[00:00:08.28] - Gordon
Hello.

[00:00:09.08] - Taylor
Hello.

[00:00:09.19] - Gordon
My name's Gordon from Drayson Design.

[00:00:11.23] - Taylor
And I'm Taylor from The Creative Tinker.

[00:00:13.23] - Gordon
And welcome to "This Week With Taylor and Gordon," a weekly podcast and vidcast, where we talk about things that have affected our businesses over the last seven days. And welcome back.

[00:00:23.02] - Taylor
Welcome back.

[00:00:23.21] - Gordon
It's been a week of weird weather. It's been really, really sunny on some days, really hot. And then other days it's just been a washout and really bad rain. We had one day in particular that was just completely torrential. So yes, it's been a weird week. Plus we had the football, which had a very sad ending. We got through to the final and then lost by one goal, which was a real shame. Real shame. Anyway, let's not dwell on that. Any news, first of all?

[00:00:56.11] - Taylor
Not from me.

[00:00:57.10] - Gordon
Okay, let's get straight into our topics then. Would you like to go first?

[00:01:01.01] - Taylor
Yes.

[00:01:01.20] - Gordon
Right, off you go.

[00:01:02.29] - Taylor
So this week I want to talk about WP Extended. Now, WP Extended is a plug-in for WordPress that has lots of nice enhancements to WordPress. It allows you to extend WordPress with a lot of nice to have features and functionality that aren't available in the core of the plug-in. Now, the reason for bringing up WP Extended is I am now part of the WP Extended team. So Dan, who is the founder of the plug-in, we've been talking quite a lot. We met up at WordCamp and we have decided to build the plug-in and work on the plug-in together as a partnership, and take the plug-in forward together. So this is something that's very exciting. And yeah, I'm looking forward to working with Dan and also Sumit, who is the developer for the plug-in, and just building upon what they've already built, essentially.

[00:02:10.02] - Gordon
So this is a plug-in that extends WordPress. So do you want to give us a couple of examples of what it does that maybe you can't do in normal WordPress on its own?

[00:02:24.15] - Taylor
Yeah. So one of them is duplicating posts or pages.

[00:02:27.26] - Gordon
Very useful.

[00:02:28.20] - Taylor
So if you ever If you have built out a page and you then want to duplicate that and then tweak it from there, that allows you to do it. Being able to re-order posts. So if you want to set what the order is on the front-end, say you've got a list of services and you want them to be in a specific order. Being able to re-order the post is very useful because you can re-order them in the back-end and it will display them on the front-end in the order that you want. Other ones are SMTP modules, so being able to send emails and set up the 'from name', the 'from email', and where it should be sending through. Again, not something that's configurable with WordPress out of the box. What else is there? Blocking admins and usernames and things like that. Being able to set what emails, sorry, what usernames are not allowed as usernames in the site. You've got things like Admin Customiser, so being able to customise the colours of the admin panel, things like the sidebar, the admin bar, and then also like icons and things like that. So basically anything that you think of that you could enhance the just overall experience and also just make it a bit more unique is the goal of the plug-in.

[00:03:48.05] - Gordon
So there's over 40 modules and you can do most of the functionality, if not all the functionality, with separate plug-ins. But if you needed all 40, that would be 40 plug-ins that you would need to install. The advantage for this is that you've got it all there in one plug-in, which is really good because sometimes you don't need a whole plug-in just to have just a little bit of functionality. And so it's really quite useful to be able to have this multi-tool, if you like, in your back pocket. We will put a link to the plug-in in the show notes, but it's WPExtended.io.

[00:04:30.01] - Taylor
Yeah.

[00:04:31.01] - Gordon
That's right. And a couple of your friends, in fact, did a video on it recently, and they went through all of the plug-ins and tested them out and gave their opinions on maybe what could be added to make it better. So we can link that video as well so that you can get an overview of what it does. Is it a free plug-in?

[00:04:54.24] - Taylor
There is a free version and there's also a pro version which adds more modules and more features to the existing modules.

[00:05:02.15] - Gordon
And it's actually really reasonable. The cost of it is quite good, I think, based on what you're getting for your money. And I'm sure with you on board, there's going to be lots of new ideas and things that are going to make it into the new version of the product, right?

[00:05:18.29] - Taylor
Definitely.

[00:05:20.04] - Gordon
Cool. So have a look at it and leave your comments below. We'd love to hear, or Taylor would love to hear, what you think of it. I'm definitely going to use it at some point soon, because it's got lots of bits and things that I need and use. So, yeah, good. I wish you all the best with that.

[00:05:37.23] - Taylor
Thank you.

[00:05:38.02] - Gordon
And also to Dan, who may or may not be watching. Thank you, Dan, for involving us, or Taylor, in fact, I'm sure it'll take the plug-in from strength to strength. Anything else you want to say on that?

[00:05:52.19] - Taylor
No.

[00:05:53.26] - Gordon
Okay. So my topic today is about maintaining your equipment. Now, we've spoken a little bit about this in the past, but I've got some equipment that I use on an annual basis. So for example, I do park shows, which are children's shows, in a park, on a trailer, in the middle of a field. There is no power. But as you know, because you've been, there are quite often 300 people who come and watch these shows depending on the weather. And there is no way that I would be able, in the open air, to be able to be loud enough to be heard with that number of people without having amplification. And so what I did is I got myself a portable battery. It's about this big. It's body width and same height-wise, it's cube-shaped. And I took that along to the park shows and I managed to plug my sound equipment into it and it would then allow I need to use it and be able to be heard using my amplification system. Plus, I could play music at the beginning, which helps to bring people over because they hear the music and they look, see what's going on and wander over. It's a great way to build up a crowd of people who want to watch the show. But I only really use it when I'm in the middle of a field and I don't have power. So the problem with these batteries is that they need constant charging. So you need to make sure you charge them on a regular basis, even if they're not being used. And I have a feeling that during Covid, when nothing was being used, it sat in my cupboard and it didn't get charged properly. Because at the last show that I did, I found that it just wasn't powering everything I needed it to. I would try it and I would turn on my microphone and that would work. Then I'd turn on the speaker and then the microphone would stop working. I'd turn off the speaker and the microphone would work. It's no point having a microphone if the speaker's not on because it won't work. That's not how it works. Now, in the past, I had a very tough lesson because I did a park show, and the first time I'd used this speaker, and I knew it worked because I'd tested it, but it would not work at all. It turned out that I had my battery charger plugged in. So I've got little AA batteries which go in a little charger, which is powered. And so when I plug my box, my sound box into the mains, it will charge those batteries so that I can swap them out with my microphone. And charging something when you're on a battery, so a battery charging batteries, doesn't work. It actually stops power from working properly. And so I found out that if I unplug that, it all works fine. But my box, my power was just not working well at a recent show. I eventually managed to get it to work with the speaker and the microphone, but the music wouldn't work. You turn the music on and it would just shut everything else down. And I just can't be in that situation. So I've now got to look for a brand new battery, which is not cheap. These are a few hundred pounds, and they're something that I only use once a year, twice a year. I guess it's more than that, actually. It's probably about four or five times a year. But for those shows it's essential, because otherwise I wouldn't be able to do my show. So it's a piece of equipment that, now I've got used to having it, I need it to be able to do what I do. So it's a necessary requirement. And so I need to now go out and look for a new product. When I bought this last one, that was the best one available for a reasonable price at the time. Things have moved on. I now need to do the research all over again, and I need to find a battery and then test it properly by running the sound and the microphone through it and leaving it running for a period of time just to make sure it's going to last for the length of time I need it to last for. That's not going to be much fun. It's not a job I enjoy doing, but it's a requirement because I need to have this product. So, you need to just basically check your equipment that you use on a semi, not regular, but on a... Equipment that you don't use very often. So equipment that sits in the corner, but when you do need it, it's essential. So you want to just make sure you keep that going and you maintain it properly because you will find that it's going to become... So at some point you're going to need it because it's that time when you need it, and it's going to fail on you. And that's the worst thing ever, especially when you're in a rush, because it's always when you're in a rush that things stop working. So maintain that equipment. It's really important.

[00:11:12.17] - Taylor
It may be worth having a look and see if you can find a voltage metre or something like that to see how much power the entire setup that you need draws so that you know how much power you need, minimum, and also a bit more just to make sure that it's got enough.

[00:11:33.03] - Gordon
Yeah. So as a non-electrical minded person, wattage and amps and so on don't mean a great deal to me. So yeah, maybe I need to speak to someone and get them to tell me what I need, and then go and look for the best possible product that will do that at the best price. The one I got previously actually came from Halford's. And it does two things. So what I need is called an invertor. So it basically has a plug socket. It's a battery that you charge up. And then you've got an invertor which you plug your plug socket into and that then gives you normal power, as if you plugged it into the mains. But the one that we got, actually, we have a battery boost. So if your car runs out of power and the battery stops working, you can use that to then boost your car. It's a bit like putting jump leads on one car battery onto another car battery and using that to power your battery, but it does that. And we've actually used it, I think, more for doing that than I've used it for doing the shows. And that might be the reason that the power is low because it didn't get charged properly. Because you had problems with your car at one point and you had it in the car and it was wintertime, so it was quite cold, and batteries aren't supposed to be cold. And because you'd left it in the car, maybe it wasn't being brought in and charged up properly. I don't know. But either way, it's not giving out the amount of power it should. So these batteries do degrade over time, and I think this has just degraded, which is a real shame because it's the second one in about six years that's done that, so not so good. I do want to talk about Qualatex balloons, but I'm going to leave that till next week because things are still happening with that. But by putting it on here, it will remind me for next week that that's what I want to talk about.

[00:13:39.02] - Taylor
Okay.

[00:13:39.16] - Gordon
Anything else you want to say today?

[00:13:41.15] - Taylor
I don't think so.

[00:13:42.14] - Gordon
Perfect. Well, that's us done then. Thank you so much for joining us. If you do enjoy these episodes, please let us know. We'd love to hear about it. Facebook is still playing up, so it's not live on Facebook still, but you can find us on YouTube. Please like, share, and subscribe.

[00:13:59.20] - Taylor
You can also go to our website thisweekwith.co.uk to find all of our past episodes.

[00:14:05.04] - Gordon
And we're also on all of the major podcast platforms, if you prefer to just listen to us and not look at us. That's probably a good plan, if you ask me. Oh, one last thing for news. WordPress 6.6 came out during the week and a lot of people are reporting that it's adding underlines to links. So if you've got a website that runs on WordPress and it auto-updates, go and check your website, see if those links are being underlined. Buttons in particular are being underlined, which aren't necessary. So have a look at that. You may need to fix that. That's it from us. We'll see you again next week, 1pm on Friday. Until then, my name is Gordon and I'm from Drayson Design.

[00:14:52.26] - Taylor
And I'm Taylor from The Creative Tinker.

[00:14:55.12] - Gordon
Goodbye.

[00:14:56.04] - Taylor
Bye.

This Week's Topics

Show Notes