It's your fave WordPress weekly email, now at issue 159!
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Reader, hello!
Welcome back to MasterWP Weekly, your weekly newsletter for WordPress professionals đź‘‹
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I’ve included two totally non-WordPress articles this week, and I hope you’ll forgive me for it. They’re really interesting reads, honest!
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I’m currently working on a new version of Brush Ninja - my animated gif creation tool that’s mostly a side project but is also a nice distraction from the craziness going on in the world at the moment. I’m also doing a lot of gardening. I hope everyone reading this is coping well! - Ben.
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WP&UP supports and promotes positive mental health within the WordPress community. To continue to deliver the free-to-end-user mental health and wellbeing support, WP&UP needs your support - please consider Sponsorship or a Donation! - Thank you.
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We've "donated" this ad spot :)
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It’s not that long ago that WordCamp Europe was delayed until next year. This was a very sensible move, and it’s still happening in Portugal in July next year. But also, it has now been announced that it’s going to be held online this year as well!
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Personally I think this is great. An online conference that I can consume at my leisure is for me the best way to consume conferences.
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Not having to fly somewhere is much better for the planet, and I can stay with my family here and watch the videos when I want. I know this would mean no networking/ making friends which are some of the biggest benefits of conferences, but the presentations that would be made this year are likely to be very different to the ones made next year - so if we can get them presented this year in any form then that’s a win in my opinion.
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It will also go some way towards making the effort of the organising team worthwhile. Presumably they already had a good chunk of the speakers arranged, the schedule planned, and talks written. So being able to use these things makes a lot of sense; and now everyone can join in. - Ben.
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Its encryption isn't even that strong
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Zoom has seen a surge in popularity recently. Due mostly to the great features and fantastic audio and video quality. Possibly also because you can have loads of people on the call at once.
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Once exposed Zoom has fixed all of these issues, but in my opinion they shouldn’t be issues to start with. I’m an advocate for privacy best practices and Zoom don’t appear to be following any. Their UX is great, but I worry about their business practices.
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Obviously, for many these issues are not a concern, but I would be wary of recommending the app. If you want an alternative then The Verge has a list of candidates - both free and paid. [Alex - we’ve tried pretty much all of these, and use Hangouts Meet. It’s available with G Suite, and does lack some features but the call quality is always excellent.]
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Hopefully with the increased usage and visibility of the app they will improve their working methods, but equally they will need to pay for all these free users somehow... - Ben
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Lessons in user experience
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You’ll have to excuse me for linking some car industry news. The actual story on this is pretty much what the headline says, but there’s some good discussion on this here. This is interface design and making products, same as we do in WordPress. Honda is responding to user feedback that a user interface the industry has adopted is hard to use, and they’re breaking with the industry mould by switching back to what they used to do.
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WordPress probably doesn’t count as “safety critical interfaces”, but there are probably some lessons here. It’s very easy to go along with trends, but it’s much less fun to query if the trends are good. In cars that’s apparently touchscreen interfaces, and I’m sure there are plenty of examples in our world too. - Alex.
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The article above is tenuously linked to WordPress, but I have no connection for this one. If you’re stuck at home you’re probably making coffee, and the AeroPress is a compact and cost-effective way of getting very good coffee at home. I used one for years, never quite mastering the inverted method, but I did get good enough that I could consistently make a coffee without spilling anything.
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The story of how the AeroPress came to exist is pretty interesting, and that’s what this article is about. The company that makes them, Aerobie, has been around since the 1980s when it made world record frisbees(?!). They invented the AeroPress in 2005 as a solution for making a single cup of coffee that tastes good, quickly. And it worked! It took some time for the product to take off, but the quality won out in the end. Pretty interesting story, and a great product. - Alex.
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🌟 Alex's other newsletter is Press Marketing, a monthly newsletter on marketing + WordPress. Get it here.
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MasterWP weekly continues below!
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That don’t involve WordPress
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If you are fortunate enough to have some free time whilst stuck at home then it’s possible you are considering working on a side project.
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This article collates some of the platforms you could use to monetise this side project.
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Personally I always find these things interesting. I’m not sure why. There always seem to be new providers appearing with ever more innovative processes.
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Now obviously I could use WordPress and WooCommerce for this. But I don’t like that. That would mean I have to deal with EU VAT, and privacy compliance, and secure data storage. I always use a third party for payments so that I don’t have to worry about things like that and can focus on making fun things.
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FWIW I use FastSpring for Pro Theme Design. But I am considering adding payments to Brush Ninja and will likely use something else. - Ben.
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MasterWP is a free weekly newsletter for WordPress professionals, written by Ben Gillbanks and Alex Denning. Thank you to our newsletter provider, MailPoet, for sending the email. Thank you also to the people who make it happen: Peta Armstrong formats the newsletter, and Barbara Saul, Monique Dubbelman, and Laura Nelson kindly copy-check for us.
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You can get in touch with us – send us your thoughts, comments, or a story – by replying directly to this newsletter.
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""If you want to succeed, double your failure rate."
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