Jetpack is active on more than a million websites and it’s a tough job making sure the potential number of sites that might break due to an update is minimal. You can now contribute to the cause by participating in the new Jetpack beta testing program. Beta testers who join will be the first to…
Argent is a bold new portfolio theme that was launched on WordPress.com last week. The theme is centered around showcasing the work of visual artists such as designers, photographers, craft makers, painters, etc., with portfolio items featured prominently on the homepage template. Argent was designed by Mel Choyce, co-author of the popular Flounder and Aventurine…
Jetpack’s related posts module is a great way to show related content without using the same server resources used to host a site. When activated, the module displays three related posts. One of two options available is to use a large and visually striking layout. When enabled, the module looks for a large image that’s…
On this episode of WordPress Weekly, Marcus Couch and I discuss the news of the week. We inform you of the recent security vulnerability discovered in Jetpack and the Twenty Fifteen theme. We also discuss a new crowdfunding campaign to create a server manager built on top of WordPress called HostPress. I shared a personal…
Jetpack and the Twenty Fifteen default theme have been updated after a DOM-based Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) vulnerability was discovered. According to Sucuri, any plugin or theme that uses Genericons is vulnerable due to an insecure file included within the package. Genericons ships with a file called example.html which is vulnerable to attack from the Document…
Jetpack 3.5 was released today, coinciding with WordPress 4.2. This release expands the capabilities of Jetpack’s centralized site management to include menus. If you have Jetpack Manage activated, you can now log into WordPress.com to manage menus for any of your sites that have opted in. The benefit of going to WordPress.com to manage menus…
Cloudup, the file storage and sharing service acquired by Automattic in 2013, has refreshed its web interface. Many of the changes are subtle and place more emphasis on your content. Stats and FAQ links have been moved under the account menu. On the desktop and mobile versions of the site, the add new file button…
Have you ever wondered what it takes to support a WordPress plugin with a million active users? At the beginning of 2015, Matt Mullenweg highlighted Jetpack as one of the most important tools in helping WordPress remain competitive and preventing the decline of its market share. The team surrounding Jetpack is laser focused on adding…
Facebook shocked the world when it acquired WhatsApp for $19 billion dollars in February 2014. As of January 2015, the app’s user base has grown to more than 700 million active users, making it the third largest social network on the planet. Last year very few WordPress sharing plugins prioritized adding WhatsApp, despite its enormous…
Last August, Automattic acquired Parka, LLC, the makers of the BruteProtect security tool for WordPress, with the goal of integrating its features into Jetpack. The services provided in BruteProtect Pro were subsequently offered for free. Jetpack 3.4 was released today with brute force protection available to users via a new module called Protect. You can…
WordPress.com now supports oEmbeds for CartoDB, a tool used to create and share interactive maps. Simply copy and paste a CartoDB map URL into the WordPress.com post editor and a live preview will display. Here’s an example of a map using the standard HTML embed code. According to an announcement on the official CartoDB blog,…
Connecting a WordPress.com account in order to use Jetpack can be a hassle, especially when developing for clients or working on your local machine. If you like Jetpack but don’t want to connect to WordPress.com, there’s a new plugin that makes it easy to use the features that don’t require a connection. Unplug Jetpack was…
If you like designs that feature stunning, fullscreen background images, then Automattic’s latest free theme release is a prime candidate for your next blog redesign. Harmonic recently landed on WordPress.org and is rapidly closing in on 3,000 downloads. This theme puts the spotlight on your images and content. Harmonic’s striking homepage is accompanied by a…
George Stephanis, who is a member of the Jetpack Pit Crew, published a post over the weekend that explains why Jetpack is not a collection of plugins. According to Stephanis, dependency management in WordPress sucks. In a nutshell, a dependency is when a library, framework, component, theme, or plugin requires the existence of another to function.…
Restaurant themes don’t often land in the WordPress Themes Directory. In fact, there are barely a dozen listed among the 3,000+ themes on WordPress.org. One problem with many commercial restaurant themes is that they are usually marketed as a complete package with everything built into the theme, including menu management. The lack of separation of…