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WordPress Plugins from A to Z Episode 89

It’s Episode 89 of WordPress Plugins A to Z and we’ve got plugins for enforcing word count minimums, online appointment schedulers, Issue Trackers, Browser and Benchmarking tools, and the laziest video carousel plugin ever! It’s the show that 4 out of 5 successful designers recommend.. It’s WordPress Plugins A-Z.

WordPress Plugins AtoZ Podcast Can also be found at WPPluginsAtoZ.com
We can be found on Stitcher Radio Click here to Download app or listen online Now.
Find us on the iTunes Store here.

>>>Self Promotion of our businesses here<<<

Do you need WordPress Emergency WordPress support for issues you know when you see the ever favorite White Screen of Death. Or just some questions on how to do something please visit WPPro.ca/emergency for some quick tips or request some help.

Marcus is continually looking for interns to work on the Daily Plugin web site. This involves weekly post and site maintenance, blogging about wordpress news and helping to maintain the resource directory that is being compiled. There is an opportunity for revenue for a person who is willing to work hard to help grow and develop the brand. Contact marcus at his site, marcuscouch.com.

>>>Self Promotion of our businesses<<<

John’s & Marcus Rant:

The Stitcher Awards are here! Nominate your favorite shows across 20 categories to help select the best of 2012. Submissions are open until October 19th and you can vote everyday. Happy voting!www.stitcher.com/stitcherawards

The count down to episode 100 is starting, if you have any favourite tips, flubs from past episodes let me know I will bring them in for the show..

backup, backup and backup again

Listener Feedback / Audio Clips

Question from Dave Jackson from Weekly Web Tools regarding the “Bonus Information” item found at the bottom of wppluginsatoz.com with an orange colored tab.

The plugin Dave is asking about is called the “Sliding Drawer” plugin (http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wordpress-sliding-drawer-content-area/) which we covered way back in January of this year in Episode #56.

WordPress Plugins Reviewed by John

Random Plugin time for me since I have been simply polishing off websites this past week.

Really Simple Issue Tracker 1.0

Version: 1.0
Author: Andreas Lundgren
Last Updated: 3 days ago
Requires WordPress Version: 3.4.2 or higher
Compatible up to: 3.4.2
Downloaded: 74 times
WordPress.org Plugin Page »

TheLowdown:

This seemed like a interesting new way to track a to do list of things I need to do on several websites that need to be completed or a new things come up for clients websites. Once you create a todo task you can then assign it to a person then choose the type of task and set a priority to fix it. And finally determine if it is still open or closed. It does not publish it to the front end. Going to give this a shot at entering tasks for a week and see how it goes..

Rating 3 Dragons

Advanced Browser Check 1.0.1

Version: 1.0.1
Author: Mattias Hedman
Last Updated: 2 days ago
Requires WordPress Version: 3.3.0 or higher
Compatible up to: 3.4.2
Downloaded: 201 times
WordPress.org Plugin Page »
Plugin Homepage »

TheLowdown:
You can determine to warn users visting your ewb site that if that have an old browser that they need to upgrade and that your site may not work properly for them. This I think is a nice little plugin if you are tired of trying to support older browsers. The one thing I as not too sure about was that they will not even be able to surf your site at all unless they click a provided link to upgrade, both good and bad here.
Rating 3 Dragons

Benchmark 1.1

Version: 1.1
Author: Mark Maunder
Last Updated: 8 days ago
Requires WordPress Version: 3.4.2 or higher
Compatible up to: 3.4.2
Downloaded: 105 times
WordPress.org Plugin Page »
Plugin Homepage »

The Lowdown
this will run a test of your hosting for your wordpress website simple and quick it tests your CPU, Network and Database Query speed seems my servers perform about the industry average. I was hoping for much more but it is a good start.
Rating 2 dragon

WP Really Simple Health 1.0

Version: 1.0
Author: Tiberius14
Last Updated: 246 days ago
Requires WordPress Version: 3.3 or higher
Compatible up to: 3.3.2
Downloaded: 1,017 times
WordPress.org Plugin Page »
Plugin Homepage »

Just an extra no rating

WordPress Plugins Reviewed by Marcus

BookFresh – Online Scheduling

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/online-scheduling-and-appointment-booking/

Book appointments directly from your WordPress site! Use BookFresh to manage your business, reduce no shows, synchronize external calendars and more!

Requires: 2.5 or higher
Compatible up to: 3.4.2
Last Updated: 2012-10-2
Downloads: 182

I used to use this utility called “Time Trade” for setting up appointment requests. This is a similar tool in BookFresh. I will warn you, this is not an entirely free plugin, as it does work within the BookFresh.com system. But overall I found this to be of good value when you’re in the need to add a schedule or appointment request function to your WordPress installation.

Rating: 3 out of 5 (-1 because it’s for a paid service)

Youtube Carousel Gallery

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/you-tube-carousel-gallery/

Used to fetch youtube videos by video ids or channel name or search query and align video thumbs in nice carousel form.

Requires: 3.0 or higher
Compatible up to: 3.4.2
Last Updated: 2012-9-30
Downloads: 271

Marcus’ Take: In my ever nearing quest for a cool site for my new video show, I needed to have a way to get a slider like feel but be automated so I did not have to regularly update all the time (as it’s a daily show). This plugin is a perfect solution for getting the best of both worlds. The video opens up in a lightbox format, which gives the viewer instant, 1 click access to viewing the video content.

Rating: 5 out of 5

Minimum Word Count

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/minimum-word-count/

Requires: 3.0 or higher
Compatible up to: 3.4.2
Last Updated: 2012-10-1
Downloads: 48

This plugin allows you to set a minimum word count required to publish a post. You have the option to exempt administrators from this requirement. As part of this plugin, a “Word Count” column is added to the post listing pages. Also, on the post editing pages, the “Word Count” field just below the content box is now changed to “Live Word Count” and updated as you type. If the current post is below the minimum word count setting, the count will turn red.

Features

Require a minimum word count to publish a post
Option to allow administrators to publish below the minimum
Adds a Word Count column to post listing pages
Changes ‘Word Count' to ‘Live Word Count' on post edit pages

Marcus’ Take: This is a great tool for SEO and content, as it sets the word count at whatever minimum you choose. I also used this on a client site to prevent the writer from “accidentally posting” their drafts or scratchpads of just a few lines of text. It happens. This plugin helps make sure that everything that goes out is of a good content length.

Rating: 4 out of 5