Sarah Gooding

  • WordPress 3.8 Merge Window Closed: New Features Now Locked In

    Today was an important day for moving forward on the WordPress 3.8 project schedule. The merge window is now closed for new features, which means that all the main features included in this release are set. There were no surprises during the regularly scheduled WordPress development chat. All of the expected plugin candidates made it…

  • Drupal Release Cycle Improvements Inspired by WordPress and Other Platforms

    Tis the season for open source projects to work together and learn from one another. The Joomla community gave a warm welcome to Matt Mullenweg and Andrew Nacin at the Joomla World Conference, where Matt delivered a keynote address. This event opened up some interesting cross-platform discussions on development. The folks at WordCamp Miami are…

  • WordPress For Android Gets a Major Update

    The WordPress Android app received some significant updates this week, making it easier than ever to post on the go. As a long time Android user, I’ve seen the app go through many different stages. This update brings the most beautiful mobile experience to Android users so far. More Robust Support for Media Handling One…

  • WordPress Twenty Fourteen Project Enters Crunch Time for 3.8 Release

    The Twenty Fourteen project team, led by Lance Willett, is working like crazy to get the theme ready for the upcoming 3.8 release. The theme’s inclusion in 3.8 is dependent upon how many things can be accomplished during the crunch time before the merge window closes tomorrow. Since last week’s development chat, the team has…

  • WordPress Global Admin Search Evolves To Tackle Bigger Problems

    The WordPress Global Admin Search plugin, previously known as “Omnisearch”, is becoming a bigger project than it originally appeared to be. Searching the admin area of WordPress sounds so simple, right? But it turns out that search is a very nuanced feature that everyone has an opinion about. Last week Matt Mullenweg held a meeting…

  • iThemes Launches Sync Service for Updating Multiple WordPress Sites

    Cory Miller and the team at iThemes announced today that they are launching a new WordPress service into the market. iThemes Sync made its debut today, offering customers a way to manage WordPress core, theme and plugin updates from one centralized dashboard.

  • WordPress Co-Founder Matt Mullenweg Keynotes Joomla World Conference

    This past weekend Matt Mullenweg joined Joomla fans and contributors for the second Joomla World Conference in Boston, MA. Mullenweg gave the conference’s closing keynote on Sunday and shared some insights gained along the way on his journey with WordPress. During his presentation, Matt highlighted the mission of WordPress: Democratizing publishing by making it easy…

  • Free WordPress Writr Theme Now Available on WordPress.org

    Last week WordPress.com released Writr, a beautiful free theme that really puts your content in the spotlight. The tumblelog style is perfect for power bloggers who like to utilize post formats for different types of content. The good news this week is that Writr is now available for self-hosted WordPress sites via its new page…

  • VIP Quickstart: A Local Development Environment That Mirrors WordPress.com

    The WordPress.com VIP development team maintains some of the largest WordPress installations on the web, including Time, NBC Sports, TechCrunch, CNN and many others. Creating a proper development environment is crucial to serving clients who use WordPress on such a large scale, but it’s not very easy to set up. That’s why the VIP development…

  • How WordPress 3.7 Affects the Hotfix Plugin

    For the past two years or so, Hotfix has been one of those essential WordPress plugins that many users have added immediately upon installation. This plugin was created by Mark Jaquith in early 2011 to provide early, automatic fixes for WordPress based on the version you’re using. He created it during a time when WordPress…

  • WP Sessions Offers Free Video Series on Building WordPress Plugins

    Want to learn the basics of creating a WordPress plugin? If you’re a visual/audio learner, check out the free Building WordPress Plugins video series from WP Sessions. Inspired by the WordCamp style presentations of the 24hr WordSesh event, Brian Richards wanted to create a site to bring WordPress educational resources to people at home. The…

  • Behind The Scenes With Dogshaming.com: Helping People Humiliate Pets With WordPress

    Some dogs are just plain naughty. Mine is 100% mischief so naturally I’m a pretty big fan of Dogshaming.com. I was thrilled to find out that this popular site is running on WordPress. Inspired by her own naughty pup who chews holes in underwear for kicks, Pascale Lemire originated the online trend of “dog shaming.”…

  • BuddyPress 1.9 To Retire Default Theme and Add New Notifications Component

    BuddyPress 1.9 beta has been slightly delayed, but lead developer John James Jacoby says that it’s not too far off course. There are 43 tickets left in 1.9. During the BuddyPress development meeting today, BP core contributors addressed tickets that need more attention and caught everyone up for where 1.9 is headed. BuddyPress 1.9 Will…

  • Should WordPress Include a Password Generator?

    WordPress 3.7 made big strides towards helping users create stronger passwords with the new password strength meter, powered by the zxcvbn library. Despite having this excellent tool available, many users have admitted that they are in fact too lazy to come up with a strong password and would prefer to have a password generator available…

  • Cart66 Launches WordPress Managed Hosting for E-Commerce

    Cart66, previously known as PHPurchase, was one of the very first WordPress e-commerce plugins on the scene. Over the years the company has experimented with different WordPress e-commerce products but this week marks a major milestone. Cart66 Hosted has launched the first fully managed WordPress e-commerce platform. In partnership with the folks at Pagely, the…