Make sure to read all the way through for a glimpse of an incredibly adorable fluffy pet… Alien? Tribble? Cryptid? It’s tough to discern…
In this issue:
- Hey Boo… Automattic has taken over an open-source grammar tool named after the American writer Harper Lee.
- 6.7.1 mirrors 6.7 but comes with around 16 fewer bugs.
- Deep Dive: Ensure your website can grow and accommodate traffic when you inevitably go viral.
Latest News: What’s Happening?
Grammar? I Barely Know Her!
If your grammar and spelling leave a lot to be desired, you’re going to be pleased to hear this.
Automattic has added another company to its lineup. Harper is an open-source grammar tool for developers that operates on-device, ensuring great privacy and speed. It’s named in honor of Harper Lee, known for To Kill a Mockingbird. (After all, Hemingway was already claimed.)
The creator of Harper, Elijah Potter, has also joined Automattic’s team.
The official announcement from Automattic boasts that Harper provides corrections in under 20 milliseconds, which is under 1% of the time taken by a “certain well-known online grammar service.” (Throwing shade at Grammarly, right?)
It would be fantastic to see this integrated within the WordPress editor as a complimentary grammar checking feature. Remember the days of After The Deadline? However, currently, it seems this might only be part of their premium offerings, so we’ll have to wait and see.
Currently, Harper claims to only support American English, which might not be helpful for Brits and Canadians trying to spell words like aluminum/aluminium or yogurt/yoghurt.
Code is Music: This is Just Really Neat, Everyone!
Every once in a while, an ingenious individual comes up with something so fantastically creative that it rekindles the joy, curiosity, and playfulness that brought us into this field in the first place.
A few days ago, freelance developer and Core contributor Aki Hamano showcased his project – Piano Block. It’s been around for a bit, but if you haven’t seen it – it’s a custom block plugin that lets you play a little virtual piano with your keyboard.
Hamano states it’s for when you feel “stuck writing an article” or when you “just want a bit of a distraction.”
It’s incredibly hard to resist. Here’s developer Justin Tadlock performing a lovely version of “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.”
Nathan Wrigley from WP Builds called it “profoundly cool” and remarked “Sometimes you encounter something that makes you set everything down and think for a bit. This is that!”
Another Core contributor, Nick Diego, described it as “one of the most amazing things I have seen in WordPress.”
It’s simple, it’s playful and we adore that it serves no purpose other than to inject a little joy into our lives. 
Waiting for the 6.7.1 Update? We Totally Understand.
If you’re someone who prefers to delay updates until the .1 release arrives: it’s now out.
This minor update includes 16 bug fixes across Core and the Block Editor.
Word on the street is that updating to 6.7 this time around wasn’t really much worse than usual. Numerous users indicated that the only troubles they encountered were from plugins needing updates.
Except for a few odd occurrences, like some alarming malware flagging by Wordfence, a translation issue, and a strange image distortion problem. Oops! 
Did you face any errors with this update? Share with us in the comments!
One common sentiment seems to resonate: It’s consistently a smart idea to install WordPress locally first, allowing you to experience it without affecting your live site.
Mind-Blowing Facts & Statistics
- Um… hey… where’s everyone heading? The WordPress Contribution Health Dashboards indicate a recent uptick in contributors going inactive.
(Source) - Despite a slowdown in growth, WordPress continues to be the leading CMS on the web, holding 36% of the market share. (Source)
- At the time of writing, 17,446,251 individuals have downloaded WordPress 6.7. Wait, it’s gone up again. Now it’s 17,449,063. Ah… you get the picture. (Source)
- Over his 70-year career, Sonny Rollins (the namesake of 6.7) has produced more than SIXTY albums. What a legend! (Source)
Deep Dive: The Art of Managing Traffic Surges Without Crashing 
Your WordPress site just went viral (or you hope it will). The catch? It simply can’t handle the traffic, leaving visitors staring at loading screens or error alerts.
If your site crashes, your reputation—and likely your revenue too—takes a significant hit. Scaling WordPress is not just a good practice; it’s essential for survival. Avoid the disaster with these foolproof strategies for scaling:
Prepare Your Site for Traffic Surges
- Upgrade Your Hosting Plan: Shared hosting? That’s not going to cut it when notoriety strikes. Choose VPS, cloud hosting, or managed WordPress hosting that provides scalable resources.
- Cache It Like It’s Hot: Plugins such as WP Rocket serve static content quickly, which reduces load times.
- Use A CDN: A Content Delivery Network holds and distributes your content through servers closer to visitors, ensuring fast load times whether they’re in Tokyo or Topeka.
- Clean That Database: Is your database cluttered like a junk drawer? Regularly delete old revisions, transients, and spam comments. Tools like WP-Optimize make this easy.
- Utilize Lazy Loading: Load images only when necessary. This not only enhances user experience but also boosts SEO. Just ensure it’s done correctly, or it could inadvertently hide your content from Google.
- Select Streamlined Themes and Plugins: Heavy themes are a fast road to sluggish sites. Go for minimalism in speed and strive for clean, well-structured code and markup.
With these tactics, your site will handle significant traffic like a champ. No crashes, no fuss, just smooth sailing toward notoriety and success, baby!
P.S. We might want to mention our Performance Suite here, which includes a pretty impressive 123-point CDN, Smush for image optimization, and Hummingbird for enhancing site speed. Just putting it out there… 
Blogs & Resources You Shouldn’t Pass Up
Feeling overwhelmed by scope creep? Tired of clients expecting luxury services on a basic budget? Laura Elizabeth from Client Portal shares how paid discovery can assist agencies in filtering out tire-kickers and time-wasters.
On the latest episode of the WP Minute podcast, Roger Williams from Kinsta advises finishing at least 50 pieces of content before getting bogged down by analytics and optimization. You’ve got to discover your voice first!
Gender gap? No thanks! 
Freemius contributed 100% of the earnings from the company’s tenth-anniversary fundraising effort to Girls Who Code.
Hey bug hunters: Earn up to $31k by identifying vulnerabilities during Wordfence’s Bug Bounty Holiday Extravaganza (running until December 9th).
And for all you dark mode fans… check this out.
Coffee Break Diversions
Can you identify the Owen Wilson movie just from the “Woowww?”
And as promised, here’s this adorable orb-like alien creature.
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