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Introducing…Blog XChange! Contribute Your Knowledge To Our Blog And Get Hero Points Plus Links To Your Site

Are you looking for great tips, tutorials, and hacks from experienced web developers to take your skills to the next level and help you solve client problems faster? Well, so are we! That’s why we are launching The BLOG XCHANGE!

WPMU DEV Members Blog XChange
Chun-chun-chun-chun…Blog XChange! (Members Only)

tl;dr – The Blog XChange is a new initiative for WPMU DEV members aimed at providing better engagement with our member community by focusing on the content that matters most to you. Help us to help you and we’ll reward you with Hero points and links to your site.

Blog XChange…What The Heck Is That??

Here at WPMU DEV’s secret content lab, we are always searching for new blog content ideas.

You would think that hiring the most brilliant writers in the WordPress universe would result in endless blog content, but alas, this isn’t so.

Which is ironic, I know, given that one of us is the author of a best ok-selling book called “Infinite Content Creation (How to Never Run out of Content Ideas for Your Blog).”

The WPMU DEV blog, however, is a different beast. We don’t publish fluffy filler content about WordPress. We know that our audience (yes, YOU!!) would never stand for it.

We know that you expect us to write articles and tutorials with substance. Beefy content (or tofurkey if you prefer non-meaty adjectives) that you can apply in your business to improve not only your skills but also solve real challenges for your clients and deliver them better and faster websites that will help them get results.

wpmu-dev-blog
Help us make our blog your blog!

Writing blog content targeted to your needs requires us to spend a lot of time researching previous post comments, scouring our members’ forum, analyzing analytics, doing keyword research, peeking into our competitors’ sites, reading through tons of industry newsletters, etc.

Sometimes, we come near, but near just isn’t close enough.

We want to post content on our blog that reflects who you are, what you do, and how you solve everyday challenges in your business working at the coalface and deep in the trenches.

Since we can’t be you (somebody’s gotta write the blog, right?) we came up with an ingenious idea:

“Why not tap into your knowledge and experiences as a WordPress web developer and reward you for all contributions you make to our blog?”

A Fair Trade

When we recently floated the suggestion to create an area where members could exchange their knowledge for hero points and links to their sites, we received overwhelmingly positive feedback and support from our members…“provided it’s a fair trade,” said all of you in unison.

We know you’re busy running a business and that you pay us to serve you, so we don’t expect you to give us something for nothing.

We’re all about fair trading here at the DEV…(you’re probably not even aware of this, but did you know that you can now get hero points just for commenting on our blog posts?)

Hence, Blog XChange (and not Blog XPloitation!)

By sharing your knowledge and experiences on the Blog XChange, you will be helping other members and helping us too! In return, we will reward you for your contributions with loads of hero points and, if we use your content on our blog, with links to help promote your business.

Web Developer.
Don’t let all that great knowledge go to waste…xchange it for hero points and links at the Blog XChange!

In this post, I’ll briefly tell you how it works and how to get started if you’d like to contribute. For full details, including guidelines for posting content and exactly how we will reward you for your contributions, see the pinned post inside the Blog XChange. (Check it out…it’s now live in your Member’s Area!)

Blog XCh-ch-ch-Changes – How It Works In A Nutshell

First off, we’re not looking for Pulitzer-prize-winning authors. You don’t have to submit polished prose or perfectly-presented publish-ready posts…we’ll take care of that.

What we’re looking for is a good ‘chunky’ piece of content that comes from your experience as a WordPress web developer, website builder, digital agency, tech support services provider, etc.

In your own words, tell us about a problem you have solved or a solution, fix, or hack you discovered that improved some aspect of your or your client’s website or business.

Test and compare different plugins you are currently using against ours and share your results.

If you like, also feel free to share code snippets, screenshots, links to your favorite time-saving tools and resources, etc.

Preferably, it would be ideal if the content you share on the Blog XChange includes using our plugins or services (you’ll get extra points for that!) but it’s not a requirement.

Every contribution you make on the Blog XChange will earn you points. After all, just by posting it, you are helping other members.

Hustle
The Blog XChange can be your little side hustle.

What the blog team will do, is regularly scan the contributions posted on the Blog XChange. We will then reward you for anything we use on the blog. This includes quotable sentences, paragraphs, or sections of text, code snippets, mini-tutorials, video reviews,…even links to great tutorials published on your own sites, or a great headline idea for a new post will earn you a point.

In some cases, we may contact you to discuss publishing a full-blown article, tutorial, or case study. This is exactly what happened when one of our members posted a comment on one of our discussions. We then created a case study and promoted her business throughout the post…so, win-win!

Obviously, there are some things we will not publish, like content designed to promote affiliate links or hyped-up self-promotional stuff…basically we’ll apply the same editorial guidelines and criteria to whatever you submit that we ourselves use to ensure that we maintain our blog to the highest standards.

The Times, They Are A-Blog XChangin’ – How To Get Started

Contributing content to the Blog XChange is super easy. Any WPMU DEV member can do it.

As soon as you get an idea for a post, head on over to the Members section and click on the Blog XChange link (or click here to go there now.)

WPMU DEV Members Blog XChange
Click this button as soon as inspiration hits!

Click ‘Start Discussion’.

WPMU DEV Members Blog XChange - Start Discussion
Almost there…

Enter the title of your post in the ‘Subject’ field (it doesn’t have to be a snazzy title or an SEO-optimized headline…just tell us what it’s about!)

Under ‘Topic’ select ‘Blog XChange’.

Type or paste in your content in the ‘Discussion’ field. Feel free to use the formatting, quotation, and hyperlink tools too!)

If you’d like to keep track of any discussions on your thread, check the ‘Notify me by Email’ box.

Click the Post button to submit your contribution.

Blog XChange - Content submission form.
Type, select, paste in content, check, and click the button and you’re all done…too easy!

Your contribution is now added to the Blog XChange. If you need to make any adjustments to your post, just click on the Edit link.

Example of Blog XChange submission.
You’re a blog writer now…congrats!

That’s it! you’re all done.

Thank you! Hero points coming right up…check your sidebar!

We’ll get in touch with you if we use your content on our blog (e.g. to confirm the URL we’ll be linking to) and to discuss things further if we have any questions.

WPMU DEV - Blog XChange section with content added.
Hero points and links…thank you WPMU DEV!

To XChange is to Grow

As web developers and WordPress service providers, you know the challenges that you and your clients face every day. Better still, you know how good it feels to solve these challenges and come up with better, faster, more efficient ways to get things done.

By sharing your knowledge and experiences with us, you’ll be helping us write the exact content you’d like to see on our blog, helping other members, and helping yourself too!

As Winston Churchill famously never stated…

“To improve is to XChange; to be perfect is to XChange often.”

We look forward to seeing your contributions and to working more closely with you to benefit our valued members and help improve your businesses.

See you at the Blog XChange!

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Bluehost Misuses WordPress Trademark, Reigniting Controversy Over Recommended Hosts Page

Bluehost was called out this week for misusing WordPress’ trademark, as the WordPress Foundation prohibits its use in advertising. The company has been featured on WordPress’ recommended hosting page for the past 16 years, as one of a handful of hosts that have been arbitrarily selected based on an incomplete list of criteria.

The wording of the ad in this instance, “There is a reason WordPress officially recommends Bluehost more than any other hosting service,” was a visceral reminder to the hosting community of being excluded from the benefits that listing confers.

In response to the issue, WordPress’ Executive Director, Josepha Haden Chomphosy scheduled a call with Bluehost to find a resolution. She provided the following statement after the call:

This was flagged to me on Twitter, and I immediately reached out to learn more. Bluehost removed the ad proactively, and they scheduled a call with me and a representative of Automattic to understand the concerns being raised. As Matt mentioned, commercial use of the WordPress trademark is permitted, and Automattic can sub-license that use.

From a WordPress project standpoint, Bluehost was swift to respond to this issue, and took immediate steps to better understand how the trademark and logo are allowed to be used. When mistakes like this happen, we ask companies to keep us informed about how the issue is resolved, and Bluehost has agreed to do that.

Bluehost has not yet responded to our request for comment.

In the meantime, the incident reignited the controversy that has plagued WordPress’ recommended hosting page for years. Continuing the conversation that started on Twitter, members of the Post Status community pressed for more clarification in the club’s #hosting channel.

In response to claims that inclusion on the page is a closed process, and that the selected hosts haven’t changed in three years, Matt Mullenweg offered what is perhaps the most forthcoming response the community has seen on this topic:

When the list is open, anyone can apply. I take 100% responsibility for the editorial, though in the past and future will have people help with testing hosts, and collating all the threads in the forums. I also get a fair number of people emailing me directly feedback about the hosts listed, and how the host follows up is part of my evaluation.

It’s true the list of hosts hasn’t been changed in a while. The current list is all in good standing. I stand by the long-term behavior and service of every company linked on that page. It is past-due for open applications again, but I have prioritized other work on .org.

No one can pay to be on the page, and there are no affiliate payments made for customers sent from that page. It’s free, opinionated, and editorially driven. I do believe it drives many millions of year in business, which is why the potential for things like bribery or conflict is high if it were open to a larger group deciding who’s on there.

The hosting recommendations page exists to reduce barriers for new users looking to get started with WordPress without having to shop around among thousands of hosts. WordPress.org is not transparent about who makes the decisions regarding recommended hosts or what criteria is used. Because it benefits a select few very large companies who have dominated the recommendations for years with few changes, rumors abound.

Mullenweg’s response confirms that currently there is no “pay-to-play” type of arrangement, but he did not say if this has always been the case. In the beginning, this page was called “WordPress Hosting Partners” and included the following text: “Signing up through this page will help us finance WordPress.org’s operations through partner deals.” That wording was changed in April 2005 to remove the reference to partners. However, previous versions of the page from years ago include what appear to be tracking or affiliate links for the hosts listed. For example, a version of the page from 2007 includes the following links:

According to the Internet Archive, 2009 was the last year that tracking ID’s were appended to the links on the recommended hosts page. A few examples from that year include:

The copy on the page hasn’t changed much over recent years. It currently gives the following criteria to be listed but it doesn’t specify why only three companies meet these standards:

We’ll be looking at this list several times a year, so keep an eye out for us re-opening the survey for hosts to submit themselves for inclusion. Listing is completely arbitrary, but includes criteria like: contributions to WordPress.org, size of customer base, ease of WP auto-install and auto-upgrades, avoiding GPL violations, design, tone, historical perception, using the correct logo, capitalizing WordPress correctly, not blaming us if you have a security issue, and up-to-date system software.

With such a diverse hosting ecosystem supporting WordPress users around the world, it’s difficult to understand why there aren’t more companies included among these listings. The era when tracking links were included on this page was a different time before many things were formalized, but the community could stand to receive a transparent history of this page.

“To my knowledge, no one has ever paid to be on that page, and certainly no one has ever approached me about doing so,” Josepha Haden Chomphosy said when asked about the process for getting listed.

Thousands of volunteer contributors are continually building and improving this software. It’s only natural that the community is curious about who is benefiting from the project’s hosting recommendations and the nature of those arrangements. Mullenweg estimates the impact of that page as “many millions per year in business,” but the process surrounding the selection of hosts is closed and not clearly outlined.

Following the incident with Bluehost, Mullenweg briefly elaborated on why Bluehost retains its position on the page despite some people reporting poor service:

Regarding Bluehost or other large hosts, there is an aspect of WordPress Utilitarianism, any business will have some unhappy people, but a small % gets to a high absolute number at scale. I try to look at hosts that are doing the most good for the most number of people. Will definitely keep an eye on if anything with their approach to WP customers post-merger, but they also have a lot of good karma built up over a very long period of time. Bluehost, for example, does the best job I’m aware of in keeping the largest number of WPs on the latest version, and deploying updates incredibly fast. (If another host does more, please let me know! GD I think has more sites, but fewer on latest version.)

Another point of contention that regularly pops up is Automattic’s exclusive commercial license for using the WordPress trademark. Mullenweg clarified why the company is in possession of this exclusive right after Automattic donated it to the foundation. He confirmed that Bluehost was not given permission to run the ad with the trademark:

A common misunderstanding is that there is no commercial use of the WordPress trademark allowed. As some know, the trademark was originally held by Automattic, which donated it to the Foundation, and in return got an exclusive commercial license back. That commercial use can be sub-licensed by Automattic, and has been in the past. The ad that is bugging everyone was not approved, as far as I’m aware, and that will resolve once everyone has had a chance to talk to each other. Automattic can lose its commercial license to the trademark if it is not a good steward. This license is a bit of an accident of history, but also an entirely fair criticism of Automattic having a special privilege to commercial use of the WordPress trademark (because it’s true, vs most of what the company gets accused of). This happened in 2010, and the growth of WP and the WP ecosystem has been incredibly strong since then so I think the idea of a for-profit and non-profit complementing each other has proven successful, and I think better than either would have done on their own.

Mullenweg seems to recognize the friction that trademark matters can create in the community and said that he would change the naming of WordPress.com if he could go back in time.

“If I could wave a magic wand and go back to 2004, though, it would be nice if .com and .org had distinct names ‘before the dot,’ as it can be a source of confusion,” he said.

These things can certainly be changed in the present but not without a severe blow to the benefits of Automattic’s special privilege of commercial use. It would also impact the company’s millions of users who call WordPress.com their home on the web.

In the interest of eliminating some of the confusion regarding conflicts of interest and commercial use of the trademark, a continual movement towards transparency will be required. WordPress.org’s recommended hosts page is overdue for an update. Ideally, this page will provide clear guidelines about the process and criteria for inclusion before opening up applications again.

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A Step by Step Guide to the Final Upgrade From Agile to Cloud PLM

How Does Cloud PLM Differ from On-premise Solutions?

While on-premise Agile PLM allows for product development, processes, and development of product records and more; these are essential features of any PLM. Moving to the Cloud brings you a step ahead in the product conception, with the following advantages:

  • The cloud allows for the identification of individual tasks related to each status of the workflow and the overall change.
  • The cloud has powerful security that enables roles and privileges control to directly. Agile PLM on the other hand has no team security.
  • Cloud provides Page Composer that allows complete customization of the page layout while Agile does not.
  • Sub-classes are of unlimited levels in the cloud, and only of three levels in Agile: base class, class, and subclass.

To make the transition to the cloud easier, GoSaaS has a clear and well-defined process that captures input from within the company to ensure every requirement is fulfilled.

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What is AIOps or Artificial Intelligence for IT Operations? Top 10 AIOps Use Cases

What is AIOps

Artificial Intelligence for IT Operations (AIOps) involves using Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning technologies along with big data, data integration, and automation technologies to help make IT operations smarter and more predictive. AIOps complement manual operations with machine-driven decisions.

Types of AIOps Solutions

At a high level, AIOps solutions are categorized into two areas: domain-centric and domain-agnostic, as defined by Gartner. Domain-centric solutions apply AIOps for a certain domain like network monitoring, log monitoring, application monitoring, or log collection. You will often see monitoring vendors claim AIOps but primarily they are domain-agnostic, bringing the power of AI to the domain they manage. Domain-agnostic solutions operate more broadly and work across domains, monitoring, logging, cloud, infrastructure, etc., and they take data from all domains/tools and learn from this data to more accurately establishing patterns and inferences.

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6 Best Practices to Improve Your Data Center Operations

In his article, ROI Valuation, The IT Productivity GAP, Erik Brynjolfsson states, “The critical question facing IT managers today is not, ‘Does IT pay off?’ but rather, ‘How can we best use computers?’” This is not a simple question for CTOs to answer because each data center and IT operation is unique, with a multitude of variables affecting the overall operation. Two different companies with almost identical IT ecosystems yet one might have a fraction of their competitor's productivity, argues Brynolfsson. However, there are several best practices that CTOs can follow to ensure their IT operation is efficient, running within capacity, and executing as productively as possible.  

1. Clean Up and Declutter 

“Cleanliness is godliness” as the old saying goes, and it could also be stress-relieving when it comes to IT. Servers and networking equipment all have set lifespans and old equipment should be decommissioned on a schedule defined by the manufacturers. Old equipment should be properly destroyed, recycled, or returned to the manufacturer, with all data wiped clean to ensure proper security. 

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I Built a Telnet App in 2021 With WebAssembly

I love the aesthetics of terminals and I’m not the only one. There is a whole subreddit dedicated to people sharing their desktops and showcasing different terminal setups. Last year, I spent time working on an innovative WebAssembly runtime called Lunatic. Recently, we landed TCP support and I was super excited to start building real-world applications with it, and what would be a better fit than a terminal-based chat server with a retro vibe?

It took me around a week to build it with Rust + Lunatic and you can check out the code here. If you would like to try it out you can connect to it with:

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Python Developer: Roles, Responsibilities, Skills, and Proficiency

The canonical, “Python is a great first language”, elicited, “Python is a great last language!” — Noah Spurrier

 A rising programming language in the IT scenario, one of the most popular amongst the developer community — Python needs no introduction. Python programming has been in demand and so has been the demand for skilled Python developers. Simply learning Python may not suffice for a developer, understanding Python in detail, learning about the roles and responsibilities, skills, and salaries are important too.

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9 AWS Security Best Practices: Securing Your AWS Cloud

The digitalization drive has become the dominating trend, with computer technologies penetrating all spheres of social and personal life in the modern world. Alongside ushering innumerable benefits, the ubiquitous advent of IT devices has brought serious concerns in its wake. One of the most pressing questions that worries both individuals and organizations is, “How secure is my virtual data?”

Public anxiety is continuously fed by reports of security breaches and data leakages that cost companies a pretty penny. Their financial losses manifest an ever-growing pattern, with businesses having to spend (or waste?) millions of dollars to redress gruesome consequences. For example, Desjardines Group lost over $50 million to cover for the data leakage of their clientele, and Norsk Hydro had to fork out $75 million to eliminate the effects of a cyberattack. Such exorbitant losses are rare, but IBM experts believe that on average, corporate victims of cybercrime have to foot a bill equal to $4 million. Because of such appalling statistics, establishing cybersecurity of their IT environment is prioritized by many organizations. Even the malicious onslaught of the global pandemic didn’t relegate security considerations to a secondary place, with companies reluctant to cut down on the security strategy enforcement expenditures.

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Web Crawlers, the DMCA, and Thinking Ahead

Who Should Read It?

This article is for web content makers and owners of the public content platforms, web developers, and anyone who can suddenly publish content that might become a subject of DMCA claim. A couple of examples are Twitter, GitHub, and Vimeo platforms that allow users to publish pictures, videos, and source codes that might appear to violate copyright laws. 

Disclaimer

Of course, when we are talking about Public resources like Twitter, it is not a problem for someone to write a web-crawler smart enough to analyze specific resources and copy/download all the possible content from it (or save the content on the user machine). In this case, your platform/web-site is simply one point in the content distribution chain and does not know how this content is supposed to be shared after all. Since it is a separate resource with its mission and reasons to work with this information (so they might need or don't need to satisfy DMCA rules), I don't think it's something you can do with it. Web-crawlers overall may become a massive problem in the DMCA applicability. On the other side, they play a substantial role as an external cache that allows people to find information lost on the original resource. So, web crawlers, not always bad, actually. 

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Working With Spring Boot and Hazelcast (Distributed Cache)

Hazelcast provides central and predictable scaling of applications via in-memory access to frequently used data and across an elastically scalable data grid. These techniques both reduce the query load on databases and help improve application speed.

Spring Boot is often used to create stand-alone, production-grade Spring-based Applications that you can 'just run.'

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4 Best Practices for IoT OTA Updates

Every embedded device needs device firmware update (DFU) capability. Why?

Inevitably, you are bound to ship bugs. You can’t anticipate every user’s input, and you can’t anticipate all the ways in which end users will use your device. But that’s only half of it; devices are now increasingly complex. Even the best QA teams won’t be able to catch every issue. Consider NASA, which is no stranger to needed firmware updates for the Mars Rover, whether due to an unintended crash bug or a crash after a software update. No one disputes NASA’s extremely rigorous process and well-documented testing regimens but, even NASA relies on firmware updates.

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MXReflection: A Java Math Framework

MXReflection is a Java math framework based on mXparser library capabilities.

You can calculate complex mathematical operations and functions with Java, just by using class-related fields. MXReflection reads values from the assigned fields and injects the results in the @Expression annotated fields.

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Examining Serverless Security Strategies, Tools, and (Current) Best Practices

Developers and DevOps teams considering the efficiency, scalability, and cost benefits that serverless functions have to offer shouldn’t be daunted by the challenge of securing serverless applications throughout development and into production. They should take it very seriously. In this article, I will cover how to begin developing serverless functions using AWS Lambda and the best development tools to use, as well as the most effective serverless security strategies and best practices. 

To begin, approaches to serverless security fall into two categories: runtime security, and static security.

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What Is DevOps Culture?

At its essence, a DevOps culture involves closer collaboration and a shared responsibility between development and operations for the products they create and maintain. This helps companies align their people, processes, and tools toward a more unified customer focus. 

It involves cultivating multidisciplinary teams who take accountability for the entire lifecycle of a product. DevOps teams work autonomously and embrace a software engineering culture, workflow, and toolset that elevates operational requirements to the same level of importance as architecture, design and development. The understanding that developers who build it, also run it, brings developers closer to the user, with a greater understanding of user requirements and needs. With operations teams more involved in the development process, they can add maintenance requirements and customer needs for a better product.