Dan York

Just a guy in Vermont trying to connect all the dots...

Author's posts

Experimenting with block patterns in WordPress 5.5

Here I am just inserting a “block pattern” in WordPress 5.5 that has two buttons side by side:

The point of a “block pattern” is it lets you insert a pre-defined and pre-configured set of blocks. You then can edit those blocks and set them up with their unique properties.

This is VERY different from “re-usable blocks”, which can also be inserted easily in different parts of your site… but they all share the same value. So you could have, say, your contact info or number of members in a re-usable block. Insert that block all across your site. Update it in one location, and it is updated everywhere.

Instead a “block pattern” is more of a “template”… “here are some blocks to get you going on this page and now you can do with them what you will.

I can see a HUGE use case for this in the pages we create at my employer. We often create new landing pages or event pages where we use some standard patterns. Obviously we can just “duplicate” an existing page if it is a close match, but often we are building new pages where we also want to bring in elements used on another page. Now, we have built our own blocks for some of our common elements. But a “block pattern” allows us to have a group of blocks that we can easily add to the page.

The challenge is that adding block patterns in WordPress 5.5 primarily involves adding code to your theme or creating a custom plugin.

However, I see there is now a “Block Pattern Builder” plugin that needs some investigation…

IPv6 Buzz Podcast Dives into Open Standards Everywhere

Logo of IPv6 Buzz podcast

What are the challenges with applications supporting IPv6? What do people, particularly those working in enterprises, need to know about how servers and applications work with IPv6? What is the Internet Society’s Open Standards Everywhere project doing to help? How can people get more involved?

To answer all these questions and more, I recently joined Scott Hogg and Tom Coffeen on their IPv6 Buzz Podcast episode 53. You can listen here:

It was a very enjoyable conversation! Thanks to Scott and Tom for having me on their show. I also want to thank Ed Horley, who first contacted me about joining the show but with schedule conflicts was not able to join the recording. I would also encourage you to listen to other IPv6 Buzz episodes to learn more about IPv6.

If you would like to help in the work to get open standards deployed everywhere, please:

The post IPv6 Buzz Podcast Dives into Open Standards Everywhere appeared first on Internet Society.

TDYR 396 – Pandemic Productivity Plunge

So... anyone else struggling a bit with productivity during these pandemic times? In this episode I talk about some of my own struggles with productivity during the pandemic, as well as some of what people share in threads on Twitter - https://twitter.com/danyork/status/1290287978024116227 and Mastodon - https://mastodon.social/@danyork/104626127875193156

Testing Lazy Loading of Embedded iFrames

This post is to test the lazy loading of iFrames, as noted in this blog post from David Walsh.

I’m first going to just embed a video without the lazy loading:

To make this work, I’m using a HTML block in the WordPress editor so that I can put in the exact iframe copied from YouTube.

Next I’m going to run a couple of speed tests on this published post.

Then, I’ll come back and add ‘loading=”lazy”‘ into the iFrame code and repeat the tests. Let’s see what we learn!

TDYR 395 – Experimenting with Livestreaming on Twitch (A.k.a. Why I Haven’t Been Podcasting…)

Why haven't I been recording podcast episodes? Well... I've been off experimenting with Twitch! In this episode I talk all about why I have been doing that, and what I have learned so far. You can follow along with my experiments at https://www.twitch.tv/danyork324 (And yes, this episode was actually streamed on Twitch, too.)

Interview: IPv6 Buzz Podcast Episode 53 – Applications and IPv6

Image for IPv6 Buzz podcast episode 53

What is the current state of application support for IPv6? What are challenges for applications migrating to IPv6, particularly for enterprise applications? What am I doing at the Internet Society with projects such as Open Standards Everywhere to promote IPv6?

I had the fun of being interviewed by Scott Hogg and Tom Coffeen on their IPv6 Buzz Podcast episode 53 to talk about all of this and more. You can listen here:

Thanks to Scott and Tom, as well as their other host Ed Horley, for having me on the show to geek out about IPv6. Please do give the show a listen – and send along any questions you may have. Thanks!

Interview: IPv6 Buzz Podcast Episode 53 – Applications and IPv6

Image for IPv6 Buzz podcast episode 53

What is the current state of application support for IPv6? What are challenges for applications migrating to IPv6, particularly for enterprise applications? What am I doing at the Internet Society with projects such as Open Standards Everywhere to promote IPv6?

I had the fun of being interviewed by Scott Hogg and Tom Coffeen on their IPv6 Buzz Podcast episode 53 to talk about all of this and more. You can listen here:

Thanks to Scott and Tom, as well as their other host Ed Horley, for having me on the show to geek out about IPv6. Please do give the show a listen – and send along any questions you may have. Thanks!

Getting Close To Making Book Available on GitHub

With the changes to the book and my plans to develop a Second Edition, I also want to change the toolchain I’m using. When I wrote the book for O’Reilly back in 2011, I used DocBook XML as the source. However, these days I’m typically working in Markdown or another lightweight text markup format. So step one for the Second Edition is to migrate the DocBook XML into another format.

My current thinking is to use AsciiDoc, as it has support for footnotes and admonitions (ex. “Warning”), neither of which are supported in most Markdown variants. I’m still working through some plans, but hope to have the book converted over in the next few weeks. (I would welcome feedback on other text formats.)

I’m planning to make the book text available in a GitHub repository so that others can see the text and perhaps offer comments and feedback. If you would like to be notified when I do that, please sign up on my email list.

Getting Close To Making Book Available on GitHub

With the changes to the book and my plans to develop a Second Edition, I also want to change the toolchain I’m using. When I wrote the book for O’Reilly back in 2011, I used DocBook XML as the source. However, these days I’m typically working in Markdown or another lightweight text markup format. So step one for the Second Edition is to migrate the DocBook XML into another format.

My current thinking is to use AsciiDoc, as it has support for footnotes and admonitions (ex. “Warning”), neither of which are supported in most Markdown variants. I’m still working through some plans, but hope to have the book converted over in the next few weeks. (I would welcome feedback on other text formats.)

I’m planning to make the book text available in a GitHub repository so that others can see the text and perhaps offer comments and feedback. If you would like to be notified when I do that, please sign up on my email list.

Listen to the Hedge Podcast 39 to Learn about the Open Standards Everywhere Project

logo from the Hedge podcast episode 39 featuring Dan York and open standards everywhere

What is our Open Standards Everywhere (OSE) project all about? How did it get started? What are the project goals? What are some of the challenges web server operators face? How can we work together to make web servers more secure and available?

Recently Russ White and his team interviewed me on The Hedge Podcast Episode 39 to discuss all these questions and much more. I’ve known Russ for a good number of years and it was fun to talk with him and his co-hosts Eyvonne Sharp and Tom Ammon about all things related to the OSE project. I hope you enjoy listening to the episode as much as we enjoyed having the conversation!

Listen now

I would encourage you to listen to some of the other Hedge podcast episodes, too, as they have some great content. A few I personally enjoyed included: episode 37 about DNS privacy; episode 31 about network operator groups (NOGs); and episode 30 with Ethan Banks from the Packet Pushers Network about why understanding the fundamentals of networking is so important.

Thank you to Russ, Eyvonne, and Tom for having me on the show!

Want to be more involved with the Open Standards Everywhere project?

The post Listen to the Hedge Podcast 39 to Learn about the Open Standards Everywhere Project appeared first on Internet Society.