Cooking Up Great WordPress Plugin Reviews

It's Episode 549 and we have plugins for Code Snips, Blackhole Bots, Dobby, Web Snow, Schedulr, Geo Maps… and ClassicPress Options. It's all coming up on WordPress Plugins A-Z!

Code Snippets, Blackhole for Bad Bots, Dobby, Snow in My Web, MySchedulr, Interactive Geo Maps……. and ClassicPress options on Episode 549.

John's Intro:

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 #10 of 52 episodes for 2022! Did I mention the weather getting better last week? That was silly of me, pretty sure it snowed here just to spite my words last week… But than again, we all know that there is always the false Spring before the real Spring. Luckily, when it starts to warm up this time, we should really be getting the Spring this time! Then Summer, which means fun in the sun! Yay!

Remember to take some time away from all the media, especially after these past few weeks, and have some down time with your family and friends. Pull out your board games, have some snacks, and just talk! Quality time is always better than media time.

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:

WordPress Vulnerability Report – February 23, 2022 – There are a few plugins that have no known fix this week, to state a few: persian Woocommerce, hub2word, SEO 301 Meta, WP Voting Contest, Petfinder Listings… There are more, please be sure to check out the list against your plugins and remove any that are beyond saving.

UpdraftPlus 1.22.3 patches severe vulnerability through forced security update from WordPress.org – This plugin allows users to backup to various cloud providers; unfortunately there was a security vulnerability that would allow logged in users to download a site's latest backups. Luckily, the vulnerability has been patched! Be sure to update if you use this plugin!

WordFest life to host free 24-hour festival of WordPress March 4, 2022 – Good news for everyone interested in going to the Word fest! It will be available online, as well as in workshops, socials, and celebrations this year. It will be a total of 60 sessions. Check out the article to learn more!

Piklist is shutting down – Piklist is a development framework that has helped people build things faster with WordPress since 2012. As of this week though, they are shutting down. All documentation has been archived on Github pages, so you will still be able to check that out. If you use PikList, be sure to check out the article for more information.

Gutenberg 12.6 enhances transforming blocks, adds read more and post author bio blocks, and enables social icon labels – This is the most recent update to Gutenberg, and it has some pretty decent stuff in there! So far so good – nothing appears to have broken as of yet. For those who use Gutenberg, this is great news since it appears that the software is finally firming up!

WordPress 5.9.1 Maintenance Release – WordPress's most recent update happened this past week. This was just a maintenance release, so not likely to break much at all. Next major update will be in version 6.0, we will be sure to warn you!

Amazon drops ‘elasticsearch' from product names to settle trademark infringement lawsuit with Elastic – I remember reading about this a while ago; I don't think this really means much other than a basic name change for the users, though it is always good to keep up on the information in my opinion.

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

Who gets to decide if AI is alive? – A fun article going through the reasoning behind about who will the one to decide when AI is alive.

Ukrainian government and banks once again hit by DDoS attacks – This article goes through the recent Ukrainian government agencies issues with the DDoS attacks they have been experiencing, and talks about the various things that have been affected. Interesting and enlightening article.

US, UK link new Cyclops Blink malware to Russian state hackers – For those in the know about the malware floating around right now, Cyclops Blink is a newer one, and is pretty nasty. They seem to have managed to get this into the US and UK cybersecurity and law enforcement agencies. Be aware of this!

Here's why your car isn't rolling on airless tires… yet – Personally, I have wondered this for years – why don't we just use solid state tires? Then I realized just how heavy those things are…. after reading this though, I realize that it is possible that we will have solid tires sooner then I ever thought!

Domestic abusers are weaponizing everyday tech – and there's no quick fix – A serious, and real issue that is talked about throughout this article. Tech abuse is not really something that is talked about often, or at all really. Great article, I recommend you give it a read.

Expeditors shuts down global operations after likely ransomware attack – Seattle-based logistics and freight forwarding company Expeditors International has been targeted in a cyberattack over the weekend that forced the organization to shut down most of its operations worldwide. The article explains what happened and how it is being overcome.

It's terrifyingly easy for reporters to exploit Google's News algorithms – This isn't just an issue with news algorithms, it's actually an issue for all algorithms, whether they are people's personal ones or businesses algorithms. One of the things that this article does a good job on is going through and explaining how the algorithms are used.

Entropy ransomware linked to Evil Corp's Dridex malware – The recently-emerged Entropy ransomware receals code-level similarities with the general purpose Dridex malware that started as a banking Trojan. Very good thing to be aware of if you are working regularly with any kind of banks.

 

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

Donor Support

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 we just don't have the time to add reviews on ClassicPress myself. We are always open to reviews sent in by listeners, though unless there is a review sent into us on ClassicPress, we am not going to do more than mention that ClassicPress is a thing. Here are some resources, we hope some listeners out there find this information useful!

One thing we are 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. We do believe it has a future, we just don't have the time to help them in getting it out there right now.

ClassicPress News:

No new updates this week.

Find out more about ClassicPress 1.4.0 rc2 https://forums.classicpress.net/t/classicpress-1-4-0-rc2-release-notes/3785?fbclid=IwAR3wGK5IW8ssJ-XC4k7IiZMBtSjUTVN2pexk6ATCRvuMN-Fn-McOy-XJJv8

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

You can check out the ClassicPress repository here https://directory.classicpress.net/plugins They now have 84 plugins (and counting!) available.

WordPress Plugins

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

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John's Plugin

Code Snippets

https://wordpress.org/plugins/code-snippets/

The Lowdown:

This is an excellent plugin that can help you avoid having to edit the functions file for adding code. It will also let you add other types of code such as html and more. A very good plugin.

Rating 5 Dragons

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Amber's Plugin

Interactive Geo Maps

https://wordpress.org/plugins/interactive-geo-maps/

The Lowdown:

This is an awesome plugin that was designed for people to create a map for their site! Carlos, the creator of this plugin, was kind enough to donate a Pro Plan for our next competition! We were able to have an interview with him as well, that will be up on the site this next week.

The free version of this plugin is pretty nifty. You can create as many maps as you want, choose from different kinds of maps, choose whether or not to have a full world or just a country map – there are a lot of options for the free version.

I was lucky enough to try out the pro version, and I found the map making process to be pretty fun! A little confusing at first, though the way this plugin was designed and built it was done in such a way that it is pretty easy to figure out. You have many more options to choose from in the pro version, more settings available like cluster markers, adding a legend, text labels, creation of heatmaps – This really is just an overall pretty awesome plugin.

Rating 5 Dragons

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John's Plugin

Blackhole for Bad Bots

https://wordpress.org/plugins/blackhole-bad-bots/

The Lowdown:

This is an excellent way to banish bad bots from your site with a few simple clicks. It does this by adding a rule with a one strike policy to banish bad bots.

Rating 5 Dragons

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Amber's Plugin

MySchedulr

https://wordpress.org/plugins/myschedulr/

The Lowdown:

This is a third party plugin with a pretty decent free version. This is used to create a schedule for your clients to either check your availability in general, or to book an appointment with you.

You have to go to their website, create a free account, and then everything is really quite easy to set up! Once set up, you create a new menu with the link given in the website, and viola! Add menu to page and continue on!

Really quite genius with the whole ‘make the link into a menu and add it to your page'. Makes things very easy to do. I personally don't like using third party's for things for the most part, but I can see the use in this one.

Another bonus, this seems to be a freeby!

Rating 4 Dragons

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John's Plugin

Dobby

https://wordpress.org/plugins/wp-dobby/

The Lowdown:

This is a great plugin to help handle and clean up all those messages that occur in your admin dashboard. It collapses them all down so that when you want to see them all you have to do is click the show messages.

Rating 5 Dragons

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Amber's Plugin

Snow in My Web

https://wordpress.org/plugins/snow-in-my-web/

The Lowdown:

This is just a fun freebie plugin that is super lightweight. This plugin adds a little CSS code, and that's it! And you get some absolutely beautiful snow falling all over your site's pages.

Really nothing else to add – just a fun, lightweight, awesome plugin.

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

If you have any you would like to have asked, please feel free to send them in! Remember, there's no such thing as a stupid question!

Enter The Contest to Win!!

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

A BIG Thank You to Steve Goodtime & Brant Matthews who have created our Awesome jingle for the contests!

A BIG Thank You to Charlie for coming to the aid of the show and getting our contests all organized!

We also want to give a BIG Thank You to all the Developers for supporting our show with their plugin donations! Please be sure to check them out!

Short note about participating in the contests folks – we go to great efforts to get these licenses. We would LOVE to see a bit more participation from you, The Producers.

For all developers who would like to support the show: You can donate a premium license to be used in a future contests. Please go to:WPPluginsAtoZ.com/PluginContest

The plugins we covered were:

John’s Plugins: Code Snippets – 5, Blackhole for Bad Bots – 5, Dobby – 5

Amber's Plugins: Snow in My Web – 5, MySchedulr – 4, Interactive Geo Maps – 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!

• Are there any particular virus's that one should keep an eye on when running an internet business?

• Were you ever caught by a nasty virus when you first started in the industry?

• What was the worst computer you have ever had to fix, how long did it take, and what did you have to do in order to fix it?

Closing out this Episode

Just some reminders:

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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