Lighting Up The New Year With WordPress Plugins

It's Episode 543 and we have plugins for Rocket Fire, Mojo Authentication, Confetti, Hot Swinging Images, Newspapering Style, Date'n'Time Shortened… and ClassicPress Options. It's all coming up on WordPress Plugins A-Z!

Rocket Fireworks, MojoAuth Passwordless Authentication, Confetti, Swinging Hotspot Interactive Images, Newspaper Columns, WP Date and Time Shortcode……. and ClassicPress options on Episode 543.

John's Intro:

Welcome to the new year! Let's see what 2022 has in store for us.

This is a value for value show and I look forward to everyone providing some value back.

Before I get started, you will want to hang around to the end of the show for our Q & A segment with Amber…. and to those listening on the podcast, you may want to check out the YouTube version which has some great discussions before the show starts…

Producer Credits:

Executive producer:

Nobody this week. Maybe next week!

Show Art:

Greg's Graphics (Greg Holdsworth) — https://gregsgraphics.com

All the show notes can be found at: WPPluginsAtoZ.com

Check out all the art work at https://wppluginsatoz.com/show-art-submitted/
To Submit Artwork go here https://wppluginsatoz.com/artwork/

Amber's Rant:

This is episode #1 of 52 episodes for 2022! We sorta skipped over the end of the 2021 show, decided to take our own advice and spend some quality time with family and friends.

And some good booze too of course. 😉

The snow has decided to give us one more good kick before heading off for a bit, and dump enough snow and freezing rain on us to keep us inside. Hopefully everyone out there is either keeping warm and staying in, or at least enjoying whatever it is that takes you out into this!

Remember, keep in touch with your family, be sure they know where you are so that if anything goes wrong help can find you. Stay safe and warm everyone!

Rinse and repeat as often as needed.

We have some news from the world of WordPress for you today as well as some great plugins.

News this week:

iThemes part 1 Vulnerability report: January 2022 – First report for 2022! Main concerns are: LabTools, Domain Check, Error Log Viewer, WP Visited Countries Reloaded, Learning Courses, Perfect Survey – this one had 5 major errors and the plugin was closed down. These are the ones you will want to deactivate and delete.

iThemes part 4 WordPres Vulnerability Report: December 2021 – For those that need a peek at the vulnerability report part 4, here it is! The main ones to worry about this time around are: Comment Engine Pro, .htaccess Redirect, Parsian Bank Gateway for WooCommerce, Real WYSIWYG, Link List Manager, Simple Image Gallery, WooCommerce EnvioPack, Magic Post Voice, H5P CSS Editor, duoFAQ, Magic Post Voice, and WooCommerce myghpay Payment Gateway. There are a lot in this list, but if you are using any of these, the best option is to deactivate and delete as there are no known fixes for the issues these have.

5 Cybersecurity Trends to Watch Out for in 2022 – This kind of stuff normally goes into the extra's, but this is a really good one to know and keep an eye out for in the coming year. Cyber crime really has gone up – 'cause everyone got bored and decided to learn how to hack while stuck at home. At least that is my theory.

Gutenberg hub launches a block-based WordPress theme directory – This will be very useful for people who are using Gutenberg!

WordPress 5.9 to fix Lazy Loading performance regression, resulting in 30% faster page loads in some cases – The Lazy Load is no longer lazy about doing its job! Really this is a good thing, be sure to update!

5 reasons to look at putting a carousel into your site to help it grow! – In TNW's usual sardonic and sarcastic way, they go through the top 5 reasons for adding a carousel to your site. Things like “…can help you increase your engagement per impression rate…” – and they are not wrong!

TNW: Microdosing for the WIN! – according to new research from the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology, and Neuroscience (loPPN) at Kind's College London, psilocybin – a psychedelic drug isolated from the psilocybe mushroom – can be safely administered at doses of either 10mg or 25mg. What could possibly go wrong???

Contrary to popular belief, middle-aged entrepreneurs do better – Last one for the day! There are some good reasons, like the fact that middle-aged entrepreneurs have a pretty good idea on what will work and fail based on what they have either done or seen in the past. That helps!

The extras – for even more extra news, check out our Facebook, or Twitter page!

This is the extra news stuff that someone out there might find interesting. To read more, you can head on over to the show notes or newsletter and check it out! If you find something to add for next show, send me a link at amber@wppro.ca

Yoast moves outside of Open Source Platforms to launch SEO app for Shopify – Good to see them striking out on their own like that! We will keep an ear out to see if we hear about anything starting to go wrong with Yoast's regular applications as they get settled on their feet.

8 harsh realities of being a Windows 11 user – Windows 11 is getting some serious flack I am noticing! They are running slow, they are trying to keep you from doing what you actually want to do on your own computer – like #3: Windows 11 home won't let you use a local account for initial set up, and you have to connected to the internet to make the thing work. -_-;;

Easy fix for Windows 11's slow SSD performance – Useful article that walks you through how to get the ‘legwork required' patch onto your computer to fix the slow SSD performance. The article also goes into why the issue is there in the first place, which is also helpful.

New gang in town, their name is Conti, and their turf is the ‘net – Conti is the first professional-grade, sophisticated ransomware group to weaponize Log4j2, and now they have a full attack chain. A little freaky, but this article goes through and explains what is going on – and what in the world Log4j2 is in the first place.

Worst internet security threat ‘in decades' – What's going on is that hackers are exploiting as many zero day vulnerabilities as they possibly can! Not cool man – and the companies, though patching as fast as they can, obviously have no idea what their zero day vulnerabilities are until the damage is done most of the time. This is something to be aware of.

Why using a VPN on your phone is a good idea – This article goes through why having a VPN on your phone is actually a really good idea, and than goes on to walk you through setting one up.

Clearing cookies and cache on your Android Phone's Browser and why that's a good idea – A lot of people know about clearing the cache on their computers, especially developers. Though a lot of people don't remember that you need to do the same thing for your phone – or else you will have the same sort of crashing issue! Not to mention the oddball things phones do when they are overwhelmed… Check out this article to learn how!

How to figure out if your phone has malware – A lot of people have no idea when they have malware on their phone – honestly, I don't think most people really care. Though you really should care, because most people have their phones connected to as many important things as their computer – often times more things these days! Like banking, credit cards, email, FB… This article goes through and teaches you how to tell when you have malware, and then how to remove it.

Microsoft Bing got a nice upgrade, but you still won't use it – and the reason you still won't use it? Because their nice little upgrade is all about trip planning. It's a neat upgrade – though mildly useless right now; hopefully this upgrade will be useful sometime soon though!

Google Chrome steals one of the best new Edge Features – Essentially, Chrome makes it just as easy to keep an eye out for deals online as Edge does by bookmarking the site for you, and messaging you when things on that page go up for sale.

The hall of shame via Automattic:
transparency.automattic.com/tag/hall-of-shame/

Matt's Famous Quotes
https://www.idrlabs.com/quotes/matt-mullenweg.php

Support the show

This Show will not work without you, the producers, as it is a Value for Value model, meaning if you're getting any value out of it then give some value back and help the show out.

Start by subscribing to the newsletter for additional information and get out there round them up and rope them all in, belly up to the bar and enjoy. Spread the word about WP Plugins A to Z and catch it live every Thursday at noon PST on our YouTube Channel.

Show Producers

We'd like to acknowledge all the producers who have supported the show in the various ways over the last week.

This weeks show Art Work comes from:

Greg's Graphics (Greg Holdsworth) — https://gregsgraphics.com

To Submit Artwork go here https://wppluginsatoz.com/artwork/

Check out all the art work at https://wppluginsatoz.com/show-art-submitted/

This week's Executive Producer/'s are:

Nobody this week. Maybe next week!

A big thank you to all the Producers who came in under $50 and to those who have set up weekly subscriptions they will remain anonymous and I thank you very much.

All these small subscriptions really help the show out.

A big thank you to those who have hired me because of the Podcast, thank you that is as good as donating to the show.

You can Support the Show by:

Donating money to help the show Donations of $50 and over are credited with an Executive Producer Credit in the Show Notes, and their note is read out on the show.

Submitting art work at the WP Plugins Art generator,
To Submit Artwork go here https://wppluginsatoz.com/artwork/

Submit articles news and information

Submit plugin suggestions for reviews

You can also create a monthly donation at Patreon

Or something I may not have thought of.

If you would like to send something to WP Plugins A to Z you can send to the following address:

WP Plugins A to Z
C/O John Overall
20-754 E Fairview Rd.
Victoria, BC V9A 5T9
Canada

Off we go into the meat and potatoes, Into the depths of plugin depravity…..

ClassicPress Options

ClassicPress is growing really well, but I just don't have the time to add reviews on ClassicPress myself. I am always open to reviews sent in by listeners; though unless there is a review sent into me on ClassicPress, I am not going to do more than mention that ClassicPress is a thing, and here are some resources. I hope some listeners out there find this information useful!

One thing I am looking forward to in the ClassicPress World is the expansion of the number of ClassicPress specific plugins and their own repository. There are a few plugins specifically for ClassicPress and all plugins for WordPress 4.9.9 work well on it. I do believe it has a future, I just have not time to help them in getting it out there.

ClassicPress News:

ClassicPress announced, at the end of 2021, the first public release candidate for ClassicPress 1.4.0.

We would love to hear feedback from anyone that is trying it out.

For some up to date news on ClassicPress check out the ClassicPress Blog.

ClassicPress Resources:

“Must Have” Plugins List
https://forums.classicpress.net/t/must-have-plugins-list/1163

It seems ClassicPress now has it own repository you can check it here https://directory.classicpress.net/plugins they now have 83 plugins available.

CodePotent's plugin directory
https://codepotent.com/classicpress/plugins/

WordPress Plugins

Are you looking for some great newly released plugins? check this link
https://wordpress.org/plugins/browse/new/

——————————–

John's Plugin

Swinging Hotspot interactive images

https://wordpress.org/plugins/r-diagrams-responsive-diagrams/

The Lowdown:

This is an interesting plugin you can use to create hotspots on your images to showcase information or other data.

Rating 4 Dragons

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Amber's Plugin

Rocket Fireworks

https://wordpress.org/plugins/rocket-fireworks/

The Lowdown:

Looking around for something to throw up in celebration of making it to 2022, I found this!

Free, simple to use, just install and activate – and off it goes! Although if you have any other plugin that does something like Halloween Panda, this won't work. It doesn't play nice with other plugins like it.

It looks reeeeaaaallllly awesome though!

Rating 5 Dragons

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John's Plugin

Newspaper Columns

https://wordpress.org/plugins/newspaper-columns/

The Lowdown:

Back to the good old days of newspapers. This plugin creates newspaper columns for your blog posts, and could make it easier for your users to read your posts.

Rating 4 Dragons

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Amber's Plugin

MojoAuth Passwordless Authentication

https://wordpress.org/plugins/mojoauth/

The Lowdown:

This plugin is designed for people who are rather forgetful – like me. This plugin reminds you and your users when it is time to change up the password for security reasons.

This is a third party that states it is “FREE forever with email support” – though as we know, no third party service is ever really free, you are just paying it in information.

If this is something you could really use, than it seems like it works well, and seems to have decent support.

Rating 4 Dragons

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John's Plugin

WP Date and Time Shortcode

https://wordpress.org/plugins/wp-date-and-time-shortcode/

The Lowdown:

Do you need to add a simple date to your site to display? This is a great little plugin for that! With a simple short code you can add the date anywhere you would like it to appear.

Rating 4 Dragons

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Amber's Plugin

Confetti

https://wordpress.org/plugins/confetti/

The Lowdown:

Really cool plugin for getting joyful confetti onto your site! It does have an upgrade, but it's only $19 for a single site, and you are only billed once a year.

In the free version, you can only choose what kind of confetti style you want. You have 6 options to choose from, my personal fav's are Fireworks and Falling styles. They even give you an example so that you don't have to turn it on to see what it looks like! It's pretty awesome.

Normally when it is a freemium, I bring it down a point – but really, it's confetti! And they make it so that you will never really even have to upgrade if you are only using it once a year 'cause it is done so well. SO:

Rating 5 Dragons

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Random links for plugins

WordPress plugins crafted from love and experience
https://codeat.co/

Listener Feedback / Audio Clips

Feel free to send in your thoughts to us – The Good, The Bad, The Ugly – we'll take them all!

Listener Questions

Enter The Contest to Win!!

Contests Powered by Simple Giveaways who kindly provides us with the premium version for our contests.

I do want to thank Charlie for coming to the aid of the show and getting our contests all organized. I also want to thank all the developers again for supporting our show with their plugin donations! Please check them out.

Short note about participating in the contests folks. Remember we go to great efforts to get these licenses and look for more participation from you the producers.

Our contest is for

We have a WINNER for the Contest sponsored by JohnOverall.com Web hosting services.

Greg has won the ONE YEAR Hosting Package…. Valued at $350.00

When it comes to running your website, who you are hosting with is one of the top considerations you need to make. You want a reputable hosting company that is reliable, has great service and offers a package that meets your needs. Hosting with JohnOverall.com is for the discerning user and most of our clients have been with us for more than 15 years. The reason is because the number of clients allowed per server are limited to obtain maximum performance for everyone.

The plugins we covered were:

John’s Plugins: Swinging Hotspot Interactive Images – 4, Newspaper Columns – 4, WP Date and Time Shortcode – 4

Amber's Plugins: Rocket Fireworks – 5, MojoAuth Passwordless Authentication – 4, Confetti – 5

Matt's Famous Quotes
https://www.idrlabs.com/quotes/matt-mullenweg.php

Reminders / Commercial / Promotions:

Next Week:

No meetup planned at the moment but you can keep tabs on this at https://wppluginsatoz.com/meetup

Would you like to be on an interview show? Simply connect at https://wppluginsatoz.com/interview

If you have suggestions on plugins you would like to have reviewed please submit them on the website at https://wppluginsatoz.com/submit-plugin-review/

Q & A Time with Amber ——– Catch this info on our YouTube Channel

If you have questions you would like to have asked on the show, send them in to me at Amber@WPPro.ca and we will answer to the best of our ability!

• What initially drew you to computer and than to coding?
• Where do you start when learning about cyber security?
• What is the biggest threat you are worried about facing this next year in cyber security?

Closing out this Episode

Just some reminders:

Be sure and subscribe to our Newsletter.

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How to Contact Us:

John can be contacted at:

• on my website @ http://www.johnoverall.com/
• WordPress Emergency Support http://wppro.ca/wpemergency
• email: john@wppro.ca

Amber can be contacted at:

• email: amber@wppro.ca