It’s Episode 274 and we’ve got plugins for Switching Themes, Site Giveaways, Twitter Walls, Back-End File Search, iThemes Security, and a full review of the all new Ninja Forms 3. It’s all coming up on WordPress Plugins A-Z!
Audio Player
Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed
Subscribe to WPPlugins A to Z on Apple Podcasts | Podcast Index | Email | RSS
Thank Our Donors
We would like to thank our donors to the show, everyone who donates $50 or more will be acknowledged here with a mention and a link back to their page and all those below will be anonymous
Randolph from Phillips & Associates CRE, Inc. donated $50 — https://TulsaProperties.com he has a voice message
Thanks to GlobalSpex Web Development https://globalspex.com/ who donated $50 no message though.
$50 donation Thanks to Jez at JezWeb Pty Ltd https://www.jezweb.com.au/ Appreciate you taking the time to publish this weekly podcast. This donation is on behalf of Jezweb client COMO Leather and Furniture in Newcastle Australia. Their website https://www.como.com.au uses woocommerce as an enquiry catalog.
Robert Lopez has pledged to us on Pateron at $50 so the membership section will be delivered by end of month.
Thanks to all donors who came in under $50
You can now donate though Patreon at https://patreon.com/wppluginsatoz where you can donate on a monthly basis. As an incentive if you donate $40 a month you will gain access to the exclusive plugin tutorial videos on how to setup and use the plugins we review and use.
WordPress News and other interesting WordPress related posts:
W3 Total Cache 0.9.5 Packages XSS Vulnerability Patch with Major Update – https://wptavern.com/w3-total-cache-0-9-5-packages-xss-vulnerability-patch-with-major-update
WordPress Continues to Be by Far the Most Hacked CMS
WordPress plugin update leads to thousands of sites exposing users to adware – https://www.scmagazineuk.com/wordpress-plugin-update-leads-to-thousands-of-sites-exposing-users-to-adware/article/523672/
The Top Three Most Common WordPress Errors – and How to Fix Them – https://www.htmlgoodies.com/beyond/cms/the-top-three-most-common-wordpress-errors-and-how-to-fix-them.html
Listener Feedback / Audio Clips
Remember you can leave us a Speakpipe message and you can submit their own recorded review.
Speakpipe message from Randolph
iTunes Review
The best podcast on WordPress plug-ins
Five Star review in iTunes by OkieOilman from USA on September 22, 2016
WordPress Plug-ins from A to Z is the best resource for plug-in reviews you’ll find anywhere. This is an indispensable addition to website developers. John and Marcus do not hold back from an honest and fair opinion of the plug-ins they review. They are not bought and paid for by advertisers therefore they render a great value to those of us who need an honest opinion. They are the workhorses of WordPress!
We have a video review from Jeremy at Jezweb.com.au which can be see here https://youtu.be/puQNvz3sQIk
**WordPress Plugins Reviewed by John Overall**
iThemes Security (formerly Better WP Security)
- Version: 5.6.1
- Author: iThemes
- Last Updated: 2 months ago
- Requires WordPress Version: 4.1 or higher
- Compatible up to: 4.6.1
- Active Installs: 800,000+
- WordPress.org Plugin Page »
- Plugin Homepage »
The Lowdown:
Been a while since I have looked at a security plugin and may have down this one in the past. This plugin is pretty easy to use in is freemium version and offer some pretty decent protections. It allows you to set up some email monitoring. You do need to get the free API key then go though a few of the basic settings and make sure to add your IP address to the white list. You can set up file changes monitoring which is a good thing to have. For a while you will see many and not know what they are but after a while you will know what is normal changes vs abnormal. All in all pretty good plugin. the premium version offers malware scanning security checks.
Rating 4 Dragons
GiveASAP and PRO
sent in by Igor Benic
- Version: 1.3
- Author: Igor Benic
- Last Updated: 3 weeks ago
- Requires WordPress Version: 4.0 or higher
- Compatible up to: 4.5.4
- WordPress.org Plugin Page »
- Plugin Homepage »
The lowdown:
I examined both the freemium version and the pro-version of this plugin and it is a great way to do a give away on your site. It allows you to set a start date and stop date as well as assign image to the sponsor and images for social sharing, Peoplr can get extra entries from sharing the contest.. It is smooth and fast and does a great job so much so that I have reached out to the author in hope he can do some modifications for a project I am working on.
Rating 5 Dragons.
WP Backend File Search & Editor Tweaks
pro plugin sent in by Austin Scherer
only $12
The lowdown:
This is a great plugin to help you do some coding from the back-end of WordPress. It seems very light and is easy to use and only $12. It allows you to look though your files for keywords and it find them in all files present and give you an editing window with different theme to make it an easy task. Line numbers and word wrapping. a pretty great plugin
Rating 5 Dragons.
**WordPress Plugins Reviewed by Marcus Couch**
Ninja Forms 3
Drag and drop fields in an intuitive UI to create create contact forms, email subscription forms, order forms, payment forms, send emails and more! This was recently upgraded with much fanfare. I just don’t see that much improvement that would make me want to switch from the full functionality that I get from Gravity Forms.
Rating: 3 out of 5
WP Twitter Wall
WP Twitter wall shows a live Twitter wall at your event! Install the plugin on your website, get a video projector, then display a wall of people’s tweets reacting about your show. The twitterwall will be updated twice a minute, adding new tweets and updating the publication times of the old ones.
Rating: 4 out of 5
Theme Switcha
Theme Switcha makes it easy for the site admin to preview and develop new themes without changing the default theme. So visitors will continue to use your site normally without ever knowing that you are testing new themes behind the scenes. And if you want to enable your visitors to switch themes, you can do that as well by adding a shortcode to any WP Post or Page. Then each visitor will be able to select and preview any of your WordPress themes.
Rating: 4 out of 5
Plugins Overview:
John’s Plugins: iThemes Security (formerly Better WP Security) -4, GiveASAP – 5, WP Backend File Search & Editor Tweaks -5
Marcus’ Plugins: Ninja Forms – 3, WP Twitter Wall – 4, Theme Switcha – 4
Commercial:
Time to share this space with others, so currently I would like to let others know about a great non profit society that is just starting out in Washington State called Kitsap Advocacy Resources Education Services which help with advocacy for those in need visit them at https://kitsapadvocacykares.org/
Interact with your Hosts