Digging Up The Best WordPress Plugins

It's Episode 544 and we have plugins for Sticky Admin, Puzzles, Escaping, Testing Chakras, Slidey Review, Ordering Tests… and ClassicPress Options. It's all coming up on WordPress Plugins A-Z!

Admin Sticky Sidebar, PuzzleMe, Escape Button, Chakra Test, Review Slider for WooCommerce, Order Test For All WooCommerce……. and ClassicPress options on Episode 544.

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 #3 of 52 episodes for 2022! The weather here is better than it was – hopefully it has lightened for a few people out there as well!

I wanted to mention to everyone that although we have all just seen our families over the holidays, it's important to remember that you don't need a holiday to go and visit your family, or at least call them. Family and friends are an important part of our mental and emotional health, and we seem to always forget that when we get busy.

Also, all the social media – it's really not an important part of our mental health. Actually, too much of it tends to damage our mental health. Sometimes, it's okay to just be bored! Boredom is when the best ideas come up on you! My recommendation this week is to let yourself get bored!

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: January 2022, Part 2 – Here is your weekly report from iThemes! The plugins to watch out for are: Contact Form 7 Skins, WooRockets Nitro, and Amazon Affiliate. Not too many worries this week! Be sure to deactivate and uninstall these plugins – there may be a patch released at a later date, but no known fix is available as of yet.

800K WordPress sites still impacted by critical SEO plugin flaw – In December I mentioned that there was a Security Vulnerability with the plugin All in One SEO;

Most recent information on All in One SEO plugin vulnerability: – The vulnerability has since been patched, and Automattic pushed out an update to its users to make sure the patch was set in place. Many WordPress sites experienced a takeover through a vulnerability in ‘All in One' SEO Plugin; the vulnerability was: “all the attacker needs to do is change ‘a single character to uppercase' to circumvent all privilege checks”. Be sure to update your site if you have not already!

State of the Word, Gravatar Breaches, Log4j, and more – From CodeInWP.com comes a great run down of what is going on within the WordPress Community, as well as a basic coverage of Matt Mullenweg's yearly speech! Worth looking at as this article talks about the Log4j vulnerability highlights, and why you are likely not to worry if you are a WordPress User, and about how Gravatar was sorta breached – essentially your email may have been exposed. Read on to find out more!

Extendify launches new Pattern Library Plugin – Extendify has simplified access to its pattern library with a new plugin that offers patterns and full-page layouts for Gutenberg friendly themes.

WordPress 5.9 to introduce New API for Locking Blocks – This will give you the ability to lock down key elements of a design and its designated content areas. It has been introduced, will now be available as part of WordPress.

Microsoft Bing releases new IndexNow Plugin for WordPress – This will allow site owners to submit URLS and get their content indexed immediately rather than waiting for the search engine to crawl the site.

Decorating pages with the Grainy Gradient Block – It appears that the grainy look is coming back to town!

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

How to disable telemetry on Windows 10 and 11 – First, what IS telemetry? If you don't know, it is a system that was introduced with Windows 10, it collects the data to improve your “user experience” and monitors your Window's Settings, system settings, and a few other things. This article will tell you how to turn it off!

GoboLinux is a Linux Distro unlike any other – For those who are big into Linux, GoboLinux was created in 2002 as a Linux distribution design space. You need to be good with command line work in order to be great with this, though it seems like it has a lot of good stuff going for it! Worth checking out if you are a major Linux person!

Cybersecurity: Last year was a record year for attacks, and Log4j made it worse – Log4j is a vulnerability that was discovered in December (Log4j is a Java library for logging error messages in applications, and it is the most high-profile security vulnerability on the internet right now, with a severity of 10 our of 10). Read on to get an idea on what this next year may look like for Cybersecurity.

Stealthy BLISTER malware slips in unnoticed on Windows systems – BLISTER acts as a malware and has a low detection rate. The way it works is: it acts as a loader for other malware by using a legit certification. If you would like to have more details, check out the article!

Half-Billion compromised credentials lurking on Open Cloud Server – “According to National Crime Agency's National Cyber Brim Unit in the U.K., nearly 586 million sets of credentials are sitting in a compromised cloud storage facility…” “A quarter-billion of those passwords were not seen in previous breaches that have been added to Have|Been Pwned.” If you use CloudFlare, you may want to check this article out to find out the details!

The Future of Ransomware – This article talks about the rise in Cyber Crime over the past year, compares what happened during the last peak with WannaCry to what has been going on this last year with things like Log4j, and how Cyber Crime is likely to shift over the next year.

Still using Chrome? Check out DuckDuckGo!! – DuckDuckGo has been focused on creating a private browser for users, and they seem to be getting it done! Check out the article to find out more!

9 Open Source Alternatives to try in 2022 – If you are like me and are still working on catching up with all the developers out there, this is a great article to check out! Has some fantastic suggestions on things to try out this new year!

5 tips for learning a new programming language in 2022 – I know I am finding this one helpful, worth checking out if you are getting into learning programming!

9 reasons techies are in love with Linux – I am still wanting to try Linux, have not had the opportunity to try it out yet though! Just these reasons alone though are enough to make me think about taking a week long vacation where I send the family out camping, and stay home just so that I can play with Linux on a laptop…

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 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:

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

It seems ClassicPress now has it own repository you can check it here https://directory.classicpress.net/plugins they now have 84 plugins (and counting!) 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/

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John's Plugin

Chakra test

https://wordpress.org/plugins/chakra-test/

The Lowdown:

This is a plugin to help keep people on your site and doing those crazy tests. You build out a Charka test questionnaire, and then display it, and they answer it.

Rating 4 Dragons

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Amber's Plugin

Admin Sticky Sidebar

https://wordpress.org/plugins/admin-sticky-sidebar/

The Lowdown:

This is a pretty nifty idea – unfortunately once turned on it still seems to have a couple of bugs to fix – for instance, instead of just keeping the sidebar there beside you all the time, it seems to have this issue where, as you scroll down it flips between showing you the sidebar, to flipping it down to the bottom and you see it again once you get towards the bottom of the screen.

I hope they are able to fix this bug, as the whole idea seems really quite useful!

Rating 3 Dragons

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John's Plugin

Review Slider for WooCommerce

https://wordpress.org/plugins/review-slider-for-woocommerce/

The Lowdown:

With this plugin, you can add a very nice display to showcase reviews that have been left by your users.

Rating 4 Dragons

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Amber's Plugin

PuzzleMe

https://wordpress.org/plugins/puzzleme/

The Lowdown:

This is a plugin that makes it possible to create and publish Crossword, Sudoku, Word Search, Codeword, KrissKross, Quizzes, and many other puzzle types.

This IS a third party plugin, though if you are looking for something to help you get your puzzles out there than this is a great option for you!

Rating 4 Dragons

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John's Plugin

Order Test For All for WooCommerce

https://wordpress.org/plugins/wc-order-test-for-all/

The Lowdown:

This is a test payment gateway for your WooCommerce store so you can test your processes, and see if they are working properly.

Rating 4 Dragons

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Amber's Plugin

Escape Button

https://wordpress.org/plugins/escape-button/

The Lowdown:

A free plugin that creates a floating ‘safety exit' button on your site for you. This button was designed with sites for survivors of sexual and domestic violence in mind, and can handle both situations where the user or browser does not have Javascript enabled, and when it does.

This is a plug and play, and is totally free.

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.

Steve Goodtime & Brant Matthews created a new jingle for us for 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.

No contest this week

The plugins we covered were:

John’s Plugins: Chakra Test – 4, Review Slider for WooCommerce – 4, Order Test For All WooCommerce – 4

Amber's Plugins: Admin Sticky Sidebar – 3, PuzzleMe – 4, Escape Button – 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!

• When a client (or anyone else on the server) gets locked out, can you fix it from anywhere, or do you have to be on your main computer in your own home?
• Can you set up a server so that people have a certain amount of times they can put the wrong information into the sign in before getting locked out, or is that an automatic setting?
• What is the main thing you need to know before owning and running a server where you host other peoples websites?

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