all right let's go live and [ __ ] about
Microsoft
definitely Microsoft is such a pain in
the neck man they cram an update down
your throat in the middle of the [ __ ]
night a secret one and everything is all
screwed up on your computer that you
left open and your sound doesn't work
correctly anymore because they thought
no you know we don't like the way you
have your sound configured perfectly we
think we it it works better this
way yeah yeah no and I don't know if any
of our listeners out there have had this
kind of issue but my daughter she has a
touchscreen laptop and after this update
her laptop thinks it's a tablet and it
it identifies as a tablet it it does not
like the keyboard it it will allow the
keyboard now but it is not like a
keyboard and it does not accept the
mouse at all she has to plug in a extra
Mouse and we're afraid to turn off the
tablet mode because what if we can't
turn it back
on so we're afraid to try that I don't
know what to say yeah so it from what I
like I said I'd love to hear back from
any of our listeners out there if anyone
bothers listening to this cuz you know
it'd be really nice to hear somebody
else who's gone through this maybe they
have an answer that that would be great
cuz so far as I can tell everywhere I've
looked I haven't really found an answer
just most people have found that it kind
of correct itself after a while no some
people they do like a hard restart some
people had to do a hard reset like it's
yeah it sounds like Windows is just not
recognizing the drivers
correctly I've never heard of a computer
deciding to identify as a tablet before
well it's an interesting experience if
it's got tablet mode in the
computer it sounds like it's not
recognizing the drivers for computer
mode yeah we tried updating those
drivers nothing happened yeah well like
I said like all all the drivers it's
just not recognizing them it's going I I
don't know what you're throwing at me I
don't care update it to your heart's
content I still don't understand
it or it's just or it's just Microsoft's
AI poking at you you know because they
do have that damn AI they crammed on our
throats so Cortana or whatever the hell
it is it makes it really irritating when
you're doing a Word document now because
it keep popping up and going hey can I
help no go away it's like clippy it
reminds me of clippy that's what it
reminds co-pilot coot for yeah it
reminds me of
clippy you're right it is like clippy
it's like he I see you're doing this can
I help you no go
away it is it's the new clippy it's the
new clippy for those who might remember
clippy you got to be pretty old on
computers to remember
clippy I liked clippy cuz clippy was fun
sometimes he had a hat
on yeah well that's what the new that's
what the new co-pilot is it's the new
clippy yeah oh my
God yeah and this whole uh sneaking the
updates into your computer your computer
doesn't restart anymore or I don't know
what they're doing but they're throwing
the updates in in such a way that the
only way you can tell that there was an
update is you have to relog into your
password thing and re and like re uh
reload things like nothing is closed
nothing was closed everything was all on
my Center monitor all the stuff I had
spread out on my other three monitors
was all on my Center monitor I'm like
what the hell and then I went to play
something it's like why don't I have no
sound and I look okay my sound's Chang
okay Microsoft cramed an update down my
throat because that's usually how I know
when they cram an update down my throat
is when sound is all screwed sneaky yeah
that is sneaky they just they just sneak
in do nothing but change all your
settings and cram an update down without
rebooting
yeah
yeah yeah which is scary un to its own
right I have to admit though they are
rolling pretty well for the sneak
attack they're getting high stats for
that yeah well it's still
irritating oh also ego says her screen
is sometimes laid out differently so
yeah okay I haven't really seen that on
the air like I'll still have stuff on
all three of my monitors and then they
haven't changed just that things like uh
my my word documents that I have open I
have to refresh them but they haven't
shut down or uh like if I have the
internet open I have to resign in to my
password account
yeah it's like the only thing that in my
sound why the sound I have no idea
they've been doing that for a couple of
years now it started a few years back
when we had massive sound issues on the
computer I had everything working and
then they suddenly and I couldn't get
around all their updates until it
finally started working
again oh one more thing that I started
noticing
um for some reason every time that they
do this update now uh I have Edge
popping up as my automatic one even
though in my settings I have it set
right now I like Opera so I'm using
Opera so I have it set as Opera is my
automatic one but I go and quick link
and Edge pops up yeah okay that's new I
haven't had that problem yeah
I I had to go and find a way around that
there's like a secret setting that you
don't have immediate access to it's very
irritating yeah it is it is very
irritating yeah well enough bitching
about Microsoft it's time for us to play
a little music and get on with the
show these are the days of
Thunder we going to make time stand
still
a quarter after
midnight and I'm watching the
wall sometimes I feel so
uptight I just can't sleep at
all every day doing the same old thing
we're losing
time the weekend comes we got to have
some fun and Rewind
these are the days of
Thunder we're going to make time stand
still we got to feel the
hunger hanging over the edge just to
taste the
th I feel the Rope are
tightening choking off our air
we need to grab some
lightning Friday's almost
here caught in a web we need to cut this
thread we're hanging
by where is it said you have to be half
dead to
survive these are the days of
Thunder we're going to make time stand
still we got to feel the hunger
hanging over the edge just to taste the
thrill these are the days of
Thunder we're going to make time stand
still we got to feel the hunger hanging
over the edge just to taste the thrill
these are the days of
Thunder but we're going to make time
stand still we got to feel the hunger
hanging over the edge just to taste the
free these are the days of thunder
well it must be
time absolutely ladies and gentlemen it
is time for WordPress plugins a to zed
not
Z it's episode
641 and we have plugins for Prime slider
add-ons news naming and some WordPress
news all coming up next on WordPress
plugins from from a to
zed WordPress it's the most popular
content management and website Solution
on the internet and with over 880,000
plugins to choose from how do you
separate the junk from the gems join us
for a weekly unrehearsed conversation
about the latest and greatest in
WordPress plugins this is WordPress
plugins from a to zed
well good morning good afternoon or good
evening wherever you had to be hiding
out there on the globe today coming to
you direct from the brewery overlooking
beautiful Southern Vancouver Island I'm
John overall and with me is the ever
lovely Amber overall and we're back baby
we are so back and for those of you
seeing it on the YouTube you can see a
snapshot of the new website we launched
over the holidays over at WP proo
z.com and we've got so many other things
as we move into this new year with lots
of EXC exciting news stuff freshh
bringing it live we are doing all kinds
of great stuff along the way new news
new articles lots of tips lots of Tricks
lots of other great things coming from
WP Pro A to Z which ties in of course
with WP plugins a toz and the other
company overall of wpr proat toz
host.com so make sure you go check us
all out for everything there all of that
being said I got to go some nice Primal
intro stuff there and that's about it
for me thank you for sharing John now
get down from that soap box so welcome
to episode 641 it is really nice to be
back 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 more press tips hopefully
everyone out there had a happy New Year
and good Christmas and all that good
jazz seems like we were still loved over
the holidays cuz our our pre-recorded
shows got listened to which is
awesome yes they did and we made some
really great um predictions in those
shows CU and that they're already coming
true some of them came true between the
time we recorded it and the time they
got published
yeah I found that one just
hilarious so yeah it was a good it was a
good time I don't know how the weather
has been for other people but like over
in my little area we we woke up with
minus 7 this morning and we've warmed up
to oh we're all we're all the way up at
three right now but and just to be a
little nice to our American friends uh
minus 7 is about 19 degrees Fahrenheit
so just so you guys can kind of
understand it seems that most Americans
my daughters have been going through the
Reddit of ask Canadians where all these
Americans are continuously asking
Canadians just how cold it is well I I
figure I'll start throwing out the
temperature in Fahrenheit for people
yeah yeah the Americans don't understand
Celsius so no and that's okay I don't
understand
fhe Fahrenheit is weird to me 30 degrees
is Frozen it's
weird
32 32 degrees is is frozen yeah that's
zero for
us that's so weird to me like 32 degrees
and I'm dying yeah in
Celsius so anyways have a couple of
reminds before we start start the show
today still the show starts at 12:30
Pacific time every other week on Monday
you can join us for the pre-stream and
entertainment like today uh starting
about 12:15 is you'll find the show
notes on the homepage WP plugins az.com
within first 24 hours is after every
show and this is a value forv value show
so help us get some Ling by hitting some
like buttons or crank us up have other
people listen to us you know it will
help us get noticed and then you get
remembered as a cool person who
introduced them to this awesome podcast
absolutely and and don't run away at the
end either we have some awesome Q&A
coming up at the end some questions are
sometimes the questions are specifically
designed for people who are newer to the
industry sometimes the questions are
designed in a very specific attempt to
stump my dad but you know it'll happen
again someday yeah someday you you got
it once you you may you may find it
again maybe today will be the day yeah
maybe I don't know I should go read your
questions in advance and start doing my
Google search now huh no you can't do
that that's
cheating on to the artist all right yes
we Have
Art we
do that is art by grock yes grock is
grock is still drawing our art he
managed to come back from his labotomy
yes he had a very sad labotomy there I
don't know how many people noticed but I
sure noticed oh everybody it was all
over the Internet and complaints on
Twitter it was made the rounds for about
2 weeks after his labotomy
no he seems to be coming back and
producing better better images again
yeah and he himself is just getting
better it's it's it's nice to see
yeah and the uh news for WordPress all
right let's please can everybody be
quiet please be quiet shut
up and now the news with
Amber I seem to be having a bit of a
hard time talking today it's been too
long since we've did the show I think
yeah it's only been a month since we've
done one
live so first up we have WordPress
vulnerability report so in this report
there are 342 plug-in vulnerabilities
and when I was uh writing this there
were
123 of them that had been patched looks
like they're still sitting at 123 yep
now in addition there's also 32
WordPress themes with vulnerabil ities
only three of them have been patched
when I was writing
this so this is something to keep an eye
on if
you sorry what spark custom Fields has
an has unpatched
vulnerabilities oh you know I didn't
even realize
that that's the fork they did so that's
why I'm
laughing oh dear and Gutenberg or
Gutenberg blocks
genter I think is how you're supposed to
say it I don't
know yeah so be sure to scroll through
check it out see what plugins you or
clients may be using same thing with the
themes be sure to check them out
yep and then we have the WordPress
vulnerability report from patch deck so
these guys always have the latest
information on what's going on regarding
latest and
vulnerabilities at the time of riding
this the most recent issue was from six
hours ago and it was for WP all import
Pro with a cross- site scripting vulner
upload vulnerability that's good to know
because I use that yeah so always a good
thing go and check these out and see if
there is an update uh waiting for
you now next thing I have here is Google
grip loosens in Europe and what it means
for your website so this is a a good
article I came across it came out on
December 5th so it's little old but
still very important to know about uh
it's especially important for people who
are working through their SEO this
article goes through and explains why
Google is losing their grip in Europe
and they talk about um they talk about
what the future is likely to hold and
they give some great suggestions on how
to optimize for other search engines cuz
with Google losing its grip for your SEO
you're going to want to oper opiz for as
many different uh search engines as
possible in North America we are still
very much Google
oriented however if they're losing their
grip in Europe we may see them starting
to lose their grip a bit over here as
well
so well there is a loss in Google
because of the things Google's done
their core updates there's a there's
been a loss for people that that do
blogging in particular mhm they've had
to start switching to focusing on other
search engines and uh I can't remember
the names of them now but it is
important yeah there's there's been some
serious issues the last three major
updates over 2024 it seriously impacted
people's
SEO so yeah people are starting to get a
little sick of it I think yep they
are next up we have WP engine gets its
prelimin Ary injunction against
automatic mwag so for for those of you
that are still hiding under a rock and
didn't hear
this well not just that for anybody who
like me has kind of been focusing on
other things because I didn't I didn't
come across this
until until like maybe December 20th
yeah so yeah it is a good thing and the
information in this article is good to
have especially if you are a WP engine
user
um they do go through the various uh the
the various aspects of what's going
on okay we just stumbled on you where'd
you go yeah sorry
um no bring the brain back all right
well the the article explains all the
things that WP engine asked for and uh
receive from the courts and Matt had to
back down from his um
um craziness for lack of a better term
so good article read he had to back down
he had to give him what they were
actually needing hopefully this means
the stability is going to return to both
the wp engine users and the WordPress
Community as well the stability is going
to hold there until the court case is
decided
now okay and the court case the court
case is now going to take anywhere from
a year to two years to
complete you know so that's all this was
was to prevent him from doing and
interfering in their business while the
court case went through because it was
just it was it was literal interference
in a business it's like you know
somebody tells you you got to you got to
move and you start punching holes in the
wall because you have to move that's
basically what it boils down to so yeah
but they but when they took it to court
and they won he had to reverse all that
all the hole punch he had to put patches
back up and now it's there so WP engine
has got their stability until the court
case is decided depends on which way it
goes and that's going to take anywhere
from a year to two years because courts
move
slow so the next thing I have up here is
WP engine Cuts weekly contributing hours
to wordpress.org by 99% no no no you got
that you got that wrong you did change
that title WordPress
automatic um cut the hours not WP engine
it
says automatic oh I must I completely
misread that I apologize my bad
automatic I I I got to get that title
right because WP engine's not cutting
nothing it's it was automatic it was
Matt going you know what I'm yeah GNA do
something else here to think I'm going
to cut my hours down so this this is
another interesting article about what
he did no why he did it he he got some
of Matt's information in there but in
the end is just that Matt decided to
pull something else that he could get
away with
well what I wanted to bring to
everyone's attention is how this could
affect you and like I don't know if this
is something that's going to actually be
sustainable I don't think it's going to
be permanent I think it's going to be
shortterm that's my personal opinion
that seems to be a lot of people's
opinions but in the meantime there is
going to be damage that's going to be
done there's going to be security and
development concerns there's going to be
uh like critical information and
infrastructure like there there's going
to be things that are going to happen
that could affect your site so be aware
and don't just brush off things that are
starting to act a little funny make sure
you pay attention to them and fix
whatever you can yeah so it's I go ahead
I just wanted to bring this to people's
attention how it could affect your site
it's a good article to go over yeah in
the
end it's going to have the impact
biggest impact it's going to have is
that automatic was the biggest
contributor to the core WordPress core
files and whatever plugins they support
because of course the WordPress core is
what runs wordpress.com automatics
company and so in the end they'll have
to go back to putting time back into the
core to help ensure that they stay valid
and running
so yeah do do be sure to go and read
this over it has a lot of really good
information okay
and the last one I have for today is
employees enter sensitive data into gen
AI prompts far too
often so this is actually becoming a
real issue people are putting in
sensitive uh sensitive work stuff into
the that into the AI generator like
everything you put into this it can use
and it's not just the training of the AI
that you're doing the people who control
it now have access to this information
so putting in that sensitive private
delicate information from your company
is not a good idea no it would not be a
good idea no I just thought it was you
know a good idea to bring this to people
and suggest that you if you really need
to use the AI generator to help you with
your sensitive
work change the the the facts I
guess change it get the idea change of
facts don't give away your company
Secrets
yep all right or your own secrets for
that matter all
right so I guess we have one we need we
need a little we need a little jingle
from my for for me here you know it's
like we'll go with this one that's true
there you go all right I was going to
suggest that you record your dog barking
or whining and have his his sound for
this corner this is more his Corner than
your corner I can do that next time he's
barking and whining at me he's being
quiet now he's sleeping by he's guarding
the front door right now
ah okay um well I got a few articles
here talking about a few things the
first one here is a big security uh risk
out there now a fishing plugin has been
discovered in the wild now this isn't a
plugin you can download anywhere
fortunately but what it is is it's a
malware from a Russian hacking group
when they hack a WordPress website they
stuff this plugin into your WordPress
website and it creates fishing Pages
it's a very interesting article read and
what it also does is it they do it in
particular hunting down e-commerce
websites and they
intercept your payment page so that when
people go to pay out through your
processor it goes to their payment page
they collect your data it goes into real
time they automatically start stealing
the credit CR card and using it as fast
as they can because they know there's a
limited lifespan on stolen credit
cards and uh yeah this is a very
interesting article so make sure you
keep your website
secure as the best as possible but this
is a really interesting article and read
the fact that they went to the trouble
of creating a plugin to do
this so
yeah so I thought that was an
interesting little tidbit people want
need to know about good question for you
mhm uh hon wants to know if you download
an llm to your local machine and set up
AI there is it then private like my
thoughts are that it's not private
unless it's fully disconnected from the
internet and can no longer upload or
receive updates that would be my guess
too my my guess is if it's on your
machine it's connected to the internet
and it's got access to all your drives
and all your files and all your whatever
you have on your computer that it can
then scroll through it all open and
close stuff to its heart content and
then it can share it off to its Home
Place although if you did download it
and onto a machine that you never
connect to the internet that would be
totally private yep that would be to
that that is literally the only way you
can guarantee to be totally private now
is to not be connected to the internet
once you're connected to the internet
you're not I mean after all our
discussion on Microsoft sneaking into
your computer and cramming an update
down tells you that your computers
because that hole that's there that they
use to do that is a hole if somebody
evil gets a hold of that hole imagine
what they can cram what they can cram
into your computer yeah you know it's
like people think oh these are great
until somebody evil gets hold of it and
uses it wrong
so yeah unfortunately there is nothing
there all right got some other news here
uh we predicted back in our either
Christmas or New Year's show about the
rise of new repos well it's coming to
pass
fellow over here at um James welb well
James James WBS he's created a plugin
for um the
repo and he's got a website called the
rep.org and what this plugin does is it
allows you to start downloading plugins
directly from
GitHub this are the beginnings of what
we talked about in distributed repos and
the choice of rep post for your West
website so this is happening folks it's
going to come and it's going to get
better and better and he's already
building out a a a re repository and his
plug-in allows you to get plugins
directly from the repository or from the
GitHub
repository so more and more of that is
coming down the pike I just put an
article up on WP Pro A to Z of my
predictions with some links to other
repos and other things of what's coming
down the
pike I'm actually really excited to give
this ago I haven't downloaded it yet and
tried it but I do want to try it cuz it
will just make life so much easier in
general yeah well there's a lot of
things that are changing if if if
Matt's Tantrums have done nothing else
they've made everyone reink the entire
ecosystem for
WordPress yes and how it and how it is
all
right here's something else at that was
created over the holidays people
suddenly discovered when Matt was
talking talking about all this different
information about like he all these
different things he had knowledge about
everybody's WordPress websites a lot of
people used to think he was just talking
about
wordpress.com well not so much it turns
out not only does WordPress call home
with a a few key components it calls
home with a whole lot of stuff about
your website so people have started
creating plugins to block that
information from leaving your website
this is which is fair which is fair you
know this is one of the first ones it's
the hide your Matt it's the hide your
website for Matt Mullen wig it's a
really good article on it talks about it
and I've seen a couple of different
plugins I followed some of this stuff
and I forgot to copy all of the links
when I was following it through the
holidays there was a lot going on during
the holiday season in the early part of
January around WordPress not just not
just Matt and his things but every time
he did something it made every body
rethink everything that's going
on and they've got all kinds of
different events and notifications
leaving your website being reported back
to wordpress.com or.org and they're
collecting that data what they do with
that data who knows but of course
probably somewhere in the terms of
service when you agree to use WordPress
software you agree to it which is like
everything they they got so many things
in terms of service nobody ever reads
them I still won't forget the story I
don't know if it's true or not but there
was a story back in the early 2000s
around
20012 that a company to prove that
nobody ever read the terms of service
they put a small line in there it said
if you read all of this we're giving out
$10,000 to the to the first five people
that claimed it's
$10,000 and their software was
downloaded hundreds of thousands of
times and they had one person claim the
money so I don't know how true it is but
you know it's one of those one of those
stories that makes the
rounds other thing
here we've got um okay here's where you
can get the uh plugin from GitHub it's
called the wp anti API privacy plugin
and it talks about all of it so I have
the links in the show notes where you
can go get the plugin you need from what
we just talked
about okay there is an interesting
letter that was put out um to ask for
reform in WordPress and this word this
letter here was signed by the top by 20
of the top people in WordPress only two
of them came out publicly but according
to the repository the other 18 were
verified that they were actually signing
this letter so 18 people and the reason
of course they didn't want to say
anything is for fear of Retribution for
coming out public this is a shame that
the community or the wordpress. or
wordpress.org Community has got that
much that much fear power over people
but it is a very good letter to read and
understand what they're asking for a
change in government some transparency
some change in other miscellaneous
things that have not been going on for
some time our bdfl is no longer working
for WordPress it's time to change the
benevolent dictator for life and uh go
into a new kind of uh organization
system
so this is an interesting
article and of course it really is I did
give that a read it's definitely worth
looking over yeah of course the other
one we're talking about we've talked
about the different repositories
appearing here's one here at uh
shift.org
shift wp.png
a juniper author it's a WordPress plugin
to manage plug-in and theme ownership on
various platforms so if you're a plug if
you're a Plugin or it's a if you're a
Plugin or theme developer this is
something you can help include into your
plugins and themes so that people can
get their get their plug-in
elsewhere so we got all I remember when
GitHub oh sorry go ahead when when
GitHub I remember when GitHub started uh
nobody uh people started helping each
other out with like coding and stuff on
there but I said that I thought
eventually it was going to end up being
a place where people go to get answers
for everything having to do with any
kind of tech yeah it's kind of cool to
see that now it's like the beginning of
of the new repository and everything
it's it's really cool to have been able
to watch that grow MH it has been
interesting it's uh definitely uh doing
along greater I found out a couple of
days ago github's owned by
Microsoft really yeah I didn't know that
me either yeah Microsoft's behind it
because I used to use bit bucket which
is another G git type
repository so anyway another one I an
article I picked up over the holidays
you know oh this is this is along with
the same thing Juniper this is from the
same one Dwayne story so it seems like
you know Geeks when they get free time
over the holidays what they do they sit
down and code they're
just you know it's like it's so
interesting and the final one I've got
here for those that want to see where
this started there's a link in here for
Matt's slamming of WP engine at the uh
2024 uh WP Meetup so you can that's gone
viral uh that's that's beyond viral
that's what started this whole that's
what started down this whole mess we've
been in for the last several months and
it will continue for the next year or
two you know it's going to ease off now
that we've gotten through the worst of
it now it's going to every time
something comes up from the court action
that's when everything will pick back up
again yeah so so now it's a matter of
all the people that have started things
and to see how far they can get them
going there is a lot happening out there
in the WordPress community and a lot of
good things are happening for all the
people that are panicking that WordPress
is going to die nah don't panic just
relax keep your website running double
check everything's up to date if you
have to hire someone to fix your code do
whatever but this community is so much
bigger than Matt Mullen WG claims it is
there are there are hundreds of
thousands of people that make their
living with WordPress now it's not just
a small community it was when I started
working with it um 17 years ago you know
no it's it's grown massively and
WordPress seems to be the choice for
people who are coming into the industry
new as well yeah and it's because it's
easy and because the plugin system is
what makes it so great because you start
with a core simplified website and like
I need it to do this oh there's a plugin
for that I need it to do this oh there's
a plugin for that oh hey I've got this
and I need this to also do this oh
there's plugins to go with that you know
I'm discovering some really cool plug
when I when we rebuilt out the wp Pro A
to Z I discovered some plugins on top of
plugins to give functionality that I
didn't even know existed
so oh yeah they're they're pretty
amazing so it it's there's a lot out
there folks and it's not going anywhere
so relax enjoy the show buy some more
popcorn and you know with that I know we
have extras here but you know just go
check out the extras in there it is time
now to just jump on
into Dragon rating
time all right first one I've got for
you right off the bat this is a plugin I
discovered a couple of months ago but I
only had peripheral handling with it and
I decided to go check it out because I
thought it might be useful in my new
site build it turns out it is useful but
not super useful depends on how you want
to use it it's called Prime slider and
it's a hero slider plugin really
fantastic for very specific uses and the
free version which is what I tested out
here is quite nice and it handles a lot
of things and what it's designed to do
is it pulls content from your posts and
posts and pages to display it doesn't do
a very good job of creating unique
sliders unless you go to the premium
version I believe I didn't get to check
the premium version so I don't know but
in the free version it allows you to
pull the content from your posts and
pages and creates some really truly
amazing sliders um hero sliders for the
top of your page but it doesn't do much
else beyond that and it does have
limitations you can't really move the
content around very easily without CSS
in it and you can't do a whole lot of
changes in the free version although I
did like it and it is very useful it's
very easy to install it does a really
great job and on the whole a fantastic
plug-in and of course now that the year
of the dragon has come to the end I'm no
longer going to focus solely on five
Dragon plugins so this one gets a four
dragon rating still quite good though go
check it out Prime slider add-ons for
Elementor revolution of a slider hero
slider post slider and e-commerce slider
ding ding ding
ding I think I won for longest title
today I don't know about that oh okay I
got a long tile too all right well let's
see what you got here it's just
where so my tip to everyone
today uh is how many times have you
heard don't put off until later what you
can do today I'm sure everyone has heard
that well as much as I'd like to try to
follow that uh there is actually a limit
CU if you're like me or like John or
pretty much everybody who I've met so
far that is into WordPress and other
developing things once you get into
something you are so in it that you
forget to eat you forget to sleep you
forget to hydrate you forget all those
things
so maybe set an alarm for yourself
really the tip is about making sure that
you take care of yourself no matter how
interesting your work is how interesting
that rabbit hole is that you're happily
jaunting down make sure that you have an
alarm make sure that or that you live
with someone who is kind enough to like
feed and water you when you're not
paying
attention because that is a very major
downside to when you end up falling into
a rabbit hole uh there are definitely
ways to work around that but yeah just
don't fall so deeply into things that
you can't get out and remember there are
ways to keep yourself from falling in
too deeply so that that's that was my
tip today just be careful take care of
yourself all righty well that's it
always take care of yourself
yep and my plugin today is name your
news customize your WordPress dashboard
news experience okay yeah you do win for
long for long title I I I win for long
title today there's our new contest
every show so you can find the longest
title so this is from web 321 they are
pretty awesome they sent this into to us
to have us check it out and this is
actually a really useful plug-in for
people who need to have access to
particular news
information on their dashboard of their
site so it is is a free plugin uh you
need to go to web 3 21's website in
order to get it though I have the link
here for you now when you first upload
and activate this nothing obvious
happens so what you need to do is you
need to go to your leftand menu to
settings and then you'll see name your
news click on this and you'll be brought
to the dashboard for the plug-in here
you will have the option to rename your
news to anything you like but be careful
cuz because I decided to name it unicorn
rainbow poop and you know what that's
exactly what shows up as on the
dashboard so if you share it with
anyone if you share this site with
anyone if anyone else is going to go
look name it something appropriate yeah
because everyone will see it
so um other than that uh it's really
easy to use it has five slots for where
you can enter in your RSS feed really
what you're doing is you're taking the
URL for the websites that you want the
RSS feed from and you're putting it into
these slots and then what that does you
click save and you suddenly have all the
latest news on your dashboard from them
and it's it's not really in categories
what it is it goes from the most recent
piece of news to the oldest piece of
news so like the different uh the
different sites is going to have uh
they're going to be mixed in together so
you can't unless you like hover over it
really read it you're not going to be
able to tell who it's from so be careful
with that if you need to know who it's
from for whatever reason it is very
useful
though uh you also have the option of
choosing the refresh frequency as well
so you can choose hourly daily weekly or
monthly uh I did notice that the first
time I clicked on dashboard after
setting all this up it took a little
longer than usual but it hasn't happened
again so I think it's just the first
time that it's really calibrating the
first time for everything it's
us this is really useful so I definitely
recommend that people who need to go and
uh read news regulated like we do for
the show you need this on your dashboard
definitely get it check it out try it
out see if it's any good for
you um yeah I rate this at five
dragons all righty then come my mouse
what's not appropriate about
unicorn what was that something
something Dragon uranic corn un rain
rainbow uh did you make one mention
about this plugin is that uh you can
choose your your top five favorite RSS
feeds for that
news I didn't hear
it uh no you you choose uh five Ur you
can choose up to five URLs five five but
but they're RSS feeds they're not just
URLs they're RSS feed okay that's
different yes okay I I I didn't quite
catch it all so I wanted to clarify that
that is one important thing like if you
have five favorite news sites you can
take their RSS feed and put it in here
so you can have your five favorite news
sites showing up in the plugin showing
up on your dashboard of your WordPress
website so okay so this is something I'm
a little confused on uh the way that you
fill this out is you put the URL in
there but is an RSS feed different than
putting the URL for the news page yeah
the RSS feed has has a extra set of
letters after it something RS
s oh okay that's not something that I'm
very familiar with I haven't really
worked with RSS feeds so okay well we'll
educate you on it as time goes by
then all
right it's time to talk about our
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WP plugins A to
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letter today's plugins we covered for
for those that still know how to
write you know cursive has actually
become a superpower it is it is it's a
secret code now
it
is go ahead so today's plugins we
covered were you I covered up the prime
slider add-ons for element revolution of
a slider hero slider post slider and
e-commerce slider by BD themes a
responsive viewable on any device
including mobile tablet and desktop SEO
optimized with tidal bread clums links
Etc highly optimized for web and server
performance plugin I gave it a four
dragon rating
and I covered name your news but
something appropriate customize your
WordPress Dash dashboard news experience
by web
321 it has easy news directly to your
dashboard it is easy to use and is
lightweight plugin that plays nice with
others I rated it at five dragons very
cool it's question and answer time with
John and
Amber so if anyone out there has any
questions I'd like to have asked here on
the show you can send them in to me at
Amber
w.ca and we'll see if we can St my dad
again and just a quick thing uh HDM
what's not appropriate well it really
depends on who you are and who you work
with that that's really what it comes
down to if it's totally cool with
everyone you work with go for
it so the first question is uh actually
this is all about RSS feeds because I
don't really know much about them what
exactly is an RSS feed and RSS feed you
know if you have a podcast app or you
know you podcast apps help popularize RS
and news readers help popular as RS RSS
feed is a extra little segment outside
of your website you can go to just about
any WordPress URL um and type in feed
after the end of it and you'll get a
whole bunch of what looks like code
which is the
uh um I can't remember the name name of
it it's a markup code which is then oh
read by RSS readers and put back into
normal readable English for you so RSS
feeds have been around as long as
podcast if it wasn't for RSS feeds
podcasts wouldn't exist in their current
form because okay the podast the RSS
feed can be separated down into specific
segments of your website like every
category on your WordPress website has a
separate RSS feed from your homepage
your home page has an RSS feed your news
your news section has an RSS feed
everything has its own RSS feed so and
your question was RSS feeds say security
risk no not really you know they're
about as much a security risk as any
other URL on your website and they that
was actually one of my last questions oh
I'm on the last question oh yeah oh I
went back there okay well for those of
you who listen after the show come back
and we'll talk about that one
later um at any rate the the RSS feed is
something that has been so useful I used
to Google used to make the most
fantastic RSS feed reader I can't
remember what it's called now but you
could subscribe to multiple RSS feeds
and it would collate all your feeds to a
daily readable headlines and a quick
snippet so you could just scroll through
and grab your news and then of course
because it was doing so well Google
killed it like everything else it does
well um but it it is it's it is a way to
read the data of a website in machine
readable language that's quick and easy
and then to convert it into something
more easily to read or to listen to such
as
podcasts I mean even uh what's even more
interesting like Odyssey has RSS feeds
for all of the accounts on there and
those can be submitted to the uh podcast
uh the podcast index so then you can
actually get your Odyssey videos on your
podcast on a modern podcast app as an as
podcast I discovered that a few weeks
ago when I got tired of always being
stuck at my computer when I wanted to
listen to a show that's mostly audio and
uh I went and seeing if it was there and
I went no I wonder if I can put the RSS
feed into into the podcast index and
sure enough you can insert the IND in it
and the podcast index index is it you
can download it to your podcast
app so
that really cool
yeah so go over to your next question I
think we kind of covered it
too well the next question was how would
you get an RSS feed if you didn't have
one of those awesome new plugins where
you can just drop the URL into the
plugin and click save because that's
something I've noticed is there's a lot
of plugins where you don't actually put
the RSS information in there you just
put the URL and it goes and grabs the
RSS feed for you and brings it to you
that is what I think this particular I
one is doing let's see if it's going to
work oh the problem is is on uh on
Firefox it doesn't have a built-in RSS
reader so but what what we can do here
we'll go we'll go pop it into Chrome and
uh show you on this one
website you where we've got the things
this is your RSS feed so at web 321 our
plugins you just put feed after it and
boom an RSS feed and it gives you all
the information about the
plugins as they come down the pike so
you can literally do that with any
WordPress website unless they've turned
off their RSS feeds which can be done in
WordPress you can turn off the RSS feeds
but if they haven't turned off the RSS
feeds you can take any category segment
any component of their site and just put
feed after it and you get the RSS feed
for that section it doesn't work on a
single poster page of course but it does
work for
categories and other
things I tried it on wbp Tavern yeah and
uh all that came up was all of the
comments yeah well the comments are part
of the feed so if you did it on the
front
page no I I did it um on the news yeah
the news page okay and all I'm getting
is all the comments from all the
different news Okay so that there their
RSS feed is working strangely that's the
best I can guess I don't
know but there it's just interesting
yeah it it's an interesting thing the
RSS feeds are a great useful item
they've been around since God the early
2000s you know they they they made news
reading and sharing across the internet
you used to have to specifically set
them up on your website before the
creation of some of the
programs so if you wanted to get the RSS
feed you put in SL feed and then you
what copy and paste them or what do you
do in order to get that connected to
your website if you don't have a Plugin
or something um there is no way to
connect it to your website un you have a
plugin to interpret the code or
interpret the code just okay you have to
interpret what it comes on you saw that
jumbled mess of hardto read yes data you
need you need something to interpret it
and then lay it back out in English
readable
format okay I understand now yeah so
that's how it works all right all right
I I've got two more questions for after
the credits all right and we gave you
guys a sneak preview for those listening
the downloads come on over and listen to
us on the YouTubes to catch the second
set of questions and sometimes we have a
good discussion after that so with that
being said I'm going to let our girl
take us out of this show and on to the
next so if you're on the YouTube just
hang around and listen for a minute or
two reminders for the show all show
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John overall. comom or email them
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joining us and have a great
day thanks for listening to the show
this show is copyright by John overall.
comom so until next time have yourselves
a good morning good afternoon or good
evening wherever you happen to be out
there on the globe today
all righty dad now it's time for the
rest of the show yep only a couple more
questions and one of them is kind of a
two-parter question but so are RSS feeds
security risk at all yeah well I sort of
answered that one already before because
I was looking at the wrong place I
scrolled down too far down the page um
well yes but why
not because what what's the risk is your
your website URL
risk yes okay so then that's the max
security risk of it okay you know it's
like if they figure out how to crack
through your RSS feed to get into your
site well so be it they're they're
finding other ways to get into it that
is the risk it's it's minimal it's the
same risk that you're having a website
on the Internet is it is the same exact
risk okay that makes sense so it's it's
not any more risky or less risky than
anything else you do with your website
to present to present to the public so
really it's just an unseen Post Yeah it
it's it's literally an unseen post it's
it's a URL that nobody goes to except
for very specific
purposes I mean it's it's always been
there it's been in WordPress since the
very beginning but almost nobody takes
advantage of RSS unless they're
producing a podcast producing a podcast
you take advantage of RSS if you produce
news and you submit your RSS feed to
news readers you're taking advantage of
the RSS to get your content out there
for people to read and to lead them back
to your website to see the rest of your
website and what you're
selling so all right so that's all
that's that that's all the risk it is
it's it's minimal as it's it's as risky
as every other URL on your website
is so the last question is have you ever
come across those who charge for uses of
of their RSS feeds if not is there a
reason why someone might do that or are
they just always free and why are they
always free okay this one here is a yes
and no kind of answer is I vaguely
recall someone trying to do that years
ago make it but for those of us that are
resourceful you can get right around
that
firewall because the RSS feed is always
there and it's always free you can block
it or you can try and firewall it or pay
wall it but resourceful people can find
another way around you have to block
every
single RSS URL which is almost every
single URL on your
site wow um you know except for
individual Pages or post those are the
only ones that don't have an RSS I don't
believe I can double check that by just
going to a website
here let's see
here no it's you get nothing if you if
you just put feed after the last URL but
if it's a category if it's a if it's
um um a keyword
um there's an RSS feed for it and it's
really hard to do it's kind of hard to
do so it's either they turn them off
entirely there's there are news sites
that have turned off their RSS feeds
entirely to force people to actually pay
to get to the content
okay okay because that what you can do
you can block the full ability of your
website to use RSS feeds
period And there are people that do that
but they are always free because it's
always
there it's it's just it's part of the
system it's part of it's part of the
original open web system it's the reason
why podcasts cannot be
killed okay even though people like
Spotify
um Apple index uh Apple all the several
other big ones um I can't remember them
all right now are trying to kill
podcasts by controlling them they can't
because RS they can't no RSS as long as
you control your RSS feed you can make
your content available to anyone and of
course the new podcasting index
2.0 was created so that it'll always be
a available there will always be a
central index that is free for anyone
and everyone to submit their RSS feeds
so people can find you
easier which is great and of course ever
since Apple who dominated the podcast
player Apple dominated it for
ages and then became douche canoes about
it now there's dozens of free podcasting
apps available for the modern podcast
index which has even more data than what
the original podcast one does it's like
you can there's there's some podcast
apps that if you set up your podcast
correctly people can give you uh crypto
coins directly from their podcast app
crypto tips directly from the podcast
app to you there is your automatic image
plane there's so many things they can do
now so it's it's not going away and RSS
is not going away it's part of the
original design of the internet for the
open
internet and no matter how hard they try
to shut the internet down and block it
because of the original open design of
the internet they can't shut it down
entirely yeah I think I actually
understand what an RSS feed is a bit
better now thank you for all those yeah
no
problem that's it yeah I think the
reason why I don't really understand RSS
feeds is because I've never had to learn
about them because they're all just kind
of automatically uploaded yeah well it
was something that I learned about way
back in the beginning of the internet
and uh it for for what it stands for is
really simple
syndication oh really yeah that's what
it stands for is really simple
syndication it was based on the idea of
syndicated news from the 70s and 80s
where you know one news source would put
it out and it would go into a central
syndication point and all the other news
people they thought it was a worthy
story they'd pick it up and reprint
it so that's that's where the idea is
based out
of that's cool all right hemp and
rearranged his pillows we should give
him some cheers for that there you
go congratulations
hen yeah I've been there where like you
have to start with nothing but a laptop
you're starting from scratch creating an
office at home it sucks eventually
though your office at home will rival
anything you could have ever possibly
dreamt of having when you had an actual
office so you'll get there all righty
well I think that's it we're going to
call it a show at this thanks everyone
for showing up we look forward to
hearing from more people in the coming
year and who knows if life goes way it
should go you could hear from us more
often than every couple of
weeks things could change be awesome all
right with all that being said a little
bit of music carry us on out of here
these are the days of
Thunder we're going to make time stand
still a quarter after
midnight and I'm watching the wall
sometimes I feel so
uptight I just can't sleep at
all every day doing the same old thing
we're losing
time the weekend comes we got to have
some fun and
Rewind these are the days of
Thunder we're going to make time stand
still we got to feel the
hunger hanging over the edge just to
taste the
th I feel the Rope
tightening choking off our
air we need to grab some
lightning Friday's almost
here caught in a web we need to cut this
thread we're hanging
by where is it said you have to be half
dead to
survive these are the days of
Thunder we're going to make time stand
still we got to feel the hunger hanging
over the edge just to taste the thrill
these are the days of
Thunder we're going to make time stand
still we got to feel the
hunger hanging over the edge just to
taste the thrill these are the days of
Thunder but we're going to make time
stand still we got to feel the hunger
hanging over the edge just to taste the
three these are the days of
Thunder all righty folks that's all
we've got for you now take care byebye
take care oh my God that is amazing
aming oh no obviously we just lost the
satellite feet