Tidbits from Brian (Black Friday edition) - Issue #26
Don't be a keyboard warrior. ⌨️
Keyboard warriors are nothing new. But it has gotten bad over the past couple of years. I’m sure most of you have experienced it. In my opinion, individuals shouldn't even be on social media if they can't find a way to respectfully disagree on a topic. They're not just harming others but also negatively impacting their own mental health.
I always try to treat everyone with respect, both online and offline. It doesn't matter if we agree or not. I feel like there is a level of civility that is lost these days, especially with younger folks.
Also, why would I change how I act online to how I am in real life? It sounds emotionally exhausting. 😅 It's much easier to simply live by the golden rule, which is how I was raised. And that means even if you don't agree on a topic, you can always still respectfully disagree.
As we approach the new year, I’m trying to take a moment throughout every interaction and give my words some extra thought before pressing that "Post" or "Reply" button.
Black Friday deals on things I use 🏷️
Now to the good stuff! 💥 Here are a few select deals on products and services I use and recommend checking out.
GeneratePress: 25% off yearly licenses. $30 off lifetime licenses. You can even upgrade to the lifetime license (through Dec. 2).
GenerateBlocks: 25% off new licenses and upgrades (through Dec. 2).
Want to convert your existing site to GeneratePress and GenerateBlocks but don’t have the time? My friends at WP Boosters and OGAL Web Design can help.
Kinsta: Get 33% off annual hosting plans and free migration through November 30.
BigScoots: 4 months free on managed performance and security plans (Nov. 16 – Dec. 31).
InstaWP: 50% off yearly plans, 30% off monthly plans (Nov. 16 – Nov. 27). Discount code: 23BF50
ShortPixel: 2x more image optimization credits or CDN traffic (Nov. 20 – Nov. 28).
Easy Digital Downloads: Up to 65% off (Nov. 19 – Nov. 24).
Snagit: 25% off (Nov. 27 – Dec. 1). This is what I use to take all of my screenshots.
EDD EU VAT: 30% off (Nov. 17 – Nov. 28). Discount code: EARLYBIRD
Fluent Forms: 40% off (Nov. 15 – Dec. 2). A great choice if you care about performance! We use it on many of our sites.
WS Form: 30% off (Nov. 21 – Nov. 29). The most powerful form plugin we’ve ever used. Definitely one to check out if you’re a developer or have a complex workflow. Discount code: BF30
Affinity Designer: 40% off (Nov. 20 – Nov. 24).
SmarterQueue: 30% off first 6 months on monthly plans or 40% off first year on annual plans (Nov. 24 – Nov. 27).
MailerLite: 90% off the first month on monthly plans or 33% off annual advanced plan (Nov. 16 – Dec. 6).
Depositphotos: 100 photos/vectors for $39. Or stack multiple (Nov. 20 – Nov. 29).
Mangools: 35% off all plans (Oct. 25 – Dec. 4).
Proton VPN: Up to 60% off, depending on the plan you choose.
If you're bargain hunting, I compiled a larger list of Black Friday deals. Make sure to check it out.
You can also get 30% off new licenses and upgrades on our WordPress plugins (Perfmatters and Novashare) through Dec. 1st. Discount code: BLACKFRIDAY
Updates ✍️
We pushed two updates for our Perfmatters WordPress plugin this month. Here are a few of the changes:
Added Delay JS quick exclusions for WS Form, Presto Player, Raptive Ads, Slickstream, and WP Recipe Maker.
Added REST route exception for WS Form.
Added new WP-CLI command to clear used CSS with multisite support.
Added support for Google Material Symbols and Icons to local font feature.
Added support for excluding by no-lazy class to CSS Background Images.
Added support for lazy loading the poster attribute when set for a video tag.
Made adjustments to CSS class to allow for stylesheet’s to be excluded by any portion of their attribute string.
Made some styling improvements to the YouTube preview thumbnail play button on hover.
Updated instant.page and FastClick script names for ad blocker compatibility.
Updated Google Analytics 4 minimal script to version 1.10.
Script Manager security updates to fix XSS vulnerability.
Multitude of other fixes and improvements.
Interesting things 🔎
Misc.
Heads up, Google is deleting millions of Gmail accounts next month. If you have any accounts with forwarding rules, you might want to check on them.
I’m a big fan of Shark Tank. As a guitar player myself, I thought TIK PIK was neat! It’s a pick that sticks to your guitar surface without using any chemicals.
Remote desktop on steroids? Microsoft Windows app offers access to Windows PCs from any device.
Google's RCS messaging is coming to iPhone in 2024. At least Apple’s implementation of it.
Your Chrome extensions may stop working in 2024. This will impact pretty much all ad blockers to some extent.
Amazon’s new low-orbit internet service with speeds up to 1 Gbps is ready to start mass production. Wow, this could be a real Starlink competitor.
WordPress
WooCommerce has rebranded as Woo. I like it. It’s short and sweet.
WordPress 6.4 was released. However, this wasn’t as smooth as it probably should have been. I had a few things to say about it.
Advanced Columns is a new plugin worth checking out. It’s a flexible layout builder block for WordPress built on the CSS grid foundation.
Elementor Pro pricing update slashes features in the essential plan for new customers. Here’s an interesting take on this from Matt Mullenweg.
Matt from The WP Minute had an interesting conversation with Cristian Raiber on why he's buying (and selling) plugin companies.
Performance
I stress the importance of CLS all the time. Not just for scores, but usability. For some reason, 25% weight doesn't always get through. However, visuals work great. Love using the Lighthouse scoring calc. Check it out.
GTmetrix is raising prices on December 1st, and making changes to free speed testing. You’ll need an account from now on.
Cloudflare had a bad month. But they definitely publish great in-depth post mortems (post mortem 1, post mortem 2). This tweet is hilarious.
Google claims Core Web Vitals saved over 10,000 years in load times. 🤔
WP.com and Jetpack released a pretty bad update that added hundreds of lines of code to customer’s sites. However, they were quick to respond and fix the issue.
Marketing
🚨 As of January 2024, the EU will require payment processors to report cross-border data to tax authorities. This means that Stripe or PayPal could potentially block your ability to sell in the EU if you’re a US-based business not paying VAT. I’ve updated my in-depth VAT tutorial.
Google says mobile-first indexing is complete after almost 7 years.
I have two invite codes for Bluesky. First come, first serve.
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bsky-social-x2s2w-acdg2
Tumblr is downscaling after failing to turn around the site. This isn’t too surprising. I took a look back. My first Tumblr post was in 2009 about how to buy bulk food at Walmart. 😆
Google says major changes coming to search rankings.
Matt Woodward has been in the SEO and blogging niche for 15+ years. He released a new book, “The 28 Day SEO Challenge: Increase Your Search Traffic Step by Step."
Google Search tests notes on search results. This sounds dangerous. Although it is currently only a lab experiment that you can turn on or off.
AI
Microsoft rebrands Bing Chat to Copilot, to better compete with ChatGPT.
I can’t keep track anymore if Sam is fired, working for Microsoft, or is back at OpenAI. Here’s the best speculation I’ve seen so far.
Bitcoin (not financial advice)
Love this piece from Fidelity! Revisiting bitcoin criticisms.
From mining to mitigation: How bitcoin can support renewable energy development and climate action.
Strike announces partnership with Checkout.com to enable bitcoin purchases in more than 65 countries.
Check out this chart. It's probably one of the best I’ve seen to represent true bitcoin adoption.
A new study from Cornell University proposes the use of bitcoin to support renewable energy development.
For those of you in the states, have a Happy Thanksgiving! 🦃
Excellent issue, as always! Thanks for the shout too 😁
I guess I gotta start figuring out VAT 😭
Happy Thanksgiving, Brian!