Webloglines Feed

Webloglines Feed http://www.webloglines.com Webloglines provides Blogging Services, Articles, Themes and Plugins. en-us New WordPress feature, Possibly Related Posts If you have a blog on WordPress.com, you may have noticed a new feature called Possibly Related that links posts from other blogs in the Comments section of posts on your blog. The crew at Automattic introduced the feature in late April to add an element of social networking to blogging. At least that’s what Automattic founder Matt Mullenweg said when I interviewed him recently. Possibly Related is basically software that trolls the blogosphere looking for blog posts with keywords that are similar to keywords on a new post that you’ve written. When it finds a good match, the software automatically lists a couple posts at the end of your post. So far, reaction to the new feature has been pretty mixed. When it first appeared, Possibly Related wasn’t doing a very good job of picking posts. WordPress users reported the new feature was automatically generating links to some pretty questionable stuff, including links to X-rated sites. On the other hand, I kind of like it, because it gives my readers other places to go to find out more about what I’m writing about. WordPress bloggers can opt out of Possibly Related by changing the Design settings on their blog. To do that, go to Dashboard, Design, Extras and check the box that states: “Hide related links on this blog, which means this blog won’t show up on other’s blogs or get traffic that way.” According to Mullenweg, Possibly Related’s post-matching should improve over time in much the same way Automattic’s Akismet blog comment spam filtering software gets smarter about determining what is and isn’t spam as more people use it. source: <a href="http://www.michellerafter.wordpress.com">michellerafter</a> http://www.webloglines.com/blog/stuff/article/new_wordpress_feature_possibly_related_posts.php Thu, 15 May 2008 5:35:13 EDT http://www.webloglines.com/blog/stuff/article/new_wordpress_feature_possibly_related_posts.php What Do You Need to Set up a Wordpress Blog I have found myself answering this question a lot lately, so I figure I should just turn it into a blog post so I can point people to it. So, you have decided that you want to host your own blog with Wordpress? Great. Here is what you need to make that happen. 1a. A web host that supports PHP/MySQL. Most web hosts do, but be sure to check before you pay. Personally, I use MediaTemple.net for my blog hosting, but there are many many hosts that are perfectly capable of hosting a Wordpress blog. 1b. This isn a requirement, but it is nice if they allow .htaccess editing. Not all do. Without that, you can create human friendly post URLs, so your URLs will end with something like .com/?p=386 rather than .com/post-title-humans-understand/ 2. A domain name. Something that is easy to spell and memorable is generally a good rule of thumb, but that is for you to decide. After buying your domain, you will need to update the DNS records to point to your web host is servers. 3. A Theme. Wordpress comes with a handful of pre-installed themes to choose from, but they are not spectacular. You can build an entire theme from scratch, but you may find the free themes available here valuable as starting points for your design. Plenty of designers can help you customize one of those themes or help you create something that is entirely unique. 4. Plugins. You can customize the functionality of your Wordpress site using Plugins. For example, you may want to allow commenters to subscribe to the comments of a post and receive emails when others reply. There is a plugin for that and hundreds of other things. 5. An FTP program. You will need this to upload Wordpress, themes, and plugins. Personally, I use CuteFTP, but there are dozens of choices - both free and paid - to choose from. Those are all the tools you need. Other tools that can be helpful include: - An HTML editor like Dreamweaver, for editing themes. - An image editor like Photoshop for editing themes and images for posts. - A stats program like Google Analytics for tracking traffic to the site. - Using Feedburner to track RSS feed subscribers. - Using the ScribeFire extension for FireFox to make blogging more efficient. source: <a href="http://www.technologyevangelist.com">technologyevangelist</a> http://www.webloglines.com/blog/stuff/article/what_do_you_need_to_set_up_a_wordpress_blog.php Thu, 15 May 2008 5:27:58 EDT http://www.webloglines.com/blog/stuff/article/what_do_you_need_to_set_up_a_wordpress_blog.php How To Make a WordPress Privacy Policy Ever since Adsense updated their terms and conditions, requiring publishers to display a privacy policy on their website(s), webmasters and bloggers alike have been scrambling to comply with the new TOS. Fortunately for WordPress users, there is a quick and easy way to generate an Adsense-compliant privacy policy with just a few clicks. Privacy Policy Plugin The first step is to get the privacy policy plugin for WordPress. You can either install the plugin manually or with something like OneClick, an automatic plugin installer. Configuring the Plugin Once activated, you’ll be able to access the options page where you can configure the variables that will be displayed on your privacy policy. This will include the site name you want displayed, your e-mail address, and HTML formatting tags. More than likely these won’t have to be changed. <img src="/blog/images/uploaded/1210758886.png " alt="" /> Below are checkboxes to display links to the authors site. If you feel appreciative of the author’s work, you should at least include a credit link - but these are all entirely optional. Using the Plugin On the same configuration page, at the very bottom, is a button that allows you to generate the privacy policy page automatically. You can also set up your privacy policy page manually by creating a page, and then using the <!– privacy-policy –> as a quick tag to display it. Privacy Policy in Action Once everything is configured, and your page is published, you should get a page similar to this: <img src="/blog/images/uploaded/1210758931.png " alt="" /> Conclusion If you use Adsense, it’s recommended you put a privacy policy page up one way or another. There’s also a manual Adsense privacy policy generator available for you non-WordPress users out there. According to the countdown on that page, there’s less than 24 days before the policy is put into effect. That’s about it. Feel free to comment and share if you liked this guide. Subscribe to the feed for more Theme Lab updates. source: <a href="http://www.themelab.com">themelab</a> http://www.webloglines.com/blog/stuff/article/how_to_make_a_wordpress_privacy_policy.php Wed, 14 May 2008 6:02:44 EDT http://www.webloglines.com/blog/stuff/article/how_to_make_a_wordpress_privacy_policy.php WordPress Single Post Templates Austin recommends using a filter in your functions.php file as an alternative to the method below. IMO, his suggestion is much simpler and quite elegant. Here’s the code to add to your theme’s functions.php file. (be sure you paste this code between <?php ?> tags): add_filter( isingle_template, create_function($t, foreach( (array) get_the_category() as $cat ) { if ( file_exists(TEMPLATEPATH . "/single-{$cat->term_id}.php") ) return TEMPLATEPATH . "/single-{$cat->term_id}.php"; } return $t; )); It helps solve the multiple categories issue since it cycles through all the categories in the array and checks to see which one of them has an associated post template. When it finds one, it uses the post template file, but if it doesn’t, then it falls back on the default single.php template. So if you are used to placing posts in multiple categories, be sure to only create post templates for the categories you know won’t ever conflict. Again, I highly recommend using this technique. It’s much simpler and works much better. If you care to, however, the original article is still below. END UPDATE A few months ago, I wrote a post over at the Blog Herald explaining how to set up and use WordPress Page Templates to control the way indivudual WordPress “Pages” appeared on your blog.  The process was pretty simple … create the page template, insert the necessary code at the top of the file, and upload it to your themes folder. What what about blog posts?  As far as I could tell, there’s no way to do a similar thing with single posts without some manual code (see the “Unique Single Template” section).     Is it possible to have post templates like page templates??? Cory sent me this simple question a few days ago, and it got me thinking. So I started investigating. The Setup You’re going to need 3 things:    1. A basic knowledge of WordPress Themes    2. A single.php file    3. Multiple single templates, named according to category ID The Code What we’re going to do is create single post templates according to the ID of the category the post is filed under.  In order to determine what category a post is filed under, we’re going to use the get_the_category template tag.  Then we’re going to pull out the first category the post is filed under. Insert the following code at the TOP of your single.php file in your theme folder: < ?php $category = get_the_category(); $currentcat = $category[0]->cat_ID; ?> Be aware, if you file posts under multiple categories, chances are this method will not work as you intended. Then, we’ll add a little PHP magic to pull in the template file you created for a particular category: < ?php $category = get_the_category(); $currentcat = $category[0]->cat_ID; if (file_exists(TEMPLATEPATH."/single-$currentcat".".php")) { include(TEMPLATEPATH."/single-$currentcat".".php"); } else { ?> This code defines the first category the post is filed under, checks to see if a single post template exists for that category (template files look like this: single-1.php, single-2.php, single-3.php, etc.), and uses it if it does. Finally, we need to put the following code at the very bottom of the single.php file, normally just below the wp_footer function: < ?php } ?> The reason we have to do this is to be able to use the default single.php code as fallback in case you haven’t created a template for a certain category. After you’ve got the code in place, just find the ID of the category you want to create a template for, then create a new file called single-ID.php (be sure to replace ID with the category number). Just insert the code you want to use for any posts filed in that category and you’re good to go! Limitations Like I mentioned earlier, if you are in the habit of filing posts under multiple categories, this code probably won’t work as intended. Since we’re working with templates for use on single posts in single categories, posts in multiple categories may end up falling back to the default single.php template. You have been warned! Sample Code Download As always, I like to provide a sample file for you to look at yourself. In this instance, I’ve edited the single.php file for the WordPress Default theme to pull in single post templates, if they exist. Take a look at the code if you have any questions about how it should look in your theme’s single.php file. I’ve also commented the code quite thoroughly. source: <a href="http://www.nathanrice.net">nathanrice</a> http://www.webloglines.com/blog/stuff/article/wordpress_single_post_templates.php Wed, 14 May 2008 5:48:13 EDT http://www.webloglines.com/blog/stuff/article/wordpress_single_post_templates.php Wordpress Plugin - SuperFast Digg This SuperFast Digg This is really a super fast social bookmarking plugin, it loads faster than others, scalable and with better performance. It allows your visitors to bookmark posts in Digg. It helps your site to increase traffic and improve your site page rank. It displays small cute Digg picture in front of post title. There are 2 pictures whichever you want you can place just by changing 1 or 2 in the template tag. The default picture is 1. The magical feature of this plugin is, if by mistake you forget to give 1 or 2 in template tag then it automatically fix the problem and display the picture. We have used so many social bookmarking plugins so far but we feel Digg is more popular and more traffic driving site so to make it easier for visitors to bookmark post to Digg immediately we made it and also using it in our site HeyGB.com you can check it for demo. The specialty of this plugin SuperFast Digg This is it works and loads faster than others. Some other similar plugins which are available they are good but the pattern they are adopting for loading and way of working makes our blog very slow, one of that plugin keep on getting javascript code from their site each and every time when you refresh the homepage and if your homepage has 10 posts then it executes 10 queries, this slow down the site and take down the performance. The other similar plugins keep on querying the Digg and if you have 10 posts on homepage then it means 10 queries will be executed. So this encouraged us to develop very or you can say extremely light weight but useful Digg This plugin. We deeply studied other plugins and then successfully made it without loopholes. We applicate all other similar plugin authors for their efforts but we did what we like and above all we never like to discourage or criticize anyone that’s why we never specified anyone name but we have to tell you the fact what problems we had faced and why we made this plugin. The plugin is developed by 4 authors Jimmy, Nancy Davis, Ashish, Jasmine. The author names are in random order, all have done equal efforts. One has raised the idea, others code it and someone did analysis and someone promote it and someone make it available on the site. So all are equally contributers. Note: If you don’t have a software to extract/uncompress .rar file then please download it from WinRAR website   == Installation == 1. Extract the superfast-digg-this.rar file 2. Upload superfast-digg-this folder to the `/wp-content/plugins/` directory 3. Activate the plugin through the ‘Plugins’ menu in WordPress 4. You can place SuperFast Digg This Tag in index.php and single.php a) First of all open index.php of your theme and find this line :   1<a href="<?php the_permalink() ?>" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link to <?php the_title_attribute(); ?>"><?php the_title(); ?></a> and place below code just before above line    1<? heyGB_Digg_This("1"); ?> OR 1<? heyGB_Digg_This("2"); ?> For an example see at the end of this file. Note: If you didn’t find the above line in index.php then find: 1<a href="<?php the_permalink() ?>" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link to <?php the_title(); ?>"><?php the_title(); ?></a> and place below code just before above line  1<? heyGB_Digg_This("1"); ?> OR  1<? heyGB_Digg_This("2"); ?> For an example see at the end of this file.   b) Now open single.php of your theme and find this line :  1<a href="<?php the_permalink() ?>" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link to <?php the_title(); ?>"><?php the_title(); ?></a> and place below code just before above line  1<? heyGB_Digg_This("1"); ?> OR 1<? heyGB_Digg_This("2"); ?> For an example see at the end of this file. Note: If you didn’t find the above line in your theme then find below line:  1<?php the_title(); ?> and place below code just before above line 1<? heyGB_Digg_This("1"); ?> OR 1<? heyGB_Digg_This("2"); ?> For an example see at the end of this file.   == Frequently Asked Questions == Ques 1) What I do if I get any problem ? Ans 1) If you get any problem while installing this plugin then please contact us   == Screenshots == 1. Screenshot of first Digg This picture <img src="/blog/images/uploaded/1210514535.jpg" alt="" /> 2. This is the second screen shot: <img src="/blog/images/uploaded/1210514572.jpg " alt="" />   == A brief Markdown Example == 1) Below is the example of using SuperFast-Digg-This with first Digg picture in index.php : 1<? heyGB_Digg_This("1"); ?> 2<a href="<?php the_permalink() ?>" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link to <?php the_title_attribute(); ?>"><?php the_title(); ?></a> 2) Below is the example of using SuperFast-Digg-This with second Digg picture in index.php :  1<? heyGB_Digg_This("2"); ?> 2<a href="<?php the_permalink() ?>" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link to <?php the_title_attribute(); ?>"><?php the_title(); ?></a> Note: In some themes index.php has below line so use in this way:  1<? heyGB_Digg_This("1"); ?> 2<a href="<?php the_permalink() ?>" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link to <?php the_title(); ?>"><?php the_title(); ?></a> 3) Below is the example of using SuperFast-Digg-This with first Digg picture in single.php :  1<? heyGB_Digg_This("1"); ?> 2<a href="<?php the_permalink() ?>" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link to <?php the_title(); ?>"><?php the_title(); ?></a> 4) Below is the example of using SuperFast-Digg-This with second Digg picture in single.php :     1<? heyGB_Digg_This("2"); ?> 2<a href="<?php the_permalink() ?>" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link to <?php the_title(); ?>"><?php the_title(); ?></a> source: <a href="http://www.heygb.com">heygb</a> http://www.webloglines.com/blog/stuff/article/wordpress_plugin_superfast_digg_this.php Sun, 11 May 2008 10:14:09 EDT http://www.webloglines.com/blog/stuff/article/wordpress_plugin_superfast_digg_this.php Fast-Static-Feed WordPress Plugin Syndicated content has almost become the standard way of distributing web content nowadays. WordPress can deliver its content in various different feed formats -RSS 2.0, Atom 1.0, RDF, RSS 0.92- and can generate feeds for both the published posts -grouped by time, category, tag, author etc- and the comments that have been submitted by readers. Moreover, some RSS add-on modules are being used in the generated feeds, so that modern feed readers can even retrieve the submitted comments for each of the feed entries. It is obvious that all these features greatly enhance the user experience, but, on the other hand, depending on the website’s traffic they might increase the server load and thus the content delivery times. Taking these things into consideration, I decided to write Fast-Static-Feed, a plugin that can cache the site’s entries feed, and deliver a static XML file instead of constantly generating the feed content on every client request. This, combined with the fact that the web server can compress the web content on-the-fly, has greatly reduced the waste of bandwidth and system resources. How it works Fast-Static-Feed performs the following actions:     * Every time a post is published or an already published post is edited, the plugin dumps the entries feed (that is the feed of the blog posts) to a file. This way, the static XML file is always contains the most fresh content of your blog.     * Every time a feed is requested, instead of re-generating the XML content over and over, this plugin delivers the static XML file. This is completely transparent to the client as there are no HTTP redirects involved. Your content is just being delivered faster!     * If the plugin is enabled, but the static files have not been created yet, the plugin will try to generate them automatically. Upon failure to do so, a 404 Not Found HTTP error code will be returned to the client.     * It also checks if the client’s request includes the If-Modified-Since HTTP header and, in such a case, it checks the static file’s modification time. If the client’s cache is current, it just returns a 304 Not Modified status to further reduce bandwidth usage. The plugin caches all four types of feeds WordPress supports -RSS 2.0, Atom 1.0, RDF, RSS 0.92-. Only the feeds that contain your latest blog posts are cached. The comments feed, each individual post’s comments feed, feeds for categories, tags, authors etc are still generated dynamically every time they are requested. This plugin does not interefere in any way with the generation of rewrite rules and the generation of your site’s feed links. Configuration Generally, the plugin does not require any configuration in order to work. One mandatory prerequisite is that the wp-content/ directory is writable by the web server. If it is not, the plugin will not be able to create the static files and, consequently, the clients who request a feed will receive a 404 Not Found HTTP code. Furthermore, there are two options within the source code fast-static-feed.php that can be set. // By default, the WordPress feeds contain elements of the wfw namespace // (CommentAPI), so a feed reader can fetch each feed entry is comments. // By setting the following to 1, these elements will be stripped // from the static feed. // It is recommended to set this to 1 in order to save bandwidth. // More info: http://wellformedweb.org/news/wfw_namespace_elements/ $FSF_STRIP_COMMENTS = 0; // Set the following to 1 and various messages will be recorded in the logfile, // which is located in the cache dir (wp-content/cache-xml/) $FSF_DEBUG = 0; It has already been mentioned, but it is important to note it again: The only mandatory prerequisite is that wp-content/ is writable by the webserver. Installation Make any changes to the configuration options within fast-static-feed.php and upload the file to wp-content/plugins/ directory. Then, activate the plugin through the WordPress administration panel. source: <a href="http://www.g-loaded.eu">g-loaded</a> http://www.webloglines.com/blog/stuff/article/faststaticfeed_wordpress_plugin.php Sun, 11 May 2008 9:26:24 EDT http://www.webloglines.com/blog/stuff/article/faststaticfeed_wordpress_plugin.php WordPress Tip: Reorder your Title Tag WordPress, by default, creates <title> tags that look like this: <title>Yoursite » Your Post Title</title>.  Many people want to use <title>Your Post Title » Yoursite</title> instead, to give more importance to the mutable part of the <title>.  There are plugins to do this, but I’d like to show you how a simple change in your theme can accomplish this task. Caveat: this only works in WordPress 2.5 and above.    1. Open your header.php theme file (if you don’t have one, open index.php or whatever one has your <title> tag)    2. Look for:       <title><?php bloginfo( ame); ?> <?php if ( is_single() ) { ?> &raquo; Blog Archive <?php } ?> <?php wp_title(); ?></title>       (or something similar)    3. Replace it with:       <title><?php wp_title(&raquo;, true, ight); ?> <?php bloginfo( ame); ?></title> The first wp_title() argument is the separator character.  I like &raquo; (which looks like: »).  The second argument is whether to echo (print to the browser) the title, or to return it.  We want to print it, so we put true.  The final argument is where the separator should go… on the left or on the right. We want right, so we put "right". Simple enough! source: <a href="http://www.markjaquith.wordpress.com">markjaquith</a> http://www.webloglines.com/blog/stuff/article/wordpress_tip_reorder_your_title_tag.php Thu, 24 Apr 2008 10:37:34 EDT http://www.webloglines.com/blog/stuff/article/wordpress_tip_reorder_your_title_tag.php The Woes of WordPress Since converting back to WordPress I’ve been having some difficulties with my site. It’s not the fault of WordPress per se (I just liked the sound of the title) but rather my inefficient system, and my impatience. In my haste to get the live WP install up and running, I temporarily dropped some of the functionality from my website. While this was convenient in theory, it has totally screwed the Google bot from here to the moon and back, and now Google webmaster tools is telling me: <img src="/blog/images/uploaded/1208787399.gif " alt="" /> That’s 3,703 errors — 404 errors to be exact — caused by deleted folders/pages, and a missing FAQ system. This mass of problems has caused my rankings (not PageRank, but ranking for individual keywords) to drop through the floor. I added back my questions script today, albeit in the form of a rather dodgy (private) WordPress plugin executed through Exec-PHP rather than done “properly”. If you caught my blog during the addition of my first go earlier, you may have seen the first 15 questions from the database appearing in place of every post, link, archive, etc. That’s why it’s being executed through Exec-PHP In an attempt to combat the dwindling result rankings — a bit of a sticking plaster until Google gets its arse into gear and re-indexes my new structure — I’ve added the Google XML Sitemaps Generator (so that I don’t have to do it manually). The default IP look-up for WP comments sent to my inbox also sucks, so that’s something else I’ve changed. (pluggable.php line 788 - change http://ws.arin.net/cgi-bin/whois.pl?queryinput= to http://www.geobytes.com/IpLocator.htm?GetLocation&ipaddress= ) I’ve still got over 50 posts “Uncategorised”, and I need to edit the dates on older, imported pages to more accurately reflect the time they were published. There’s a handful of themes yet to be added back too, although I’m beginning to hate not having a styleswitcher (time to write a plugin for it?) So apart from all that whining, I’m still pleased with the move. No mysql connection errors as yet! source: <a href="http://www.jemjabella.co.uk">jemjabella</a> http://www.webloglines.com/blog/stuff/article/the_woes_of_wordpress.php Mon, 21 Apr 2008 10:21:17 EDT http://www.webloglines.com/blog/stuff/article/the_woes_of_wordpress.php WordPress Theme Releases for 4/20 Two Column Themes Elegant Orange <img alt="" src="/blog/images/uploaded/1208785460.png " /> Elegant Orange is a very simple WordPress theme with a nice elegant style. The sidebar is widget-ready. Rainbow: <img alt="" src="/blog/images/uploaded/1208785499.png" /> Rainbow a clean, light-colored template with a rainbow strip at the top. There is a area in the header to add a note or announcement for your readers. The theme is widget ready. FedBurned: <img alt="" src="/blog/images/uploaded/1208785524.png" /> FedBurned is a fixed-width, widget ready 2 column with right sidebar theme. The theme resembles designs from Feedburner. Professor: <img alt="" src="/blog/images/uploaded/1208785549.png " /> Professor is a theme which seeks to put text and images first and foremost, and create a pleasurable reading experience. It also has a option to show a feature post on the top of the home page. Underwater: <img src="/blog/images/uploaded/1208785589.png" alt="" /> A unique theme where the readers experience content as if they are reading it under water. The theme has a dolphin image in the header. source: <a href="http://www.weblogtoolscollection.com">weblogtoolscollection</a> http://www.webloglines.com/blog/stuff/article/wordpress_theme_releases_for_.php Mon, 21 Apr 2008 9:52:38 EDT http://www.webloglines.com/blog/stuff/article/wordpress_theme_releases_for_.php Premium WordPress Theme 8 Premium WordPress Theme 8 is a 3 columns and widget ready Wordpress theme. Simple, clean and beautiful. * 3 Columns * Clean * Widget Ready * Valid XHTML CSS * Tableless Coding * Beautiful * Magazine Style <img width="463" height="452" src="/blog/images/uploaded/1208690781.jpg " alt="" /> source:<a href="http://www.themes.iwebnet.org"> themes.iwebnet</a> http://www.webloglines.com/blog/stuff/article/premium_wordpress_theme_.php Sun, 20 Apr 2008 7:28:20 EDT http://www.webloglines.com/blog/stuff/article/premium_wordpress_theme_.php Coffee Time WordPress Theme Coffee Time is a highly configurable and customisable magazine style premium WordPress theme. <img width="450" height="550" src="/blog/images/uploaded/1208690447.jpg" alt="" /> Features:     * Support for Widgets     * Integration with Google Adsense or any ads services     * Theme ToolKit     * Pre-loaded Plugins     * Recognition author comments     * Feedburner form integrate     * Gravatars support     * Quicktags & help tags in comments optional     * Support for translation (localization) theme source: <a href="http://www.premiumwp.com">premiumwp</a> http://www.webloglines.com/blog/stuff/article/coffee_time_wordpress_theme.php Sun, 20 Apr 2008 7:23:55 EDT http://www.webloglines.com/blog/stuff/article/coffee_time_wordpress_theme.php 20 More Free First-Class Wordpress Themes <img src="/blog/images/uploaded/1208258528.jpg " alt="" /> Free professional WordPress themes always come in handy. Whether you are looking for some design inspiration or professional coding solutions — in both cases you can learn a lot, you can apply them and you can build customized designs upon them without reinventing the wheel all the time. However, to create a unique design, sometimes it’s not enough to change colors or increase font-size of a theme designed by other designers. The uniqueness of a theme is all about little details, some personal touches in the play of link colors, footer and header. Therefore in most cases it’s useful to think of free Wordpress themes as a playground for your imagination. In this article we present 20 fresh free high-quality WordPress themes. Unfortunately, over the last months they haven’t gained the popularity they deserve which is why they are now featured on Smashing Magazine. All themes can be downloaded, customized and used for free — in personal or/and commercial projects. Please read license disclaimers carefully before using the theme in commercial projects — they can change from time to time. source: <a href="http://www.smashingmagazine.com">smashingmagazine</a> http://www.webloglines.com/blog/stuff/article/_more_free_firstclass_wordpress_themes.php Tue, 15 Apr 2008 7:25:13 EDT http://www.webloglines.com/blog/stuff/article/_more_free_firstclass_wordpress_themes.php The Right Way to Use JavaScript in Your WordPress Plugin How to properly use JavaScript in your WordPress plugins. There are two key parts:    1. Use wp_enqueue_script() to load external libraries and standalone scripts, instead of generating your own script header tags.    2. On admin pages, use the admin_print_scripts-[mypage] action hook to register the code on only your plugin’s page, not every admin page. Both of those techniques have been available since WordPress 2.1, so plugin authors can be pretty confident that there will be no backwards-compatibility issues in employing them. (Despite the fact that WordPress is maintaining the 2.0.x version line until 2010, my research suggests that the number of users of that branch is insignificant.) - Don’t pollute the global JavaScript namespace, especially with the over-used “$”. A number of JavaScript libraries use the dollar sign in different ways, so you can run into problems if, for example, you’re using jQuery but another plugin has loaded Prototype. Fortunately, jQuery makes it easy to use “$” in a friendly way with other libraries. My favorite is to wrap jQuery-based code in something like the following, which employs $ outside of the global namespace and waits to execute the script until after the DOM has loaded. jQuery(function($) { /* some code that uses $ */ }); source: <a href="http://www.pressedwords.com">pressedwords</a> http://www.webloglines.com/blog/stuff/article/the_right_way_to_use_javascript_in_your_wordpress_plugin.php Sun, 13 Apr 2008 10:47:58 EDT http://www.webloglines.com/blog/stuff/article/the_right_way_to_use_javascript_in_your_wordpress_plugin.php Choosing a theme and topics for your blog This is part two in a series of articles about Creating a Blog for Fun and Profit. In this article , we will look at choosing a theme and topics for your blog. An appropriate theme is essential to attracting and retaining new readership. Choosing the right one for your blog can be difficult. To begin, ask yourself the following questions: Who is my target audience? What do I want to share with them? Where else can they get this information? Next, think about the blogs and websites you admire. What makes them successful? How are they unique? What keeps you coming back? Some of my personal favorite websites include: TechCrunch, LifeHacker, Gizmodo, Smashing Magazine, and A List Apart.     * TechCrunch is a “weblog dedicated to obsessively profiling and reviewing new Internet products and companies.”     * LifeHacker is a “blog that features tips, shortcuts, and downloads that help you get things done smarter and more efficiently.”     * Gizmodo is a “blog with the sole purpose of writing about tech and gadgets as fast as possible.”     * Smashing Magazine “delivers useful and innovative information for designers and web-developers.”       A List Apart “explores the design, development, and meaning of web content, with a special focus on web standards and best practices.” Each of these websites has a technological focus, but they differ in their approach and core subject matter. Finally, consider the purpose of your blog. What is it you ultimately wish to gain from your writing and publishing? Finding purpose in your writing Bloggers fall into 3 distinct categories:    1. Those wishing to strike Internet gold    2. Those with a passion for or knowledge about a given subject    3. Those writing about themselves or their business Blogging as a gateway to fame and riches As in any good business, blogging for profit requires a careful and well-planned strategy. High-traffic websites with an active community have proven the most attractive to advertisers. When choosing a theme for your website, consider which topics are most likely to result in viral distribution, repeat visitors, sponsorship opportunities, and community interaction. Blogging as an outlet for passionate discourse Genuine passion is evident in both the quality of a blog’s content and the commentary it inspires. One of the most effective ways to increase your website’s visibility is to focus on thoughtful, quality content. Interact with your visitors and the community at large, and people will see your website as an essential destination. Blogging about you or your business Blogs with an individual or business focus tend to target friends, family, business associates, and potential partners. Because of this, the implied theme of the website is you. Maintain a loose structure, generate new and interesting content, and your visitors will keep coming back. source: <a href="http://www.likewowonline.net">likewowonline</a> http://www.webloglines.com/blog/stuff/article/choosing_a_theme_and_topics_for_your_blog.php Thu, 10 Apr 2008 9:08:32 EDT http://www.webloglines.com/blog/stuff/article/choosing_a_theme_and_topics_for_your_blog.php Theme Test Drive WordPress Plugin The Theme Test Drive WordPress Plugin allows bloggers to test drive other themes in the safety of the back office while your readers continue to view your actual theme. This can be a very powerful tool as we all like to play around with new idea for layouts, colors or designs with the security of knowing our readers will not get messed around in the process. Once you are happy with your final result all you need do is switch over and your new theme will be live. Installation of Theme Test Drive WordPress Plugin * Upload the Plugin folder to your /wp-content/plugins/ folder * Activate the Plugin by going to Dashboard - Plugins * Select Presentation tab followed by Theme Test drive * The rest of the process is explained on the page <img width="464" height="207" src="/blog/images/uploaded/1207750743.jpg" alt="" /> Note: if you use WP-Cache plugin, you might need to disable it (or setup to exclude pages) According to Vladimir Prelovac the Theme Test Drive Plugin is compatible with WordPress 2.5. source: <a href="http://www.yeepage.com">yeepage</a> http://www.webloglines.com/blog/stuff/article/theme_test_drive_wordpress_plugin.php Wed, 09 Apr 2008 10:23:44 EDT http://www.webloglines.com/blog/stuff/article/theme_test_drive_wordpress_plugin.php Revolution Real Estate WordPress Theme Revolution Real Estate is a premium WordPress theme from Revolution Themes. It’s a widget ready, customizable WordPress theme for Real Estate agents wishing to showcase their listings, as well as blog and market themselves in the community. <img width="436" height="360" src="/blog/images/uploaded/1207665807.jpg " alt="" /> <img width="433" height="614" src="/blog/images/uploaded/1207665850.jpg " alt="" /> Features:     * Widget ready     * Featured listing section, about me section and recent blog posts on the homepage     * Dropdown navigation menu     * Short contact form in the sidebar     * Page template for real estate listings source: <a href="http://www.premiumwp.com">premiumwp</a> http://www.webloglines.com/blog/stuff/article/revolution_real_estate_wordpress_theme.php Tue, 08 Apr 2008 10:49:20 EDT http://www.webloglines.com/blog/stuff/article/revolution_real_estate_wordpress_theme.php Wordpress Dashboard Editor Of the entire website the Dashboard is seen by administrators the most, but it is the hardest part of Wordpress to customize. Well not anymore. This plugin allows you to add whatever you want to the Dashboard through PHP and HTML and allows you to even add Sidebar Widgets. You may also wipe the entire dashboard or individually remove some of the more irritating sections like the Dev news, Planet Wordpress and the getting started section. In WordPress 2.5, the code is cleaner, the plugin is more responsive and you can add both “real” sidebar widgets, or add “fake” ones to match the dashboard. This plugin is currently intended for 2.5, but it also works in Wordpress 2.1 - 2.3 and can work in Wordpress 2.0.x if you use the Completely Wipe Dashboard option. <img src="/blog/images/uploaded/1207576140.png " alt="" /> Installation is a breeze:    1. Download the zip file for Wordpress Dashboard Editor    2. Unzip and upload dashboard.php to your wp-content/plugins/ folder.    3. Go to your dashboard. There will be a new sub-menu item.    4. Select any options you want and add any PHP or HTML code that you want to the textbox. Code Examples: To add a sidebar widget to your dashboard (after selecting the option from the Dashboard management page) use the code: <?php dynamic_sidebar(admin);?> The Admin sidebar is modified and controlled the exact same way as any other sidebar. If you use the WP-UserOnline plugin you can use: <?php echo useronline_page();?> In WordPress 2.1-2.3 f you find that your new content doesn’t align nicely you can add:    1. <div style="float:left; width:460px;">    2. //    3. //Add all other content here    4. //    5. </div> Any code that can be used in your Wordpress Theme can be used in the dashboard. This means that you can have different information appear for the different user roles among other things. source:<a href="http://www.anthologyoi.com"> anthologyoi</a> http://www.webloglines.com/blog/stuff/article/wordpress_dashboard_editor.php Mon, 07 Apr 2008 10:17:51 EDT http://www.webloglines.com/blog/stuff/article/wordpress_dashboard_editor.php 15 helpful WordPress plugins for the savvy user This article presents 15 WordPress plugins to help enhance and simplify the blogging experience of advanced users, especially web developers and designers. Most of the plugins were tested on a default installation of WordPress version 2.3.1 for basic functionality; relevant screenshots of the plugins in action are included. What’s a savvy user?    1. A blogger with basic to expert knowledge of HTML/CSS, and for a lot of the plugins featured here, PHP and MySQL experience is highly recommended.    2. A blogger who needs to display complex content in posts and pages like displaying and colorizing code snipplets, running custom scripts only on certain posts or pages, incorporating custom web forms, etc.    3. A blogger who knows what they’re doing - The default configuration of WordPress is too "fool-proof". For example, with the visual editor turned on, it will add unexpected indents and line breaks even inside <pre> tags. Additionally, it blocks you from adding <div> tags, automatically "sanitizing" them into tags. If you match any of the above criteria, read on and maybe you’ll find a plugin or two that will make your blogging experience more convenient. 1) Google Syntax Highlighter for WordPress Google Syntax Highligher for WordPress colorizes your code on-the-fly. It supports most programming/scripting languages such as C++, PHP, Perl, Ruby, and much more. The syntax is simple — just put your code inside <pre> tags and assign them the attributes name="code" and class="thelanguage". The following code was tested: <pre name="code" class="javascript"> var myString = "nSync"; if (myString == "Justin Timberlake") {    document.write("You are a winner");    } else {    document.write("There is always celebreality shows");    } </pre>   This is how it colorizes my code: <img width="442" height="292" alt="" src="/blog/images/uploaded/1207486576.jpg " /> You can learn more more ways to customize your highlighted code in the Google code wiki entry on Usage - syntaxhighlighter. Also check out the full list of supported languages on Google Code. Other code highlighters available are: WP-Syntax - A plain and simple code highlighter. <img src="/blog/images/uploaded/1207488170.jpg " alt="" />  WP-CodeBox - also check out the basic usage and demo page This plugin gives you two awesome <pre> tag attributes: download - which automatically creates a download link for your code snipplet, and colla - which gives you the option to collapse and expand the code block. <img src="/blog/images/uploaded/1207488200.jpg " alt="" /> <img src="/blog/images/uploaded/1207488227.jpg" alt="" /> 2) Exec-PHP Exec-PHP gives you the capability of running PHP code inside certain posts and pages. You can insert PHP code directly into your posts without having to modify your theme files. You can find a more detailed documentation of Exec-PHP on Bluesome. You have to turn off the visual editor whenever you use Exec-PHP in your posts or pages, It won’t work even in code view. As a test, I used a WordPress conditional tag to see if it supports them, turns out it does — the conditional tag is is_single() <img alt="" src="/blog/images/uploaded/1207486675.jpg " /> And this is what it looks like: <img alt="" src="/blog/images/uploaded/1207486742.jpg " /> 3) Save My <pre> If you use the visual editor, then you’ve probably experienced the frustration of trying to figure out why it messes up your <pre> tags. Code in between the <pre> tag should preserve the indents, spaces, and linebreaks, but the default visual editor doesn’t uphold this rule. This is what I wanted my code snipplet to look like (minus the <pre> tags): <img alt="" src="/blog/images/uploaded/1207486782.jpg " /> This is how WordPress renders it after I save my work from the visual editor. <img alt="" src="/blog/images/uploaded/1207486808.jpg " /> Using Save my <pre> will prevent the WordPress editor from processing and "cleaning" up the stuff inside <pre> tags. 4) Maintenance Mode Maintenance Mode just notifies your readers that your blog is undergoing maintenance and is currently unavailable. The message won’t appear if you’re logged in as an administrator, so you can see what your updates look like during maintenance mode. Here’s the options page for Maintenance Mode: <img width="431" height="296" alt="" src="/blog/images/uploaded/1207486842.jpg " /> This is how it looks for users that aren’t logged in or don’t have the proper credentials: <img alt="" src="/blog/images/uploaded/1207486931.jpg" /> 5) WP-DBManager WP-DBManager gives you an administrative interface to manage, backup, and optimize your WordPress database. It has countless of options for making database management quite effortless. Installing this plugin gives you a new tab in the admin panel, called "Database". <img width="461" height="203" alt="" src="/blog/images/uploaded/1207486979.jpg " /> 6) Deactivate Visual Editor If you need to write intricate posts that have code snipplets and/or custom scripts, it’s highly advisable that you turn off the visual editor. But if you find value in the visual editor of WordPress, then you just may want to exclude certain posts and pages from using it. Installing the Deactivate Visual Editor WordPress plugin ensures that nothing gets accidentally screwed up when you edit a post that shouldn’t be edited using the visual editor. To deactivate the visual editor on a post or page, you’ll need to create a custom field called deactivate_visual_editor and set the value to true. <img width="459" height="235" alt="" src="/blog/images/uploaded/1207487024.jpg" /> 7) Search and Replace Ever wanted to change a user’s name, email, website URL on old posts? How about correcting references to an old post that no longer exists or whose name has been editted? Search and Replace allows you to do all of this inside of WordPress, through an intuitive admin interface. <img width="457" height="399" alt="" src="/blog/images/uploaded/1207487059.jpg " /> 8) WP-DB-Backup WP-DB-Backup offers a straightforward interface for backing up your WordPress database. It’s an excellent alternative to WP-DBManager if you’re only looking to create a backup. You can save the backup on the server, on your computer, or have it sent to you via email. <img width="450" height="473" src="/blog/images/uploaded/1207488325.jpg" alt="" /> 9) Tidy Up Tidy Up cleans your HTML source code and attempts to correct invalid XHTML code. It utilizes WC3’s HTML Tidy conversion tool. If you’re concerned about XHTML validation this plugin can help. Running the Tidy Up report gives the following output: <img width="439" height="419" src="/blog/images/uploaded/1207488391.jpg" alt="" /> 10) FormBuilder FormBuilder is a simple plugin that allows you to create custom forms inside posts and pages. Setting up a form is a walk in the park: <img src="/blog/images/uploaded/1207488495.jpg" alt="" /> Here’s how the form looks (unstyled): Other Notable Plug-ins 11) WP Super Edit WP Super Edit is an alternative to the default visual WYIWYG editor (TinyMCE). It improves on the default editor by providing advanced users with additional options such as a button for inserting <div> tags in your posts. 12) WP-Debug WP-Debug lets you see what’s going on when your WordPress web page is rendered. This plugin is vital for efficiently troubleshooting your WordPress installation. 13) Theme Preview Theme Preview permits you to see how your new WordPress theme looks without having to switch it out. Use it on a demo WordPress site to showcase your theme designs. 14) post2pdf post2pdf converts your blog posts into PDF format. This is terrific specifically for tutorial writers who want to provide a PDF download option. 15) X-Valid X-Valid is another popular plugin to help you achieve XHTML validation by cleaning up HTML code. source: <a href="http://www.sixrevisions.com">sixrevisions</a> http://www.webloglines.com/blog/stuff/article/_helpful_wordpress_plugins_for_the_savvy_user.php Sun, 06 Apr 2008 9:19:59 EDT http://www.webloglines.com/blog/stuff/article/_helpful_wordpress_plugins_for_the_savvy_user.php 5 WordPress Tips To A Faster Blog WordPress tips abound however they are generally encouraging another plugin or more code within the header, footer, index or page files. These WordPress tips are a little different. They are designed to speed up you blog, not slow it down. The problem is fairly simple. The more widgets, plugins or PHP code that WordPress has to load, the slower your blog will get. If you have a blog that also relies on graphics, you have probably got a snail for a blog. Loading speed is one of the greatest turn-offs when it comes to visitors bouncing away from your blog. The following WordPress tips will help to optimize your blog with hopefully some noticeable increases in load times.    1. First and foremost. How does your blog load? By this I refer to the load order which is generally header, left sidebar, right sidebar, content and footer. If your sidebars are busy then the last thing your visitor will see is the content and that could be after 10 or even 15 seconds. Look out - they are gone before the content loads. WordPress Tip One: select a theme that loads content early, preferably first.    2. PHP is actually a slow language to run. The PHP code is run and converted into HTML which the browser then renders to the screen. You can see the results by viewing the pages source code (View, Page Source or Control U or right click View Page Source - FireFox). Generally speaking, the Pages header and footer are fairly static. Once you have your page setup it is normally only the sidebars and of course the content that changes. Have a look at the source code - it is in HTML. WordPress Tip Two: Cut out the middleman (PHP). Copy the header and footer HTML code from the source code screen. In the Presentation - Edit Theme section, paste this code in to replace the PHP code for the relevant sections - take care and back up the files first.    3. Sidebars are notoriously slow at loading. Humans are notorious for adding every new gadget that comes along. WordPress Tip Three: The easiest tip to work on. Go through every widget in your sidebars and really consider whether or not you need them, particularly if they are repeating the same information, eg, recent posts, most visited posts etc. If it is not really adding to the benefit of your reader - get rid of it.    4. Plugins are another area that can slow your blog considerably. WordPress loads all plugins whether or not they have been activated. WordPress Tip Four: If the plugin has not been activated, delete it altogether. While you are at it, check that each plugin is up-to-date and is really necessary. If you don’t need it - delete it.    5. A lot of blogs like to advertise who has been visiting with widgets from BlogCatolog or MyblogLog to name two. WordPress Tip Five: if you have a widget from one of the social directories, check to see if you can create a full width widget (you can with BlogCatalog and MyBlogLog). If you can, place it in the footer so that it appears across the bottom of your blog. The footer is the last to load - after the content. Each of these WordPress tips may only improve your blogs load speed by a half to one second. Put them all together and you have as much as five seconds reduced from your blogs load speed. On the internet, that is quite a reduction. Keep a lookout in the coming weeks for more WordPress tips on how to increase your blogs load speed. http://www.webloglines.com/blog/stuff/article/_wordpress_tips_to_a_faster_blog.php Wed, 02 Apr 2008 6:26:03 EDT http://www.webloglines.com/blog/stuff/article/_wordpress_tips_to_a_faster_blog.php Number One Wordpress Security Step  what is the most important step you can take to keep your Wordpress blog secure?     * Keep the software up-to-date This may sound almost patronizingly obvious, but hold on a second. Every day hackers use unpatched servers or services of one kind or another as the bread and butter of their trade (stealing data, creating Bot networks, selling hacked server access to phishers, etc.). So, why are there so many unpatched (or under-patched) servers and services?     * Lack of awareness that a patch or update is available or needed     * Lack of urgency regarding maintenance     * Attitude that you are immune to these types of problems, and don’t need to worry about them The good news is that the Wordpress community has resolved the first two problems. (Folks with the last issue are the reason there will always be script kiddies…) Here is the quick and dirty path to keeping your blog up-to-date: (1) Subscribe to the Wordpress Development Feed If you log into your Wordpress blog’s administrative interface, you will be notified if a new version is available. But if you are in a low-activity time with your blog, you still want to know when maintenance is needed. The best way is to subscribe to the Wordpress Development Feed in your RSS feed reader (You may also want to subscribe to the RSS feeds for the plug-ins you are using.). (2) Install and Use the Wordpress Automatic Update Plug-in I have two blogs, and have used this plug-in for my last three software updates (including the move to 2.5 yesterday), and have been very happy with how well the plug-in works. Now, I do automated daily backups of my blog db and files. So, I would recommend that you perform your own backup before using the script so you know you can recover if the unthinkable happens (Always make sure you are using the latest version of the plug-in before starting an update.). (3) Wordpress 2.5 Now Includes Built-In Plug-in Updates I do not think that your site will yet email you when your plug-ins need to be updated (2.5.1 please?), but with 2.5 you can 1-click update your plug-ins, if they are registered with Wordpress.org. Step four would also be to make sure that your operating system is up-to-date. Automating that is almost always possible, but is dependent on what operating system you are using. Google “X automated security update”, where X is your OS. source: <a href="http://www.artofinfosec.com">artofinfosec</a> http://www.webloglines.com/blog/stuff/article/number_one_wordpress_security_step.php Mon, 31 Mar 2008 7:10:55 EDT http://www.webloglines.com/blog/stuff/article/number_one_wordpress_security_step.php AJAX-ify the FAQ-Tastic WordPress Plugin FAQ-Tastic is a wonderful WordPress plugin for maintaining a FAQ on your website. My company recently made a decision for one of its products to run both the blog and FAQ for the product off of WordPress. Using FAQ-Tastic will enable the folks in charge of the FAQ to make changes without having to modify any code. While the developers of FAQ-Tastic apparently went to great lengths to add AJAX effects to the admin area for this plugin the actual display in the post or page is rather boring in the fact that it does not include any AJAX and simply displays the answer directly under the question. You can additionally list all of the questions which will link to the question and answer lower in the page but that keeps the users scrolling up and down the page. The authors of FAQ-Tastic list in their FAQ that they are planning on AJAXifying the plugin at some future time, but we don’t have time to wait for them to do it. A simple solution would be to add a small amount of Javascript and CSS code to collapse the answers and only display them once the question has been clicked. There is one caveat though…Ratings do not collapse with the answer, which causes them to not display correctly, and thus have been hidden using CSS in this plugin. Now for instructions on implementing it    1. Open header.php from your WordPress theme in your favorite text editor or the WordPress theme editor.    2. Add the following code just above the line reading <?php wp_head(); ?>       <script type="text/javascript" src="<?php bloginfo(url); ?>/wp-includes/js/jquery/jquery.js"></script>       <script type="text/javascript">           wp_faq = {               init : function() {                   jQuery(ol.faq .answer).hide();                   jQuery(ol.faq h3).click(function() {                       wp_faq.toggle(this)                   });               },               toggle : function(elt) {                   jQuery(elt).toggleClass(active);                   jQuery(elt).siblings(.answer).slideToggle( ormal);               }           }           jQuery(function() {               wp_faq.init();               jQuery(ol.faq li).removeClass(alt);           });       </script>    3. Add the following code just after the line reading <?php wp_head(); ?>:       <style type="text/css">           ol.faq {               list-style: none;           }           ol.faq li {               list-style: none;           }           ol.faq li:hover {               background-color: transparent;               background-image: none;           }           ol.faq h3 {               padding-bottom: 5px;               cursor:  pointer;           }           ol.faq div.answer {               display: none;               padding-left: 30px;           }           ol.faq div.answer p {               font-size: 75%;           }           ol.faq div.faq_approve {               display: none;           }       </style>    4. You can add some additional styling by adding a open/close indicator next to the question by adding the following into the css styles listed in step 3.       ol.faq h3 {           padding-left:20px;           background: url(/wp-content/themes/YOURTHEME/images/open.gif) top left no-repeat;       }       ol.faq h3.active {           background: url(/wp-content/themes/YOURTHEME/images/close.gif) top left no-repeat;       } http://www.webloglines.com/blog/stuff/article/ajaxify_the_faqtastic_wordpress_plugin.php Sun, 30 Mar 2008 10:12:41 EDT http://www.webloglines.com/blog/stuff/article/ajaxify_the_faqtastic_wordpress_plugin.php 31 Professional WordPress Themes If you’re looking for a good themes for your wordpress website here there are Fresh and professional collection of themes ready for download. <h3>Free Themes</h3> <h4><a href="http://hyalineskies.com/wordpress/gridlock/">Gridlock</a></h4> <img width="300" height="278" alt="Gridlock" src="http://i16.tinypic.com/4zck07k.jpg" /> <h4><a href="http://themasterplan.in/themes/the-morning-after/">The Morning After</a></h4> <img width="485" height="323" alt="The Morning After" src="http://i20.tinypic.com/91jtps.jpg" /> <h4><a href="http://5thirtyone.com/grid-focus">Grid Focus</a></h4> <img width="90%" alt="Grid Focus" src="http://i24.tinypic.com/2v0js0l.jpg" /> <h4><a href="http://www.lifespy.com/2007/illacrimo-theme-release/">Illacrimo</a></h4> <img width="499" height="269" alt="Illacrimo" src="http://i31.tinypic.com/14bu5ad.jpg" /> <h4><a href="http://www.dailyseoblog.com/2008/03/new-wordpress-theme-seo-green-from-dailyseoblog/">SEO Green</a></h4> <img width="450" height="310" alt="SEO Green" src="http://i28.tinypic.com/2q8dhdu.jpg" /> <h4><a href="http://www.prelovac.com/vladimir/wordpress-themes/amazing-grace">Amazing Grace</a></h4> <img width="500" height="284" alt="Amazing Grace" src="http://i28.tinypic.com/skxsfb.jpg" /> <h4><a href="http://www.dailyblogtips.com/studiopress-wordpress-theme-released/">StudioPress</a></h4> <img width="500" height="284" alt="StudioPress" src="http://i25.tinypic.com/2d7vgp0.jpg" /> <h4><a href="http://www.xsized.de/wordpress-theme-not-so-fresh/">Not So Fresh</a></h4> <img width="354" height="225" alt="Not So Fresh" src="http://i32.tinypic.com/2z74k7l.jpg" /> <h4><a href="http://www.refueled.net/natures-highlight/">Nature’s Highlight</a></h4> <img width="500" height="315" alt="Nature is Highlight" src="http://i32.tinypic.com/289krk.jpg" /> <h4><a href="http://www.adii.co.za/2008/03/15/the-exkineda-project/">The (Ex)Kineda Project</a></h4> <img width="500" height="337" alt="The (Ex)Kineda Project" src="http://i25.tinypic.com/2rorkoi.jpg" /> <h4><a href="http://www.wpdesigner.com/2007/11/25/gluttony-wordpress-theme/">Gluttony</a></h4> <img width="500" height="279" alt="Gluttony" src="http://i31.tinypic.com/2cdaanp.jpg" /> <h4><a href="http://the449.com/springloaded-the-theme-is-here/">SpringLoaded</a></h4> <img width="500" height="294" alt="SpringLoaded" src="http://i28.tinypic.com/3508etv.jpg" /> <h4><a href="http://www.bloggingpro.com/archives/2007/04/03/wordpress-theme-release-insense/">InSense</a></h4> <img width="428" height="289" alt="InSense" src="http://i27.tinypic.com/2ccnrpf.jpg" /> <h4><a href="http://www.writerspace.net/index.php/2007/04/01/digital-pop-wordpress-theme/">Digital Pop</a></h4> <img width="500" height="289" alt="Digital Pop" src="http://i25.tinypic.com/10pn62v.jpg" /> <h4><a href="http://www.bloggingpro.com/archives/2007/03/21/blogging-pros-theme-released/">Blogging Pro</a></h4> <img width="500" height="294" alt="Blogging Pro Theme" src="http://i28.tinypic.com/v4nvv9.jpg" /> <h4><a href="http://themes.performancing.com/themes/announcing-the-news-theme-from-performancing/">Performancing News</a></h4> <img width="500" height="294" alt="Performancing News" src="http://i25.tinypic.com/ve26n9.jpg" /> <h4><a href="http://www.thoughtmechanics.com/templates/">Balance</a></h4> <img width="500" height="401" alt="Balance" src="http://i26.tinypic.com/2m812k8.jpg" /> <h4><a href="http://www.thoughtmechanics.com/templates/">Alternate 0</a></h4> <img width="500" height="272" alt="Alternate 0" src="http://i27.tinypic.com/2i7wd1c.jpg" /> <h4><a href="http://webrevolutionary.com/coldblue/">ColdBlue</a></h4> <img width="497" height="319" alt="ColdBlue" src="http://i29.tinypic.com/8y5ava.jpg" /> <h4><a href="http://www.ilemoned.com/archives/wptheme-dark">Dark Theme</a></h4> <img width="500" height="294" alt="Dark Theme" src="http://i27.tinypic.com/2qs8io7.jpg" /> <h4><a href="http://www.dailyblogtips.com/greentech-wordpress-theme-released/">GreenTech</a></h4> <a href="http://www.dailyblogtips.com/greentech-wordpress-theme-released/"><img width="500" height="294" alt="GreenTech" src="http://i26.tinypic.com/2yw6ah3.jpg" /></a> <h4><a href="http://wpthemesplugin.com/forte-2-column-blog-magazine-list-styled-wordpress-theme/">Forte</a></h4> <img width="500" height="294" alt="Forte" src="http://i25.tinypic.com/xlywht.jpg" /> <h4><a href="http://wpthemesplugin.com/pixelate-2-column-widget-ready-theme-with-cms-theme-settings/">Pixelate</a></h4> <img width="500" height="294" alt="Pixelate" src="http://i30.tinypic.com/5v89id.jpg" /> <h4><a href="http://www.farfromfearless.com/2007/12/14/fff-lemon-twist-wordpress-theme-v15-released-for-download/">Lemon Twist</a></h4> <img width="500" height="294" alt="Lemon Twist" src="http://i28.tinypic.com/2qmhix4.jpg" /> <h4><a href="http://themespack.com/several3-wordpress-theme.html">Several3</a></h4> <img width="500" height="294" alt="Several3" src="http://i28.tinypic.com/13zbrsx.jpg" /> <h4><a href="http://web-kreation.com/wp_yoghourt/">Yoghourt</a></h4> <img width="500" height="294" alt="Yoghourt" src="http://i31.tinypic.com/5js9yp.jpg" /> <h4><a href="http://www.nyssajbrown.net/pockett/">PocketT</a></h4> <img width="500" height="294" alt="PocketT" src="http://i29.tinypic.com/2aaab8i.jpg" /> <h3>Premium Themes</h3> <h4><a href="https://www.e-junkie.com/ecom/gb.php?ii=85150&c=ib&aff=17168&ev=2742354a56">Flash News</a></h4> <img width="500" height="294" alt="Flash News" src="http://i32.tinypic.com/2r59938.jpg" /> <h4><a href="https://www.e-junkie.com/ecom/gb.php?ii=85147&c=ib&aff=17168&ev=2a1d92e051">PNT Gazette Edition</a></h4> <img width="500" height="294" alt="Premium News Theme Gazette Edition" src="http://i27.tinypic.com/33nkr6f.jpg" /> <h4><a href="https://www.e-junkie.com/ecom/gb.php?ii=68185&c=ib&aff=17168&ev=1d6b344cdd">Revolution Theme</a></h4> <img width="500" height="294" alt="The Original Revolution Theme" src="http://i30.tinypic.com/2ez1k0k.jpg" /> <h4><a href="http://www.wpremix.com/">WP Remix</a> - The WordPress Master Theme</h4> WP Remix is more of a theme framework than an actual theme. The general idea is that you can easily customize the theme to look the way you want it. The site also has some examples of sites created with WP Remix. <img width="500" height="294" alt="WP Remix" src="http://i31.tinypic.com/11mdogo.jpg" /> http://www.webloglines.com/blog/stuff/article/_professional_wordpress_themes.php Wed, 26 Mar 2008 9:26:12 EDT http://www.webloglines.com/blog/stuff/article/_professional_wordpress_themes.php Add-Meta-Tags WordPress Plugin This plugin adds XHTML META tags to your WordPress blog. The addition of the META tags is fully automatic , but it also includes all those features a SEO-concerned publisher would need in order to have total control over those meta tags. The features at a glance The following list outlines how and where META tags are added to a WordPress blog by this plugin. Please note that this list does not provide all the details you need to know about how to customize the added metatags. Its purpose is to provide a general idea of what this plugin supports. For detailed info, proceed to the next section.     * Front Page           o Automatically.           o Customization is possible from the plugin’s configuration panel.     * Single Posts           o Automatically. (On WordPress v2.3 or newer tags are also used in addition to the post’s categories)           o Customization of the “description” META tag:                 + either via custom excerpt                 + or via custom field (note that this overrides the custom excerpt).           o Customization of the “keywords” META tag via custom field only.     * Static Pages           o No automatic generation of meta tags.           o Customization is possible with custom fields like it can be done in posts.     * Category Archive Pages           o The description of the category, if set, is used for the description META tag. The name of the category is always used at the keywords metatag.     * META Tags on all pages           o It is now possible to set any other META tag, which does not require any computation, to be added to all blog pages. Here follow all the details about how this plugin works. Features - How to use it The simplest way to use this plugin is to activate it in the WordPress administration panel and forget about it. At this basic level of usage, it automatically adds the “description” and “keywords” META tags to the front page and to single post view, which, of course, can be customized in the ways outlined below. META Tags on the Front Page By default, the blog’s tagline (Options->General) and all the used categories are being used automatically as description and keywords for the meta tags on the front page. These can be overridden by setting a custom description and keywords for the front page in the plugin’s configuration panel (Options->MetaTags). The description and keywords defined in the plugin’s configuration panel have higher priority and, if any of them is set, it will be used instead of the automatically calculated respective metatag. META Tags in Single Posts In single post view, the post’s excerpt and its categories and tags (tags are supported in WordPress 2.3 or newer) are automatically used as description and keywords. While editing a post, it is possible to define a custom excerpt. If this excerpt is not set, then the description is calculated from the post itself. This calculation is based on the following:    1. the plugin tries to use the first complete sentences of the post, if possible.    2. it also tries to keep the calculated excerpt at a length around 250 characters. As you can guess, this cannot be always achieved, so I’d say that the calculated description will be about 150-350 characters. This automatic behaviour can also be overridden, by adding custom fields to the post. Note that the custom fields have the higher priority and, if set, their values are used in the META tags. The contents of a custom field named description will be used in the description META tag instead of the post’s excerpt. Contrariwise, a custom field named keywords can contain a comma-delimited list of keywords, which will be used in the keywords META tag instead of the post’s categories and tags. It is still possible though to quickly include the post’s categories and tags to this list by using the words %cats% and %tags%, which are replaced by the post’s categories and tags respectively when the page is displayed in a browser. For example, when the post’s categories are not enough and tags are not enough for you, you can add a custom keywords field to the post, and add the extra keywords you want together with %cats% and/or %tags% : keyword1, keyword2, %cats%, %tags% This makes it possible to adjust and optimize the post’s keywords without having to create a huge number of blog categories and tags. META Tags in Pages It is possible to add the description and keywords meta tags in WordPress Pages by assigning custom fields to each page as it was discussed previously for posts. Pages do not belong to categories in WordPress, so metatags will not be added automatically without using custom fields. Also, the tag %cats%, if used in the keyword list, will not be replaced by any categories. META Tags in Category Archives Finally, META tags are automatically added to category archive pages, for example when viewing all posts that belong to a specific category. In this case, if you have set a description for that category, then this description is added to a “description” META tag. Furthermore, a “keywords” META tag - containing only the category’s name - is always added when viewing category archives. source: <a href="http://www.ptistrader.com">ptistrader</a> http://www.webloglines.com/blog/stuff/article/addmetatags_wordpress_plugin.php Wed, 26 Mar 2008 8:59:18 EDT http://www.webloglines.com/blog/stuff/article/addmetatags_wordpress_plugin.php 48 Unique Ways To Use WordPress WordPress, one of the most popular blogging platforms (if not the most), is capable of being more than just a blog platform. It is capable of being a full-blown CMS (Content Management System). As someone who has both written small, custom CMSes from scratch as well as evaluated million-dollar professional CMSes for large corporations, WordPress robustness never ceases to amaze me. The key to many of the unique uses can be attributed to any or all of the following components:    1. Custom theme.    2. Custom code tweaks    3. Custom or widely-available plugins.    4. Custom fields per post.    5. Custom code to use the custom fields. Why Use WordPress? Not everyone is for the idea of WordPress as a CMS. Some bloggers point out a variety of technical issues (which I am not getting into here). True, WP is not a high-end CMS, but it can get the job done, especially for low-volume use. The point is that with WP, you don always need to pay $50,000+ for a proprietary, difficult to learn CMS. And that is for starters. Many of high-end CMSes require "seat" licenses. That is, a fee for each person that MIGHT use the software. Add maintenances/ upgrade fees, support licenses, training, etc., and most small businesses or online publishers are spending more than they have/ is necessary. WordPress can do the job, and as has been discussed here and elsewhere many times, has a lot of community support, free themes and plugins, and is relatively easy to customize or to find someone who can for a fair price. Below are some ways that WP can be used. Basic WordPress Uses The uses in this section require the minimum amount of customization, often involving only additional available plugins.    1. Basic CMS for a traditional site or web magazine. One of the most common alternate uses for WordPress is to build a traditional website with no focus on chronological posts (blog) - that is, to use WP as a basic CMS. More recently, this approach is being integrated with a blog as well, particularly using "magazine" themes.       Some of the best visual examples I have come across are Twist Shout and Simms Furniture Warehouse both designed by Charlene of Essentially Keystrokes, and Camacho Cigars. The latter integrates WordPress and Flash to produce a traditional site that you would probably never know was built on WordPress if you didn check the source code. Another nice example is Ford is Autoshow site. (This is not an endorsement of any of these sites, just simply an observation.)       There are reasons not to use WP as a CMS, but there are also reasons to use WP and many tutorials on how to do so. The fact is, you can use a Caching plugin to speed up the rendering of pages on your web server. If you prefer more traditional URLs, you can use an .HTML or .PHP extension.    2. City guide or geocoded news site. The Thunderbird, a college journalism site built in WordPress, has an excellent example of what I mean by geocoded news. News stories on the site (which uses one of Brian Gardner is Revolution magazine themes) are represented by colored icons on an embedded Google MyMap map. Clicking on an icon displays an excerpt bubble, complete with a "Read more" that, when clicked, opens a new browser tab/ window with the story in question.       You could expand on this idea to build City Guides. Instead of news stories, publish reviews/ profiles of restaurants, nightclubs, businesses, as well as interviews of local celebrities. Then geocode each post into an icon on a Google map. (I will cover Google Maps and geocoding here on Performancing starting in the near future.)    3. History/ timeline site. Timeline from MIT is a visualization widget for time-based info. Event items are draggable, and clicking on one pops up a dialog with more detail, including links. Freshlabs offers a WP plugin that allows you to embed SIMILE Timeline windows into your posts. You could combine this with maps, video, images, and articles in order to create a history site. (E.g., a religion or dinosaur timeline.)    4. Image gallery or photoblog. There are a number of ways that you can use WP to create a Photoblog (such as by using the Photopress theme) or an image gallery. For the latter, there are lightbox-style WP plugins and widgets, or regular image gallery plugins.    5. Intranet. Intranets, in a nutshell, are websites that are internal to an organization, typically firewalled off so that only employees/ members have access. WP can be used for an Intranet that combines blogs, traditional sites, or pretty much any of the other uses described in this article.    6. Movie poster and trailer site. Sprout Builder       is a new web service (still in beta) that allows fast creation of Flash media content. You can use its image and video components to build movie Sprouts. Each Sprout would simply be embedded in a WordPress post, possibly accompanied by a review and/or ratings area. The reason for taking this approach is because Sprout Builder allows you to build in interactivity.    7. Network hub/ feed aggregator. Many bloggers have multiple web properties forming a blog network. Some also like to have a hub site that offers snippets of posts from across the network. A simple way to do this is to use an RSS feed importer plugin (such as the very cool WP-o-matic, which uses SimplePie) that automatically produces a new WP post snippet for each feed item. Hart is Battling for Health hub site is an example of this.    8. Polling site. There are numerous WP polling plugins (such as Democracy AJAX Poll and WP-Polls) that can be used to produce a polling site. This could be a standalone site, or combined with a blog.    9. Real estate listings or guide. Take the idea of a city guide, mentioned above, and tweak it to build a real estate guide - possibly using a custom real estate WP theme (not free). Add maps, exterior 3/4 pics of a property, video, details and contact info.   10. Web Chat. Embed one of web-based chat services into your home page or the nav bar. There is even a new one that will "ping" your AIM chat client. So site visitors can chat with you without having to download and install AIM. Something like this could even be used to give web-based advice by church ministers, on a church website.   11. Webcasting station. Imagine a main page with a single, large media player, with member "twittering" to the side. The best example of this used to be Evil Backwards, which used to use the very robust Splashcast Media player where the current video window is now. They have ditched the Splashcast player, so you will have to imagine it is there. Splashcast offers embedded "channels" for video, audio and documents in a borderless player. A theme similar to Evil Backwards home page can be produced in WordPress using the Blueprint CSS framework (discussed below in the Techmeme clone item, in the next section). Of course, you can use a media player similar to Splashcast, but to my knowledge no other player offers embedded channels. Website/ Web Services Clones and Alternatives The uses in this section are visual or functional mimics of popular web sites/ services. Several can be done with a combo of a special, available theme and plugins. Some might require a bit of custom coding.   12. Feedburner alternative. Feedburner, a web service that Google recently purchased, offers multiple functionality, but mostly the republishing of site RSS feeds and monitoring. Many bloggers say they don want to use Feedburner because Google tends to give the latter the search juice for an article. (There are feed direction plugins to get around that.) I like Feedburner because I don have to worry about server resources, and I can monitor my stats. But there is a WordPress alternative to Feedburner that uses a simple set of plugins to accomplish similar functionality (though not a visual clone).   13. Popurls clone. Popurls is a popular site that lets you get a bird is eye view of several popular sites. This format is very handy and can be used to monitor the blogs in a niche or even several niches. Ericulous offers a handy free WP Popurls clone theme. (There are a few plugins necessary, but they are included in the ZIP file.) While it is not robust enough yet to handle non-RSS format feeds, it is still an excellent launch point.   14. Techmeme clone. Techmeme is in my blogger is toolbox as handy way to monitor the tech niche. It is not as "bird is eye view" as a Popurls clone, and it algorithmically follows a set of RSS feeds. If you blog is in the tech niche, it might be included one day in Techmeme is stream and not the next (or ever again). You can solve that with your own Techmeme clone using WordPress and various plugins. Though there are two things to point out:          1. I haven come across a ready-made WP solution to Techmeme. The closest clone to Techmeme is Megite, which I understand is available for licensing at $15,000+.          2. Techmeme and Megite use "topic clustering" algorithms that are the core driver to how the story items are presented on both sites. I haven deciphered this yet, but I am working on it.       Nevertheless, the basic idea behind Techmeme is a "river of news". This can be produced using RSS import plugins and a custom WP theme - best created with the Blueprint CSS Framework and related tools (something I will try to cover in the future). You will end up with something like Techmeme River as a starting point. From here, you would have to apply clustering algorithms, which are way beyond the scope of Performancing.   15. Twitter clone. Twitter microblogging has become something of a phenomenon online, with some people even preferring this mode of communication over blogging. But it has its drawbacks - namely a 140-character message/ tweet limit, no simple inclusion of visual media, scrambled URLs, etc. Sure, there are Twitter alternatives such as Jaiku and Tumblr, but if you want to do something similar in WP, you are in luck. Matt and Automattic (makers of WordPress) have released the Prologue theme. It has Gravatar support and loads of RSS feeds, and is ideal for group "twittering" activity. (See the section below for specific uses of Prologue.) Their download site is down at the time of this writing, and apparently doesn offer a ZIP, so go visit Sizlopedia instead. Additional Uses of the Prologue Theme The Prologue theme, mentioned in the last section for "Twitter clone", is a versatile theme/plugin package with a lot of potential. Here are some additional ways you can use it. Keep in mind that for some of these uses, you might want to either password-protect each new posting manually, or write some custom code that automatically sets a post is status to "private". (That is not covered here, but if you are using WP 2.3+, it probably has simplified privacy options.)   16. Article assignment system. There are several ways to set up an article assignment system in WP. The simplest way is to use the Prologue theme. Each writer gets an account, and when the editor posts an available assignment, the first person to claim it by posting gets it. (Details of the assignment might be elsewhere.) The success of this approach depends on the discipline of writers not to post anything else except acceptance of an assignment. Questions can be posted as comments on the source assignment message, not as additional messages. Otherwise, the message stream will get cluttered fast.       Now, if you want something more sophisticated that sends out reminders, etc., you would need to write custom plugins/ code to manage that information.   17. Confession log. People love to confess private things (or hear about others confessions.) Set up a site with the Prologue theme. Keep registration open (but possibly with email confirmation) and let people confess whatever they like.   18. Celebrity or political microblog. If you only want to post short newsy items about a niche (such as entertainment or politics) and don need to upload images, Prologue is ideal for this. Thrivecore is an example used for pop culture microblogging. (Just keep in mind that to include links to other pages, you need to enter the appropriate HTML code in Prologue is textarea.)   19. Grocery list. Use the Prologue theme and enter grocery items. When you go to the grocery store, access your list with your Apple iPhone. (You can use other devices, but from what I understand, the iPhone is the best mobile Internet device around in terms of usability and readability.) You could also write custom code to tweak the list and convert it to some other format via a web API.   20. Log book. One of the biggest pains in the behind when you run your own business is tracking expenses and/or logging meetings. Use the Prologue theme and enter items AFTER they occur. Voila, an automatic logbook. If you have a mobile phone with Internet access, use it to enter items on the go. Later, you can use a desktop computer to collate the items and record them more permanently in a spreadsheet. If you are a codemonkey, you can write a WP plugin to export items to a private Google Spreadsheet, a web calendar, or a web to-do list service. Alternately, you can use your log book site is RSS feed.   21. Reminders. A Reminder system is similar to a to-do list but actually sends out reminders with a service such as Retweet is Timer. Setup a Prologue theme as usual, but rig a Twitter stream using your site is RSS feed. Use the necessary notation for Timer, and reminder items will be sent to you. Keep in mind that this shouldn be used for anything but items that are at least a day ahead, as it is hard to predict when Twitter will check your updated RSS feed.   22. Review site. Use Prologue with a group of friends to easily share brief reviews of movies, music, books, etc. Browse through JakartaBar for an interesting example. Make sure to check the comments (labelled as "reviews".) I am not sure what plugin they are using for their ratings, but here are a few places that you can find review/ ratings plugins: Dan Grossman, Paul Goscicki (movie ratings - compliant with hReview microformat), Sneak, Channel-Ai.       I haven tested any of these with Prologue yet, so I don know how they will look. (The movie ratings plugin is for the use of a post is author, so may not suit Prologue use.) Which plugin you use depends on who will do the rating (author or reader) and what is being rated (the actual post or something referenced in the post).   23. Software bug logger. Are you testing web or desktop software with a group of developers/ testers? Setup a subdomain with WP, using the Prologue theme. Turn on "privacy" in your WP control panel so that search engines don know about the site. Give each tester an account and have them follow a specific notation that can be parsed into a web spreadsheet or some other bug log.   24. To-do list. Use the Prologue theme to post new tasks for yourself. It is not elegant, but it is easy to set up and use. It is also available from anywhere that you have Internet access, and you can always pretty up the items later. In fact, if you can define a notation for items and use it consistently, you can send the to-do list feed through custom code (or a Yahoo Pipe) whose output works with the API of either a real web to-do list, calendar or spreadsheet service. (I.e., Google Calendar or Spreadsheet.) Check out Twittercal (and its Twitter bot) to get a better sense of this. Note: If you are serious about the above uses, get yourself a personal domain (e.g., yourname.com) and create one subdomain per use. Or use a single subdomain and create a unique notation that makes clear what each posting represents. Then use a Yahoo Pipe or other code to filter the RSS feed, which then can be sent via APIs to a web spreadsheet or calendar. Custom Sites To my knowledge, the uses in this section are mostly speculative and thus require custom code, themes, plugins and/or web services. (Note: Several of these ideas are taken from a blogHelper article.)   25. Article library. Set up WordPress so that the home page template displays no posts on the home page, only a static index of articles. Each article is a post with its own permalink page. An example is A-Level Econoref.   26. Calendar. You could drive your web calendar by using a Prologue-like home page (discussed indepth above), using a custom notation for items. The items would be parsed elsewhere and sent to a web calendar such as Google Calendar, or displayed on a calendar widget on your site. [This is an extension of the idea discussed for To-Do List and Reminder items above.]   27. Classifieds. Using the Edgeio Classfieds plugin, you can add paid or free classifieds to your WP site. This could be integrated with something like a real estate listings site, as discussed above.   28. Contact manager. As discussed in Pushing the Envelope of WP Functionality, Design Canopy is offering a WP-based Contact Manager theme (with plugins).   29. CSS/ Site awards gallery. There are lots of gorgeous CSS Gallery sites out there, and if you have the need to create a niche one of your own, you have several choices - including writing your own custom theme and plugins. If that is too much work, Shabu at OS Designer offers a free WP-based CSS Gallery theme (with necessary plugins) that uses two columns. (Example: CSS Design Gallery.) If two columns are not enough, or you want some flexibility in item pages, Small Potato at WP Designer is selling a CSS Gallery WP theme. Both Shabu is and Small Potato is themes use a voting plugin whereby visitors can rank a site.   30. Ecommerce site. WordPress can be integrated with plugins or custom code, and PayPal, to produce online shops. An example is Filipino Artisans. (I have read that Moo.com also uses WP, but I think it is for their blog, not their online store.) There are also code packs that allow you to integrate Amazon or other merchants into your own e-store.   31. Media collection manager. You will need custom code, but WP can be used to track your CDs, DVDs, books, software, collectibles. You are basically using it as a database manager for a specific type of item, though you could generalize. Alternately, you can use a Prologue theme interface with a unique notation, then parse added items and send them to a web spreadsheet via its API.   32. Voting site. The CSS Gallery setup examples above use a voting plugin. You could tailor one of these for a more traditional social voting site, or you could produce a custom template like the one at N4G (News for Gamers) - though I don believe they are WordPress-based. But with all the components discussed in this article, a WP-based theme similar to N4G is is possible. You could also combine the WP Prologue theme with a voting plugin to build a rudimentary voting site.   33. Web portfolio. Designers and other creative types might like to offer an online portfolio showcasing their past work. W web portfolio has elements of an image gallery and a CSS gallery but isn necessarily either. One example is Twist Shout is portfolio. Also, check out blogHelper is two-part series (part 1, part 2) on how build a WP-based portfolio. 15 Additional Uses of WordPress to Explore Here are some additional possible uses of WordPress that didn have time to research and write up, but wanted to share with you. Much of the technique you need to use WP this way is already discussed above in this article.   34. Church sermons.   35. Fark-like user-submitted links.   36. Forum. Sure, BBPress by Automattic is probably a better choice than a WP-based forum, but the fact is that you can do it.   37. Job listings site.   38. Music archives.   39. Press release site.   40. Project/ task management.   41. Resume.   42. Sales pages.   43. Social network.   44. Short film festival site.   45. Video sharing site.   46. Web command dashboard. (Private site to monitor your sites metrics, etc.)   47. Web directory.   48. Web soapbox. source: <a href="http://www.performancing.com">performancing</a> http://www.webloglines.com/blog/stuff/article/_unique_ways_to_use_wordpress.php Tue, 25 Mar 2008 10:07:44 EDT http://www.webloglines.com/blog/stuff/article/_unique_ways_to_use_wordpress.php 10 Things You Need to Know About WordPress 2.5 WordPress is about to release version 2.5 into the wild (It just hit Release Candidate yesterday so the release date, though officially not known, is coming soon). If you’ve been using WordPress.com or have peeked at the demo site you will know the biggest change coming to WordPress with this release. You might ask, “Where did WordPress 2.4 go?” The answer to this is that it was skipped. Yes, that’s right, the 120-day release cycle was scrapped this time and you essentially have two releases in one. Again, the changes are vast and countless. This is a huge release. So let’s get into the nitty gritty shall we? New Admin User Interface WordPress 2.5 GUIBy far the most comprehensive change in this release was the complete rethinking of how WordPressers do their administrative tasks. Happy Cog Studios was enlisted to do usability research and testing - with the emphasis being on usability research. Several of the items in this rundown are going to be broken into their own list item as they deserve their own description and, again, this upgrade is huge. <img src="/blog/images/uploaded/1206451181.jpg" alt="" /> You’ll notice that the WordPress admin is now bathed in a lighter blue, lighter grey and orange color scheme. I like the nice hues, but others are bound not to. If you’re a developer or know your way around creating WordPress plugins, you can supply your own admin CSS with the wp_admin_css and wp_admin_css_uri filters, and WordPress is already supplying per-user options of “Classic” - the old dark blue feel - and the “Fresh” style which is installed by default. function my_admin_css( $cssfilename ) { // Use name of the CSS file inside the wp-admin folder WITHOUT the file extension return amy-new-wp-admin; } apply_filters(wp_admin_css, amy_admin_css); I’d just stick with the default though. It’s not too shabby. Menu Layout WordPress 2.5 Menu One of the first things you’ll notice is the change in the administrative navigation. It struck me as very Movable Typeish. I don’t know if the idea came from them or simply that Happy Cog had such thorough user research that it made sense. Either way… it makes sense. Primarily, users interact with the WordPress admin in one of four areas - writing posts, managing posts, managing comments, and managing design elements. You’ll notice that these items make up the primary navigation on the left side of the screen. (Sidebar: You’ll also notice that the Presentation menu has been renamed Design - which was a usability decision. It makes sense.) Matt wrote more about this. The rest of the formerly Primary navigation items - Plugins, Options (now Settings) and Users have been moved to a secondary navigation on the right side of the screen. Sub-navigation is something that’s a little weird. As both the Primary and the new s