Episode 448 WP Plugins A to Z

All transcripts start from the point in the show where we head off into the meat and potatoes. They are the complete verbatim of Marcus and John’s discussion of the weekly plugins we have reviewed.

WordPress Plugins A to Z Podcast and Transcript for See complete show notes for Episode #448 here.

Episode #448

All right, well today we’re a little light on meat and potatoes, but that is mostly due to I haven’t had any time this week to get fully prepared. Today was the first chance I got to do really anything on the show. I have been working nonstop except for sleep breaks on fixing these hacked websites and getting them moved to a new server, etc. Just a – it was like the endless combination of a hurricane, and there was one point where I kind of felt like it was a hurricane. I was battling, battling, battling, and all of a sudden everything got calm. It was very peaceful; it was like being in the eye of the storm. I rested for an hour or two and woke up and it was right back at it. It was like the other end of the hurricane smacked me for another six, eight hours, and then all of a sudden it started calming out. It was like okay the storm has passed; now we’re in clean-up mode.

So what have I got? I’ve got for you this week a little bit of ClassicPress Options – not a lot in ClassicPress news this week. There is a little bit and a thank you goes out to CodePotent for contacting me via Twitter and sending me some feedback. He was mentioning that the list of ClassicPress plugins that he maintains over at the ClassicPress forums, he listed out the new plugins that are there for me, so I can work through these and do some reviews and bring these into the show.

So the first one just to let you know what’s there is the Add Open Graph Tags plugin, the ZP Disable Users plugin, the ZedP Multiple Roles new plugin, the PHP Error Log Viewer Plugin, and the 2Twitter plugin, and then a Stats Update Manager extension for the Update Manager plugin that exists. So there’s a number of them there for me to work with, so I should be bringing those to you in upcoming shows, so you hear more about the plugins for ClassicPress.

He had a little bit of other news. The Update Manager plugin, as he said, has been a smash hit for the community and it will provide a huge chunk of code for the official ClassicPress plugin directory. So there’s an official ClassicPress plugin directory in the works, so that’s good to hear. I’m excited to see how that one pans out.

Okay, and as usual a note for my ClassicPress listeners. Send me info to help keep ClassicPress section more full. I need more ClassicPress information. Right now, I’m really stuck in the WordPress world and environment. I would love to move fully to ClassicPress, but I can’t unfortunately because I’ve got too much over in WordPress at the moment to make the move. I will eventually probably but at the moment I’m going to just stay where I’m at, kind of straddling both worlds. I feel like I’m in Dimension A and B at the same time.

All right, so – and the usual ClassicPress resources, go check out the ClassicPress Club, the ClassicPress forums for more information as they go. Links are in the Show Notes for all of that stuff.

Okay, what do I got for WordPress plugins for you? I do have a couple here. The first one I’ve got for you is called Minimal Coming Soon and Maintenance Mode Coming Soon Page. Now, this one here I’ve seen it many times when I pop into WordPress. I need a maintenance mode plugin. I have my default one that I use all the time; it’s just called Maintenance Mode WP – a really great plugin. It sets up really quick and easy.

But I had to do some work on a site real quick and I needed to get a maintenance page up real fast, because we were going to move this site off of a server that was running a very old version of WordPress. Basically, we’re getting this thing moved and we wanted to let the world know that the site hadn’t vanished while the move is taking place – all of that occurring. Well, I went to install my usual plugin and it wouldn’t install because their PHP version on the server was pretty old. Yeah, it was bad. It was beyond 5.6. It was somewhere down around 5.2, so yeah, that’s bad.

But the point being is I needed something to work so I didn’t have to manually build out a page. I wanted something to be done in less than five minutes instead of all the other hassle around an HTML page. So I found this one. This one looked like it would work. I installed it, it activated, it worked, it set up beautiful – piece of cake. A very nice plugin. If you’re still looking for a maintenance mode plugin and you haven’t settled on one, you might check this one out. I may use this one a little more often. I kind of like the setup a little better than my default one.

So go check it out. It’s called Maintenance Mode Coming Soon Page. It’s a big mouthful of a name but go check it out and I give it a 5-Dragon rating.

Okay, what have I got next for you? Next up I have for you the Username Changer plugin. I may or may not have reviewed this one in the past; I don’t recall. But of course every once in a while, when you’re working on a site or you take over a site from a client, you may be required to change some usernames for accounts. Now, I know yes, you can go delete the account and recreate an account, but here’s the flaw in that – and I’ve encountered it more often than not – not more often than not – more than once I should say. I’ve encountered this problem more than once and the problem is that when they go to delete the account, they often skip that step that pops up and says, “Where would you like to associate all of the posts for this user?”

If you don’t properly associate those posts, you could lose them. I have seen it happen where data gets lost because they don’t re-associate those posts with a new user, and this kind of an important step. So what you can do is simply install this plugin, log in, change the username for the account, then change the email for the account, change the password for the account, and boom, anyone who had access to that account is gone. They cannot access it, they couldn’t even try to retrieve it because the email is gone, the username is gone, and it’s got a new password – just to be sure.

Very simple plugin. You install it, activate it, go in, edit the user. Right next to the username where it’s grayed-out and says, “Cannot change username” is another little button that says, “Change username,” so you click that button, type in your new username, hit “Save username,” boom, it’s done. Now yes, if you’re SQL experienced, you can go into the database via the PHP My Admin and edit the username that way, but it takes a little bit longer than this plugin does. So go check this plugin out. It’s called Username Changer and again because it’s so beautiful and works so well and is free, I give it a 5-Dragon rating.

Okay, and that’s pretty much – that’s all the plugins I’ve got for you this week, and that’s just the way it works out. I will bring more next week, and I’m going to try and liven the show up with a few other things as we come along. But at the moment just to let you know, this show is currently sponsored by…

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Absolutely. CMS Commander is a great plugin and if you do use it, please use the link in the Show Notes. It is an affiliate link; they’re not actually paying me. I’m collecting affiliate fees for the ad. If you would like to have your ad here, contact me, reach out to me. I’ll be happy to put it in here. But you can go to

wppluginsatoz.com/CMScommand to go directly to it using my affiliate link.

Okay, and I have no listener feedback, but I would really love some, folks. Please send some listener feedback my way. You can do it via SpeakPipe off the website, you can send me an email, hit me up on Twitter, Facebook – any place like that. Tell me if I’m doing good, bad, if you like the way the show is going these days, if you hate it immensely – I don’t really care. It’s just to let me know that people are actually listening. I’m looking forward to hearing from people out there.

And the contests, while I was going to do the contest – and my week started out so good this week. I spun a new server up, I was in the middle of configuring a new server because my client base is growing, and I have to do some work, and then all hell broke loose. I actually kind of thought about it for a bit and the last time I spun up a new server, I had the same sort of hell break loose. Maybe that’s a cue there, spin up more servers to bring more work my way.

At any rate, we have no contest this week and I absolutely will get one up next week one way or another. It will happen and you will hear about it on Twitter and Facebook. That will be the first place it is announced, so stay tuned for that information.

All those developers out there who would like to support the show and you want some free advertising, hey, send me a key for one of your premium plugins that I can use as a giveaway on the contest and I will talk about you for a couple of shows at least – sometimes three and four shows. You get lots of free promotions and you pass out a key.

Truthfully, it doesn’t cost you anything but one more key and maybe the support if it gets in the hands of a person that needs support.

Okay, and that’s all I’ve got. So closing out this episode, I covered up the following two plugins: the Username Changer, which I gave a 5 to and the Coming Soon Page, which I gave a 5 to.

A couple of quick reminders. Next week is the seminar here in Victoria on February 25th for assessing your website host and choosing your website host and what you would like it to be. So please make sure you – brain cloud – we just had something drop across the room from me. This will be preparing and comparing web hosts, what you need to be looking for – all of the stuff that is happening in and around preparing and choosing the right web host and what you’re going to be getting. It will be streamed live here on the YouTube channel, so check in next week. It’s at 6:30 in the evening Pacific time on February 25th.

Okay, and that’s pretty much it. One last note, if you would like to find out more about me, you can check me out at theroguestavern.com. Follow my journey, check out my adventures into the wild, searching for gold, hiking, camping, getting out on the gun range, and more.

That’s pretty much all I’ve got, so I’m gonna let my girl take us on out of here.

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John can be reached at his website, JohnOverall.com, or email him directly at john@wppro.ca. Thanks for joining us and have a great day.

Thanks for listening to the show. This show is copyright by JohnOverall.com. So until next time, have yourselves a good morning, good afternoon, or a good evening, wherever you happen to be out there on the globe today.