– ‘good morning, good afternoon, good evening, wherever you happen to be hiding out there on the globe today! Coming to you LIVE from …’

Salutations and Some Reminders:

Welcome to Episode 634 – WordPress in Wonderland: The Mad Hatter’s Logo Party – We’ve got a couple of great in-depth plugins to cover for you, some recent news in both the WordPress World and the Tech World in general, and some awesome WordPress Tips!

FINALLY! The weather is cool enough! Now give us humans about a week of this cooler weather and we will all be whining that we can’t wait for summer. We humans are so fickle that way! Remember to keep yourself dry and warm, especially in these season changes!

Still looking for any suggestions from those out there who are good with games! Thoughts on creating this idea of Plugin Battle Royale? Shoot me a message at amber@wppro.ca! Good or bad ideas – the worse the better ’cause usually genius comes from the supposed ‘bad’ ideas – all are welcome! And don’t worry, you will absolutely get credit! Unless you don’t want it and wand to remain anonymous – that’s an option too!

A few reminders before we start the show today….

Reminders:

• Be sure to check out our newer news thing called N3w$ 4 Y0u! You can find it on our homepage right next to the latest podcast, and on our left-hand menu!
• Show starts at 12:30pm Pacific Time every other week on Monday! Join in for the pre-stream entertainment at about 12:15ish! You’ll find the show notes on the home page of wppluginsatoz.com within 24(ish) hours after every show!
• This is a value for value show dear listeners, help us get some loven by hitting some like buttons, sharing an episode or two, or lovingly forcing your family members to listen to us by cranking our show way up! After all, you can’t go wrong helping out the longest running WordPress Podcast!

Don’t run away at the end either – we got some good questions and some awesome conversation coming up!

...When you see this in the notes, it means we didn’t read this on the show. The only way to find this information out is to read our Show Notes!

…You can send any questions/suggestions or notes saying ‘hi’ over to me at amber@wppro.ca, or hit up our site wpppluginsatoz.com/contact – Be creative with the title so that the spammer eater doesn’t eat your note though!

Let’s start the show with this weeks Featured Artist:

Artist: 

Grok! You can check him and his artistic talents out by going here and following the directions.
You will wind up being re-routed to here, and although you are getting a sort of lame version you will at least be getting an idea of the real Grok!
The other option, and the best one really ’cause you will be able to get the full version of Grok, is to go to the X (formally Twitter) site and pay for premium for proper access to Grok.

Grok has done it again! Beautiful!

We would love some new art from our Producers out there! If you are so inclined, you can send it into us at https://wppluginsatoz.com/artwork/. If you need some inspiration, you can always go to our site wppluginsatoz.com and check out our Art Vaults – you will find the link for it on the left hand side.

…We can NEVER have too much art!

Breaking News in the WordPress World at large!! 

This is just a little taste of what will come out on Wednesday for everyone! Send anything in to me at amber@wppro.ca that you think should go into the Wed’s N3W$ 4 Y0U!

News this week:

WordPress Vulnerability Report – August 28, 2024
(https://solidwp.com/blog/wordpress-vulnerability-report-september-11-2024/) – In this report there are 72 vulnerabilities; 66 of these are Plugins – 45 plugins have been patched so far.
There are 6 Themes with vulnerabilities – 2 have been patched so far.

WordPress Vulnerability Report from PatchStack
(https://patchstack.com/database/) – These guys always have the latest information on what is going on regarding the latest in vulnerabilities. At the time of writing this, the most recent issue was ‘Confetti Fall Animation’ plugin (I remember that one! It’s loads of fun!) with a cross site scripting (XSS) vulnerability from 2 hours ago.

Highlights from Matt Mullenweg’s spiciest Word Camp Presentation at WordCamp US 2024
(https://wptavern.com/highlights-from-matt-mullenwegs-spiciest-word-camp-presentation-at-wordcamp-us-2024) – So for those who are not aware of the drama that has been unfolding lately, it all started at the WordCamp US 2024 where Matt Mullenweg ripped into WP Engine for profiting off of the name WordPress.

WP Engine banned from using WordPress.org resources
(https://wptavern.com/wp-engine-banned-from-using-wordpress-org-resources) – This drama built, and by September 25 the dispute and elevated up to court with both companies issuing a Cease and Desist orders towards each other, leading WP Engine to remove the news feed from the WordPress Admin dashboard. In response WordPress.org has now banned WP Engine from utilizing any of its resources.

Matt Mullenweg announces temporary lifting of WP Engine Ban
(https://wptavern.com/matt-mullenweg-announces-temporary-lifting-of-wp-engine-ban)- By September 28 Matt Mullenweg announced that the restrictions on WP Engine will be temporarily lifted until October 1, 00:00UTC – allowing them to access WordPress servers. This temporary reprieve gives WP Engine time to “spin up their mirrors of all WordPress.org’s resources that they were using for free while not paying and making legal threats against us.”, according to the official statement.
Needless to say this drama is really all anyone can really talk about in the community right now. I have added more articles on this leading up to the most recent development below in the extras.

Quantum Leap in Space Exploration
(https://www.pioneeringminds.com/quantum-leap-in-space-exploration/) – I thought this was pretty cool! This article is talking about using a quantum sensor to make high-precision measurement aboard the International Space Station (ISS). This tech is based on ultra-cold rubidium atoms and surpasses the capabilities of the traditional sensors. This is said to open new frontiers in space exploration and in scientific discovery.
Now me… I’m not entirely sure what a ‘rubidium atom’ is – but I know what quantum mechanics are, and it appears that they are going to be using quantum mechanics to find things out in space which will make it possible to detect things with an accuracy that “would make even Schrödinger’s cat know if it’s observed or not, without the whole paradox fuss.” as it was told to me by the individual who told me to look this up!

Some Extras – check out the N3W$ 4 Y0U coming out on Weds for more, or you can check out our Facebook or Twitter!

WP Engine is not WordPress
(https://wordpress.org/news/2024/09/wp-engine/)

Automattic responds to WP Engine’s Cease and Desis with legal action
(https://wptavern.com/automattic-responds-to-wp-engines-cease-and-desist-with-legal-action)

Highlights from Matt Mullenweg’s spiciest Word Camp Presentation at WordCamp US 2024
(https://wptavern.com/highlights-from-matt-mullenwegs-spiciest-word-camp-presentation-at-wordcamp-us-2024)

Highlights from Matt Mullenweg’s spiciest Word Camp Presentation at WordCamp US 2024
(https://wptavern.com/highlights-from-matt-mullenwegs-spiciest-word-camp-presentation-at-wordcamp-us-2024)

Ajmer in India to host its first WordPress Event ‘WP Campus Connect’
(https://wptavern.com/ajmer-in-india-to-host-its-first-wordpress-event-wp-campus-connect)

Automattic V. WPEngine
(https://thewpminute.com/automattic-vs-wp-engine-heres-what-we-know/)
(a pretty good timeline laid out in an easy to read/understand article)

WCUS: Freedom Isn’t Free
(https://jamesgiroux.ca/wcus-freedom-isnt-free/)
(An article written by James Giroux from his own personal opinion on the whole thing)

Dragon Rating Time!

John’s Plugin

EXIF Remover

https://wordpress.org/plugins/exif-remover/

The Lowdown:
Enhance your website’s privacy and security with EXIF Remover. This  tool automatically strips away all EXIF metadata from image uploads,  ensuring that sensitive information—such as location data, camera settings, and timestamps—remains confidential.
By eliminating this data, you protect your visitors’ privacy and reduce the risk of exposing personal information inadvertently. The EXIF Data Remover is easy to install and seamlessly integrates with your media library, allowing you to focus on your content without worrying  about hidden data leaks.
Key Features:

• Automatic removal of EXIF data from all uploaded images.
• No configuration (just install and activate).
• Enhances user privacy and security by preventing data exposure.

Rating 5 Dragons

WordPress Tips

We would love to hear some tid bit tips from some of our producers out there – what did you figure out by breaking something? Or what did you need to learn in order to help someone? You can send these tid bits into me at amber@wppro.ca

Stick to what you are good at.

This doesn’t mean to never try anything new – what it means is that you don’t go ’round offering to do things for people that you don’t actually have the slightest clue how to do.

What you want to do is work on getting good at things you don’t have much idea about in the background. Work on it, and get good at it in the background, this way you can offer it as something else you are good at later on.

For instance, don’t tell your client that you can both build and host the site if you really only know how to build it. If you want to do both, figure out how to do the hosting in your own time in the background – then, once you are good at it, offer the service up to your clients.

So stick to what you are good at – if you want to be a jack of all trades figure out the new aspect behind the scenes before offering.

…Some random entertainment in the World of WordPress!

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

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

Amber’s Plugin

Build It For Me

https://wordpress.org/plugins/build-it-for-me-ai-creator/

The Lowdown:

This plugin is still pretty new, and is named Billy. This AI is designed to guide users through making changes to their site.

Once you download and activate this, you will see ‘Build It For Me’ in your left-hand menu. Click on that to go to the dashboard – and the first thing is a pop up telling you that by using this you are consenting to giving the builders of this plugin your email.

The next thing you are asked to do is to create a name and password for Billy so that it can work on your posts and review/edit them for you. You CAN just give it access to your own account – though it is recommended that you create an account with just ‘Author’ access.

You choose from an account already created here, and this is the user name that Billy will use to access your site to create and review content and configuration – it is also the credentials that will be given for who created the post and what not.

You choose the language, image width and height, then add in instructions for Billy. Instructions are:
Instructions for the writer bot: ‘Describe your website and how you want your posts written’
and
Instructions for the image generation bot: ‘Describe the style you want for your images’

You can come in and change these however many times you need or want to until it is working right.

Now one thing that really surprised me with the ‘widget generator’. Initially I had thought this was just a writer bot – but it has an area to add Elementor Widgets. You write down what you want/need – and the bot turns this into code that will build your widget for you.

This last bit takes a while to get it down… I initially asked for an image that has an overlay of just writing. Took me over an hour to specify it to the point where Billy could make sense of it and actually spit something out – turns out what I was asking for wasn’t all that easy! but – it worked!

For the writer aspect of Billy, it can take a while. If you put in the words ‘funny, light hearted, entertaining’ for the style of writing, it comes out with some rather entertaining stuff! The wait is worth it in my opinion!

Another aspect I almost missed entirely – once this is activated there is a little ‘B+’ at the top of your site – this is ‘ask Billy’. This means that you can ask him anything from any page in your site so long as you are logged in. When you click on it a little box appears on the right-hand side, and you can ask it anything. I asked about the privacy and it gave me good sound advice on how to keep my information more private. Takes a moment before answering, though no longer then the Chat GPT.

All in all from the basic run through I did with this plugin, I quite like it. Personally I am still a little uneasy with the amount of access one must grant the AI in order to fully use it – though this is something I think is just a thing that needs to be gotten used to as AI becomes integrated with many things. Finding a peace with the lack of privacy is something all of us who are a bit eccentric will need to do.

If you go to the WordPress.org home page for this plugin you will find a lot of information and ideas on how to use this plugin – like feeding Billy a user manual and having him spit out easier to follow directions to your clients, helping them to figure out and manage their own site. Worth going through the FAQ at the bottom as well!

Overall this plugin worked really well and I can see it being endlessly useful for people no matter what area you work in!

Rating: 5 Dragon

Earn yourself a Producership Credit!

There are a lot of ways that you as our Producers can utilize us as your tool to help yourself out, and help us at the same time – get a producership credit, do an interview, donate some time to get your name up here, all kinds of things! You can look further into the Producership credits options by going to our site wppluginsatoz.com and clicking on Time, Talent, or Treasure in our main menu.

Miscellaneous Announcements from all:

Have an announcement like a meetup, or to announce you’ll be on stage at a WordCamp? Let us know and we will add it here and help get your news out to the world!

To see the entire list you can follow the link here in the show notes, then click on ‘More WordCamps’ right below the list of the next 5. https://central.wordcamp.org/

If you are interested in finding a WordPress Meetup somewhere around the world you can go check out the places here: https://www.meetup.com/pro/wordpress/

Keep checking back every week to find out what else is going on!

And remember, the show notes found at wppluginsatoz.com have a whole lot of extra information to grab up that we don’t read on air so be sure to check them out!

How to reach us:

Feel like sending us something through the snail mail system? You can do that thanks to our brick and mortar address that we provide for you!
You can also reach us the more common way of the internets – have both of our internets available down below for ya!

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

John:

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

Amber:

• email: amber@wppro.ca

Today’s Plugins we covered were:

John’s Plugin:

EXIF Remover By Bob Matyas

• Automatic removal of EXIF data from all uploaded images.
• No configuration (just install and activate).
• Enhances user privacy and security by preventing data exposure.

Rating: 5 Dragons

Amber’s Plugin: 

Build It For Me By Build It For Me

• Create custom widgets for your page
• Create custom blogs for your site
• Get help through chat with Billy on any page of your site

Rating: 5 Dragon

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 – we may never stump my dad, but we can get some good conversation out of him at least!

• When going through your emails, how can you tell if it’s a ‘link farmer’ reaching out to you?

• What do you look for on a site to tell if it’s a legit or not?

Questions asked after closing credits:

• Is there a way to tell if you are gonna get super slammed with virus’s by going onto a site before going to that site?

• How can you tell if a site just infected your computer? What do you look for?