If you have obtained ebooks in the EPUB format, you are not restricted to reading it on your hardware ebook device or mobile phone. This page lists many free (and open source) EPUB viewers that you can install on your computer to read them.
WordPress 5.8 Beta 2 is now available for testing!
This software is still in development, so it’s not recommended to run this version on a production site. Consider setting up a test site to play with it.
You can test the WordPress 5.8 Beta 2 in two ways:
Bleeding edge channel and the Beta/RC Only stream)The current target for the final release is July 20, 2021. That’s just five weeks away, so your help is vital to ensure that the final release is as good as it can be.
Since Beta 1, 26 bugs have been fixed. Here is a summary of some of the included changes:
@babel/polyfill with core-js/stable. (#52941)Watch the Make WordPress Core blog for 5.8-related developer notes in the coming weeks, which will break down these and other changes in greater detail.
So far, contributors have fixed 214 tickets in WordPress 5.8, including 87 new features and enhancements, and more bug fixes are on the way.
Do some testing!
Testing for bugs is a vital part of polishing the release during the beta stage and a great way to contribute. 
If you think you’ve found a bug, please post to the Alpha/Beta area in the support forums. We would love to hear from you! If you’re comfortable writing a reproducible bug report, file one on WordPress Trac. That’s also where you can find a list of known bugs.
Props to @chanthaboune for revision, @webcommsat, @youknowriad, @jorbin, and @jeffpaul for proofreading, and @cbringmann for final edits!
Install won’t you please
WordPress 5-8 Beta 2?
We need your help: test!
If you’re reading this article, it’s likely that you spend a fair amount of time online. However, considering how much of an influence the Internet has in our daily lives, how many of us actually know the story of how it got its start? Most of our daily lives are saturated with social media, online shopping, and browsing for new information, but how did we get to this point?
Here’s a brief history of the Internet, including important dates, people, projects, sites, and other information that should give you at least a partial picture of what this thing we call the Internet really is, and where it came from.
While the complete history of the Internet could easily fill a few books, this article should familiarize you with key milestones and events related to the growth and evolution of the Internet between 1969 to 2009.
Arpanet was the first real network to run on packet switching technology (new at the time). On October 29, 1969, computers at Stanford and UCLA connected for the first time. In effect, they were the first hosts on what would one day become the Internet.
The first message sent across the network was supposed to be “Login”, but reportedly, the link between the two colleges crashed on the letter “g”.
Another major milestone during the 60’s was the inception of Unix: the operating system whose design heavily influenced that of Linux and FreeBSD (the operating systems most popular in today’s web servers/web hosting services).
An Arpanet network was established between Harvard, MIT, and BBN (the company that created the “interface message processor” computers used to connect to the network) in 1970.
Email was first developed in 1971 by Ray Tomlinson, who also made the decision to use the “@” symbol to separate the user name from the computer name (which later on became the domain name).
One of the most impressive developments of 1971 was the start of Project Gutenberg. Project Gutenberg, for those unfamiliar with the site, is a global effort to make books and documents in the public domain available electronically–for free–in a variety of eBook and electronic formats.
It began when Michael Hart gained access to a large block of computing time and came to the realization that the future of computers wasn’t in computing itself, but in the storage, retrieval and searching of information that, at the time, was only contained in libraries. He manually typed (no OCR at the time) the “Declaration of Independence” and launched Project Gutenberg to make information contained in books widely available in electronic form. In effect, this was the birth of the eBook.
France began its own Arpanet-like project in 1972, called CYCLADES. While Cyclades was eventually shut down, it did pioneer a key idea: the host computer should be responsible for data transmission rather than the network itself.
Arpanet made its first trans-Atlantic connection in 1973, with the University College of London. During the same year, email accounted for 75% of all Arpanet network activity.
1974 was a breakthrough year. A proposal was published to link Arpa-like networks together into a so-called “inter-network”, which would have no central control and would work around a transmission control protocol (which eventually became TCP/IP).
With the popularity of emailing, the first modern email program was developed by John Vittal, a programmer at the University of Southern California in 1975. The biggest technological advance this program (called MSG) made was the addition of “Reply” and “Forward” functionality.
1977 was a big year for the development of the Internet as we know it today. It’s the year the first PC modem, developed by Dennis Hayes and Dale Heatherington, was introduced and initially sold to computer hobbyists.
The first bulletin board system (BBS) was developed during a blizzard in Chicago in 1978.
1978 is also the year that brought the first unsolicited commercial email message (later known as spam), sent out to 600 California Arpanet users by Gary Thuerk.
The precursor to World of Warcraft and Second Life was developed in 1979, and was called MUD (short for MultiUser Dungeon). MUDs were entirely text-based virtual worlds, combining elements of role-playing games, interactive, fiction, and online chat.
1979 also ushered into the scene: Usenet, created by two graduate students. Usenet was an internet-based discussion system, allowing people from around the globe to converse about the same topics by posting public messages categorized by newsgroups.
The European Organization for Nuclear Research (better known as CERN) launched ENQUIRE (written by Tim Berners-Lee), a hypertext program that allowed scientists at the particle physics lab to keep track of people, software, and projects using hypertext (hyperlinks).
While many people credit Kevin MacKenzie with the invention of the emoticon in 1979, it was Scott Fahlman in 1982 who proposed using 
after a joke, rather than the original -) proposed by MacKenzie. The modern emoticon was born.
January 1, 1983 was the deadline for Arpanet computers to switch over to the TCP/IP protocols developed by Vinton Cerf. A few hundred computers were affected by the switch. The name server was also developed in ’83.
The domain name system was created in 1984 along with the first Domain Name Servers (DNS). The domain name system was important in that it made addresses on the Internet more human-friendly compared to its numerical IP address counterparts. DNS servers allowed Internet users to type in an easy-to-remember domain name and then converted it to the IP address automatically.
1985 brought the development of The WELL (short for Whole Earth ‘Lectronic Link), one of the oldest virtual communities still in operation. It was developed by Stewart Brand and Larry Brilliant in February of ’85. It started out as a community of the readers and writers of the Whole Earth Review and was an open but “remarkably literate and uninhibited intellectual gathering”. Wired Magazine once called The Well “The most influential online community in the world.”
The so-called Protocol wars began in 1986. European countries at that time were pursuing the Open Systems Interconnection (OSI), while the United States was using the Internet/Arpanet protocol, which eventually won out.
By 1987, there were nearly 30,000 hosts on the Internet. The original Arpanet protocol had been limited to 1,000 hosts, but the adoption of the TCP/IP standard made larger numbers of hosts possible.
Also in 1988, Internet Relay Chat (IRC) was first deployed, paving the way for real-time chat and the instant messaging programs we use today.
One of the first major Internet worms was released in 1988. Referred to as “The Morris Worm”, it was written by Robert Tappan Morris and caused major interruptions across large parts of the Internet.
When Apple pulled out of the AppleLink program in 1989, the project was renamed and America Online was born. AOL, still in existence today, later on made the Internet popular amongst the average internet users.
1989 also brought about the proposal for the World Wide Web, written by Tim Berners-Lee. It was originally published in the March issue of MacWorld, and then redistributed in May 1990. It was written to persuade CERN that a global hypertext system was in CERN’s best interest. It was originally called “Mesh”; the term “World Wide Web” was coined while Berners-Lee was writing the code in 1990.
1990 also brought about the first commercial dial-up Internet provider, The World. The same year, Arpanet ceased to exist.
The code for the World Wide Web was written by Tim Berners-Lee, based on his proposal from the year before, along with the standards for HTML, HTTP, and URLs.
1991 brought some major innovations to the world of the Internet. The first web page was created and, much like the first email explained what email was, its purpose was to explain what the World Wide Web was.
Also in the same year, the first search protocol that examined file contents instead of just file names was launched, called Gopher.
Also, the MP3 file format was accepted as a standard in 1991. MP3 files, being highly compressed, later become a popular file format to share songs and entire albums via the internet.
One of the more interesting developments of this era, though, was the first webcam. It was deployed at a Cambridge University computer lab, and its sole purpose was to monitor a particular coffee maker so that lab users could avoid wasted trips to an empty coffee pot.
The first widely downloaded Internet browser, Mosaic, was released in 1993. While Mosaic wasn’t the first web browser, it is considered the first browser to make the Internet easily accessible to non-techies.
In 1993, both the White House and the United Nations came online, marking the beginning of the .gov and .org domain names.
Mosaic’s first big competitor, Netscape Navigator, was released the year following (1994).
1995 is often considered the first year the web became commercialized. While there were commercial enterprises online prior to ’95, there were a few key developments that happened that year. First, SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) encryption was developed by Netscape, making it safer to conduct financial transactions (like credit card payments) online.
In addition, two major online businesses got their start the same year. The first sale on “Echo Bay” was made that year. Echo Bay later became eBay. Amazon.com also started in 1995, though it didn’t turn a profit for six years, until 2001.
Other major developments that year included the launch of Geocities (which officially closed down on October 26, 2009).
The Vatican also went online for the first time.
Java and JavaScript (originally called LiveScript by its creator, Brendan Eich, and deployed as part of the Netscape Navigator browser – see comments for explanation) was first introduced to the public in 1995. ActiveX was launched by Microsoft the following year.
In 1996, HoTMaiL (the capitalized letters are an homage to HTML), the first webmail service, was launched.
While the first blogs had been around for a few years in one form or another, 1997 was the first year the term “weblog” was used.
In 1998, the first major news story to be broken online was the Bill Clinton/Monica Lewinsky scandal (also referred to as “Monicagate” among other nicknames), which was posted on The Drudge Reportafter Newsweek killed the story.
Google went live in 1998, revolutionizing the way in which people find information online.
In 1998 as well, Napster launched, opening up the gates to mainstream file-sharing of audio files over the internet.
1999 is the year when one of the more interesting projects ever brought online: the SETI@home project, launched. The project has created the equivalent of a giant supercomputer by harnessing the computing power of more than 3 million computers worldwide, using their processors whenever the screensaver comes on, indicating that the computer is idle. The program analyzes radio telescope data to look for signs of extraterrestrial intelligence.
2000 was the year of the dotcom collapse, resulting in huge losses for legions of investors. Hundreds of companies closed, some of which had never turned a profit for their investors. The NASDAQ, which listed a large number of tech companies affected by the bubble, peaked at over 5,000, then lost 10% of its value in a single day, and finally hit bottom in October of 2002.
With the dotcom collapse still going strong, Wikipedia launched in 2001, one of the websites that paved the way for collective web content generation/social media.
In 2003: Skype is released to the public, giving a user-friendly interface to Voice over IP calling.
Also in 2003, MySpace opens up its doors. It later grew to be the most popular social network at one time (though it has since been overtaken by Facebook).
Another major advance in 2003 was the signing of the Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act of 2003, better known as the CAN-SPAM Act.
Though coined in 1999 by Darcy DiNucci, the term “Web 2.0”, referring to websites and Rich Internet Applications (RIA) that are highly interactive and user-driven became popular around 2004. During the first Web 2.0 conference, John Batelle and Tim O’Reilly described the concept of “the Web as a Platform“: software applications built to take advantage of internet connectivity, moving away from the desktop (which has downsides such as operating system dependency and lack of interoperability).
The term “social media”, believed to be first used by Chris Sharpley, was coined in the same year that “Web 2.0” became a mainstream concept. Social media–sites and web applications that allow its users to create and share content and to connect with one another–started around this period. People loved the idea of being able to travel through their friends and families pictures and adventures, despite not being physically present.
Digg, a social news site, launched on November of 2004, paving the way for sites such as Reddit, Mixx, and Yahoo! Buzz. Digg revolutionized traditional means of generating and finding web content, democratically promoting news and web links that are reviewed and voted on by a community.
Facebook launched in 2004, though at the time it was only open to college students and was called “The Facebook”; later on, “The” was dropped from the name, though the URL http://www.thefacebook.com still works.
YouTube launched in 2005, bringing free online video hosting and sharing to the masses.
Twitter launched in 2006. It was originally going to be called twittr (inspired by Flickr); the first Twitter message was “just setting up my twttr”.
Hulu was first launched in 2007, a joint venture between ABC, NBC, and Fox to make popular TV shows available to watch online.
The biggest innovation of 2007 was almost certainly the iPhone, which was almost wholly responsible for renewed interest in mobile web applications and design.
The first “Internet election” took place in 2008 with the U.S. Presidential election. It was the first year that national candidates took full advantage of all the Internet had to offer. Hillary Clinton jumped on board early with YouTube campaign videos. Virtually every candidate had a Facebook page or a Twitter feed, or both.
Ron Paul set a new fundraising record by raising $4.3 million in a single day through online donations, and then beat his own record only weeks later by raising $4.4 million in a single day.
The 2008 elections placed the Internet squarely at the forefront of politics and campaigning, a trend that is unlikely to change any time in the near future.
2009 brought about one of the biggest changes to come to the Internet in a long time when the U.S. relaxed its control over ICANN, the official naming body of the Internet (they’re the organization in charge of registering domain names).
Where is the future of the Internet headed? We can only assume that the Internet will continue to grow. From basic developments to things like PPC advertising, the Internet has only become more impressive over time. Share your opinions in the comments section.
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The post The History of the Internet in a Nutshell appeared first on WebFX Blog.
Pagination is one of those little design necessities that often gets overlooked. But for blogs and other content-heavy sites, it provides an important means of navigating between pages. A well-crafted paginated website can encourage users to explore further what you have to offer.
Some designers dare to take pagination to the next level. Here’s a look at some very creative CSS and JavaScript code snippets that you can use for free to improve the pagination on your own website.
You might also like these menu and navigation snippet collections:
Our first example shows how some basic hover effects can vastly improve standard pagination. The ultra-smooth underline that follows your cursor makes for a much more intuitive experience. Plus, the entire menu is very easy to read. This is a simple way to help users.
See the Pen Line Pagination with Hover (PureCSS) by Mark Mead
One of the most frustrating parts of pagination can be how menus handle a large number of pages. This snippet uses jQuery to show adjacent page numbers as you click. It’s a much easier path to follow.
See the Pen jQuery Pagination Example (twbs-pagination) by Simon Codrington
This is an exciting concept. Designed to be both responsive and more accessible, this pagination UI contains multiple ways to navigate – including via a keyboard. The timeline-like bar at the top clearly labels the current page and offers a great overview of everything available.
See the Pen Pagination by Simon Goellner
They say good help is hard to find. But this snippet provides the help of a Yeti (at least, the hand of a Yeti) when clicking through the page numbers. While Yetis may not fit with your motif, this is an example of how we can add an element of fun (and surprise).
See the Pen Yeti Hand Pagination by Darin
On smaller screens, pagination can be terribly difficult to use. Navigation items are often too small and too hard to read. This snippet provides a great alternative for mobile devices. Each item is larger as the navigation stretches vertically. The result is that mobile users can get around without having to squint their eyes or zoom in.
See the Pen Responsive Pagination by Scott Carver
Sometimes, we don’t need to number each item within the pagination. This example is attractively minimal with the use of dots rather than numerals. It’s a good solution for slideshows or navigating multiple panels of content.
See the Pen Infinite Pagination by Mariusz Dabrowski
Mobile UI works best when it reacts to a user’s touch. Here we have pagination that allows the user to swipe to get to the next or previous item. This little convenience can make all the difference when it comes to usability.
See the Pen Swiper custom pagination by Pavel Zakharoff
Designers often use infinite scrolling to replace pagination. But this is a neat concept of how they can be combined. The frustration of infinite scroll is that it can be difficult to go back and find that one particular item. This snippet adds new page numbers to the navigation as you continue to scroll down, making returning to the previous page a little easier.
See the Pen Infinite Scroll + Pagination by Tim Severien
A great web design doesn’t ignore the various elements that make up a page. The pros above show that pagination has more to offer when you put some effort into enhancing it.
So, take some inspiration from these examples and create pagination menus that both look and function better.
The post 8 CSS & JavaScript Snippets for Creating Paginated Navigations appeared first on Speckyboy Design Magazine.
TLDR;
Rector - The Power of Automated Refactoring is now 100% completed
Tomas Votruba and I first met a couple of years ago at one of my favorite conferences; the Dutch PHP Conference in Amsterdam (so actually, we're very close to our anniversary, Tomas!). He presented Rector there and it was really inspiring. A year later I was working on a legacy migration problem: our team wanted to migrate from Doctrine ORM to "ORM-less", with handwritten mapping code, etc. I first tried Laminas Code, a code generation tool, but it lacked many features, and also the precision that I needed. Suddenly I recalled Rector, and decided to give it a try. After some experimenting, everything worked and I learned that this tool really is amazingly powerful!
I asked Tomas if he would like to write a book together, about Rector, combining the perspective of a developer who needs to learn how to use and extend Rector, with the perspective of the creator who has a vision for the project. This turned out to be a very fruitful collaboration. To be extremely honest, in the beginning of the project I was really annoyed by Tomas' contributions. As an example, this guy put all of the value object classes in a namespace called ValueObjects. I had never encountered anything like that. He also added all kinds of PHPStan rules that would throw errors in my face whenever I tried to commit anything. At first I was like: that is not how writing a book works, Tomas. You're treating it as a software project. I want to have freedom. I want to treat it like art.
In the end, I realized we were optimizing for different things. He focused on:
These are very valuable principles, and from this place I'd like to thank Tomas for leading by example here. I'll never forget this, and will make it part of every future project (books and software projects alike). Thanks to this approach, every code sample is analyzed for issues, automatically formatted, and every code sample can be automatically refactored with Rector. When we need to, we can even upgrade the code base to a new PHP version. In fact, we could even decide to downgrade it!
While writing I often encountered a weird problem. Sometimes it turned out to be bug in Rector, sometimes an edge case that would be solved by a feature that was already on the roadmap (like migrating Rector to use static reflection). In all cases, Tomas was able to improve Rector, making the learning experience for news users much smoother, and more enjoyable.
Rector is a fascinating tool, but before you can effectively extend it for your own code transformation needs, you have to learn about some other related topics, like tokenizing, parsing, the Abstract Syntax Tree, node visitors, and so on. This book aims to provide a good introduction to all these topics, making you a better developer anyway, even if you'd never actually use Rector.
In conclusion: buy this book. It's now 100% complete. It'll teach you a lot about PHP as a language, how to improve legacy projects without wasting development time, and even about test-driven development.
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Is your ecommerce store loading slowly? Has your product line outgrown your website’s capabilities? Is your business falling behind its competitors? It may be time to move to a new ecommerce platform.
In this ecommerce platform migration guide, we’ll cover everything you need to know about moving your site to a new platform, including:
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Ecommerce platform migration, also called ecommerce replatforming, is the process of transferring your ecommerce website from one platform to another.
You might transfer your site from one website builder, such as WordPress or Shopify, to another. You could also move your site from an ecommerce platform to a custom-built site or vice versa.
Why do businesses switch their ecommerce stores over to new platforms, and is this something you should do?
Migrating your site is a big decision. It can be expensive and require significant time and effort. It also comes with risks and requires a transition period while your team learns how to use the new platform and you work out any bugs with your new site.
However, staying with a platform that isn’t working for your business can be much more costly in the long run.
You’ll need to weigh the costs and benefits of migrating your website to determine if it’s worth it for you.
Here are some of the reasons you might need to upgrade to a new platform.
Evaluate the benefits your company will gain in the above areas. Then, compare those benefits to the costs, including:
For even more digital marketing advice, sign up for the email that more than 150,000 other marketers trust: Revenue Weekly.
The platform you choose to migrate to is, of course, a crucial decision in the ecommerce replatforming process. You need to pick the right platform to make the changeover worthwhile and ensure you get the most value from your ecommerce platform migration.
Consider factors such as the following when choosing a new ecommerce platform:
One important question to consider when it comes to ecommerce platform migration is whether to complete the migration yourself or hire professionals to assist you.
If you choose to complete the site migration yourself, you’ll need to dedicate sufficient time to planning your migration. You must carefully prepare for and execute the changeover to avoid losing data.
Consider how comfortable and experienced you and your team are with the tasks required, such as setting up a new site, backing up data, and transferring data to the new platforms.
If you don’t feel comfortable completing the migration yourself or would rather leave it to the professionals and spend your time elsewhere, hiring a data migration company is an excellent option.
Some companies that perform data migration services can also help you design your new site. You might choose to hire a web designer and transfer the data yourself or work with one company that can handle the whole process.
Collaboration is in our DNA at WebFX and your web design project benefits from dozens of subject matter experts working together on your site.
Team of Experts Crafting Dazzling Designs
What steps should you follow when migrating your ecommerce website to a new platform? Take a look at this ecommerce migration checklist and read about each step in our ecommerce platform migration guide in more detail below:
Ecommerce replatforming requires careful planning. The first step of the process is outlining everything your migration will include.
What changes will you make to your site? Are you moving everything over exactly as is, or are you going to alter your site’s navigation, product categorization, or other elements? Consider creating an ecommerce migration checklist to assist you with the transition.
Also consider the following factors:
To successfully move everything over to your new site, you must organize all the content you want to move over from your old site.
Create an outline showing all your pages and where they’re located on your site. This list will help you keep track of all your content as you move it over to the new platform.
Before you can start moving your data, you’ll need to have the design for your new site ready. Design your site with your new platform in mind and set it up on a staging site — a website that isn’t live where you can test your new design.
Before you start migrating any of your data, make sure you back up your site. You’ll be happy you have a backup of the most recent version of your website if something goes wrong during your ecommerce data migration.
Next, you can start migrating your data. Begin by migrating part of your site and test it to make sure everything works correctly. If it does, you can continue your ecommerce data migration.
You can use a file transfer protocol (FTP) agent such as FileZilla to transfer static files. If you have a dynamic site that runs on a database, you can import your database to your new web host or platform.
If the new platform’s structure is different than that of your old platform or you want to change your content, the migration process will be more involved. You’ll either manually reformat and move your data or have a developer write a custom script that automatically reads and reformats the data across platforms.
You may need to map out a separate migration process if you keep customer accounts or order histories on your current platform.
Once you’ve migrated your content, you can start connecting any other tools you use on your site, such as your checkout platform, chatbot service, shipping platform, and email.
If your email is hosted on your old platform’s server, you’ll need to set up your new email and have mail forwarded from your old account to the new one. Before moving your email account, back up the account, including your contacts and messages.
Testing is essential throughout the ecommerce replatforming process. Thoroughly test pages, site elements, and functionalities as you move them over to your new site.
Some important elements to test include:
These are just a few examples of the items you should test during your ecommerce platform migration. Your testing should be as comprehensive as possible.
Once your content is moved over to your staging site and everything is set up, you’re ready to launch your new website. Ideally, you’ll want to launch your site at a time when few customers are online, such as late at night or early in the morning.
Once you launch your site, check your most important pages to ensure they’re working correctly and double-check that your robots.txt file allows search engines to crawl your site. Also, verify that you’re receiving form completion and checkout notifications.
Any time you make a major change to your website, you’ll likely encounter bugs. Be prepared to fix these issues quickly to make the transition as smooth as possible. Keep a backup of your old site in case anything is missing on your new site.
You’ll also want to let your top customers know about your ecommerce platform migration. They’ll appreciate being kept in the loop, and it will keep them from getting confused when they see your site and it looks different than usual.
An essential final step in our ecommerce platform migration guide is monitoring your results. In the months following your ecommerce replatforming, keep an eye on your website’s traffic, search engine rankings, conversions, and other metrics using tools like Google Analytics, Google Search Console, and MarketingCloudFX.
It’s normal to see a dip in metrics like rankings and traffic immediately following your migration, but if you completed the migration correctly, your site should recover over time.
Are you interested in custom reporting that is specific to your unique business needs? Powered by MarketingCloudFX, WebFX create custom reports based on what you care about most.
Measuring what matters most
Ecommerce platform migration is a huge job, but if you plan your process carefully and follow this guide, you’ll be on your way to success.
If you’d like professional help with your ecommerce replatforming, consider WebFX. We have more than 20 years of experience in digital marketing and a team of more than 300 experts in ecommerce web design and development, search engine optimization (SEO), and other areas.
To learn more about how we can help with your ecommerce platform migration, contact us online or at 888-601-5359.
The post Ecommerce Platform Migration: Your Guide to Moving Your Site appeared first on WebFX Blog.