WordPress 4.6 Released

WordPress 4.6 Streamlined UpdatesWordPress 4.6 has been released! This release introduces a streamlined plugin and theme update process, native system fonts in the Dashboard (no more remotely-loaded Open Sans), improved link validation, browser storage content recovery, and more!

272 volunteers contributed to this release, lead by Dominik Schilling. At the time of writing this, WordPress 4.6 has been out for just a little over 1 hour, and has already been downloaded 150,337 times!

All users can now safely update from Dashboard -> Updates or download and update manually, though you should probably backup first just in case, unless you’re already using VaultPress, which you really should be.

If you run into any problems, stop by the known issues first, and please let us know if it’s not covered there!

Don’t Blame Greens for Gore’s Loss in 2000

voteThere is a trend lately on social media and even some news outlets to blame the the Green Party for the loss of the Democrats in 2000, essentially handing the White House to the Republicans. In a time when the current top two nominees, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, have secured historically low approval ratings, it’s easy to preemptively assign impending failure to someone else, like current presumptive Green nominee Jill Stein or current Libertarian nominee Gary Johnson, but the notion itself is irresponsible and undemocratic.

Did people vote in 2000 for the Green Party nominee, Ralph Nader? Obviously. Could the Democratic nominee, Al Gore, have won if those votes went to him? Some experts say yes. But as far as blame is concerned, the 2.74% of voters who voted for Nader pale in comparison to the 61% of Democrats who didn’t vote, and the 11% of Democrats who actually voted for the Republican nominee, George W. Bush.

Blaming a group of voters for placing their votes for the nominee who represented their interests and values is about as undemocratic as you can get. Presidents of The United States are elected by a democratic process. Each nominee has earned the votes they receive. If you plan to blame Green voters for not abandoning their nominee to back the Democratic nominee, you might as well also blame the Republican voters for backing their nominee.

An important election is coming up in November, and you should vote for the nominee who matches your interests and values, vote your conscience, cast your vote for who you know will take the country in the direction it needs to go. We live in an information age where you can search for almost any information on any nominee, and sites like iSideWith make it almost fun to see how you relate to them. This November, place an educated vote for the nominee who represents you.

Since some might ask, I definitely won’t be voting for Trump this November, he is further from my interests and values than any nominee in my lifetime has ever been. I haven’t made up my mind about the other three though, I still have 104 days to learn as much as I can about each of them.

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Earth Day, 2016

Today is Earth Day, a day to reflect on this planet we call home, a home that we sadly worsen each day. One day, we’ll leave this home and journey to the stars, but until then, perhaps it’s a great day to start saving the environment for free and donating to The Conservation Fund.

In addition, consider ways in which you can help the environment yourself, like switching out your lights for LED bulbs, walking or biking to closer destinations rather than driving, planting a tree or two, and even properly separating your recyclables from your trash.

Please spend some time outdoors today, enjoy this 4K view of the Earth from International Space Station, and do your part to help our planet thrive.

WordPress 4.5 Released

illustration-short-inlinelinksWordPress 4.5 has been released! This release introduces inline linking and more formatting shortcuts to the editor, responsive previews and custom logos to the customizer, and more!

277 volunteers contributed to this release, lead by Mike Schroder. At the time of writing this, WordPress 4.5 has been out for only 4 hours, and has already been downloaded 415,873 times!

All users can now safely update from Dashboard -> Updates or download and update manually, though you should probably backup first just in case, unless you’re already using VaultPress, which you really should be.

If you run into any problems, stop by the known issues first, and please let us know if it’s not covered there!

Internet Archive: Smart 404 Handler

internetarchiveContinuing our series on the Internet Archive, you may recall the last part on the Wayback Machine. Well, today we’re going to go over one more extension of its power that was big enough to get its own part, the smart 404 handler!

If you have your own site, you have probably deleted a page or post by now. Whether on purpose or by accident, you can control what’s on your site, but you can’t control the links to it that already exist elsewhere. When those links direct to your deleted content, the visitor sees a boring 404 Not Found error. But, what if I told you that you could use the Wayback Machine to offer those disappointed visitors a glimpse of the content they missed?

A few years back, the folks behind the Internet Archive debuted their smart 404 handler for free use, and it still works great! Simply add the code from the earlier link to your custom 404 page, and it will work like magic. If you have a WordPress site, your theme more than likely has a 404.php file. If you have not already, now is a great time to start a child theme, so your changes aren’t lost if the theme is updated. Now, simply find where the content of your 404 page ends in the 404.php file (the content you visibly see on the page, not the entirety of the code), and add the code right below it. Here’s how the relevant section looks in the Sorbet theme’s 404.php file:

sorbet404

You won’t see anything if the former page or post wasn’t archived by the Wayback Machine. If you did it right though, and you land on one that has been archived, you’ll find a welcoming message with a link to the most recently archived version. It will look something like this:

404

Thanks to the smart 404 handler and the Wayback Machine’s over 462 billion archived pages, the experience of missing out on lost content could be a thing of the past.

This bring us to the end of our series on the Internet Archive, for now. If you enjoyed your brief tour, don’t forget that they need donations to be able to provide all this for free. Until next time, enjoy everything the Internet Archive has to offer!

Internet Archive: Wayback Machine

internetarchiveContinuing in our series on the Internet Archive, we have the one thing it might be known best for, the Wayback Machine! There are over 462 billion web pages saved in the Wayback Machine, which leads to some powerful options.

The Wayback Machine is named for the WABAC time machine from the Peabody’s Improbable History segment of The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show, and like a time machine, everyone has played around with the most basic usage of the Wayback Machine. Want to know what WordPress.org looked like in 2003? No problem, the Wayback Machine has it. How about what Apple.com looked like in 1997, or what Mozilla.org looked like in 1998? The Wayback Machine will be hours of fun if that’s what you’re looking for, but what else does it offer?

The power of the Wayback Machine is in what it stores: everything. The entire source of the page, along with any available media, is stored. First of all, you might be thinking, “I’d better block that immediately!” Don’t. No one is going to purposefully visit your site through the Wayback Machine instead of just normally visiting your site, that’s silly. Allow your site to be archived for history, there’s no reason not to.

So, what does this “everything” get you? Quite a bit actually. Ever wonder what would happen to your site if you found out your backups were bad? The Wayback Machine is here for you to copy and paste whatever text you need to, and to re-upload any media it was able to archive. Does something seem odd in your site lately, something you can’t quite identify? Instead of fully restoring an old backup, compare your site to last month’s archive on the Wayback Machine. If you can identify what’s different, you can even view the source like you would on any normal web page to dig into the deep details.

As a true story of its power, we use the Wayback Machine almost every day in Jetpack support. When you connect Jetpack with your blog, it ties everything to your blog’s URL, and assigns that URL a unique blog ID. If you’re running the Stats module, you can find that ID in the source output towards the bottom. Just look in the source for “blog:’number'” and that number is the blog ID. Sometimes people move their blog to a new domain, and Jetpack will get confused and think it’s a new site (we’re working on ways to improve that). If we can find the old site in the Wayback Machine, we can find the old blog ID in the source, and then we can fix everything.

The Wayback Machine has a lot to offer, and you only need to start digging to get a good grasp of just how much there is. Storing so much data isn’t cheap though, and the Internet Archive needs your donations to keep it running. Dive into history with the Wayback Machine and see what you can uncover! Next time? Smart 404 handler!

Internet Archive: Software

internetarchiveContinuing in our series on the Internet Archive, we have one of their newest sections, Software. This is definitely something your local library doesn’t have … unless it has an arcade, I suppose.

The Internet Archive has over 1 hundred-thousand software titles, including older abandoned applications and educational titles, but the real stars are the Internet Arcade and Console Living Room. Between both the Internet Arcade and Console Living Room, you’ll find over 2 thousand older arcade and console titles that you can play right in your browser!

From Defender to an Asteroids clone, you’ll be able to experience your favorite arcade classics without spending a single quarter. Looking for more nostalgic hits from your DOS or console gaming days? From Atari’s Star Wars to Rebel Assault, from Oregon Trail to Dune 2, from Super Street Fighter 2 to Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3, you’ll find it on the Internet Archive, ready to relive your past in your browser for free.

Take some time to explore what’s available there. You’re sure to bring back some great memories, and don’t forget, they take donations to keep everything freely available. Next time? The Wayback Machine!

Internet Archive: Free Media

internetarchiveContinuing our series on the Internet Archive, I figured we’d start with the obvious bits. At the Internet Archive, you have access to a wide variety of public domain or owner-donated texts, audio, videos, and photos. That’s right, it’s just a like a library online, because that’s exactly what it is!

There are over 8 million texts available to browse or download in eBook formats on the Internet Archive, anything from text books for higher education to US government studies into UFO sightings. If what you’re looking for isn’t freely available for download at the Internet Archive, stop by its side-project, the Open Library for even more titles available to check out in eBook formats.

There are almost 3 million audio files available to stream or download, including voice recordings, radio shows, music, whole albums, audio books, and almost 2 hundred-thousand full live concerts. You’ll never need to buy an album or pay for a streaming music service again, unless you wanted to hear recently released music of course.

There are just over 2 million videos available to stream or download, including movies and television. If you’re feeling nostalgic, stop by the Perlinger Archives for over 6 thousand public service announcements and educational films, or perhaps almost 1 million TV news clips.

There are over 1 million images available to browse and download. From NASA Images to 16th Century artwork, it’s your history stored digitally in so many ways.

Take some time to tour the Internet Archive and see what you can find, and don’t forget, they take donations to keep everything freely available. Next time? Software!

The Internet Archive

internetarchiveThe Internet Archive has been one of my favorite sites for quite a few years, and many of its hidden powers are not that obvious at first glance, so I figured I might as well write up a few posts. With that said, this is part 1 of a 5 part series.

What is the Internet Archive? According to their about page:

The Internet Archive is a 501(c)(3) non-profit that was founded to build an Internet library. Its purposes include offering permanent access for researchers, historians, scholars, people with disabilities, and the general public to historical collections that exist in digital format. … Now the Internet Archive includes texts, audio, moving images, and software, as well as archived web pages in our collections.

That sure is a lot to take in, and from a non-profit organization too! In short, the Internet Archive is dedicating to digitally preserving both our physical and digital history, and making it all freely available to the world, in many ways more than any other library or museum out there. Besides its core offerings, the Internet Archive has a large number of fascinating connected projects, including Open Library and most recently Political TV Ad Archive which collects this year’s political ads and reports some fascinating data.

There sure is a lot going on at the Internet Archive, and that’s why they’re always open to donations. There are quite a few things I couldn’t do without the Internet Archive, and over the next few days (weeks?) I hope to share some of the far less obvious ones with you. For now, browse around it and see what you can discover!

Happy New Year! the 2016 edition

2016 begins today, so it’s a great time to make sure your browser is up to date, update all of your passwords, setup two factor authentication wherever you can, start a blog with WordPress (and Jetpack) or WordPress.com, or start posting again if you already have one!

MacManX.com had a great 2015, and I’m sure you’ll have a great 2016!