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Tidbits from Brian - Issue #5

Brian Jackson
Brian Jackson
@brianleejackson
Many of us around the world go about our daily lives right now. But it’s hard for anyone to ignore what’s happening in Europe.
My thoughts and prayers are with the people of Ukraine, as well as those in Russia condemning the acts of their government. This is a war of an authoritarian leader.

#standwithukraine (image source: etuc.org)
#standwithukraine (image source: etuc.org)
Updates ✍️
Well, it was finally time to say goodbye to Google Analytics. I’ve moved all of our sites to Fathom. I realize not everyone has this luxury, but if you do, it’s something to consider. Both for privacy and performance reasons.
I’m excited to join Kyle, co-founder of The Admin Bar, on a live YouTube walkthrough of our Perfmatters WordPress plugin on March 4th! Register for the event.
We’ve spent a lot of time this last month improving our unused CSS feature in Perfmatters. We also have a new option to remove unnecessary global inline styles that came along in WordPress 5.9.
We shipped new Novashare features in February, such as custom Pinterest image pinning, a default social image, and a subscribe button. We did all this while refactoring our main JS file to be more efficient (25% smaller).
Interesting things 🔎
Misc.
  • Apple announces tap to pay. Excited to see this pan out more.
  • Check out this amazing video of the desktop web browser market share from 1994 to 2021. I remember the Netscape days.
  • I’ve never been able to stick with a workout schedule until now. All it took was a free app.
  • WebPageTest gets a new coat of paint. Looking good!
  • Mimestream 0.33.0 now supports Google Calendar invitations. Yay.
  • Trello released Dashcards. They are great, I’m using them now on my boards.
WordPress
Performance
  • WordPress on PHP 8.1 can handle 47.10% more requests per second than PHP 8.0. (50% more than PHP 7.2). See PHP benchmarks.
  • If you’re using Cloudflare, don’t enable SXGs if you want to use preloads.
Marketing
  • Zyppy studied 81,000 page titles, and Google rewrote 61% of them. An interesting case study.
  • FYI: Links with UTM parameters are just links. They’re definitely not considered paid links (source).
  • Just a friendly reminder, that mobile-friendliness is a Google ranking factor.
Crypto (not financial advice)
  • Fidelity Digital Assets launched an excellent report on Bitcoin First.
  • Jurrien Timmer, the Dir. of Global Macro at Fidelity, also put out a great thread on why the Bitcoin network is what matters. 
  • Want to use your crypto as collateral for a mortgage? There are companies like Milo and Ledn starting to do this.
  • You can get your TurboTax refund in Bitcoin now. Cool!
  • Wells Fargo published an interesting report. Are you too late for crypto? Not by a long shot.
“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” – George Santayana
Until next time.
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Brian Jackson
Brian Jackson @brianleejackson

I've learned, failed, and succeeded as an entrepreneur. I share tidbits of actionable advice about marketing, WordPress, web performance, and Bitcoin. Take strategic leaps forward! đź’ˇ Once a month, no spam.

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