Tidbits from Brian - Issue #46
The hunt for the perfect mouse. 🖱️
I’ve had issues with my mouse hand (wrist) ever since I was in college. Probably from a combination of working IT helpdesk (long hours), being skinny, and always having bad posture. It got so bad that I actually had carpal tunnel surgery done (trust me, I tried everything under the sun before going under the knife). Ever since then, I’ve been fine, but only if I used a certain mouse.
Enter the amazing Logitech MX518, which I’ve been using since 2007. That’s a whopping 18 years using the same mouse. I’ve purchased a few of these after wear and tear, including the updated specs version that Logitech released in 2019. However, the form of the mouse itself remained unchanged. For some weird reason, it just always worked with my hand. I could use it for 16+ hours a day with no issues.
The problem? The mouse became increasingly difficult to find as Logitech discontinued its production. What was once a $39 mouse now goes for $150 due to its scarcity. And pretty soon it won’t be around at all. So I slowly started looking for a new mouse. The problem was that my wrist pain would return the moment I tried a different one. Here are a few I’ve tried recently:
Razer Pro Click V2
Keychron M3
Logitech G PRO X Superlight 2 DEX
Logitech G PRO X Superlight 2
Logitech G703
Logitech G603
Logitech G305
I also tried a few vertical ergonomic mice
I ended up returning these mice after trying them for about two weeks each. The wrist pain was almost instant and never went away. I would go back to my Logitech MX518, and I was fine. So either my hand had literally formed into an MX518 at this point 😅, or I had to keep searching.
I was chatting with my brother, and he mentioned I should check out a brand called ZOWIE. I had never heard of it. It’s a line of mice made by BenQ (or rather, they acquired ZOWIE). Honestly, BenQ isn’t the first brand that comes to my mind for mice. But ZOWIE is their gaming line.
I decided to give the new ZOWIE EC1-DW mouse a try. It’s not cheap by any means, but I view it as an investment, both for work and my health.
After using it for a couple of weeks, I was blown away. It was instantly a perfect fit, no wrist pain, and I love everything about the mouse. For me, this just goes to show that the form factor, size, etc. of a mouse can matter quite a bit. Especially if you’re on the computer a lot. Obviously, no mouse will probably ever be exactly the same. But it’s about finding one that’s close and feels good.
Also, during my research, I discovered this handy EloShapes tool. You can compare different mice by size, weight, shape, and other factors like thumb rest, hump placement, etc.
If you’ve been looking for a great ergonomic right-handed mouse, I highly recommend checking out the ZOWIE brand. They have 18+ different models depending on what you need. A few other things I like about their line as opposed to other brands:
No fancy LED lights to figure out how to turn off. This means more battery life automatically.
DPI buttons right on the mouse.
No software. Means you don’t have to worry about Windows or Mac support.
No complicated additional buttons, just two simple buttons on the side.
Very high-quality build and extremely comfortable.
Ironically, this is the first time I’ve ever owned a wireless mouse. I guess it’s better late than never. 😅
Updates ✍️
We pushed out an update for our Perfmatters WordPress plugin. Here are a few of the changes:
New support to set the Perfmatters license key via wp-config.php using the PERFMATTERS_LICENSE_KEY constant. 🔑 This has been highly requested from our agency clients.
New perfmatters_fetch_priority filter.
New integration to send an early hint header for used CSS file when both features are enabled.
Added additional check for imagesrcset attribute when determining if an image should receive an early hint.
Added crossorigin and fetchpriority attributes to early hint headers. ⚡
Added additional parameters to excluded page builders array for Thrive Quiz Builder and Etch.
Added built-in stylesheet exclusions for Elementor and Astra local fonts.
Cleaned up leftover test file missed in previous update.
Translation updates.
Sidenote: We've been working really hard behind the scenes this summer on a brand new feature. 👨💻 One of the biggest we've launched in years. We can't reveal it quite yet, but we think you'll like it! Stay tuned.
Interesting things 🔎
Misc.
Japan sets a new internet speed record that is 4 million times faster than average US broadband speeds. You could download the entire Netflix catalogue in 1 second. 😮
Buying a house in the 1990’s. I thought this short was hilarious. 😂
WordPress
The roadmap for WordPress 6.9 (ETA December 2025) has been published. A few things that caught my eye:
Hide individual blocks on the front-end.
Add comments to individual blocks.
Implementing instant page navigations from browser history via bfcache. ⚡
GenerateBlocks Pro 2.3.0 alpha version is out with a lot of new features, things I’m sure many users will be happy about. While I tend to stay away from these, you can rest assured that they are at least built with performance in mind. Although I would wait for a stable release. Kyle also made a great video about the new features:
Advanced Overlay Panel system
Advanced conditions system for Overlay Panels
Create modals
Create mega menus
Create anchored overlays (popovers, etc.)
Create off-canvas panels
The SureRank plugin is out of beta! I’m looking forward to testing this plugin, especially to see how valid their “without the bloat” claims are. 😅
Kinsta has launched Database Studio (beta), where you can manage your site’s MySQL database right from the MyKinsta UI. No more clunky phpMyAdmin. Pretty cool!
There is a proposal to add PHPStan (a static code analysis tool to fix bugs before they reach customers) as a development dependency to WordPress core.
Was excited to take part in WPKitchen’s lunch giveaway, where Muhammad Hammad Rasheed was named the winner! 👨🍳
Easy Digital Downloads has added EU/UK VAT handling to their core plugin. This is great news, as it streamlines our business even more. But a huge shout-out to Barn2 for their excellent VAT plugin over the years; we couldn’t have done it without them. 👋
Bricks 2.0 has been released, and with it come 300+ changes. It’s their biggest full release update since 2021. I’m excited about the icon manager. Hopefully, you won’t need to load the entire Font Awesome library anymore.
Marketing
SEO Rockstar proves you don’t need meta descriptions. Honestly, there have been times when I didn’t write them and Google figured it out just fine. Your content itself is always the most important factor.
Fathom Analytics has been crushing it lately with the new features. 👏 Here are some of the things they launched in July:
City data for visitors.
Advanced filters to more easily segment data.
RegEx support for advanced filters.
Favicons for referrers in the dashboard.
Superhuman is being acquired by Grammarly to build the future of work.
Performance
Heads up, Core Web Vitals is coming to iOS! 🔥 This includes LCP and INP. More details here.
Font Awesome 7 is out. While they make beautiful icons, I’ve never been a fan due to how the entire libraries (mostly unused) are loaded on most sites. 🐌 The good news is they’ve streamlined them in this version (recommend updating if you haven’t already). I ran a few tests and here are some findings:
fa-solid-xx.woff2 159 KB down to 114 KB (28.3% decrease in size)
fa-regular-xx.woff2 26 KB 19.4 KB (25.38% decrease in size)
Weston Ruter launched the new No-cache BFCache plugin, which enables instant back/forward navigations, particularly while logged in. Definitely worth checking out, but you might not want to run on a large production site yet. However, this does appear to be on the roadmap for core integration in WordPress 6.9.
Last month, I shared the launch of Felix’s View Transitions plugin. However, just be aware that this might impact performance. I personally don’t like the feel of transitions.
Pressidium has launched edge cache. ⚡ This is great news for Pressidium customers as it means much faster server response time (lower TTFB) around the globe.
Microsoft says its Edge browser feels even faster. It now takes less than 300 milliseconds to start rendering the first parts of its user interface, including text and images.
Speed Analyzer is a new plugin from Dalibor that gives you an in-dashboard speed audit of your website. It uses Cloudflare Workers and Google PSI API under the hood.
AI
Cloudflare introduced pay per crawl, enabling content owners to charge AI crawlers for access. 🫰
On one hand, I tend to agree with Bill Hartzer on this topic. However, Jake Hawkes also shared an insightful video from Cloudflare’s CEO. I see both sides of this. But will Google cooperate? I think time will tell how this plays out.
Last month, I mentioned Yoast’s new LLMS.txt feature. However, it had one issue. They’ve fixed this now by adding support for preventing specifically noindexed posts from getting into the file. They also added manual page inclusion.
AI-generated content does not hurt your Google rankings (according to Ahrefs). But this doesn’t necessarily mean it’s good.
AI search currently drives less than 1% of traffic to most sites.
LLM seeding: A new strategy to get mentioned and cited by LLMs. Here we go again. SEO round 2. 😅
Perplexity, the startup behind the AI “answer” engine, has just launched its own web browser called Comet.
xAI has launched Grok 4, claiming to be the most powerful AI model yet to date.
If you're in the Scottsdale, AZ area, hit me up, and we can grab lunch! 🥗👋