Episodes

  • WP Mainline Episode 23 - Saving the Internet and Saving Open Source
    Jan 17 2022

    In this episode, Malcom Peralty and I catch up on a few of the stories we've missed since the start of the New Year. We briefly go over what's new in WooCommerce 6.1, what I feel was missed in the revised guidelines proposal for in-person WordPress events, and Yoast SEO creating an app for Shopify.

    We also discuss whether or not Matt Mullenweg can save the internet. I don't think one person can but, Matt is certainly in a place where he can do a lot of good for the internet and humanity. Last but not least, I share my joy in saving a bit of cash each year as GoDaddy will now include privacy settings for WHOIS information by default.

    This Episode is Brought to You By GoDaddy Pro:

    Are you looking to increase your productivity? One tool that helps thousands of web developers and designers do more every day is GoDaddy Pro.

    Combining site, client, and project management, GoDaddy Pro is an all-in-one solution made by and for web professionals. Whether you’re new to web design or looking to grow your business, you’ll find free tools, products, guidance, and support to help you deliver results for clients.

    Manage and monitor all your clients’ WordPress sites from a single place, no matter where they’re hosted. With a single click, perform bulk updates, backups, security checks, and more to save time and free up your day.

    Stories Discussed:
    • Additional Proposed In-Person Event Guidelines Need to Specify Mask Type
    • WooCommerce 6.1 Released
    • Open Source Considered Harmful
    • Yoast SEO on Shopify
    • FrostWP Open Source
    • Can Matt Mullenweg save the internet?
    • GoDaddy Domains Now Include Stronger Privacy Protection
    • WordPress 5.8.3 Security Update
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    46 mins
  • WP Mainline Episode 22 - State of The Word 2021 Recap
    Dec 18 2021

    In this episode, Malcom Peralty and I provide an overview of the State of the Word presentation. We cover various points of information, talk about the future of WordPress, and how important CC-0 content is not only to WordPress but to the web in general. We also talk about features coming in WordPress 5.9 and the concerning statistic of open source content management systems losing market share while closed systems are significantly increasing theirs.

    This Episode is Brought to You By GoDaddy Pro: GoDaddy Pro

    Are you looking to increase your productivity? One tool that helps thousands of web developers and designers do more every day is GoDaddy Pro.

    Combining site, client, and project management, GoDaddy Pro is an all-in-one solution made by and for web professionals. Whether you’re new to web design or looking to grow your business, you’ll find free tools, products, guidance, and support to help you deliver results for clients.

    Manage and monitor all your clients’ WordPress sites from a single place, no matter where they’re hosted. With a single click, perform bulk updates, backups, security checks, and more to save time and free up your day.

    Click to View Transcript:

    Speaker 1 00:00:19 Welcome everybody to episode 22 of the WP mainline podcast for Friday, December 17th, 2021. I am your host, Jeff Chandler and joined, uh, by, uh, Malcolm Peralta. Hello, sir. Hello? Hello? Hello? Hello indeed. How has your week been?
    Speaker 2 00:00:36 It’s been okay. Uh, it’s, it’s hard to get things done with everyone already kind of on holiday brain, but other than that, it’s going well.
    Speaker 1 00:00:43 Yeah, well, I, I tell you, one thing I’m getting pretty concerned with is all my, all my crime, uh, variant it’s going around. Cause cause now it’s like, you know, I was fine with wearing a mask everywhere, but now it seems like this variant is to the point where I have to actually, uh, purchase some and 95 mask or kn 95 mask and start wearing those out in public. If I want to really protect myself from this new variant, the good news is I’m back double bank’s needed. We’re trying to schedule our boosters as soon as possible. And from what I’ve been able to tell the vaccines are doing, from what we can tell, we’ve been doing a great job of battling these, these variants and mostly all the bad news I’m seeing. And, uh, 95% of all hospitalizations here in my state are from people who are not vaccinated. It’s it’s a damn shame.
    Speaker 2 00:01:34 It certainly is. And I, I mean, I think, uh,
    Speaker 1 00:01:38 From what I’ve heard, you’re actually going to have spot right now. Yeah,
    Speaker 2 00:01:41 Actually we’re probably the worst in the, in Ontario. I think there were some fair and we’re one of the worst in all of Canada right now. Um, it’s, it’s actually really sad. A lot of it is 18 to 29 year olds. Um, and, uh, yeah, you would just think that they would be vaccinated, but I think they still think they’re invincible. So that’s just the way it is sometimes
    Speaker 1 00:02:02 With, with youth comes a feeling of vulnerability and you have to learn the hard way sometimes. Okay. So I’m sorry for starting to show off and abandon. I mean it’s important. And uh, and in fact with all my crime, I hope I’m saying that right. Cause there’s a whole work about that. I had all my crown, all my crime crime, uh, so an event took place this week where people from the WordPress community, hi...

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    1 hr and 2 mins
  • WP Mainline Episode 21 - Gravatar, Theme JSON Generator, and CMS Marketshare
    Dec 13 2021

    In this episode, Malcom Peralty and I discuss the news of the week beginning with a new Theme.JSON generator created by David Gwyer. We then shared our thoughts on the new redesign of WP Tavern.com. We explain what data was exposed by a recent scrape of public Gravatar data and share alternatives for managing avatar images locally. We congratulated and thanked Helen 侯-Sandí as she leaves her post at 10up and moves on to new adventures. We wrapped up the show by discussing a CMS Marketshare analysis by Joost de Valk.

    This Episode is Brought to You By GoDaddy Pro: GoDaddy Pro

    Are you looking to increase your productivity? One tool that helps thousands of web developers and designers do more every day is GoDaddy Pro.

    Combining site, client, and project management, GoDaddy Pro is an all-in-one solution made by and for web professionals. Whether you’re new to web design or looking to grow your business, you’ll find free tools, products, guidance, and support to help you deliver results for clients.

    Manage and monitor all your clients’ WordPress sites from a single place, no matter where they’re hosted. With a single click, perform bulk updates, backups, security checks, and more to save time and free up your day.

    Stories Discussed:
    • Theme.json Generator
    • WPTavern Redesign
    • Gravatar Emails Exposed
    • Helen Housandi Moves on From 10up/WordPress
    • 1.6 Million WordPress Sites under Attack
    • CMS MarketShare
    Click to View Transcript:

    Speaker 1 00:00:19 Welcome everyone to episode 20, one of the UWP mainline podcasts for Freddy December 10th, 2021. I’m your host, Jeff Chandler joined by Malcolm. Perotti. Hello, sir. Hello? Hello from the frosty north. Absolutely. Although here, it’s kind of the warm, well, it’s not warm north. You’re more north than me. It’s the warm south. Yeah. Yeah. Have you ever thought of yourself as living in this? No, no, no. I have not. Uh, well, we’re back here in another week. Another week of things to talk about, we, uh, apologize for no show. Last week, last week was a bit of a crap shoot. Uh, just things, things didn’t go well. And it was just, just a sucky week. And we were talking before the, for the, uh, before the show here, David himself, he’s having a bit of a crappy week, how it goes at, sir. Come on. What’s so crappy about it.
    Speaker 1 00:01:08 I let it out. Tell us well, we’re, we’re, we’re, we’re we’re few and far between was show notes. Come on, man. Let it out. And I think I’ll keep most of it, uh, close to my chest, but I will say that’s fine. I did sign up for, um, better help.com again, to start working with a counselor to kind of sort my brain out a bit. So I’m so glad that those services exist. I wish they weren’t so pricey, but I’m so glad they exist. All right, man. Well, let me surround the you’re on the right track there. Yeah. So let’s see. Where are we at? What’s been going on here. Um, well, let’s talk about, uh, how about a theme that Jason theme generator voice say that 10 times fast, uh, David Guidewire...

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    52 mins
  • WP Mainline Episode 20 - No Thanks Were Given for GoDaddy Breach
    Dec 1 2021

    Better late than never! I hope everyone had a good holiday last week. I ended up getting some of my much-needed medication so things are not as bleak as they were last week. At any rate, you can listen to last week’s news today!

    We start off the show by discussing the major breach that occurred at GoDaddy and question whether two-factor authentication will be a requirement going forward.

    We took a look at WordPress 5.9 and shared our opinions of user-facing features we’re looking forward to. We also share the revised schedule for the release of WordPress 5.9. Last but not least, we have a discussion surrounding Black Friday deals, pricing, psychological marketing triggers, and what constitutes a good deal for the consumer.

    Stories Discussed:
    • GoDaddy Breached – Plaintext Passwords – 1.2M Affected
    • GoDaddy Breach Widens to tsoHost, Media Temple, 123Reg, Domain Factory, Heart Internet, and Host Europe
    • WordPress.org Survey
    • A Look at WordPress 5.9
    • WordPress 5.9 Revised Release Schedule
    • Join us for State of the Word 2021, in person or online!
    • The Dark Side of the Black Friday Sales
    Click to View Transcript:

    Speaker 1 00:00:19 Welcome everybody to episode 20 of the WP mainline podcast for Wednesday, November 24th, 2021. I’m your host, Jeff Chandler and joined by Malcolm porosity. Malcolm served gobble gobble
    Speaker 2 00:00:33 Only for you, American.
    Speaker 1 00:00:34 Yeah. Yeah. That’s right. You already had your Thanksgiving. That’s right. It’s like a full month ago. Yep. Well, it’s our turn now, buddy. Very much enjoying looking for this is my favorite time of the year. Uh, we’ve got, uh, some stuffing homemade stuffing. We’ve got broccoli and cheese casserole, which is basically just broccoli and cheese brownies. So to speak to very good. I got deviled eggs in the fridge. We’ve got homemade pumpkin pie roll. We’ve got, uh, uh, smoked roasted Turkey from the honeybee Tam company. And what else do we get? Oh, she’s gonna, she’s gonna make some candy yams. We’ve got pumpernickel bread. And uh, the only people who’s going to be here tomorrow is me and my wife and smokey. So, you know,
    Speaker 2 00:01:14 That is quite the
    Speaker 1 00:01:15 Fees were covered for the weekend. I think
    Speaker 2 00:01:18 I was, I was actually talking to a, uh, my coworker and one of the things that I brought up was just how big of a deal Thanksgiving is in the states. And, uh, he said, you know, Christmas is kind of more for the kids and Thanksgiving is kind of more for the adults. So that’s why it’s kind of treated as this, you know, bigger event. Um, how do you feel about that? Do you agree? Like is Thanksgiving bigger than Christmas and, and a lot of,
    Speaker 1 00:01:40 Well, let’s put it this way. I think Thanksgiving is the holiday that generates the most sales of alcohol during the year. So I don’t know, take debt for what you will. Uh, but, um, yeah, I don’t know. I suppose I, I think, uh, I don’t know, man, I just love Thanksgiving because you’re almost guaranteed to have a good meal somewhere. You know, if it’s not a relatives, a friend’s house somewhere it’s, it’s always, it’s always...

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    56 mins
  • WP Mainline Episode 19 - GoDaddy Acquires Pagely, Doing The Woo, and WordPress Contributor Churn
    Nov 15 2021

    In this episode, Malcolm Peralty and I are joined by Bob Dunn of Do The Woo fame to discuss the news of the week. We started off by discussing the most surprising acquisition of the year with GoDaddy acquiring Pagely. We briefly touch on what’s new in WordPress 5.8.2 while trying to figure out how to pronounce Thijs de Valk’s name. Thijs de Valk is the new CEO for Yoast.

    Bob explains what exactly his partnership with Post Status entails and what we can expect from it. Last but not least, we had a great discussion about Paul Lacey’s post and contributor churn in WordPress and whether or not WordPress could one day run out of free labor to keep the project going. If you tell me the correct number of times I say “Do The Woo” in this episode, contact me and I might have a surprise for you.

    This Episode is Brought to You By GoDaddy Pro: GoDaddy Pro

    Are you looking to increase your productivity? One tool that helps thousands of web developers and designers do more every day is GoDaddy Pro.

    Combining site, client, and project management, GoDaddy Pro is an all-in-one solution made by and for web professionals. Whether you’re new to web design or looking to grow your business, you’ll find free tools, products, guidance and support to help you deliver results for clients.

    Manage and monitor all your clients’ WordPress sites from a single place, no matter where they’re hosted. With a single click, perform bulk updates, backups, security checks and more to save time and free up your day.

    Stories Discussed:
    • GoDaddy Acquires Pagely
    • One Hour Interview Between Cory Miller and Josh Strebel
    • WordPress 5.8.2 Security and Maintenance Release
    • Joost De Valk’s Brother Steps into CEO Role
    • Announcing a Partnership with Post Status and Do the Woo
    • AMP Has Irreparably Damaged Publishers’ Trust in Google-led Initiatives
    • State of the Word 2021
    • Blocks, Boards & Fishing Reels – How Gutenberg has Divided WordPress
    Click to View Transcript:

    Speaker 1 00:00:19 Welcome everybody to episode 19 of the WP mainline podcast for Friday, November 12th, 2021. I’m your host, Jeff Chandler joined by my favorite Canadian Malcolm Perotti and we have a third special guest, I mean, extra special, like do the woo type of special. We’ve got Bob Dunn on the show, Bob, thank you very much for joining us all the way from the west coast. Thank you, Jeff. I knew you just invited me for, you could say that again and again. Well, what can I say, man? I’m addicted to the woo. Yeah, every time I get he’s going to make you sick of your own brand. I’ve I’ve done a fairly good job of, uh, I’ve been trying. I mean, I, by the way, drinking game this episode, every time I say, do the Lou take a drink and we’re about three minutes in and people are already buzzing. So pretty good. We’re making progress.
    Spea...

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    1 hr and 7 mins
  • WP Mainline Episode 18 - WP Scan Acquired, WordFest Live 2022, and Jeffro AI
    Nov 6 2021

    In this episode, Malcolm Peralty and I discussed the news of week starting off with Automattic’s acquisition of WPScan. I also shared my experience of what it was like to spend eight straight hours of reading, participating, and writing about WordPress. It’s exhausting.

    We then shared news of the WordPress community gift exchange and Malcolm put out a challenge for someone to create a Secret Santa WordPress site so folks could use it instead of Elfster. WordFest 2022 announced it will take place on March 4th, 2022. I’m a huge fan of a Big Orange Heart Foundation and am hopeful the organization can fulfill its sponsorships for 2022.

    Near the end of the show, we discussed yet again the writing experience in WordPress. We also described how Bob Dunn is synonymous with WooCommerce. If there’s a Woo, there’s a Bob. Last but not least, we wonder who could write a WordPress post better, Jeffro or Jeffro AI. Would you be able to tell the difference?

    This Episode is Brought to You By GoDaddy Pro:

    Are you looking to increase your productivity? One tool that helps thousands of web developers and designers do more every day is GoDaddy Pro.

    Combining site, client, and project management, GoDaddy Pro is an all-in-one solution made by and for web professionals. Whether you’re new to web design or looking to grow your business, you’ll find free tools, products, guidance and support to help you deliver results for clients.

    Manage and monitor all your clients’ WordPress sites from a single place, no matter where they’re hosted. With a single click, perform bulk updates, backups, security checks and more to save time and free up your day.

    Stories Discussed:
    • Automattic Acquires WPScan
    • The Not So Secret Santa WordPress Community Gift Exchange
    • Announcing WordFest Live 2022
    • Voting Is Now Open for the 2021 WP Awards
    • Partnership between Post Status and Do the Woo
    • WordPress Has Never Offered an Ideal Writing Experience
    • 8 Ways to Automate Your WordPress Blog with Artificial Intelligence
    Click to View Transcript:

    Speaker 1 00:00:19 Welcome everybody to episode 18 of the WP mainline podcast for Friday, November 5th, 2021. I am your host, Jeff Chandler, and joined by Malcolm. Perotti. How you doing, sir? Doing well. How about yourself? I am doing quite well. I, uh, it’s Friday, so we can all be happy about that going into the non-existent weekend, as I like to say. And, uh, it’s a pretty good week for me, actually. I, um, I got into a bit of a groove in a couple of days. There I was, I was rattling off some posts, things that were on my mind, things that were going on in the WordPress space that we’ll get into here in a little bit. In fact, uh, I wanted to a couple of days ago, knowing all these you’re, don’t take this as a bread cause I don’t, I don’t think it’s a break, but in all these years of, uh, writing and working in the WordPress space, I have not worked in eight straight h...

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    43 mins
  • WP Mainline Episode 17 - Animated Plugin Icons, Plugin Machine, and OptinMonster
    Nov 1 2021

    In this episode, Malcom Peralty and I were joined by Liam Dempsey to cover the news of the week. We shared our views on whether animated plugin icons should be allowed on the plugin directory or not. Spoiler: We all agreed that they shouldn’t.

    Josh Pollock is working on a new project and like many in the WordPress community, we’re excited to see it launch. Props to Josh for naming his product for exactly what it does. We then discussed Theme.json and the possibilities it opens up for theme developers.

    After encouraging folks to upgrade OptinMonster to the latest version to patch security vulnerabilities, we wrapped up the show by discussing WebDevStudios accepting Etherum as a form of payment for a client project. It worked for them but is accepting cryptocurrency the thing to do for every other agency?

    This Episode is Brought to You By GoDaddy Pro:

    Are you looking to increase your productivity? One tool that helps thousands of web developers and designers do more every day is GoDaddy Pro.

    Combining site, client, and project management, GoDaddy Pro is an all-in-one solution made by and for web professionals. Whether you’re new to web design or looking to grow your business, you’ll find free tools, products, guidance and support to help you deliver results for clients.

    Manage and monitor all your clients’ WordPress sites from a single place, no matter where they’re hosted. With a single click, perform bulk updates, backups, security checks and more to save time and free up your day.

    Stories Discussed:
    • To Ban or Not Ban Animated Plugin Icons?
    • WordPress Plugin Developers Are Psyched for What Josh Pollock Is Working on Next
    • An Introduction to the WordPress theme.json File
    • If You Haven’t Done So, Update OptinMonster to the Latest Version
    • The first WordPress agency to accept Cryptocurrency payment?
    Click to View Transcript:

    Speaker 1 00:00:19 Welcome everybody to episode 17 of the WP mainline podcasts for Saturday, October 30th, 2021. I’m your host, Jeff Chandler joined by Malcolm Peralta. How you doing sir? Doing well and yourself? I’m, uh, I’m doing pretty well. I, I reasonable. Yeah, we’re recording on a Saturday. Usually we record it on a Friday, but I had an anxiety issue yesterday. And, uh, when I have those, sometimes they’re bad. Sometimes they’re manageable, but yesterday it just took me all day to recover and uh, couldn’t quite get back into the groove kind of a waste of a day. It sucks. But, uh, I was actually have been doing pretty well, you know, in terms of anxiety and anxiety attacks and stuff like that. So I don’t know, it just kind of crept up. I don’t know where, but I took my medicine and I was AOK by the time the evening came.
    Speaker 1 00:01:14 So I wanna thank you Malcolm for, uh, spending some of your Saturday with it. You know, folks out there, they say, uh, they say weekend, you know, there’s no such thing as weekends anymore. The week is never ending. It never ends. Um, so good to have you here. And, uh, we also have...

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    50 mins
  • WP Mainline Episode 16 - Dealing With the Growing Pains of WordPress' Huge Transition
    Oct 25 2021

    In this episode, Malcom Peralty and I start the show by discussing some weird things that have been happening in our sleep. I share my experience attending the WordCamp Philly meetup group. It was nice to be able to watch a presentation and casually hang out with others in a chatroom.

    We then discussed two recent blog posts that describe WordPress as not being an excellent writing tool. We dove into this topic and I think it has a lot to do with the major transition that’s going on with WordPress. We talk about Ben Pines stepping down from his role at Elementor and the impact he’s had on that ecosystem.

    We round out the show by sharing our ideas on what to rename “Reusable Blocks” to and how to make it easier for casual users to learn what’s new in WordPress.

    This Episode is Brought to You By GoDaddy Pro: GoDaddy Pro

    Are you looking to increase your productivity? One tool that helps thousands of web developers and designers do more every day is GoDaddy Pro.

    Combining site, client, and project management, GoDaddy Pro is an all-in-one solution made by and for web professionals. Whether you’re new to web design or looking to grow your business, you’ll find free tools, products, guidance and support to help you deliver results for clients.

    Manage and monitor all your clients’ WordPress sites from a single place, no matter where they’re hosted. With a single click, perform bulk updates, backups, security checks and more to save time and free up your day.

    Stories Discussed:
    • Matt’s Page Builder
    • Should You Really Write in WordPress
    • Ben Pines Steps Down From Elementor
    • Debate Continues On What to Rename “Reusable Blocks” Too
    • Shout Out to Shaun Andrews
    • For Casual Users, Information on New WordPress Features Can Be Hard to Find
    Click to View Transcript:

    Speaker 1 00:00:19 Welcome everybody to episode 16 of the WP mainline podcast for Friday, October 22nd, 2021. I am your host, Jeff Chandler joined, uh, by the one and only Malcolm pearls of press Titan and Cambridge creative. Ooh, got that right off the top of the show. Very nice. How you doing, sir? I’m tired, but I’m doing, doing well. Yeah. Feeling a bit sleepy. I’m feeling a little punchy. Actually. I didn’t get much sleep. So I’m like on that verge of like being kind of silly. So I actually got some sleep and I feel sleepy. You didn’t get much sleep at all and you feel the opposite. Yeah, apparently. Yeah. So I wanted to, it says nothing to do with WordPress. I thought we were talking a little bit before the show here about what was going on, but I’ve, I’ve had some, something weird going on with me lately when it comes to sleeping and it is I’ll be sleeping and I will have what I perceive to be a dream.
    Speaker 1 00:01:15 I think I’m dreaming and there’ll be a time where, um, I can see myself in the dream. I can see myself sleeping and there comes a point where someone, it feels like someone has coming up beside me next to my bed and is getting ready to either touch me, to hit me to do...

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    45 mins