BraveNewCode

Participate in our customer survey for a chance to win a BraveNewCode plugin

2012-02-07T20:00:25Z

We’d like to make sure we’re giving you the best customer experience possible.

Please participate in our survey and let us know how we’re doing. All participants will be entered in a draw for a BraveNewCode prize pack. 2 winners will be chosen and each will receive a BraveNewCode plugin of their choice and a snazzy BraveNewCode t-shirt.

If you’re interested in participating in our draw, make sure to provide your contact information at the end of the survey. Good luck!

*Prize is available to North American and EU residents only. One entry per participant.

Go to our survey.

BraveNewCode Wear: Our 2012 Artist Designed T-shirt Series

2012-02-01T18:01:41Z

This year we’ll be producing a series of BraveNewCode t-shirts featuring designs by four visual artists from across the continent. A limited number of shirts will be produced of each artist’s design and released in the spring, summer, fall and winter of 2012.

Our first BraveNewCode t-shirt featuring one of the artists’ designs will be ready in early February. Attendees at WordCamp SanDiego in March will be amongst the first to view the new shirt.

BraveNewCode is excited and proud to showcase four talented artists in our 2012 t-shirt series. Keep an eye on our website, Facebook and Twitter channels for your chance to nab yourself a nifty, new BraveNewCode shirt.

New Appstores Advertising Option in WPtouch

2012-01-24T06:47:51Z

We’re pleased to announce the addition of a new advertising option into WPtouch 1.9.x – Appstores.

Appstores and WPtouch

Unlike many advertising options that typically advertise websites, products or services, Appstores allows publishers to advertise mobile-specific applications which can be downloaded onto an end-user’s phone. Here’s a description of how it works from Appstore’s site:

Is your website optimized for mobile? Yes? Great, you can make more money by recommending apps. Here’s how it works: we look at the content of your mobile site, and we surface the most relevant apps. Users love it because they get highly relevant apps. You’ll love it, because the engagement will be higher than vanilla mobile banners. Developers will love it because for once, they are getting relevant app downloads. Everyone wins.

This is an exciting new area for mobile advertising, and BraveNewCode is proud to be a launching partner with the Appstores team.

The changes have already been incorporated into the WPtouch 1.9.x codebase, so you can update to it immediately and try out the new Appstores advertising option. We’ll also be incorporating this new advertising option in WPtouch Pro soon, so look for that in the near future.

BraveNewCode is Hiring: Support Guru Wanted

2012-01-18T22:16:57Z

We are looking for a Support Guru – someone to assist customers in our Pro (commercial plugin) forums for our products (WPtouch Pro, WordTwit Pro and Piggy Pro). The Support Guru works along with our other support staff to provide excellent customer care, and help solve problems for customers using our products.

If you are a passionate, personable individual, who has experience with our products; is familiar with PHP, CSS, and JavaScript; and possesses a strong work ethic, we’d love to hear from you.

Visit our Current Jobs page for more information about the position and to apply.

About us

BraveNewCode is an innovative company whose plugins have been downloaded and used by millions of individuals and businesses
Our team members are currently spread out between Los Angeles, the Toronto and Vancouver areas in Canada, and even as far away as Argentina
Everyone at BraveNewCode works remotely; we mostly collaborate using online tools and communications platforms, such as Skype
We’ve helped organize several WordPress WordCamp conferences (including WordCamp Vancouver and WordCamp Whistler), and have attended and spoken at various conferences in the WordPress community and beyond

Tweet for a chance to win an iPhone 4S | Help us celebrate 3 million downloads of WPtouch

2012-02-02T17:36:56Z

Soon we’ll pass 3 million downloads of WPtouch, the most popular and easy-to-use mobile plugin for WordPress. We expect to cross the mark sometime in the next few weeks!

To celebrate we’re giving away a 32GB iPhone 4S in your choice of white or black!

We’ll draw a winner and make an announcement on Twitter and our blog. If you’re the selected winner, we’ll contact you on Twitter.

Good luck to all entrants!

The contest is now closed. We’ll draw the winner soon.

*Prize is available to North American and EU residents only.

GoMo Initiative: WPtouch & WPtouch Pro Sites score 4/4

2011-12-10T00:14:39Z

Recently Google began the GoMo initiative, an online campaign to increase awareness of the importance of having a mobile-specific version of your website for your visitors.

WHAT IS A MOBILE SITE AND WHY DO YOU NEED ONE?
Just because you can see your desktop site on a mobile phone doesn’t mean it’s mobile-friendly. Mobile sites are designed for the small screen, with the needs of mobile users in mind. A mobile-friendly site can help your business connect with customers and drive conversions.

The GoMo website includes useful information and powerful statistics to show you why going mobile should be an important part of your online business plan & future.

It will also allow you to test your website, and will give you a ranking of 1-4 in terms of the quality of the mobile experience you’re offering visitors.

Lastly it provides a small, non-WordPress list of vendors that assist in building mobile sites. We’re not yet listed, but that will likely change, and folks like us will be included.

Adwords Quality Score Now Affected by Mobile Sites

Google also recently announced that mobile site optimization now affects your AdWords Quality Score. This means that serving ads to mobile visitors with a mobile-optimized website will earn you a higher rank.

The AdWords system will automatically visit your landing page, and evaluate your site as viewed by smartphones. However, if you already have a mobile site, we recommend confirming with your webmaster that you’ve configured your server to show the mobile-optimized site when the AdWords mobile User-Agent is detected.

So in both cases, WPtouch & WPtouch Pro powered WordPress websites score perfect and will help you both with your business presence online in an increasingly mobile ‘webscape’, while also improving your Adwords quality & revenue.

WordTwit Pro 3.3: Critical Changes You Should Know About

2011-12-09T15:57:33Z

Yesterday we were contacted by the Twitter API team and informed that WordTwit Pro‘s use of the API was not inline with the Twitter’s terms of service for third-party applications. The reasons given by the Twitter API team were:

“[WordTwit Pro] facilitates serial posting across multiple accounts, tweet/retweet automation, tweet branding and automated affiliate advertising.”

After reviewing the alleged violations by the Twitter API team, we are of the opinion that the reasons given are not justified based on the typical use cases of WordTwit Pro users.

First, WordTwit Pro does allow a user to push a tweet out to multiple accounts simultaneously. This feature is meant to simplify management of a website where new post information would routinely by posted to multiple accounts. For example, a WPtouch-related post on BraveNewCode could be pushed to the @wptouch and @bravenewcode Twitter accounts. This functionality is by no means specific to WordTwit Pro; it exists in almost all Twitter clients available today.

Second, while WordTwit Pro does allow a user to automate certain tweets or retweets, all of these essentially have to come at the request of the end-user. This represents a form of tweet scheduling, which is also a standard feature in many Twitter services and clients.

With regards to tweet branding and affiliate advertising, we are ultimately at a loss. Other than the WordTwit Pro application registered with Twitter (which ultimately causes each tweet to be associated with WordTwit Pro), there is no branding on tweets done by BraveNewCode or WordTwit Pro. Each user has the ability to manually edit a tweet before it goes out, which is no different than most Twitter clients. We also provide a very detailed Tweet Log in WordTwit Pro, which shows every tweet that is generated by WordTwit Pro, even if they were not successfully tweeted.

Ultimately Twitter has suspended the OAuth token currently used by WordTwit Pro, which has caused WordTwit Pro installations using the default configuration to stop working. We have tried to communicate with the Twitter API team to work towards resolving the misunderstanding, but as of right now the token is suspended and they have not responded to our most recent attempts to open a dialog or to educate them further about our product.

To simplify the process of setting up WordTwit Pro, we included a generic WordTwit Pro OAuth token registered with Twitter. Since we do not know the nature of the original complaint with Twitter, we can only assume a person or company witnessed some form of SPAM associated with an installation of WordTwit Pro and reported the application in violation. Since we do not control any portion of a WordTwit Pro installation or any tweets that are generated once a user installs the software, we are unable to intervene when any users potentially abuse the product.

Going forward we are forced to remove the default token within WordTwit Pro; this means all end-users will have to register a custom application with Twitter to use with their installation. That also means each user will be responsible for abiding by Twitter’s terms of service for use of the Twitter API. Since the feature to add a custom OAuth application already exists within WordTwit Pro, current installations already using this feature are not affected by the revoked token.

If you have been affected by this, please visit this page for information on how to create a custom application with Twitter and configure WordTwit Pro to use it.

We will release version 3.3 of WordTwit Pro shortly, which will require custom applications for new installations. If you have been using the custom application feature already and you upgrade, your installation should not be affected by this change.

We apologize to anyone who has been affected by this incident, but as the token was revoked by Twitter without any prior warning, we were not able to resolve any concerns without the downtime experienced by customers.

BraveNewCode Welcomes Joyce To The Team!

2011-12-05T22:39:16Z

We are pleased to announce that Joyce Peralta will be joining the BraveNewCode team today in the position of Community Specialist. Joyce has extensive customer interaction and marketing experience, and previously helped manage the University of Victoria’s social media sites as well as some of their more than 70+ web initiatives.

If you’re a current or future BraveNewCode customer, you can looking forward to hearing from Joyce via Twitter, Facebook, our newsletter, our blog, as well as various sites within the WordPress community.

On behalf of all of us here at BraveNewCode, welcome to the team Joyce!

WordPress Meetup In Auckland, New Zealand

2011-11-02T09:25:42Z

I’m currently down in Auckland, New Zealand, coding away while waiting patiently for Hobbiton to open up to visitors again (they are currently filming the Hobbit on-site right now). In the meantime though, I thought I’d try to organize a little WordPress meetup down near the water.

If you’re a WordPress lover in or about Auckland, New Zealand, then feel free to RSVP and come out for a few drinks. The meetup will be really informal, and will be a great chance for WordPress lovers to get to know each other over a few pints.

If you know anyone in Auckland, then please forward this information along. Thanks.

WPtouch: Recent Bogus Security Vulnerability Report

2012-02-07T14:12:51Z

We just wanted to post quickly and let everyone know that recently a supposed SQL injection vulnerability was found in WPtouch (the free version). This report is false.

The vulnerability declared at packetstormsecurity.org and other security alert-type sites is impossible.

There is no ajax.php file in the root of WPtouch, therefore this vulnerability is flat-out impossible.

We take WordPress security seriously at BraveNewCode, having previously issued updates for security exploits in our plugins that we’ve found before they’re in the wild.

We know WPtouch is a popular plugin and one that can be targeted because of it’s popularity and wide install base. We work hard to ensure the safety of our plugins on your WordPress installations.

WPtouch Pro 2.4 Unleashed!

2011-10-26T18:59:54Z

It’s been a couple months since the last release of WPtouch Pro, but that’s not because we weren’t hard at work on it! We decided to focus our efforts with fixes, additions and changes into a major point release, so 2.4 bakes in a huge list of updates.

Retina Startup + Landscape Startup on iPad

Default Startup Screen in WPtouch Pro 2.4

We’ve long wanted to support retina startup screens for Web-App Mode on iOS for the iPhone 4 (and now iPhone 4S). We’ve been waiting on Apple to implement this feature, and with iOS 5 they finally have. So 2.4 supports adding a retina version of your startup screen image if you’d like to use one.

Additionally, it’s now possible with iOS 5 to add a Landscape version of the startup image for iPad. effectively now you can offer startup screens in your WPtouch Pro Web-App in exactly the same way that native apps can.

FitVid.js

In WPtouch Pro 2.4 we’ve added the fitvids.js jQuery plugin, which takes your object, embed, iframe and html5 videos in posts and pages and automatically scales them based on orientation, and screen size. In WPtouch Pro 2.4 your videos will always look great.

Aloha! iOS 5 Native Scrolling

As if the above wasn’t enough, we’ve also added iOS 5 native scrolling for Web-App Mode on mobile, and replaced the javascript scrolling we used on iPad with iOS 5 native scrolling.

iOS 5 on iPhone & iPod touch

Now in Web-App mode the header remains fixed like native apps, while the body content scrolls in native speed and momentum.

iOS 5 on iPad

The result is a smooth scrolling experience, coupled with access to features in mobileSafari which were previously impossible on iPad like text selection. For previous iOS versions on iPad, the scrolling method will gracefully degrade.

♥ Android

Along with several styling and appearance improvements for Android devices, we’ve also added support for ontouchstart and ontouchend to Android. This speeds up interacting with the UI and makes for a more native experience.

The Whole Story

For a complete list of changes for 2.4 you can visit the support posting about the new release (you need to be logged in with a pro account), or view the change log in the read me accompanying the update.

Steve Jobs

2012-01-19T19:40:18Z

Steve as posted on the Apple website

When we first developed WPtouch it was directly because of the iPhone. We’d owned Apple products for many years, and they’ve always been devices that helped us develop, create and explore new technologies. However when released in 2007, the original iPhone was different altogether.

The iPhone (and its amazing mobile Safari web browser) opened a doorway to ideas for presenting a WordPress website on a mobile device without some of the heavy, restrictive constraints that previously existed with things like WAP.

And as we worked on WPtouch with the iPhone, we were awed and fascinated with the iOS user interface. It became clear that what we really wanted was to have our sites look as if they belonged on the device.

We just knew this device was going to change mobile devices and the mobile landscape forever. And so we ran with WPtouch, and were inspired by the polish, passion for excellence & high standards that both Steve Jobs and Apple have always put at the forefront of their business.

The iPhone wasn’t just Steve’s idea; nor any of the other brilliant and game-changing technologies to come out of Cupertino. Though Steve had a way about him— and so too, do Apple products. It’s the way they do what they do that makes them so endearing to their users, so prolific and unique among their competitors.

Without the iPhone there would likely be no BraveNewCode. Without Apple products our day-to-day working life would be vastly different. In no small way has Steve Jobs touched our lives— and we owe a debt of gratitude and much of the sources for our success to his career.

Today we wanted to wish the Jobs’ family and friends, along with the entire team at Apple our condolences, and to offer a huge thank you to Mr. Jobs for a career that gave so much to the world of technology & liberal arts.

Everyone knows that Steve changed the world in many ways forever.
We just wanted to acknowledge and share that he’s changed ours, too.

~Dale Mugford,
President & Co-Founder,
BraveNewCode

Piggy 1.2.1 Released

2011-09-18T03:05:33Z

Piggy 1.2.1 has been released, with the following changes:

Added: New Today view which supports purchases with multiple items and quantities
Updated: Scrolling script and iOS5 compatibility
Changed: Algorithms for WPEC display
Changed: Added calculated times in admin panel based on timezone settings
Fixed: An issue with refreshing panes when switching tabs
Fixed: Better memory management and less consumption
Fixed: Various display issues for Shopp and Cart66

Piggy 1.2.1 is a free update for all Piggy users.

Free Version

We’ll also be launching a free version of Piggy in the WordPress repository soon, so look for that if you haven’t purchased Piggy and would like to know what it’s all about.

State of the Code, 08/2011: The Future of WPtouch

2011-08-27T15:15:54Z

“What works good is better than what looks good, because what works good lasts.”
~ RAY EAMES

It’s almost September, and here at BraveNewCode the fall is always a productive time. Last year we were hard at work in the fall delivering the 2.1 update for WPtouch Pro which brought child themes, iPad support, and a slew of new capabilities. We were also busy launching Piggy, our mobile web-app for WordPress e-Commerce sales stats, and also began work on WordTwit Pro, the premium version of our popular WordPress to Twitter publishing tool.

Today

We’ve been humbled by the success of WPtouch and WPtouch Pro. To date, WPtouch (+ Pro) runs on over 25 million WordPress websites worldwide, encompassing both self-hosted WordPress.org websites and WordPress.com hosted websites. The simple, elegant and easy-to-use nature of our plugins coupled with our attention to detail and customer care have made us the #1 choice for mobile presentation of a WordPress website, and for this we have to thank our users and customers.

WPtouch (free version)

The free version of WPtouch is regularly maintained, and in recent updates we’ve added some small features, expanded 3rd party plugin support and increased security. We’ll continue to do so going forward, and at some point in the not too distant future we’ll hand-down some of the Pro features to WPtouch.

WPtouch Pro 2.x

There are a few milestones we’d like to reach with the 2.x series of WPtouch Pro. Specifically, more performance and speed improvements both to its themes and the admin panel. Improvements and enhancements in media handling to make it easier to publish audio, video and photos with WPtouch Pro are also planned for the 2.x release series. Improvements and enhancements on iPad are also coming alongside the release of Apple’s iOS 5 software update, due this fall.

The Marketplace

Inevitably, more competitors are entering the mobile market with WordPress and trying to cash in on our success and the popularity that mobile + tablet devices are enjoying worldwide. There’s certainly room for competition and we’re inspired by the WordPress development communities’ creativity.

It seems that WPtouch Pro is the gold standard in mobile plugins; competing products are only now adding some comparable features that WPtouch Pro users have enjoyed for over a year now. It’s exciting to see that our innovations have made an impression, and mobile plugins are expected to offer a baseline of features that we pioneered with WPtouch.

Even Further

We’d like to revolutionize the way mobile themes are made once again. We’ve examined usage and feedback we’ve received and are inventing new ways to approach mobile theme creation and curation. We’re also looking at improving theming options and the extensibility of WPtouch Pro.

We hope customers are going to love what we’ll be delivering with WPtouch Pro down the road.

~The BraveNewCode Team

Piggy 1.2 adds Cart66, Shopp Plugins to its Repertoire

2011-08-24T20:50:45Z

Piggy 1.2

Today we’re happy to announce the availability of the 1.2 update for Piggy, our mobile web-app for WordPress e-Commerce stats and sales. In the update are some great new features, but best of all we’ve added support for two new popular e-Commerce platforms in the WordPress community: Cart66, and Shopp— in addition to WP e-Commerce.

So now if you’re running either or those two e-Commerce plugins you can add Piggy™ ($39 CAD) and have access to your sales data on the go with your iPhone™, iPod touch™ or Android™ smartphone.

More Additions, Fixes and Changes

As well as the addition of Cart66 and Shopp, there’s also a slew of other updates for the 1.2 release:

Added: New skin, ‘iOS Linen’
Added: Preliminary iOS 5 support
Added: Randomized initial pincode
Changed: Better Android support
Changed: WordPress 3.2+ enhancements
Changed: Image optimizations for speed and performance
Changed: add2home script updated
Changed: Minor style changes, fixes
Fixed: Issue with blank OinkBoard data for new installations
Fixed: Issue with API credentials not being cleared properly

How To Get It

If you don’t already own Piggy, head over to the product page and grab your copy.

If you own Piggy, simply visit the Plugins page in your WordPress admin and upgrade your installation using WordPress’ auto-upgrades feature.

Affiliate Program Updates

2011-08-12T17:06:52Z

First off, thank you to everyone who has been a BraveNewCode affiliate since we launched the program in the fall of last year. Since that time we have paid out nearly $10,000 in affiliate commissions and have progressively increased the payouts each month. We recently made a few major changes to the BraveNewCode affiliate program and we wanted to share them here.

First, we have finalized new text and graphical assets for WPtouch Pro, WordTwit Pro and Piggy. Those assets can be found in the “Affiliate Center” which can be accessed from your support forum profile if you are an existing BraveNewCode customer. Any participant who wants to promote any or all of those products can now do so using the updated assets.

Second, we have limited participants into the affiliate program via an application form. Going forward anyone who wants to be an affiliate will have to apply and be approved manually. We’ve gone through our records and automatically approved everyone who has previously made an affiliate sale, so those individuals will have access to the new Affiliate Center immediately.

If you are an existing affiliate that hasn’t yet made a sale, then please complete the application on our affiliate program page and we’ll restore access right away. Your affiliate commissions will continue to accumulate in the meantime, but you won’t have access to the new resources until we approve you.

If you’re not currently a member of our affiliate program and would like to join, please complete the application on the affiliate program page.

WordTwit Pro Video Interview w/ JamesWoodcock.co.uk

2011-07-29T14:10:27Z

Dale Mugford (our design lead & co-founder) recently did a video interview with Freelance Journalist James Woodcock regarding the release of WordTwit Pro, our premium WordPress to Twitter (and soon Facebook!) publishing tool.

James asks a variety of questions and delves into the details regarding impetus, feature set, and future plans for the new plugin.

Runs about 30 mins.

You can watch the video below, or see a larger version on James’ site, here.

Notice: Free Product Support Changes

2011-07-29T14:02:11Z

This is a general notice to all visitors who currently do not have a License for our WPtouch Pro, WordTwit Pro or Piggy products.

As of September 1st, 2011 The Community Forums on our Support site are being discontinued in favour of community support for our free products through the WordPress.org support forums.

All Community Forums will be removed and become inaccessible via bravenewcode.com/support.

You will still be able to access community support for our free products via WordPress’ forums.

Customers with Licenses for any of our premium plugins will not be affected by this change.

Important Security Update: WPtouch 1.9

2011-06-22T00:23:39Z

Earlier today the WordPress team noticed suspicious commits in the WordPress.org plugin repository: WPtouch was affected, as were the AddThis and W3 Total Cache plugins. You can read more about it on WordPress.org.

If you haven’t updated WPtouch in the last few days, then this issue will not have affected you. But we encourage anyone that is running WPtouch version 1.9.27 or 1.9.28 to update to version 1.9.29 immediately.

We apologize to anyone affected by this issue, and thank the WordPress team for contacting us about it and working diligently today to remove any suspicious code.

WordPress 3.2: What It Means For Our Users

2011-06-14T14:43:09Z

WordPress 3.2 has two changes that may affect some users: the minimum PHP and MySQL versions required will be PHP 5.2.4 and MySQL 5.0. That means PHP 4 will no longer be supported by WordPress itself.

As a plugin developer, PHP 4 definitely makes life more complicated. Plugins end up becoming bloated when you need to have separate code for both PHP 4 and PHP 5. Removing the dependency on PHP 4 allows WordPress to remove old code and help streamline the entire codebase.

What does that mean for the users of our products?

Both WPtouch Pro and Piggy currently work with later versions of PHP 4 currently. Some time after WordPress 3.2 comes out, we will deprecate support for PHP 4.

Internally our policy has always been to try (when possible) to support the last two major versions, so when 3.2 comes out we’ll be supporting it and 3.1. But as development proceeds on the next version of WordPress, we’ll remove the PHP 4 aspects from our code and start using PHP 5 exclusively. That allows the code to be smaller, newer (usually more efficient) and we can use PHP 5 functions only, which in general results in a faster development cycle.

WordTwit Pro, which has just been released requires PHP 5 already.

So if you’re a WordPress user you should start looking at what your host provides in PHP support to make sure you’re ready when 3.2 is released. On many hosts switching to PHP 5 is as simple as clicking a button in the hosting control panel, and on others you can usually add a small snippet to your .htaccess file. Unfortunately there are still some hosts that do not provide PHP 5 at all, and for those you will probably have to find an alternate host, or explain to them why they should add support immediately to allow their customers to upgrade their WordPress installations.