It is very important for your site visitors and for SEO to have your site load fast.

Here are a few things I do to make things fast on my site.

Fast hosting: Kinsta

Content Delivery Network: Cloudflare

I use the following performance-related plugins:

• Perfmatters

Of course, it is also important to use quality plugins on your site. Quality is more important than quantity. Ignore people who just say that many plugins installed and activated slow down your site, it all depends on the quality of those plugins. Sometimes you install just 5-10 plugins and the plugin slows down immensely because of what those plugins actually do or how they are coded.

Manual optimizations worth mentioning

I like to set up cron via the server instead of WordPress cron. I also use Perfmatters’ script manager to selectively load scripts on every page of my site, instead of letting plugins load their scripts on every page indiscriminately.

Another optimisation that can be done where possible, is to avoid using third-party fonts like the Google Fonts, you can easily do away with them unless you have specific branding guidelines to follow. This will provide a further speed boost to your page.

Testing

I use the following tests to make sure everything is running smoothly:

• GTMetrix
• Pingdom
• Webpagetest.org
• Google Chrome’s Audit feature
• Google Analytics’ Page Speed feature

Also make sure that you test both the desktop and mobile versions of your site, as they might be loading different content and thus merit the need to be tested separately.

Hope those speed and site optimisation tips help, let me know if you think I missed anything.

I’ve had a wish to learn electronics for a very long time, and this year I took the plunge and bought some kit to get started. Here’s the stuff I bought and some other resources I found useful.

Hardware

• Keyes electronics kit SMP0051
• NodeMCU ESP8266 Lua WiFi Internet Development Board (alternative to Arduino)
• Raspberry Pi3 Official Desktop Starter Kit 16GB
• XL830L Multimeter

Books

• Eléctronica para makers – Guía completa
• Hacking Electronics
• Make: Electronics
• Make: More Electronics

Websites

• Startingelectronics.org – used their tutorials to build my first real circuits.
• Sparkfun.com – Great tutorials and quiz to learn the basics.
• Programming Electronics
• Building Electronic Circuits
• Electronics-tutorials
• Thingiverse
• Predictabledesigns
• Speedway Motor’s All about electronic circuits for kids

[Read more…]

There are three ways to post to Instagram from your desktop:

• Grids
• IGdm – for chatting
• HopperHQ in-browser service

I bought the Grids app since I found it most reliable for my needs. What’s your favorite?

For more details on how to do this, check out this post on SoftwareHow.

Linking Your Instagram to WordPress

Another cool thing you can do with Instagram is to display your feed on a WordPress website. As I discussed in my article on the subject, there are several reasons why you would want to do this.

The best plugin for this purpose is Spotlight, which can be downloaded for free on WordPress.org but also has a premium version that adds more features such as curation of imported items.

I love riding my Brompton in Barcelona and other places when we travel. In fact, I’ve taken it with me all over Europe since it’s so easy to travel with it, whether it’s by plane, train or car.

It’s a great means of transport, but it’s also true that if you live in hilly regions it can be a challenge to use it on a daily basis as a means of transport. The same thing applies if you’re not that young anymore and don’t have the same energy and stamina as before.

Enter electric bikes. They’re not a new concept but recent advances in battery size and capacity, as well as electric motors, have really made possible and driven the market for electric bikes.

The official electric Brompton is now a reality and has been selling like hot cakes. There are however several alternatives that don’t require you to buy a new bike but just convert your existing one.

In this post, I’ll summarize the options available, and continue updating it with new developments as they happen.

I own several Bromptons, and have also bought the official electric version which I love.
[Read more…]

I use Spotify all the time and find it highly annoying when the play button on my keyboard opens iTunes instead of controlling Spotify. This happens with other media buttons too once iTunes is open.

I don’t use iTunes at all so I found a solution to prevent this nonsense from happening. Follow the steps below if you want to do the same.

The first step is to diable Apple’s SIP. Once you apply the command to disable execution of iTunes you should perform the steps again to re-enable SIP.

1. From the Apple menu, choose “Restart…” > “Restart“.
2. Simultaneously press and hold the “Command” and “R” buttons. This will start you in Recovery Mode.
3. Select “Utilities” > “Terminal“.
4. Type one of the following, then press “Enter“:
   • Disable System Integrity Protection: csrutil disable
   • Enable System Integrity Protection: csrutil enable

Then restart and let the login proceed as normal. Once you’re in, run the following command:

sudo chmod -x /Applications/iTunes.app/Contents/MacOS/iTunes

This will prevent iTunes from opening, so make sure that is what you really want. If you still want to use iTunes for any purpose (for example iPhone and iPad backups) this method above won’t work for you, as it will prevent the backups from taking place.

If you want to go back to default behavior, you can enter Terminal once again (make sure you disable SIP again before) and type in the following:

sudo chmod +x /Applications/iTunes.app/Contents/MacOS/iTunes

Alternative: Using an Application

Applications such as “Karabiner-Elements” or “BetterTouchTool” can be used to remap your keyboard keys or disable specific key functions.

That’s it! Enjoy your newly found freedom from iTunes.