WordPress App: Changes Imminent

If you use your phone or tablet to blog on the WordPress App, you should read the article in the link. Changes are being introduced this month, splitting the choice of Apps between the current format, and the new Jetpack App. The most obvious difference will be that you will no longer be able to view your stats on the existing App, unless you change to the new one. Other changes are explained in detail on this link.

https://wordpress.com/blog/2023/02/15/switch-to-the-new-jetpack-mobile-app/

I use my PC for blogging, but have the App on my tablet for when I am away from home. If anyone has already migrated to the Jetpack App, it would be good to know what you think about it.

Guest Post: Gavin Marriott

My thanks to Gavin for his guest post about the changing attitudes in society.

Major turning points in society.

We all see the wonderful pictures Pete sends us, and you laugh or cringe at the noticeable societal changes. Less smoking is a classic. On the other hand swear words are now normal and effin acceptable! One must also notice that climate changes as becoming a dramatic turning point. But there is another change that has turned the way we now live – completely. I can only give you the 2 major examples from New Zealand but I well know there are identical cases that occurred in your countries.

In 1987, Teresa Cormack was an adorable 6 year old walking on her own to school in the city of Napier. She was enticed into a strangers car, raped and her body found on a beach. The whole town went out looking for her and every man a suspect. Soon men all over the country were suspects. It broke up marriages and parents now had to drop off and pick their children up from school – the mother, not the father. The roads became clogged twice a day with many children run over and some school turned sports fields into car parks. The culprit was found years later by fluke thanks to modern DNA records. But on the way several men had their lives ruined, had to escape to another country, were never allowed to see their children and change their names.

In 1993, Peter Ellis was a creche supervisor at a day care in Christchurch. Out of the blue a parent told others her child said Peter performed indecent acts and bizarre rituals. Peter was perhaps gay. The education authorities got a psych to interview all the children – who got rewards for saying nasty things about Peter. He spent a decade in jail and recently died of cancer. Just last week he was proved to be innocent – as the “victims”, now adults, stated it was made up and the psych a man hater.

So we now have several generations brought up on the philosophy of “stranger danger”. We have females in their 30s who cannot socialise and many not formed hetero relationships. Many refuse to deal or work with a male and as a JP I have several who will only come to me if they can stand up and I sit down and not look at them. They will be accompanied by a witness and you are not allowed to talk to them. Men will no longer work in teaching and foolish if they do. As a solo dad I can tell you how hard it was being out with my boys and changing nappies in a park and if seen by a female, would get a police call out. Thank God I didn’t have girls. My mate in a similar situation gave his girl up for adoption as it was too hard.

So thanks to these 2 cases, the world had a major change with a gigantic cost.
But the final piece is
https://www.police.govt.nz/advice/personal-and-community-advice/school-portal/latest-news/who-abuses-children

From Gavin Marriott JP, NZ.

Adjusting To Change

In less than twelve years, my life has changed completely. As well as moving away from London for the first time, I also developed a love of daily routine that changed my entire outlook on life. Recently, I was thinking of some examples that illustrate those changes.

Me, previously.
“It’s not even midnight yet. I’m sure we could find a club still open somewhere. Then we can walk home over Waterloo Bridge and watch the sunrise”.

Me now.
It’s nearly midnight? I can’t believe I have stayed up so late! Time I was tucked up in bed”.

Me, previously.
“Let’s go for a drive somewhere. Doesn’t matter where, just head for the south coast and see where we end up. Maybe go to Rye, or down to Bexhill”.

Me now.
“Out for a drive? Nah. Parking will be a nightmare when we get anywhere, and I might have to drive home after dark”.

Me, previously.
“We could go into the city. Have a look at the sights, then have a nice meal out later”.

Me now.
“The City? Too crowded, and too much hassle to get buses back late in the evening”.

Me, previously.
“I can’t go out to eat without wearing a suit and tie. I don’t care about everyone else, I like to look smart on social occasions”.

Me now.
“I’m not dressing up to eat out in Dereham. Nobody does, and I will look stupid if I do”.

Me, previously.
“I have to go and see that new film. I’ll walk down to Leicester Square tomorrow and catch the late afternoon showing”.

Me now.
“The local cinema will never be showing that, and I can’t be bothered to trek into Norwich. I’ll wait until the DVD comes out”.

Me, previously.
“Let’s try that new coffee place that has opened in Covent Garden. We can get a table outside if we are lucky”.

Me now.
“No way am I going to pay almost four quid for a cup of coffee when I can have one at home for nothing”.

Me, previously.
“Let’s do a weekend away. Maybe a nice village in the Cotswolds, or a hotel by the beach in Sussex”.

Me now.
“No need to go and stay in a village when you already live in one. Besides, who will look after Ollie?”

And many more…

A Small But Irritating Change

This morning, I noticed a different style in the email notifications I receive for comments on my blog posts.

They now appear as shown below. However, when I click on ‘Reply’, it no longer goes straight to the comment as it did before. Instead it takes me to the top of the post itself, and I have to scroll down to locate the comment. Another small change from WordPress, and a minor irritation in my blogging enjoyment.

New comment on beetleypete

Stevie Turner

commented on A Real Spy Story: Part Twenty-Eight

In response to beetleypete:

This is the twenty-eighth part of a fiction serial, in 897 words. Helen was ready for me the next morning, reasonably well …

Hurray! She’s free!

Reply
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Modify your notifications settings.

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Plan Changes: The Official Word From WordPress

Thanks to Audrey for the link.
https://wordpress.com/blog/2022/04/05/introducing-wordpress-pro-one-plan-infinite-possibilities/

WordPress breaks its silence on the lack of information concerning new plans, and also makes some changes since announcing them last week.

You can read the full post from the link above. Meanwhile here are some sections that might help us all calm down (again).

No changes to paid plans already in place, and now 1 GB of space on any new Free plans. (Up from 0.5 GB last week.) Traffic limits scrapped.

We’re listening to your feedback, and want to be clear that it will, as always, shape the future of WordPress.com.

With that in mind, we’re committing to:

No traffic limits on either the Free or Pro plan. You’ll enjoy the same unlimited traffic you’ve always had.
The new Free plan storage limit will include 1GB of Free storage, and existing Free users will keep the 3GB they already have on hand.
Additional storage will be available for purchase at a very reasonable price, very soon.
As-you-need them add-ons for both plans, to give you a la carte upgrades. Coming soon.

Existing users before 1/4/22 keep the current deal.

How This Affects Your Current Plan
While we’re making a few changes to the Free plan, rest assured that if you’re already signed up, nothing will change for you. Ditto, if you’re on one of our legacy plans, nothing will change unless you want it to.

Going forward, new signups and sites will integrate smoothly into our new Free and Pro plans.

So, new bloggers have either 1 GB on a Free plan, or the option of Pro, prepaid at $15 a month. Everyone else who was blogging before April this year should remain unaffected.

Now we have to wait and see if they stick to those promises.

Much Ado About Nothing?

Another view of the WP changes. This might calm us all down!
(Well, maybe…)
HOWEVER! Other bloggers have been told that once their paid plans expire, the new Free or Pro will be the only available options.
Watch this space…

This, That, and the Other

Yesterday there were some posts going around, including mine, suggesting that WordPress was consolidating down to two plans: a scaled-back free plan, and a professional blogger-level Pro plan at $180 a year. This created quite the brouhaha among us casual, hobby bloggers.

I opened up a help ticket on WordPress asking if this were true, but as of this morning, I have not received a response. But my blogging buddy Jim Adams, who must have more clout with WordPress than I do, contacted WordPress, and he was told that “that the Personal, Premium, Business, and eCom plans are not being discontinued. The Pro plan has been introduced in addition to these plans and is currently only available for the FREE sites.”

So it seems that we were all up in arms over something that won’t adversely affect most of us. Thank you, Jim, for giving us the real skinny…

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UPDATED! Pricing And Functionality Changes Regarding WordPress

A great post from Maggie on the changes to WordPress plans!

NOTE: There seems to be some confusion about what plans are available. The documentation I see only shows two plans, others have been told that is not the case. I will update here if I learn more.

These two available plans seemingly impact only free users.  Click on upgrades in your WordPress leftmost menu. If you are currently a paying customer, you may see other plan options. If you have a free blog, you may only see the two options described below. Is this WordPress trying to discourage free accounts?

By now, many of you have read about WordPress pricing structure and functionality changes recently put in place without notice. As a person who has a history in IT, I do understand the cost of staying in business. Disk storage cost money. So does staffing. I do not think any of us would argue that point.

Most hobbyist bloggers do…

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A sudden, unannounced change

Another blogger’s view of the new WordPress plans. Keep yourselves informed about what’s happening. I for one had no idea!

Scent of a Gamer

In between articles a line on my blog stats suddenly went from being halfway full to being full and red:

The free WordPress option used to come with 3GB for storage space.

Above is an image I found on a WordPress page that already seems to have been deleted while I was writing this. It shows what the limit used to be.

That has now been reduced to 500MB. At the moment, I can still upload new images, but I’m expecting that to stop soon.

There has been no announcement that I can see, but this is the new ‘free’ option. It has been drastically reduced. I also notice the 10,000 monthly views limit. I’m getting more than that, and so are many others I know.

At some point, something is going to happen, as in I won’t be able to upload new images, and people won’t be able…

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Free Or Paid Plan on WordPress? Read this!

WordPress is about to change the variety of plans available to bloggers. In their ongoing quest to pander to business users, (and to make more money) only TWO plans will be offered in future.

Free
or
Pro

https://wordpress.com/support/plan-features/

*There will also be a monthly limit on views of your blog! So much for expanding your community!

https://wordpress.com/pricing/

The Free plan will allow ONLY 0.5 GB of storage space. If you use more than that, WP will potentially delete the photos in your media library. The Pro plan allows 50 GB, and retains the features of Premium, with some extras. Bloggers already getting the free 3 GB allowance on the Free plan, or 13 GB on the Premium plan will retain that.

For now.

But the cost of the Pro plan will be $180 a year, paid in advance. This is going to impact millions of WP bloggers around the world, at a time when the cost of living is increasing to levels not seen since WW2.

Read this post from Bookstooge, for a detailed explanation. Then get angry!
https://bookstooge.wordpress.com/2022/04/02/bend-over-bloggers-wordpress-wants-your-ss/

Ambulance life

Reblogging a 2012 post that nobody (except A) has seen. It is about my early days as an EMT in London. It is all very different now of course.

beetleypete

For those who read my posts on a regular basis, you may see a pattern appearing in my ‘Ambulance Stories’ category. That pattern is that many of the calls we were sent to, differ greatly from the description given to us by Ambulance Control. This may seem fanciful and affected to the outsider, though I can assure you that all these stories are 100% accurate. Perhaps some explanation of general life as an Ambulanceman in London (at least when I was still in it ) will put some of this into better context.

At the time I joined, the London Ambulance Service was a very different organisation to the one it is today. It was short-staffed, under-funded, and the staff were poorly paid, and did the job with very little equipment. Many of the operational managers were ex-military types, and the uniform reflected this, in being totally unsuitable for the…

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