Tidbits from Brian - Issue #22
Sometimes you just want to use a mulligan. ⛳
Do you ever have one of those months where everything seems to go wrong all at the same time? It’s strange how it works like that. My month so far…
My car engine light came on. I had to get a temporary rental, and it ended up costing $900 to fix.
My AC broke in the middle of a record-breaking heat wave (110+ degrees) in Arizona. 🔥
I thought I would save some money on Prime Day. So I ordered in bulk. I later got a message from UPS saying the whole shipment was damaged and returned.
I hate shopping for clothes and typically go till they have holes in them. I ordered some clothes online, and they shipped me emergency bunker food instead. No joke.
Everything I do seems to end in disaster. 😅 I hope your month is going better than mine.
Updates ✍️
I’m doing another video about Perfmatters with Kyle from The Admin Bar on August 4th! We’ll dive into all the new features since the last video, and discuss some hot topics like LCP, fetchpriority, lazy loading, and WordPress 6.3 improvements.
We pushed out an update for our Perfmatters WordPress plugin this month. Here are a few of the changes:
New lazy loading advanced option to exclude images by parent selector. This was a highly requested feature. You can now exclude almost any image or combination of images.
Updated the Script Manager UI to sort plugins alphabetically by plugin name as well as assets inside each individual section alphabetically by script handle. 🔠
Added built-in exclusion to Delay JS for jqueryParams inline script to prevent load order issues.
Added additional built-in exclusions to Remove Unused CSS for better compatibility with Elementor.
Added HTTPS check to PERFMATTERS_CACHE_URL definition.
Fixed an issue where plugins without any enqueued scripts would not always show up in the Script Manager (MU Mode) after visiting the global view.
Updated background processing library to version 1.1.0.
We also pushed out a big update for our Novashare WordPress plugin. Here are a few of the changes:
New share buttons block. This enables on-the-fly customization of share buttons and the ability to easily place them anywhere. 🔥 Our goal from the beginning has always been to fully embrace the block editor and have blocks for every feature. It took a lot of work and learning, but we've made it.
Fixed issue where default bg color was sometimes not getting applied to Pinterest image pin buttons.
Fixed index warnings from meta.php.
Removed global styles option to ensure site-wide block support.
Interesting things 🔎
Misc.
Looking to take your screen recordings on Mac to the next level? I’ve been using Screen Studio lately, and it’s impressive.
Microsoft’s new Xbox Home UI is now available. Looks great!
I use Ulysses primarily now for writing. But I somehow missed that Google Docs got basic markdown support last year. It’s quite handy.
WordPress
Real-time collaboration is coming to WordPress. This could be a pretty cool feature if it works as well as Google Docs.
Looking for another great WordPress newsletter? I recommend Simon’s WP Wednesdays. It’s an excellent recap.
WordPress 6.3 is slated for an August 8th release! Carlo has published a great overview of all the changes.
I love this! Allison Dye tells how WordPress is a way to escape chronic pain and give a sense of independence.
Mike says we should stop calling it Gutenberg, and I agree. I refer to it as the block editor.
All WordPress developers should be rejoicing. 🥂 Support for PHP 5 will be dropped in WordPress 6.3.
The team working on Easy Digital Downloads has been pushing out updates and fixes left and right! Excited to see more active development recently.
If you’re not using GeneratePress, my second recommendation is always Kadence WP. They have a 30% off sale running through July 31st.
Performance
A very interesting article from Harry in defense of DOMContentLoaded.
Need to test your internet speed? Check out this free speed test tool from Cloudflare. Love all the extra stats.
WordPress 6.3 is getting a big performance improvement! They’ll be adding the fetchpriority attribute on the LCP image. We’re taking advantage of this in our Perfmatters plugin to automatically exclude it from lazy loading.
Cloudways has launched its Cloudflare edge page caching integration. Love seeing more hosts take advantage of this to lower TTFB across the board.
Gravity Forms has launched a Cloudflare Turnstile integration. Time to drop your Google reCAPTCHA.
Kinsta is running its first ever sale! New customers can get 4 months off on annual WordPress hosting plans until the end of July. That's a 33% discount. 🔥
Interaction to Next Paint (INP) is a Core Web Vitals metric that will replace First Input Delay (FID) in March 2024. I wouldn’t worry about this too much yet.
Vox Media (which includes The Verge, New York Magazine, Polygon, and others) is moving to WordPress. Pretty cool!
Marketing
Google Domains had excellent URL forwarding that supported HTTP + HTTPS. Now that they are winding down, I’ve updated my Cloudflare tutorial on how to do URL forwarding.
Google finally started shutting down Universal Analytics. If you’re looking for a great alternative, I use Fathom on our sites. They also have a GA importer. If you only need basic info, Cloudflare Web Analytics works well too.
Speaking of Google Analytics, these parodies are hilarious (parody 1, parody 2). I now know who to hire if I ever need a professional advertisement.
The old Twitter logo is no more. I’m not sure what I think about the new “X” logo yet. We’ll see what happens. The billing could get interesting.
The old version of TweetDeck is working again, thank goodness! The new version has some serious flaws.
I have three invite codes for Bluesky. First come, first serve.
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bsky-social-cz3ze-b2bjs
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While I'm not sure we need another social app, I have to say Threads is super polished. It will be interesting to see how it pans out. Follow me @brianleejackson.
Speaking of Threads, it will be more useful to me when there is a full web version (maybe I’m old, haha). The head of Instagram said they are working on this.
Notes are coming to Twitter? This could be interesting. I wish they hadn’t got rid of Revue. I liked using Twitter as a newsletter platform. But Substack has been nice too.
AI
Check out this comparison of Midjourney from July 2022 to July 2023. The results are mindblowing.
ChatGPT creator faces multiple lawsuits over copyright and privacy violations. This is just the beginning.
Bard got a bunch of updates. 40+ languages, Google Lens support, conversation pinning, sharing, and easy ways to modify responses.
Have you tried Claude 2 yet? You can use it to analyze 75,000 words! It’s currently in open beta.
Code Interpreter has been rolling out to all ChatGPT Plus users. It’s pretty impressive! Here’s a thread with examples.
Microsoft Copilot is coming, but it will have a hefty price tag.
As a reminder, AI content has no magic ranking powers. Quality content, regardless of how it’s generated, will always be the winner.
Bitcoin (not financial advice)
It’s a big week for crypto regulation in the US. Three bills passed through the HFSC with bipartisan support (next up is the House of Representatives):
Check out this awesome presentation from Samantha de Waal, a 12-year-old who was born into a world of bitcoin.
Lightning Labs introduced a new set of tools to build Lightning and bitcoin-powered AI products. ⚡ + 🤖
Crypto bills pass congressional committee in a huge win for the US.
A great article from Troy Cross! The single most important truth about bitcoin mining, energy, and the environment.
Is 2% inflation theft? Yes, check the math for yourself.
The Phoenix wallet is introducing splicing. This is a game-changer!
Strike has added the ability to DCA from your bank account.
The Mutiny Wallet beta is now available to everyone. Definitely one to check out.
The Human Rights Foundation announces the bitcoin bounty challenge. 20 BTC is up for grabs for 10 UX improvements.
If you're ever in the Scottsdale, AZ area, hit me up, and we can grab lunch! 🥗👋