reviews

wpplugincheck – in-depth reviews of WordPress plugins

My WordPress radar noticed a new website – wpplugincheck. This website provides in-depth reviews of WordPress plugins. I’ve checked a few of those and they seem solid – honest and to the point.

There’s a gadzillion of websites online that review WordPress plugins (occasionally including even my own blog), but most of those either get too commercial with sponsored posts, or turn into collections of “5 best of this” and “7 awesome of this”. I hope the site continues and gets into a routine of publishing reviews of the new and updated plugins, especially focusing on the areas where there are a lot of choices, or not enough.

Best Automation Testing Tools for 2018 (Top 10 reviews)

Here is a nice review of the top 10 best automation testing tools circa 2018. It covers the following:

If you are just setting up the QA team or department and want to know what’s new and hot, or old and tested in the world of automated testing, have a look at these tools.

Android 6.0 Marshmallow, thoroughly reviewed

Ars Technica has thoroughly reviewed Android 6.0 Marshmallow. Read the whole 10+ page review, or satisfy yourself with this very short summary:

The Good

The new home screen adds tons of genuinely useful features. App Search, predictive apps, vertical scrolling, and the uninstall shortcut are all great time savers.

The new permissions system lets users give informed consent to access their data while keeping them in the loop about breaking things from permission denial. Developers get to have a dialog with the user about why they need a permission, and old apps are fed fake data so they can be denied access without crashing.

“Adoptable Storage” finally makes SD cards as good as internal storage. Now if only there were Marshmallow devices with SD cards.

The fingerprint API isn’t groundbreaking even among the Android devices, but it’s the kind of ecosystem building that only Google can do.

The Bad

There still isn’t auto rotate support for the home screen. Google teased us in the developer preview but the feature was cut.

The new permissions page is a great first step, but it doesn’t list all of the access to the system an app actually has. Special settings like “Notification Access,” access to the accessibilities framework, and more are scattered all over the settings.

Apps can opt out of power saving features like Doze and App Standby just by changing their priority settings. We don’t trust developers to play by the rules.

The Ugly

There is still no solution for getting Marshmallow out to the billion+ devices out there.

The World’s 50 Best Restaurants

Super Brew 15 in review

I haven’t seen this brand of beer in the local shops (gladly), but I still recommend reading the review. It’s good, inspirational writing. And absolutely hilarious content with some nice heavy tunes to accompany the laughter and it give the proper atmosphere.

Here are some quotes to get you started:

The aroma is . . . bracing. A flood of synthetic-smelling burnt caramel gives way to butterscotch, a touch of maraschino cherry, and then to what I can only describe as rubber cement. If you’ve ever wondered why rubber cement is so unpopular as a custard flavoring, take a whiff of this beer.

And:

In keeping with the absence of a proper head, Super Brew 15 has a thin mouthfeel, despite its potency. The flavor starts inoffensively—oily toffee, subdued fruitiness (green grape, tart apple), and a faint maltiness like stale graham crackers. Combined with the alcohol heat, this has been enough to remind some online reviewers of brandy. But then something tragic happens: an aftertaste arrives that splits the difference between gasoline and nail polish remover. I’m convinced this shit is eating the enamel off my teeth.

The best ones though, I wouldn’t post for the reasons of the strong language. But you should definitely click through to read it. LOL.