text message of an address, it was just a pain in the past having to swap between the Text app and Maps.  Also I noticed the phone being a little smarter with linking by adding more linkable text to items that were previously untappable.

The Text application is now referred to as Messages.  It now supports MMS integrated into the standard text message interface we're used to seeing and also landscape mode.  It adds a camera icon to the left of the input field and in the settings application you can set the message to have a subject.  I didn't get to test this feature since most of the people I would send MMS to have iPhones with the existing software or would really not want to pay an MMS fee for something stupid I send them.  I'm not sure if the feature is active on AT&T or even what kind of charges are associated with it.  On my old phones I don't think I even used the feature and I'm not sure if that will really change on the iPhone.

The Stock application got a minor update.  The bottom pane now has three scrollable sections to show stock information, charts, and news.  The application also supports landscape mode which show stock charts at fullscreen.

Voice Memos is a new app and seems like it would be a cool feature that I don't ever see myself using.  The app did seem to work though and might be cool for students to record lectures or conduct interviews as long as it doesn't kill battery life substantially.  I didn't use it long enough to find out.

I use Evernote on my iPhone and computer for note taking, but it's worth noting that the Notes application syncs with the computer now.

Mail now works in landscape mode.  I noticed a bug in the UI for my email addresses spanning off the side of the screen.  I think it used to truncate so I'm not sure if thats how it's supposed to be.  It also adds search which is a huge addition for me.  I get a ton of emails on a daily basis and if I wasn't looking for something within the last day I'd never find it on the iPhone.

The UI of the Phone app has been slightly  updated.  The recent calls now show phone number type under the name for people in your address book and location information for numbers that aren't.  The contact screen now has a share contact button where you can email the contact or send via MMS.  I've been previously using Easycontact for this task.  The voicemail screen has also been updated to show phone number type.  It's a small but nice touch.

There were some new features I didn't test.  I couldn't test Bluetooth sharing because I don't have two phones or know anyone else running the 3.0 software yet.  I don't have stereo Bluetooth headsets so I couldn't test the stereo audio.  Push notifications are supposed to be in place, but I don't know any apps that currently support it.  If anyone does, please let me know and I'd be interested in trying that out.  Supposedly the calendar supports subscriptions, but I've yet to figure out if it syncs via MobileMe or how I go about adding those calendars in.  The phone has a find me function, but I have no idea what that does.

I did notice a couple of UI bugs and sometimes tapping on the screen gave no response.  It slows the experience, but doesn't kill it.  All my applications seem to work as they did in the previous OS.  I'm sure this is a work in progress and by the time the final release hits the public it will be much more polished.  I'm also interested in checking out some of the new applications using the iPhone 3.0 SDK.  Overall I'm pretty happy with the update and I think it's something for iPhone users to look forward to using.

While it doesn't improve functionality of the menu, it does add a unique touch to the everyday CSS hovers we see in almost every website nowadays. I like to keep JavaScript at a minimum if possible, but this script seems pretty lightweight and fast loading.

Check it out here.

The company has moved their series of sites into one umbrella called tutsplus. Not only does that include nettuts and psdtuts, but also vectortuts, audiotuts, and aetuts.

While I haven't really used the last three sites at all, I checked them out this morning and they also offer some cool tutorials on those topics. The new dashboard shows the latest articles from those sites as well as their latest articles on Digg and their tweets on Twitter. All the modules can be arranged like those you would find on your Google or Yahoo home page.

Head over and check it out.

Woork has three JavaScript implementations for form validation. The first implementation with MooTools seems pretty clever. The other two seem pretty standard.

If you have any interesting links for us to review regarding form validation, we would be interested in viewing them and also sharing in the blog.

With that being said I've seen lots of great Flash graphics/animations and creative uses for JavaScript for styling a page. DevSnippets has a list of 20 plugins based on jQuery for adding style to design elements.

I would probably say implementing some of these into your next web application will give it a clean look, but don't overdo it. If it's something that could be handled in CSS I would make an attempt there first, then look into JavaScript.

Southwest Airlines is my airline of choice for short flights. I've been appreciating the free Wi-Fi in most airports, but in-flight internet access would be great. I'm assuming it will probably be pretty slow, something close to what you get when tethering to a mobile phone. The price seems right if they can get it down to under $10/day. Anything more than that I think I can wait until I land.

I don't really see myself doing real work on the plane, but it would be nice to be able to access email, surf the internet, update my social networks, and write a quick blog post. I don't have any trips planned in the near future, but would be interested in hearing responses from those that get a chance to try it out.

It will allow more people to join services without having to sign up over and over. It brings OpenID style login to more of the masses. I would say most of my friends that aren't too tech savvy have a good idea what Facebook is and probably have an account, but those same friends have no idea about OpenID.

Being a big fan of both Brightkite and Facebook it's nice to see the integration and it works seamlessly as expected. I hope more sites that I use as well as new sites I might use in the future will support Facebook Connect as well.

With that being said I've had yet to enable it on any of my sites, but hope that some sort of integration will happen in the future.