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Not many people realise it’s even a thing but in the UK you can get a minty-fresh iPhone every year as part of Apple’s own iPhone Upgrade Programme. You pay a set amount every month and, with that, you can upgrade every 11 months (let’s be honest, you’ll do it every year when the new version of the phone comes out) and you get AppleCare+ included as well. You never have to worry about battery life again.

I’ve been on it for about 8 years now and, every year without fail, it’s a major PITA.

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For the first time I’ve used AI to assist with an update to one of my WordPress plugins. I learnt a lot using it, the conclusions for which I want to share today.

But first, let’s understood what I was using it for.

I had some changes to make to the plugin in question, ShareOpenly, but nothing I was rushing to do. They were minor enhancements but ones that would take quite a bit of time to achieve for relatively minimal results. Instead, I wanted to see if I could use AI to analyse my code and the related README and suggest changes – not adding new features, but enhancing the existing code in terms of reliability, accessibility, security and performance.

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This is a snapshot, at time of writing, of what plugins I’m using on my site. And this will vary from one month to the next. I’ve grouped them appropriately too and given an explanation as to what it does for my site and, where appropriate, some additional notes about usage, performance, etc.

For some other context, this is my personal site and is not a money maker. There are some affiliate links on it, but these are rare. As a result, all the plugins I use are free.

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For years now I’ve had a low opinion of Google products, particularly their hardware. Since taking over Nest, their poor treatment of customers have infected them too. Which is a shame, as I have a houseful of their products.

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