Tidbits from Brian - Issue #57
Adding "exercise snacks" to my daily routine. 💪
I’ll be honest, I’m horrible at keeping a consistent workout schedule. There will be months where I do really well, and then other months where I stop completely. 🤦♂️ Is anyone else like this?
I don’t think it’s laziness; I’m an incredibly hard worker, and I actually enjoy working out. It always comes down to a time allotment issue. Working out 30+ minutes a day in a single block just doesn’t always fit in my schedule. Or I convince myself to spend that time on our business instead.
For the month of July, I’m going to start doing what are called “exercise snacks.” Basically, a short period (2-5 minutes) of high-intensity exercise every hour or so during my regular workday. Probably rotating between squats, pushups, pullups, lifting weights, etc., on different days. 🏋️ Ironically, it will probably end up being the same amount of total time. But sometimes it’s about tricking your brain.
Obviously, this isn’t as good as a regular workout. But if you are skipping months at a time, I think we can safely say that consistency in any type of workout is the most important thing. Especially for anyone in a more sedentary type of job, such as myself. There are some other benefits as well, such as giving my eyes a break from the screen throughout the day.
Curious, are there any tricks you do to try and stay consistent when working out? Hopefully, I can post back with positive updates on how it goes. 😅
Updates ✍️
We are celebrating 9 years of our Perfmatters plugin this month! 🎉 It’s now used on over 175,000 WordPress sites. We appreciate all the support, feedback, and kind words throughout the years. We have a lot of exciting new features we’re working on this summer. Here are a few of the changes in our most recent update this week:
Add new code snippet URL-based conditions for path contains, path equals, and path regex. This enables every possible combination. 👨🔬
Added new perfmatters_rucss_delay_stylesheets filter which allows you to delay a specific stylesheet already excluded from used CSS.
Add new load behavior option to delay CSS code snippets using the file print method. ⚡
Added additional support to code snippet search to allow the search value to match on the code input itself.
Added default sort order controls to code snippet screen options. ↪️
Made a change to allow an image tag with a missing src attribute to still be able to lazy load if it has a valid srcset attribute.
Adjusted main code menu behavior to return to return to the base code view if selected while viewing a single code snippet.
Fixed utility attribute encoding so certain characters are preserved instead of being converted to HTML entities.
Fixed a possible JavaScript conflict with minimal analytics declaring variables in the global scope. The script is now wrapped in an IIFE for compatibility.
Security update to improve escaping of code snippets list table admin links built from the current request URL. 🔒
Security updates to add domain verification and content type validation to local Google fonts feature when downloading remote files.
We also pushed out an update for our Novashare WordPress plugin. Here are a few of the changes:
Added new share and follow buttons for MeWe.
Added new follow buttons for Cash App, Ko-fi, and Venmo.
Added new share button window options for button color and icon color. You can now set a specific color scheme throughout the entire workflow.
Adjusted the novashare_ai_network_text filter to allow the text to be changed per network.
Added WP-CLI support for managing plugin license key activation and importing a settings configuration.
Interesting things 🔎
Misc.
Midjourney (yes, that Midjourney) Medical is building Ultrasonic CT, a full-body ultrasound with no radiation and no magnets, just sound, water, and a 60-second scan. As someone who has had to do many MRIs, this could be a game-changer if they can pull it off.
If you’re a nerd like me, I encourage you to sign the petition to save the Stargate show! 🤓
Substack now supports highlighting and changing text colors! I’m personally a fan of highlighting, so you might see me start using it in my newsletter if I find a combination I like.
Data centers in space will soon be a thing. How about data centers in the ocean?
Here are some things I found interesting from WWDC 2026 (among the 250 changes):
A lot of promising performance updates 😮:
Photos taken on iPhone appear in iCloud up to 70 percent faster.
Sharing files between devices over AirDrop is up to 80 percent faster.
Transfers in the Files app are up to 50 percent faster.
New CPU scheduler manager that prioritizes jobs.
AirPods are getting a custom EQ! 👏 It’s pretty basic, but having anything is better than nothing. SoundSource is also an awesome alternative.
New Safari can monitor a webpage and notify you of updates.
Apple to bring AI reframing and editing tools to Photos app.
Apple unveils new Siri app on mobile and macOS. Current Siri just isn’t great compared to other alternatives.
Intercom rebranded to Fin, and then got acquired by Salesforce. I haven’t heard good things from other products they bought, so hopefully they don’t ruin Fin.
Cloudflare DMARC management is now generally available.
WordPress
WordPress has made a huge change regarding how updates work from the repository. There is now a 24-hour delay before the update is released. ⌛ Some developers have already voiced their concerns. We aren’t impacted by this since we only have premium plugins, but I could see “no patch Friday” becoming “no patch Thursday/Friday” due to the change. Time will tell how this plays out.
GenerateBlocks had a pretty big improvement in their recent update. You can now write CSS directly in the editor while seeing your changes happen in real time. Kyle has a great video of it in action.
Easy Digital Downloads rolled out their Right of Withdrawal update. This is a new legal policy in the EU as of June 19th, 2026.
There’s a new chatbot in town, called DBestChatBot. I like how they focused more on performance compared to some of the other bloated ones. 30 KB, no DB tables (offloaded to SaaS), Shadow DOM CSS, etc. And only ~140 bytes of HTML in the footer. Definitely worth checking out! 🤖⚡
Heads up, in WordPress 7.1, they will be hiding the Classic block from the block inserter by default. Existing blocks will continue to work.
1 million forced installs and a 1-star rating. Read more about SiteGround’s AI plugin rollout, which angered a lot of long-term clients. 😠 In my opinion, a hosting provider should NEVER do this.
Sometimes free scanning tools can actually come in handy to see if you missed anything. The WP Health Checker tool is quite extensive.
Austin created Dismissed, a database of WordPress admin-notice spam (complete with a hall of shame). I like this idea. We definitely need to clean up more admin notices.
Kinsta launched a file manager. You can now manage all of your WordPress files directly from within MyKinsta. I’ve started to use this, and it’s handy when you don’t need to fully SFTP/SSH into a site. 📂
Marketing
What does it take to market a WordPress plugin? I found this post from Amber Hinds to be insightful. I always enjoy reading what other business owners are doing.
Katie Keith@KatieKeithBarn2AI can boost productivity, but for a business like mine whose success is due to SEO, it's a disaster overall: - Zero-click searches - Our Google rankings have improved in the past year, but clicks to product pages are down 50-74% (84% for the blog). We rank better but get fewer7:16 AM · Jun 15, 2026 · 10.5K Views29 Replies · 8 Reposts · 131 LikesLinear is finally getting better docs support. 📝 Honestly, docs was always an afterthought and one reason we didn’t consider using Linear over something like Confluence. Might have to take another look now.
Google is starting to roll out Search Console AI performance reports and controls to block your content in AI responses.
Do llms.txt files actually help your SEO (or GEO)? Maybe not as much as you think. Check out this study from Ahrefs.
Performance
Most of us already know that Yoast is not the fastest plugin out there when it comes to SEO. The good news is that version 27.8 was focused entirely on performance. 🚀
We love our clients! Ryan from InfluenceWP built a snippet converter for Perfmatters. This allows you to convert third-party code snippet JSON exports into the Perfmatters PMCS import format.
There’s a new image optimization plugin launching called Image Offloader. It offloads images (Cloudflare R2, Amazon S3, or Backblaze B2), supports WebP/AVIF conversion, and custom CDN domain delivery. I haven’t tried it, but worth checking out when it launches.
GTmetrix now has an MCP server that lets you connect your preferred AI tools directly to GTmetrix, enabling AI-assisted performance testing and analysis.
AI
Cursor is launching code storage and git hosting in the fall. You can sign up for the waitlist.
Cursor also launched its iOS app. You can now launch always-on agents in the cloud, or control agents running on your computer from your phone.
Google Lighthouse has a new Agentic Browsing category.
Bots have now passed human traffic online for the first time in the Internet’s history. Speaking of AI and bots, Kinsta released an interesting report on their behavior, based on analysis of 10+ billion requests. 🤖
Ford is rehiring veteran engineers after over-relying on AI hurt its vehicle quality. Oops! 🤦♂️ And Elementor is cutting 30% of its workforce.
DuckDuckGo makes its no-AI search engine easier to access as its traffic booms.
If you're in the Scottsdale, AZ area, hit me up, and we can grab lunch! 🥗👋