Hey folks. Microsoft pulled a pretty spectacular own goal a few days ago when it accidentally leaked gigabytes of documents that shed light on the way it makes several varieties of sausage. If you want to see outlines of the next Xbox console or communications between Microsoft executives who are plotting a hostile takeover of…
Hey folks. We finally got to take some news in yesterday after a few months of dealing with the madness that inevitably accompanies new software development. The unfortunate thing is we couldn’t have timed this worse. The first story we read was horrifying. An FDA panel just declared phenylephrine ineffective. It doesn’t matter if you…
Hello. We hope you’ve all had a great week so far. Google’s August 2023 core update ran for a total of 16 days, officially finishing up yesterday at 4:03 PM EDT. It was the longest-running core update of 2023. Updates in April, March, and February ran for 13 days, 13 days, and 14 days. The…
Howdy, folks. We’d like to ask you to cut us some slack today. We didn’t have much time to read through industry news this week because our whole team has been at Burning Man since Sunday. Pfft. Yeah right. None of us took any days off this week. We’ve all been busy. You have no…
Hello there. Is everyone feeling all right? We’re asking because yesterday was the “sickest day of the year” in the United States. That’s according to a five-year study that Flamingo just finished up. Flamingo is a software company (that we’d never heard of before yesterday) whose primary product helps businesses manage employee time off. Their…
Howdy, everyone. Today’s newsletter is off to an unbelievably late start. Better late than never. It could be worse. At least we didn’t get swept up in the excitement over the fake, room-temperature superconductor levitation stories. A bunch of people did. We were too busy going down the competitive Scrabble rabbit hole. It was much…
Hey, buddies. Stock up while you can if you’re a fan of incandescent light bulbs. If you’re in the United States, that is (most of Europe phased them out forever ago and will be banning fluorescent lights next month). Following a trend that began in 2007, the latest round of efficiency rules bans stores from…
Hey folks. We hope you’ve all had a great week so far. If you’re looking for an excuse to indulge yourself, you’ll be happy to learn that today is National Milk Chocolate Day. Elon Musk’s decades-long obsession with the letter X bled into his Twitter acquisition this week, so we’d like to begin today’s newsletter…
Good afternoon. Our plan was to begin today’s newsletter with some information about WooCommerce merchants gaining the ability to sell things to TikTok users directly through the app. It’s a big deal and we’ll give you a rundown shortly, but we ran into something interesting while researching the details of the new partnership. We saw…
Hey buddies. We’ve been super busy this week, but we’re in a good mood because of the great Prime Day deal we got on a portable air conditioner. You wear it around your neck and it has a thermostat you can control with a mobile app. We flew to Florida in June because we had…
Hey folks. We hope everyone in the United States had a wonderful 4th of July. Tuesday was still notable if you live elsewhere because the U.S. National Centers for Environmental Prediction declared it the hottest day in 125,000 years. That probably sounds like real news at first, but it’s pretty insignificant compared to the Local…
Greetings, everybody. Let’s begin today’s newsletter with an entertaining peek at a recently-halted Kindle Unlimited phenomenon. If you don’t know what Kindle Unlimited is, your first guess is probably close to the mark: it’s a $12-per-month Amazon subscription service that’s often described as “Netflix for books” (despite some key differences). Subscriber numbers aren’t public knowledge,…
Hey there, chums. We dropped the ball on Mother’s Day last month, so let us make amends by reminding you that Father’s Day is on Sunday. You can probably still get a present from Amazon delivered on time if you order it today. Unfortunately, you won’t be able to use Google Shopping’s new virtual try-on…
Hello to everyone still receiving our emails. Last week’s newsletter had an open rate low enough to catch our eye and prompt a quick investigation. At first, we couldn’t figure anything out. Then we came across a Search Engine Journal article yesterday titled Gmail Glitch Sending Newsletters To Spam, MailChimp Confirms. Search Engine Journal experienced…
Howdy, Vikings. It’s June. We’re roughly three weeks away from the first day of summer and the longest day of the year (unless you’re in the southern hemisphere– you folks are coming up on winter and the shortest day of the year). Set a reminder to pay attention to how much daylight you get on…
Good afternoon. Those of you planning to watch the final episode of Succession this Sunday (we’re rooting for Greg) should settle in a few minutes earlier than you normally would. If you have a Roku, Fire Stick, Android TV, iPad, etc, you’ll first need to download the new Max app. HBO Max no longer works….
Hey folks. OpenAI released ChatGPT for iPhones and iPads (direct download link) last night. The app itself is free, but you’ll still need to sign in with your OpenAI account (or an Apple, Google, or Microsoft account that you’re willing to link with OpenAI). The iOS app syncs all of your previous chat history. It…
Hey folks. We just found out from Bing that May 12 is National Limerick Day. Who knew? We’d celebrate it by telling you one, but everything about the man from Nantucket has already been said. We watched Wednesday’s Google I/O 2023 keynote. It was surprisingly uninteresting. Watch it for yourselves if you don’t want to…
Hola, amigos. Happy Cinco de Mayo. We’d like to thank the folks who showed up for Nate’s AMA on Wednesday. It was a good talk and we can confidently say that everyone who attended is glad they showed up. We’re doing it again on May 17 at the same time, 2 PM eastern. We’ve got…
How’s it going? Today’s blog post will be a bit briefer than it usually is. We’re at a tulip festival (of all things) right now, and we finished writing last night. If something newsworthy happened this morning, we’ll cover it next week. Nate, our CTO, will be hosting another AMA on May 3 at 2…
