New plugins Polylang – Simple Google Connect compatibility ensures smooth operation when both Polylang and Simple Google Connect are active. Pushover Notifications allows your WordPress blog to send push notifications for events happening on your blog straight to your iOS/Android device. Updated plugins Conditional CAPTCHA asks commenters to complete a simple CAPTCHA if Akismet thinks their comment is spam, eliminating false positives. Simple Facebook Connect is a framework and series of sub-systems that let you add any sort of Facebook functionality you like to a WordPress blog.

Di the Writer is created for those who love writing with a minimalist style layout. Newsworthy is a simple theme with a cool design and beautiful color accents. Path is designed for multiauthor blogs and magazine style websites.

Last month, we asked, what do you blog for? The break-down for the poll was very simple, either Personal, Business, or both. In the final tally after a month-long run, 45% of you blogged for both, 39% for Personal, and only 16% for Business. Putting those three reasons aside, one trend did emerge in the comments. Most of you blog because it’s fun. Sure, some of you blog for business and rarely have time for personal blogging, but it’s still fun, and that’s just great because if you consider blogging to be a chore, you’re doing it wrong. Even if it’s just for business, it should still be fun. So, if you didn’t have a chance to earlier, let us know here. What do you blog for?

New plugins Drag & Drop Featured Image replaces the default “Set featured image” metabox with a drop zone for faster uploads. oEmbed in Comments adds oEmbed support to comments. Updated plugins Posts 2 Posts allows you to create many-to-many connections between posts of all kinds. WP SlimStat is a simple but powerful web analytics plugin for WordPress.

Busy Bee is a lovely theme suitable for any type of blog or website, taking advantage of new design features and elements including using Google web fonts to ensure a consistent look regardless of what fonts the viewer has installed on their computer. Snapshot is a theme built for showing off your photography. Stack is a paper-like Theme for WordPress heavily inspired by the popular ‘Stationary’ theme for Tumblr.

New plugins Author Post Ratings allows a post author to assign a simple 1-5 star rating to a post, page, or custom post type, which will then be displayed on the post. Run External Crons enables using WordPress as a cron system that would hit external URLs (ie. any URL) on a scheduled basis. Save iGoogle Ribbon places a “Save iGoogle” ribbon on your WordPress site or network that links to the Save iGoogle campaign. SideOffer is a sliding side tab designed to generate leads & increase conversions by displaying a highly visible call to action for your users. Updated plugins BackWPup allows you to backup your WordPress database, files, and more. Bad Behavior complements other link spam solutions by acting as a gatekeeper, preventing spammers from ever delivering their junk, and in many cases, from ever reading your site in the first place.

Back in February, the folks at Automattic released a fresh new starter theme for the WordPress community, lovingly titled _s. _s was designed to pave the way forward for some great new themes, but getting started was a bit of pain. Enter the new site for the _s starter theme, Underscores.me. Underscores.me not only tells you why you should consider using _s to build you next great theme, it also provides a super-simple way to download your own copy, complete with your new theme’s name, slug, author, author URL, and description already set! So, if you’re itching to get your name out there by launching your first theme, there has never been a better time to give _s a try!

Mocha Latte is a total redesign and remake of an old theme by the same name, taking advantage of new design features and elements including using Google web fonts to ensure a consistent look regardless of what fonts the viewer has installed on their computer. NewsLine has a custom homepage and elegant look. Project AR2 is the re-release of Arras WordPress Theme, with up-to-date standards and new features. Theron Lite is an all in one wordpress theme with 3 awesome fonts, slider, background image and easy to use theme option panel.