Read I Am Cookie Dough by Allie Nimmons

I was always told I had to go to college. I was “gifted” so learning came easy and I enjoyed it.  From ages 6 to 18, I went to competitive accelerated schools designed to churn out college students. It was a narrow path I’d been set on, without encouragement to explore beyond.

These posts are often times the highlight of my week.
Read IIS Outbound Rules with gzip compression by JAN REILINK

Saotn.org uses used URL Rewrite Outbound Rules in IIS, to offload content from a different server and/or host name. This should improve website performance. Just recently I noticed Outbound Rules conflicted with gzip compressed content. I started noticing HTTP 500 error messages: Outbound rewrite rules cannot be applied when the content of the HTTP response is encoded (“gzip”).. Here is how to fix that error. …

Read An Introduction to Block-Based Homepages with the Genesis Framework by Carrie Dils

StudioPress just released Revolution Pro, the first Genesis child theme to sport a block-based homepage. In this tutorial, you’ll learn how to create one.

Speaking from experience, I know exactly what Carrie is talking about when it comes to widgets being a poor choice, (although the only available one), for homepage layouts. I’ve done more than my fair share of theme customizations and often times those customizations meant hiring someone to redo the CSS. I, for one, will be over the moon when I can fully use Gutenberg and take advantage of block-based homepages.

The 2nd Annual JavaScript for WordPress conference is scheduled for July 11 through 13 of 2019, and will include 3 FREE Days of workshops, talks and contribution all focused on JavaScript and WordPress. Workshops include learning how to use modern JavaScript development tools to write custom vanilla JavaScript in WordPress themes and plugins, as well as learning how to load and write React in WordPress plugins and themes. There’s a day of free talks separated into two tracks, and conference organizers have opened the speaker submissions. You can apply to speak and register for the conference on the conference page, as well as listen to past sessions. I was not able to attend this last year but will definitely catch up on past videos.
Read Blindness Charities And Money, Part 1: The Aggregation by Chris Hofstader

many of the biggest blindness organizations are sitting atop a mountain of cash while spending relatively little on programs for the people they state they are helping.

I would encourage every blind person in the strongest possible terms to read the most recent article by Chris Hofstader and download the data. I would especially encourage the blind people who has been contracted by any of these organizations to do things like build websites or write software to read through this data and then make decisions with regard to whether or not you’re going to work with these organizations and how you are going to price your services based on this data and not the sob stories or excuses provided by these organizations when they plead lack of budget coupled with great need for your services. It’s one thing to suspect they’re screwing you over with no proof. It’s a very different, and bigger, ball of wax to know that they are screwing you over, have proof of it, and then contrast that with the “have a large impact”, “make a difference”, “help the cause”, “we’ll send you referals” kind of language that is so often used when they pitch for things like websites or apps. I will not only be reading through this data myself, but also passing this on to any blind person who has been my student, formally or otherwise, when it comes to WordPress.