The first issue will feature articles from 11 well-known contributors, and due to demand from the pre-orders, 2,000 copies are making their way through the printers as you read this. A lot of thought went into the design of this magazine, and you can see a video blazing through the various drafts below.

It’s not too late to reserve your copy, so if you want to be a part of this historical launch, you should place your order soon before they’re shipped.

Even though two weeks have gone by, it’s not too late to say “happy birthday” to Matt. In fact, he would prefer to receive all of his birthday gifts this year in the form of donations to Charity: Water through his birthday campaign. Matt has set an ambitious goal to reach $28,000 in donations by April, but if that goal is reached, his “birthday presents” will have provided clean water for 280 families in developing countries. Not everyone can head to the nearest faucet for a clean glass of water, so say “happy birthday” to Matt and help someone else enjoy some clean water today!

Folks with a strong memory may notice the similarity to iThemes’s Educator Program. While the Student Edition of the toolkit is not free, the $880 discount is something that can’t be beat, especially if you’re busy spending money on your tuition. If you have plans to launch a WordPress-focused career in design, consulting, maintenance, and other such things, this is a great way to get a head start.

Disclaimer: iThemes is one of our advertisers.

If you want to try a similar hosted blogging service, WordPress.com has you covered with a new importer, a handy guide, and free support if something goes wrong.

If you think it’s time to host your own blog, you might be interested in running a self-hosted WordPress.org blog. There are no Splinder importers for WordPress.org yet, but you can import to a WordPress.com blog, then export the resulting blog to any WordPress.org installation. Before you choose between WordPress.com and WordPress.org, make sure that you review the differences between the two.

Having been through two similar service closures myself, I recommend moving your Splinder blog as soon as possible. When those doors shut, they tend to shut for good, and you don’t want to be one of those who just waited too long. Even if you don’t plan on moving to WordPress, you might want to import into a WordPress.com blog now, just to preserve your content until you know what your plans are.

This update is recommended for all users, and can be done from the Dashboard -> Updates section of your blog’s Dashboard.

To add a custom header image to your plugin listing, you’ll need to have a 772 × 250 pixel jpeg or png checked in to your plugin’s SVN directory at assets/banner-772×250.(jpg|png). After a few refreshes, the image should appear for everyone.

For some examples of the new header image at work, see Akismet, bbPress, BuddyPress, and Jetpack.

This is still an experimental feature, so there is always a possibility that the dimensions, placement, and other aspects may change in the near future.

This year’s theme will be overseen by none other than WordPress co-founder Matt Mullenweg. The focus is to develop a theme that is “kind of different from before, generally palatable, and that Matt likes.”

Some new things to look forward to include a variable height header image, less “clever things that aren’t super-useful,” and this will be the first default WordPress theme to have no header image by default.

For some odd reason, I have stuck to the default themes ever since Twenty Ten debuted, so I’m really looking forward to seeing what Twenty Twelve has in store for us.

The app now features a fully refreshed UI, a new post editor with a formatting toolbar, support for Android-powered tablets, background posting, and improved stats!

If you aren’t an Android user, never fear! There are plenty of WordPress mobile apps to choose from.

Of all the changes, the most noticeable are the simplified toolbar (formerly known as the admin bar), the new drag and drop media uploader with support for multiple files, hover-powered Dashboard menus (no more wasted clicks), better help menus, a new Tumblr importer, and a complete introductory welcome page for new users.

For developers, there’s a new version of jQuery, better help screen hooks, and a new editor API.

If you’re running into trouble after upgrading to WordPress 3.3, there is a master list of known issues and FAQs on the forums which will be updated regularly, and the kind volunteers in the support forums will be more than happy to help you with any of your troubles.

If you’re a plugin or theme developer, and you haven’t tested your products against WordPress 3.3 yet, you my have just a few days (if not hours) left before the final release is public.

Andrew Nacin has provided an outstanding WordPress 3.3 field guide for developers and Mika Epstein has provided an awesome WordPress 3.3 known issue and FAQ master list.

As always, feel free to report any bugs that you find and contact the support forums if you need any help.

If you’re a plugin or theme developer, it’s time to test your products against WordPress 3.3 before the rest of the world gets their hands on it. Andrew Nacin has provided an outstanding WordPress 3.3 field guide for developers and Mika Epstein has provided an awesome WordPress 3.3 known issue and FAQ master list.

As always, feel free to report any bugs that you find and contact the support forums if you need any help.

If you run into any bugs, don’t forget to report them and contact the support forum if you need help.

Along with the bug fixes come some subtle UI tweaks, more real text (instead of placeholders), and jQuery 1.7.1.

The developers feel that they are “very close to a release candidate,” so now’s the time to start poking, prodding, and breaking as many things as you can.

If you run into any bugs, don’t forget to report them and contact the support forum if you need help.

Plugin and theme authors are encouraged to test their code against the latest beta release, especially if their plugins or themes use jQuery in core as that has been upgraded to the 1.7 release.

Along with a few miscellaneous fixes, WordPress 3.3 adds a new media uploader, an improved admin bar, and fancy fly-out menus in the Dashboard.

Users of this first beta release are encouraged to report any bugs that they find and visit the support forums for help as necessary.