WP Builds Newsletter #2 – Week Commencing 26th February 2018

This weeks WordPress news:

New Team Forms to Facilitate GDPR Compliance in WordPress Core
As May 25th, the enforcement date for the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) draws near, individuals and businesses are scrambling to make sure they’re compliant. I’ve read a number of blog posts throughout the WordPress community explaining the GDPR and what needs to be done for compliance and it’s a tough thing to grasp.

WP Elevation – a business community for WordPress business consultants – Launches!
The secret to getting paid more for your WordPress projects (and it’s not what you might think), and how you can build a successful business without having to sell $10K websites (I know, this goes against what everyone is saying – but I’ll prove it on this call with a real life case study).

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Two Factor Authentication on WP.org
(Beta1). Based on the Two Factor plugin, a feature project for WordPress Core, a first trial version of 2FA is now available on WordPress.org. While it’s not in a state yet suitable for rollout across the network, it is ready to be tested by a subset of users—based on ease of segmentation that’s Core Committers and users that are Super Admins. During the testing period it is only in place on login.wordpress.org and does not yet protect other parts of the network such as SVN or Trac.

Introducing Instagram Feed Module: Now Display Your Instagram Posts Magnificently!
This module allows you to connect to your Instagram Account and show your Instagram activities wherever you want on the website. It is not limited to just displaying posts; there are lots of customizations that you can do to make your Insta Feeds stand out.

WP Builds – A wonderfully frank interview with Troy Dean about what makes him tick!
This week we chat to the man who in the world of WordPress needs no introduction… Troy Dean. He’s become an important figure in our community and is a great podcast guest who has a lot of great advice. Of course, you’ll know about Troy from his very successful projects such as WP Elevation and Rock Star Empires. His courses have inspired many people (me included) to really take a long look at their WordPress businesses and think about how they could become more profitable. He’s a great speaker, with that rare ability to speak at great length and be authoritative at the same time.

Wordfence – New Feature Protects Against Password Leak Attacks
To better protect our users’ websites, we work with a lot of data from sources like our Security Services Team and the Wordfence network. We try to understand not just what attackers are doing, but also how and why. Our research into a recent campaign revealed an interesting method of attack, and contributed to the development of a new feature.

4,500 Plugins Need Your Help in Determining Gutenberg Compatibility
One of the keys to a successful roll out of Gutenberg is plugin compatibility. Without it, users will experience unnecessary frustration and hamper enthusiasm of the new editor. In an effort to figure out what plugins are already compatible with Gutenberg, Daniel Bachhuber has created a Gutenberg Plugin Compatibility Database.

Introducing Spacing Module & LifterLMS Integration in Astra Pro!
If you have been following the changelog, you might have noticed we’ve added the LifterLMS Integration in the Astra theme. And today, I’m very pleased to officially announce this integration.

Elementor 2.0 – We’re Reinventing WordPress Design, All Over Again
Something new is about to arrive. In the coming weeks, we will gradually introduce Elementor 2.0. Each release will focus on solving a substantial WordPress pain – felt by users, yet never been dealt with before.

The Value of WordPress Designers and Developers in the Gutenberg Era
Gutenberg is coming. In the 2017 State of the Word talk at WordCamp US, Matt Mullenweg said that the Gutenberg editor would definitely become the default editor for WordPress in 2018 with the release of version 5.0. That announcement kind of has the WP community in an tizzy — specifically the developers and designers who are afraid that having a page builder included in Core will negatively affect their business. The fear is not unfounded.

Non WordPress, but useful anyway…

Veil is private browsing for the ultra-paranoid
If you’re worried about someone finding out what you’re pointing your browser at, there are plenty of options for keeping it secret, with varying levels of difficulty and effectiveness. Veil takes things further than perhaps any other anonymous browsing method by masking the page you’re viewing not just from would-be attackers, but from your own operating system.

Elon Musk claims SpaceX’s Starlink internet satellite service will be IP-less
Starlink, a massive satellite-based broadband internet service set to enter orbit in the near future, is said to be completely IP-less. At least, that’s what its creator and SpaceX founder Elon Musk claimed would be the case. In response to a tweet musing what connection type SpaceX will utilise for Starlink, the tech entrepreneur explained that Starlink won’t utilise standard IPv6 connections. In fact, he states it “will be simpler than IPv6 and have tiny packet overhead.” It’s also “definitely” going to be a peer-to-peer connection.

Apple: Er, yes. Your iCloud stuff is now on Google’s servers, too
If you chose the Apple ecosystem because you don’t, for whatever reason, trust Google – bad news. Apple has confirmed for the first time that it now uses Google servers to store chunks of people’s iCloud data. Apple has used Amazon Web Services and Microsoft’s Azure to host iCloud documents since 2011. Spreading chunks of files to Google, too, shouldn’t be news – and incredibly has been rumoured since 2007.

ImageOptim makes images load faster
ImageOptim is excellent for publishing images on the web (easily shrinks images “Saved for Web” in Photoshop). It’s useful for making Mac and iPhone/iPad applications smaller .