Tidbits from Brian - Issue #20
Happy 20th anniversary to WordPress. 🥂
WordPress turned 20 years old on May 27th. I still can't believe the CMS has been around that long. Time flies!
I launched my first WordPress site (blog) in 2008 to share tutorials based on what I was doing at work. That morphed into blogging as a career and eventually my own WordPress business.
As strange as it sounds, WordPress has been the one constant in my life over the past 15 years. 😅 I'm very grateful for it and excited to see what the future holds.
Here's what WordPress looked like in 2008. 👇
Updates ✍️
We pushed out an update for our Perfmatters WordPress plugin this month. Here are a few of the changes:
New delay JS option for quick exclusions that will show up when certain popular plugins and themes are activated. We've been building out our database for a couple of years. We're confident this will make things easier and faster! ⚡
UI improvements to the Script Manager.
Rearranged our font options to give frequently used options more priority.
Fixed a bug where multiple settings sections were displayed after saving from the database tab.
Fixed an issue in MU Mode where the global filtered plugin list would not always return correctly.
Cleared out some code for the previous settings admin header that was no longer needed.
We also pushed out an update for our Novashare WordPress plugin. Here are a few of the changes:
New icon color and icon hover color options for both inline content and floating bar sections. 🎨 This allows for any combination of colors now, alongside our different button style options.
Interesting things 🔎
Misc.
Mimestream has officially launched! It’s hands down the best Mac email client for Gmail. I’ve used it in beta for over two years now.
Affinity Designer released a big update—lots of improvements.
Unreal Engine 5.2 further expands UE5's groundbreaking toolset. The graphics are insane!
Two movies I enjoyed this month are Air and Tetris. Both are very nostalgic.
Hulu and Disney Plus are merging into one app within the US.
The HTTPS lock icon is being replaced with a tune icon. Coming to a Chrome near you.
WordPress
WordPress and Drupal co-founders discuss open source, AI, and the future of the web.
A great podcast with Mark Westguard (of WS Form) on launching a plugin into an already competitive market. It can be done.
WordPress has fixed shortcode support in block templates in 6.2.2, which broke in 6.2.1. This was a mess since many users have security versions on auto-update.
Kinsta has launched an API! Excited to see what businesses and developers build around the ecosystem. The possibilities are endless.
There are two primary third-party tools I use for testing things in WordPress. Check out what I’m using.
Automattic released wp-now, a new local development environment powered by WordPress playground. Good to have more options.
The Fluent Forms 5 beta is now available. The UI looks great.
According to the annual WordPress survey, 22% of respondents have used it for a year or less. It’s a friendly reminder to keep improving onboarding workflows/UX.
Performance
I regularly see clients struggling with videos, so I published a doc with a few quick tips on how to speed up videos in WordPress.
MariaDB Health Checks plugin is now available on the repository.
Investigating the impact of HTTP/3 on network latency for search. A deep dive by the team at Dropbox.
Speaking of HTTP/3, nginx just added experimental support.
INP is no longer experimental. Learn about Chrome's plan to make it a Core Web Vital factor in 2024. You can use this Chrome extension to test it on your site.
This Lighthouse Scoring Calculator is fun to play with. It gives a better visual understanding of how much each factor impacts your scores.
PHP 8.2 is now available for all environments at Kinsta. ⚡
There is a proposal for enhancing LCP image performance with the fetchpriority attribute in WordPress core. This is promising, but it won’t work with all use cases.
I’ve been using the Orion browser more and more these days. It just keeps getting better. Talk about lightning fast.
Google promised to create a better, faster web for media companies with AMP. In the end, it ruined the publisher’s trust.
Marketing
Trello dark mode is finally here (in beta), and I like it. Better late than never.
What is the future of SEO in a post-ChatGPT world? This is a good read. The key will be diversification and influencer marketing.
Blue verified checkmarks are coming to Gmail to help verify the sender’s identity.
If you’re looking for a Google Analytics alternative, Fathom has launched its importer tool. We use Fathom on all of our sites.
The new Mac app from the Typefully team is beautiful. 😍
Oracle is shutting down AddThis on May 31st. If you’re looking for an alternative, I recommend trying our Novashare plugin. Use code WOORKUP for 15% off.
Substack has rolled out handles. You can now follow me at @brianleejackson.
The billion dollar unsubscribe link—an interesting post on how small UX decisions matter.
I have two invite codes for Bluesky. First come, first serve!
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bsky-social-tkazl-dabag
AI
The AI-based Generative Fill feature in Photoshop is downright amazing!
OpenAI launches free ChatGPT for iPhone app with Whisper support.
The future of Google Search is AI. But not in the way you think.
Bard got more concise summaries, citations, and images. It rolled out dark mode support and now works with Google Workspace accounts. See the changelog.
Bing Chat also rolled out updates, including images, text formatting, topics, and improved copy and paste.
Check out this Midjourney v1 through v5.1 progression in one year. Mind-blowing. 😮
It's not AI that will take your job, but someone who knows how to use AI might, economist says.
Bitcoin (not financial advice)
What is bitcoin? Explained in 3 minutes flat. The Tuttle Twins is a fantastic new kids’ TV show.
The bitcoin mining excise tax is off the table. That’s great news!
Voltage scales bitcoin and Lightning Network infrastructure with Google Cloud.
We have lightning, but other projects are also building to help with fees, liquidity, etc.: Ark, Mempool Accelerator, Liquid Swaps, and Enigma. Will any of these catch on? It’s hard to know. But more competition is good in the space.
No other industry is reducing its emission intensity at such a rate as the bitcoin network.
The Human Rights Foundation has gifted 16.5 BTC via its bitcoin development fund to support 12 projects worldwide.
Bitkey is taking a different approach when it comes to hardware wallets.
Strike is going global, expanding to 3 billion people in 65+ countries.
The State of Montana has officially signed the right to mine bitcoin bill into law.
The bitcoin mining debate is ignoring the people most affected. An in-depth look on the ground of what’s really happening.
We have presidential candidates on both sides of the aisle in the US that publicly support bitcoin. Crazy! Single-issue voters coming.
The synergism of bitcoin and energy in Africa is fascinating. Gridless is funding new mini-power grids with bitcoin while consuming the excess renewable energy.
The Mutiny Wallet looks promising! Definitely keeping my eye on this.
Brink is a great way to support bitcoin development. Donations are tax-deductible, and 100% goes to bitcoin developers. Open Sats is another good one.
If you're ever in the Scottsdale, AZ area, hit me up, and we can grab lunch! 🥗👋