News and advice

July 1, 2023 marked the start of the end of new-data processing for standard Universal Analytics properties. Google had set out this milestone in its transition announcement. Analytics 360 properties had a separate extension. For website owners, the change highlighted a practical responsibility: verify that the reports used for decisions still reflect the actions taking place on the site. Define a useful result before configuring a report Google Analytics 4 uses an...

On June 5, 2023, Google began rolling out an open beta that let Workspace administrators allow users to sign in with passkeys instead of entering a password. The launch announcement described a gradual rollout and an administrator-controlled option. This was a milestone in workplace authentication, not an automatic switch for every organization. Reduce the role of passwords in everyday work Passkeys use public-key cryptography to provide phishing-resistant authentication....

The March 27, 2023 Safari 16.4 release brought Web Push support to web applications added to the Home Screen on iOS and iPadOS 16.4. For businesses developing a customer portal or an internal tool, this expanded the ways an installed web application could bring useful updates to a person’s attention. Start with the reason for the notification A notification is useful when it helps someone complete a task at the right moment. A report ready for review, a requested document...

In December 2022, Nuagerie updated the PHP versions offered in its cPanel/WHM hosting environment and adopted PHP 8.1 as the default. This was part of the ongoing modernization of the software foundation used by our customers’ websites and applications. A more recent default version The default version provides a reference runtime for the hosting environment. Updating it helps accommodate evolving application requirements and newer generations of the language. It does not...

On October 1, 2022, Microsoft began the scheduled retirement of Basic Authentication for several Exchange Online connection methods. The change affected older email clients and applications that depended on those methods. Microsoft’s lifecycle announcement identifies the start of the rollout; it was not a single simultaneous cutoff for every organization and every email protocol. Why the authentication method matters Basic Authentication relies on a username and password...

A contact form should help a prospective customer explain a need and reach the right person. Automated submissions can turn that useful channel into a sorting job, while an awkward verification step adds effort for legitimate visitors. On September 28, 2022, Cloudflare introduced the open beta of Turnstile, a CAPTCHA alternative designed to reduce that friction. It could be integrated without routing a website’s traffic through Cloudflare, making it an option to assess...

The Log4Shell disclosures in December 2021 drew attention to a critical vulnerability in Apache Log4j, a logging library used by Java applications. Identified as CVE-2021-44228, it could allow remote code execution in affected software. National cybersecurity authorities issued alerts as organizations worked to identify vulnerable products. Find the component, not just the website language Log4j is a Java library. Log4Shell was not a vulnerability in PHP itself, and the...

WordPress 5.8, released on July 20, 2021, added native support for uploading and using WebP images. The official release announcement marked an important step for sites whose visual content makes up a large part of each page. For a business website, the opportunity is practical: present useful photographs and product details while reducing unnecessary data transfer. Choose the image for the job WebP can provide smaller files at an acceptable visual quality, but changing...

On December 1, 2020, AWS announced strong read-after-write consistency for Amazon S3. This changed an important storage assumption for applications that upload documents, generate reports or publish files. Once a write succeeds, subsequent reads and listings can reflect the saved object without an additional waiting period for S3 consistency. Connect a saved file to the next business task Consider an application where an employee uploads a report before a colleague reviews...

The PHP project released PHP 8.0 on November 26, 2020. This major version introduced new language capabilities and changes to existing behavior. For website owners, its significance extended beyond the version number displayed in a hosting panel: a successful transition depended on the application as well as its runtime. What the release changed PHP 8.0 introduced named arguments, union types, attributes and the nullsafe operator, giving developers new ways to express...

On October 6, 2020, Google introduced Google Workspace, bringing Gmail, Calendar, Drive, Docs, Sheets, Slides, Meet and Chat under a more connected business experience. This milestone reflected a practical need: teams should be able to discuss work, find the right document and collaborate without repeatedly moving information between disconnected tools. Google’s original announcement explains the launch. Make collaboration easier to follow A connected suite is most useful...

In September 2020, Nuagerie began moving the native PHP version of its hosting environment from PHP 5.6 to PHP 7.4. The objective was to modernize the runtime used by hosted websites while retaining a transition path for applications with specific compatibility requirements. Modernizing PHP with application compatibility in mind PHP runs a large proportion of hosted websites and applications. Its evolution matters both for developer features and for software maintenance. A...