Nicola Mustone

Support Lead @ Automattic


Leadership, web, programming. Short essays and hands-on guides, focused on results, not hype.


Essays

Reflections, lessons, and guides on leadership, the web, and programming.

  • woman in white long sleeve shirt using macbook pro

    Why I Write in Markdown

    Markdown keeps my writing flow focused — no distractions, no mouse clicks.

    Every few years, a new editor promises to “redefine writing.”
    Some add real-time AI suggestions, others layer menus and formatting bars on top of your words. Most of them look nice, until you realize they’ve slowed you down.

    Markdown never did that.

    I’ve been writing in Markdown for more than a decade. It started as a practical choice: my work in customer support required writing lots of documentation, internal posts, and replies that needed clean formatting. Markdown made that fast. But over time, it became more than a tool; it became part of how I think about writing: structure without friction.

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  • Ever needed to tweak a Processing order after payment?

    By default, WooCommerce doesn’t let you edit orders once they’ve been paid. That’s because once the payment is complete, changing totals or quantities could cause accounting or fulfillment issues.

    Still, there are legitimate cases where you might need to adjust an order after it moves to Processing: maybe to fix a product note, update a shipping field, or correct a simple mistake.

    Let’s make that possible.

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  • Managing product data in bulk doesn’t require another plugin. WooCommerce already includes a powerful bulk edit tool — you just need to know where to look.

    Many store owners reach for a plugin the moment they need to change multiple products — prices, stock levels, categories, or visibility. But WooCommerce already includes everything you need to handle these edits directly, safely, and fast.

    If your store updates product data frequently, this built-in feature can save hours of work every week — no external tools, no performance overhead.

    Read more →