“Alexa, tell Blog Helper to create a new post called ‘Granny’s banana bread recipe.’” Imagine logging a new draft on your WordPress site using only your voice while working in the kitchen. That’s what Blog Helper, an Alexa skill, enables for WordPress.com and self-hosted Jetpack users. It is available for free in Amazon’s catalog of…
Jetpack 4.8 was released this week with a settings redesign that is a continuation of the React.js-powered admin interface introduced last September. The new settings screen has been completely rearranged under a more simplified menu. “We went through every setting on WordPress.com and Jetpack to make sure it was necessary to keep around, and to…
WooCommerce 3.0 “Bionic Butterfly” was released today with significant improvements to the product gallery and developer tools. This version, which was previously going to be 2.7, is the first major release since the plugin switched to semantic versioning. It was released after more than three months in beta and an extended RC testing period that…
WP-CLI has hired Alain Schlesser as a new part-time co-maintainer. The position was made possible by sponsorships from Automattic, Bluehost, DreamHost, SiteGround, WP Engine, and more than 60 individuals who contributed to the project. “With Alain joining the project as a co-maintainer, the WP-CLI project is restoring capacity to meet current demands (e.g. support), and…
The original Raspberry Pi was released five years ago and the micro computer product line is still going strong. The Raspberry Pi Foundation sold its ten millionth Pi last year and just released the Pi Zero W in February 2017 with built-in WiFi and Bluetooth. If you are among the millions of Raspberry Pi owners…
The application for WordCamp Netherlands 2017 has been denied. The camp, which held its sixth edition in Utrecht last year with more than 425 attendees, was one of the most well-established WordPress events in Europe. Yesterday lead organizer Marcel Bootsman published a post on the Dutch WordPress community site to explain why the camp has…
Automattic’s mobile engineers released a major update to WordPress for Android this week. Last year the app’s users saw a growing disparity between the features available to self-hosted sites and those available to WordPress.com users. Not having the WP REST API in core was holding the app back from providing the same site management features…
WordPress.org relaunched the plugin directory this week with a new design and improvements to the search algorithm. The redesign spent more than six months in beta for feedback and testing, but many contributors on the project said they felt their feedback was not taken into account. The result is that the new design shipped but…
Just when you think all the best domain names have been gobbled up by bots and squatters, Poopy.life emerges as the fastest new way to spin up a WordPress test install. Joe Guilmette, team lead at WP All Import, opened up Poopy.life to the public today, offering free unlimited WordPress installs for anyone who needs…
Poedit 2 was released today after two years in development. The app has a refreshed interface for translating .PO files, which Poedit creator Václav Slavík said was created by a professional designer. It is also the first paid upgrade for Pro users since the app added support for WordPress theme and plugin translations in 2013.…
The new WordPress Plugin Directory went live today. Contributors have been working for the past year on rebuilding the directory with a new design and better capabilities for searching through the 45K+ available plugins. The new landing page displays a search bar prominently at the top, followed by sections for featured plugins, popular plugins, and…
UK government officials are targeting online service providers after terrorist Khalid Masood killed four people and injured more than two dozen in an attack in Westminster last week. In an article published on the Telegraph Sunday morning, British Home Secretary Amber Rudd called on Google, Twitter, and Facebook to take action on extremist content. She…
WordCamp Miami kicked off today with its ancillary workshops for beginners, freelancers, and BuddyPress enthusiasts. The WordCamp is entering its 9th year and organizers are expecting more than 800 attendees. Tickets are once again sold out, but latecomers hoping to attend can sign up for the wait list. WordCamp Miami is one of the most…
Nearly three months after laying off a third of its staff and publicly admitting that its previous ad-based revenue model was broken, Medium has introduced a new $5 per month subscription program. The internet speculated freely about Medium’s next move after CEO Ev Williams said the company would be taking “a different, bolder approach” to…
PHP 5.6 usage has steadily increased over the past year and has now overtaken versions 5.3 and 5.4 to be the most widely used version, according to W3Techs’ stats. PHP is used by 82.6% of all the websites for which W3Techs can detect a server-side programming language. PHP 7 accounts for 3.1% of these websites…