Category: Reviews

Website, Software & Hardware Reviews.

Bay Leaf Catering Leitrim Review

Had our daughter’s christening recently and decided to pull out all the stops and have a great party because of the length of time it took to have her (5 years infertility treatment) and also partly to avoid cooking and preparing food for the 50 people that said they’d come! So for the first time ever we decided to get catering in and we tried a few local places, got some quotes etc before finally settling on the Bay Leaf Restaurant in Drumshanbo, Leitrim after having been there for dinner one Sunday afternoon. Continue reading Bay Leaf Catering Leitrim Review

WordPress Newsletter Plugin Review

For me, one of the most important plugins you can have for your wordpress powered Blog or Website is a good Newsletter/Mailing List system. Recently, I’ve researched and tested out quite a few both free and paid for and this one is the best I’ve come across so far.

Its called “WordPress Mailing List Plugin” and is available for $54.99 dollars for a single installation ($274.95 for a developer/multi site licence) from Tribulant Software. After having a good look at their online demo, I paid my fee and installed it on my own VPS server. It’s a much smaller (file size) plugin than some of the others I have used but packs quite a rich feature list in. Installation was fine on wordpress 3.0 despite the presence of a ton of other plugins on my blog including one other newsletter plugin.

wordpress-newsletters-plugin

Standout features:

  • GENERATE OFFSITE CODE! (add the sign up form to Facebook, etc..),
  • Multiple Different Mailing Lists,
  • Email Queueing,
  • Publish newsletter as a post and vice versa,
  • Paid subscriptions (Paypal & 2CheckOut),
  • Email Tracking,
  • Add Subscription Checkbox to WordPress comment form,
  • Integrates (via extension) with the excellent Gravity Forms plugin,
  • Integrates with Tribulant’s Banner Rotator plugin,
  • Timed Newsletters/Autoresponders,
  • Subscriber deletion on bounce,
  • Developer licence version which allows me to use this plugin on as many of my clients sites as I want!
  • See full feature list here..

Standard features:

  • Double Opt In Auto Subscriptions,
  • Full management from the WordPress Admin,
  • Sidebar and Post/Page Subscribe Form,
  • Add Attachments,
  • Import/Export Subscribers,
  • Newsletter Templates,
  • Professional Newsletter Themes,
  • Scheduling,
  • Bounce Email Management,
  • Automated Latest Posts Subscription,
  • Insert Single or Multiple blog posts into Newsletters,
  • Insert Newsletter History into Newsletters,
  • Send Newsletter depending on custom field conditions,
  • qTranslate Support,
  • Ajax Features,
  • Unlimited Subscribers, Newsletters and Emails,
  • WordPress 3.0 compatible,
  • Bit.ly short link tracking,
  • IP Subscriber logging,
  • Auto-updating via WordPress Admin,
  • Register Newsletter subscribers as WordPress users,
  • Notification Email template editing,
  • Different Admin email per mailing list,
  • Export Newsletter History.

The KILLER feature is probably the ability to generate ‘offsite’ code which allows you to embed the newsletter signup on any other non-wordpress site including Facebook Pages. I have it on my own one here – Facebook.com/ReverbStudiosDesign.

Of particular issue to me was the Import/Export functions. I needed to port my existing list from my previous plugin and this was a pretty simple procedure except for a slight complication caused by the old system.

Creating new Lists and Emails/Newsletters is a breeze and sending them out was error free.

If you need a comprehensive email newsletter solution that covers all bases but is easy enough to use, paying for this is well worth it!

Demos, Documentation and Support.

Buy it at – Tribulant.com/products/view/1/wordpress-mailing-list-plugin/.

Leon.

Blacknight VPS Hosting Review

* Updates at the end.

I’d been with the same shared hosting company since I went commercial with my small web design business around 2005 and I can’t really fault the service from them. I continue to use them for my clients sites and I’m happy enough. However, there comes a time when you need to expand! Continue reading Blacknight VPS Hosting Review

3G USB Mobile Broadband Router

The only broadband I’ve been able to get in my current location in Leitrim is O2’s mobile broadband usb dongle which, for the most part has been fine but sharing the connection around the house via LAN or WiFi is tricky. Continue reading 3G USB Mobile Broadband Router

Shazam for iPhone Review – Name That Tune!

Heres one of the coolest applications for the iphone yet! Its called Shazam and once downloaded and installed on your iphone you can hold your phone up to the speaker on your Hi-Fi, TV, Radio or whatever plays music (not your own voice, good as mine is!) and in a few seconds it will tell you the name of the Song, Artist & Album and give you links to purchase on iTunes, links to Youtube videos and links to share the song with your friends! Don’t know how the hell it works but its awesome!