Archive for 'WordPress'

CodeIgniter from Scratch: File Operations

Posted on 11. Mar, 2010 by Burak Guzel.

In today’s episode we are going to be working with several helper functions, related to files, directories, and downloads. We are going to learn how to read, write, download files, and retrieve information about both files and directories. Also at the end we will build a small file browser that utilizes jQuery as well.

Catch Up

Day 11: File Operations

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Article source: Nettuts+

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New Premium Series: Tumblr Theme Design – Start to Finish

Posted on 11. Mar, 2010 by Jeffrey Way.

Tumblr’s popularity over the last year has increased exponentially. The reason why is quite simple: Tumblr is flexible, powerful, and, most importantly, a pleasure to work with. Unfortunately, there aren’t many training resources available for the platform yet. In this video series, we’ll go through the process of taking a Tumblr theme, designed in Photoshop, and converting it into a fully working theme – in just a few hours.

To take advantage of this mammoth video series, become a Premium member!

Watch the Intro

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The Full Series

Chapter 1: Intro
Chapter 2: Slicing the Design
Chapter 3: Creating the Markup and Adding the Tumblr Template Tags
Chapter 4: Adding the CSS
Chapter 5: Configuration Options
Chapter 6: @Font-Face and Custom Fonts
Chapter 7: Slide-out Panel – HTML and CSS
Chapter 8: Slide-out Panel – jQuery

Final Design

View the live demo.

Thanks to Kate Payton for submitting the design for this tutorial.

Join Net Premium

For those unfamiliar, the family of TUTS sites runs a premium membership service. For $9 per month, you gain access to exclusive premium tutorials, screencasts, and freebies from Nettuts+, Psdtuts+, Aetuts+, Audiotuts+, and Vectortuts+! For the price of a pizza, you’ll learn from some of the best minds in the business. If you’re curious about the other Premium tutorials that we have available, check here. Join today!

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Inspiration: Awesome Book-Related Website Designs

Posted on 11. Mar, 2010 by Callum Chapman.

If you’re a book lover, you may have noticed that the vast majority of book-related websites out there leave a bit to be desired when it comes to design and information architecture. In fact, some author and publisher websites make me feel like my eyes might bleed!

But there are some gems out there, and we’ve collected some of the best. If you know of any other fantastic book-related websites, whether they’re for authors, individual books, publishing companies, or blogs, let us know in the comments.

Authors & Individual Book Sites

Author websites are some of the more challenging sites to design. If an author has a large backlist, it can be difficult to figure out how to showcase all of their work effectively. And if the author has only published one or two books, it can be hard to have an effective site that doesn’t feel empty.

And in reality, there are a lot of things an author’s site needs to accomplish. It needs to provide readers and potential readers with information about the books and why they might be interested in reading them. It needs to give booksellers information about the books, and why they should stock them. And it needs to act as a constant promotional tool that will help the author sell more books and gain more fans.

Dear Author has a great post on what many author websites are lacking. The list includes things like a printable book list, a link on the home page to contact the author, and a highly visible “coming soon” section. Check out the full list for more points to keep in mind if you’re designing an author’s website.

Here are a few great author and book websites you should be sure to check out for inspiration and ideas.

No One Belongs Here More Than You
Stories by Miranda July

This is one of the most creative books websites I’ve ever seen. While it’s not the most user-friendly of sites, it suits its purpose and does well to hold reader interest.

Justine Larbalestier

An excellent, clean-looking design that still has plenty of character. Her books are prominently displayed on the home page, along with links to her blog, about information, and other important parts. She also includes information about events, interviews, and specific book info on the home page, a big plus for readers and book sellers.

Stephen King

Stephen King’s presents its own challenges to a designer, mainly the sheer volume of information it needs to contain. King has written well over sixty books, has had a number of his books adapted for the screen, and has written numerous short stories. But his site manages to include all the pertinent information a visitor might be looking for while also showcasing his best and most recent works, all while maintaining a very streamlined and professional design.

Cherry Adair

Cherry Adair’s website fits well with the types of books she writes. The only downside to the site is that it’s entirely Flash-based, though the interface itself is slick and very responsive. She includes all of the information one would expect on an author site, including a printable, PDF booklist.

Jim Collins

Jim Collins’ site takes a much more minimalist design approach than many of the others on this list. The color scheme is limited and sophisticated, there’s plenty of white space, and only necessary content is included.

Jean Chatzky

Jean Chatzky’s website is well-suited to the types of books she writes and the brand she’s built for herself (you may recognize her from her regular appearances on the Today Show). It’s professional but unintimidating and has a friendly feel to it. It also provides all the necessary information you’d expect and is easy to navigate.

Hank Phillippi Ryan

Hank Phillippi Ryan’s website is bright and colorful, which matches the covers and style of her books. The layout is reminiscent of a grid layout and makes good use of negative space.

Caroline Tiger

Caroline Tiger’s site has some of the best use of color of any author site I’ve seen. Navigation is simple and straightforward, the emphasis is placed squarely on her books, and the overall impression is professional but relaxed.

Nicholas Sparks

Nicholas Sparks’ website makes great use of large background images and transparency. It’s easy to find the information you might be looking for, with prominent links to his books and movies, as well as appearances and biography information.

Publishers

Publisher websites have to be many things to many people; not always an easy task to do well. They have to showcase their books to potential readers. They have to appeal to booksellers and convince them to stock more of their books. They have to give information to prospective authors, either in the form of submission guidelines or guidelines that tell them they don’t accept unagented submissions. They have to provide information to the media and book reviewers. And sometimes, in the case of the larger publishing conglomerates, they also have to present a united front across multipe imprints.

The best publisher sites showcase recent books as well as best sellers. They make it easy for readers and booksellers to make decisions regarding book purchases. And they provide all the necessary information about the company, the books, and the authors for anyone looking.

Here are some of the best book publisher websites out there. They run the gamut from small publishers with only a handful of books to large publishing houses that publish hundreds of titles each year. What they all have in common is good information architecture, a clean style, and excellent user experience.

Dragon International Independent Arts

The DIIArts site packs a lot of information into a small space while maintaining an uncluttered and clean-looking layout. Their main nav includes nine tabs while still leaving some breathing room. The use of icons throughout the site helps to unify everything, as does the light color scheme.

Arcadia Publishing

Arcadia Publishing’s site fits its business perfectly. It has a vintage feel to it, which fits them since they’re publishers of historical nonfiction. The site is easy to navigate and effectively showcases important information (like the fact that they offer free shipping).

Melville House Publishing

The Melville House Publishing website has a simple blue and white theme throughout. It has a minimalist, grid-based layout nad a lot of white space. Information is easy to find and their books are displayed prominently.

Princeton Architectural Press

Princeton Architectural Press’s website is great because it’s design is a bit unexpected. The bright yellow background and grid-based layout are visually striking, which is entirely appropriate for a publishign company that focuses so heavily on design, but also a bit unexpected for a site in such a conservative industry.

Penguin Group USA

Among all of the big-name publishers out there, Penguin has one of the most attractive websites. Their layout is well-ordered, the color palette is refined, and they place emphasis where appropriate. There’s a ton of information on the site, and yet it feels uncluttered.

Timber Press

The Timber Press website makes great use of color and has a fantastic layout. The design is eye-catching and easy to navigate, with a well-implemented slideshow showcasing some of their books on the home page.

Llewellyn

Llewellyn’s website uses a muted color palette and three column layout that creates a sophisticated and professional feel to their site. They make it easy to browse their books, as well as to find other information about the company and their authors.

Storey Publishing

Storey Publishing is another company that opted for a muted color palette and simple layout. The green accents on the site fit well with the country-living and outdoor-themed books they publish, as do the graphics throughout the site.

Gibbs Smith

Gibbs Smith makes great use of Flash to showcase books on their home page, but otherwise keeps their layout fairly simple. They emphasize their best-sellers but make it easy to browse their entire catalog or find information about their authors. The red, burgundy and gray color scheme is sophisticated and feels very neutral.

Other Sites

Publisher and author websites aren’t the only sites out there that target book lovers. There are communities for readers (and writers), blogs and book review sites, and service sites for readers and writers alike.

The sites below target many different demographics, but each focuses on great user experience and simple architecture. Each has its own distinct style that adds to the user’s overall impression of the site and the company or people behind it. And each one has a clear purpose and mission that they accomplish well.

IndieBound

IndieBound is a community for independent bookstores and their customers. Their site is well-laid-out, has a great color scheme, and a unique design. They have a lot of information on the site, but it remains easy to navigate and find the information you need. They even manage to make the wide variety of graphics used on the site appear cohesive.

The Fiction Project

The Fiction Project at Art House Co-Op has a really awesome site design. The overall look represents the artistic sensibility of the project, but all information about the project is easily found and legible.

Lulu

Self-publishing company Lulu has a well-designed website that focuses on user experience. They keep graphics simple and use them specifically to highlight their services. The color scheme is consistent (white, blue and orange), and there’s plenty of negative space in the design. What sets Lulu’s site apart from many other self-publishing sites is that they’ve made it just as easy for book buyers to use the site as they have for authors.

Readerville

Readerville uses a simple two-column design with brownish-orange, burgundy, and muted blue accent colors. Readability is given the utmost importance in this design, with usability a very close second. While the site is no longer updated, it is still a great example of a book-related site design.

DailyLit

DailyLit, a service that delivers daily reading to your email inbox, has a fantastic website that uses a muted, cool color palette and grid-based layout. The site is easily navigated and showcases their services and the books available.

Blurb

Blurb is another self-publishing service that puts more emphasis on style than many other self-publishing sites. They offer good user experience for both authors and book buyers, and showcase “staff picks” on the home page (something many self-publishing companies don’t bother with).

The Millions

The Millions is a book review and culture site that uses a grid layout and mostly-black and white color scheme with bright orange accents. The layout of the site is fantastic, and the entire thing feels very modern and refreshing.

Guys Read

Guys Read is a literacy site for boys that places a heavy emphasis on typography. The site uses a red-white-and-blue color scheme and plenty of white space. It uses a mostly two-column layout and has a very masculine feel to it without feeling stuffy or staid.

Article source: Nettuts+

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Quick Tip: The Difference Between Live() and Delegate()

Posted on 10. Mar, 2010 by Jeffrey Way.

In jQuery 1.3, the team introduced the live() method, which allows us to bind event handlers to elements on the page, as well as any that might be created in the future dynamically. Though not perfect, it definitely proved to be helpful. Most notably, live() bubbles all the way up, and attaches the handler to the document. It also ceases to work well when chaining method calls, unfortunately. Delegate() was introduced in version 1.4, which almost does the same thing, but more efficiently.

We’ll examine the specific differences between the two methods in today’s video quick tip. Thanks to the FireQuery Firebug extension, we’ll have the tools to more easily understand how each method functions.

<ul id="items">
	<li> Click Me </li>
</ul>

// Bind attaches an event handler only to the elements
// that match a particular selector. This, expectedly,
// excludes any dynamically generated elements.
$("#items li").click(function() {
	$(this).parent().append("<li>New Element</li>");
});

// Live(), introduced in 1.3, allows for the binding
// of event handlers to all elements that match a
// selector, including those created in the future.
// It does this by attaching the handler to the document.
// Unfortunately, it doesn"t work well with chaining.
// Don"t expect to chain live() after calls like
// children().next()...etc.
$("li").live("click", function() {
	$(this).parent().append("<li>New Element</li>");
});	

// Delegate, new to version 1.4, perhaps should have been a complete
// replacement for Live(). However, that obviously
// would have broken a lot of code! Nonetheless,
// delegate remedies many of the short-comings
// found in live(). It attaches the event handler
// directly to the context, rather than the document.
// It also doesn"t suffer from the chaining issues
// that live does.
$('#items').delegate('li', 'click', function() {
	$(this).parent().append('<li>New Element</li>');
});	

// By passing a dom element as the context of our selector, we can make
// Live() behave (almost) the same was that delegate()
// does. It attaches the handler to the context, not
// the document - which is the default context.
// The code below is equivalent to the delegate() version
// shown above.
$("li", $("#items")[0]).live("click", function() {
	$(this).parent().append("<li>New Element</li>");
});

Conclusion

This can definitely be a confusing topic. Please feel free to ask questions, or discuss within the comments. Thanks so much to Elijah Manor for clarifying a few things for me on this topic!

Article source: Nettuts+

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28 New Great Magazine/Newspaper Style WordPress Themes

Posted on 05. Mar, 2010 by Firat Demirel.

As a great cms platform WordPress has many examples for every work like blogs, companies, portfolios, galleries etc. Magazine/Newspaper style themes are one of the most wanted WordPress themes and they are very useful for managing lots of posts on a page.

This type of themes are mostly liked by small and medium-sized teams who can produce actual content every day. It is easy to show many thumbnails and sliders on a page so you can push up your page views easily. But you need to choose right theme for your visitors. For example if your visitors are generally looking for galleries check out a more visual one, otherwise take a look for most text-based ones.

Premium newspaper style themes have great features and other professional ones are really satisfying. Here are mixed 28 new great Magazine/Newspaper style WordPress themes.

1. Transcript – Premium Magazine Style Theme

Transcript is a multi-purpose and stylish news/magazine theme. Some features are

A nice ajax support for featured entries
Built in Banner Management
Built in Media Gallery Module …

2. Eventina – Premium Magazine Style Theme

Eventina is a flexible magazine style theme. Some features;

Built-in Social Addon
Featured Posts on Homepage
Featured Posts in the Header …

3. Technologic – Premium Magazine Style Theme

Technologic is a flexible and unique magazine style theme. Some features;

5 Color Styles
Threaded Comments
Featured Slideshows on Homepage …

4. HotGoss – Premium Magazine Style Theme

HotGoss is a magazine/news style theme which is easy to modify. Some features:

Major Browser Compatible
Valid XHTML 1.0 Transitional
Valid CSS Level 2.1 or 3 …

5. SportState Theme – Premium Magazine Style Theme

Sportstate is a cool magazine/news style theme for good-working publishers. Some features;

Integrated Content Rotator
Optional Jquery Dropdown Menu

6. ColorMatic Theme – Premium Magazine Style Theme

ColorMatic is a variety of magazine/news sites theme. Some features;

Four (4) effective website layouts
Built-in Blog Navigator Widget
Advertising management …

7. Magazine WordPress Theme – Premium Magazine Style Theme

Magazine WordPress Theme is a good designed magazine style theme with good features. Some features;

2 or 3 Columns
Theme Options
Threaded Comments …

8. The Theme Wars Magazine – Premium Magazine Style Theme

The Theme Wars Magazine is a good magazine style WordPress theme with a large featured-area on the homepage. Some features;

Powerful Theme Control Panel
Featured content sliding gallery (optional)
No custom fields – built-in post extras …

9. LifeStyle – Premium Magazine Style Theme

Arthemia Premium is a detailed magazine theme. Some Features;

2 or 3 Columns
Theme Options
Threaded Comments …

10. Arthemia – Premium Magazine Style Theme

Arthemia Premium is a powerful magazine style wordpress theme. Also it has a free version. Some Features:

Cross-Browser Compatible
Analytics and Feedburner
Banner & Adsense Management …

11. IndoMagz Magazine – Premium Magazine Style Theme

IndoMagz is a new style Magazine theme. You can choose one of many templates with different colors. Some Features:

1, 2 or 3 Column Templates
RTL Text Direction
Post Thumbnail Support …

12. Arash Theme – Free Magazine Style Theme

Arras Theme is designed for news or review sites with lots of customisable features. Some Features:

Widgets Ready
5 News Layouts
Alternate Styles Ready …

13. Obscure – Free Magazine Style Theme

Obscure is magazine wordpress theme. It build in any site niche and best fit for community based site. Some Features:

Built in Featured Content Gallery
Feedburner RSS Subscription Ready
Twitter Integration …

14. WP-Clear – Premium Magazine Style Theme

WP-Clear is a clean, minimalist design theme. It can be used as an online magazine or newspaper. Some Features:

2-Column or 3-Column Layout with Widgetized Sidebar
Home Page Magazine Layout
Featured Content Glider …

15. WP-Smooth – Premium Magazine Style Theme

WP-Smooth is a dark premium WordPress magazine theme. But it comes multiple color options and layouts. Some Features:

Gravatar Integration
Banner Ad Integration
Built-In Post Thumbnails …

16. Hamasaki – Free Magazine Style Theme

Hamasaki is a white wordpress theme. It is really useful and good designed. Some Features:

Page Comment Templates
Contact Page with CAPTCHA Support
Widget Support …

17. Ndadap – Free Magazine Style Theme

Ndadap is a uniqe Magazine Style theme. It contains minimum configuration to make it work. Some features:

Auto Re-size Image
Grid Based Layou
Built in featured post area …

18. Advanced Newspaper – Premium Newspaper Style Theme

Advanced Newspaper is an exclusive Newspaper Style theme. Some features:

Multilevel dropdown
Category based advertisement
Unique newspaper layout …

19. Zenko Magazine – Premium Magazine Style Theme

Zenko Magazine is a flexible magazine style theme. It is stylish & colorful. Some features:

Threaded Comments
Ads Management System
Featured Posts on Homepage …

20. Yamidoo Magazine – Premium Magazine Style Theme

Yamidoo Magazine has a simple layout and can be easily styled to create the perfect look for your blog. Some features:

Feedburner & Google Analytics Ready
Featured Content Section
Ads Management System …

21. Inuit Types – Free Magazine Style Wordpress Theme

Inuit Types is a very useful theme for e-magazines. Some features:

Multiple Layouts,
Fully Widgetized,
Excerpted Content …

22. Mimbo Pro – Premium Magazine Style Wordpress Theme

Mimbo Pro is another premium Magazine style theme. It includes an image carousel and seems great. Some features:

Animated Dropdown Menus
Image Carousel With Variable Speed
Image Thumbnail Resizing …

23. Newsport – Premium Magazine Style Wordpress Theme

Newsport is a professional Magazine style theme with some unique features. Some features;

4 Widgetized Areas
5 Custom Woo Widgets
11 Great Colour Schemes …

24. HeadLine – Premium Magazine Style Wordpress Theme

Headline Magazine style theme has s a flexible layout with lots of features. Some features;

Featured jQuery Tabber/Slider Area
Author Box Widget on Single Posts
15 Stylish Alternate Colour Schemes …

25. Studio Press News – Premium Magazine Style Wordpress Theme

Studio Press News theme is a simple and smart Magazine Style theme . Some features;

2 or 3-columns
Fixed Width
Threaded Comments …

26. One Theme – Premium Magazine Style Wordpress Theme

One Theme is Magazine style wordpress theme which has a 4 different versions. Some features;

Numbered Comments
Custom Control Panel
Three Homepage Layouts …

27. WP-MediaMag – Premium Magazine Style Wordpress Theme

WP-MediaMag is a modern Magazine style WordPress theme. It is designed for publishers who like to upload media. Some features;

Video Integration
Theme Settings Page
Featured Content Glider …

28. WP-Magazine - Premium Magazine Style Wordpress Theme

WP-Magazine is another professional and simple WordPress theme. Some features;

Featured Article Glider
Built-In Banner Ad Blocks
Built-In Site Guide in Right Sidebar …

If you can not find a good one for you, look for the first post: 60 Free, Yet Premium Quality Wordpress Magazine News Themes

Featured Content Section

Featured content sliding gallery (optional)Featured content sliding gallery (optional)

Eventina

News WordPress Theme

Article source: Graphic and Web Design Blog -Resources And Tutorials

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30 Powerful Wordpress Plugins For Blog Administrators

Posted on 04. Mar, 2010 by Cosmin Lupsan.

To handle a blog these days can be quite difficult if you are not well-organized and you don’t spend enough time managing it. That’s why there are plugins for WordPress. They literally make your job lot easier and if you work well with them you can put them to work for you.

Sounds cool I know, but you have to know which plugins are ment for your blog and when to use them. In my opinion, the administration plugins have one of the most important roles in your blog because they are the ones that help you to get: statistics, help you manage content and help you to generate content.

There are tons of plugins designed to do the job I’ve just mentioned and is pretty difficult to find the plugins you really need. That’s why, in today’s post I’ve selected some of the most powerful administration plugins I know. You should also check out the great article by Saad Bassi about WordPress plugins to change the outlook for Administrator Dashboard .

Keep in mind that you have to save lots of time in order to become more effective and I’m sure that using these plugins right will save you a lot of time.

1. FireStats and FireStats Charts

Firestats is without a dub my favorite plugin for gathering statistics about the traffic that comes to my blogs. It has a powerful monetization system so that you can get info about: user country, ip, browser, operating system and many more. Firestats and Firestats Chart can work separately as well, but I recommend you to use both of them in order to get a better idea about the traffic that comes to your site.

2. Custom Admin Branding

Many people consider this plugin not very useful, but I consider that once with your blog evolution there will be more people to write for you or just more people logging in to your blog and if you are like me you want your own logo to be the one that dominates your creation.

3. Post Video and Photo Galleries

Being able to create photo galleries and adding videos to your WordPress blog is just perfect for any type of blog you manage. This plugin helps you to easily do that and also integrates a small button in the visual editor of your post writer.

4. Login with Ajax

The combination between PHP and Java Script has always a good impact for your visitors. The Ajax Login system brings great login effects which will determine more people to register.

5. Google Analyticator

If you are a Google Analytics user this plugin saves you a lot of time but if you are not, than you should definitely go and start using it because is the best option for your website traffic statistics.

6. Admin Management Xtended

To save more time, Admin Management Xtended brings new Ajax forms to automatically change or add content to your blog without having to reload the page and lose time.

7. Admin Menu Editor

Easily customize the Admin Menu as you like.

8. Database Size WordPress Plugin

Displays a small and non disturbing message text which contains information about the size of your WordPress blog database.

9. Hide Admin Panels

If you are running a collective blog, this plugin will help you to restrict some permissions for different types of members of your blog. You choose who sees what.

10. Favicons Chooser

We all know how important a first impression is and without a dub, the favicon you have on your website is vital and probably the one that remains in your visitors head. Favicons Chooser helps you to easily add or choose a Favicon.

11. Post Ideas

This plugin stores your ideas about what you would like to write in the near future. When you are ready to post about one of your ideas in the “Post Ideas” just click on it and you will be redirected to the writing page.

12. Broken Link Checker

Is pretty messy to find out that the post or page you are looking for is missing or is broken. Broken Link checker helps you to solve this problem and warns you when you should change links.

13. Digital Raindrops Style Sheet

The admin can easily change the style sheet of each page from the theme directory.

14. AdRotator

Helps you to add any type of ad banner anywhere you want and also it helps you to keep a statistics page for them.

15. WP Super Cache

WP Super Cache is a must have plugin for any respected website or blog. It generates static HTML pages for your every page and post so when you have tons of traffic the bandwidth will handle it and you will not have any problems.

16. Genki Pre-publish Reminder

This is very useful if you are that kind of guy who forgets what to do before posting a new article. If you forget to post an a category for your article or just need to add SEO tags you just have to add those into the Genki Pre-publish reminder.

17. WP Grins

Automatically adds clickable smileys for administrator area and also for users comment form.

18. WP Super Editor

Get more control over the styles of your blog and also emoticons and layouts.

19. Plugin Installer

This plugin helps you to get the content of other plugins and automatically installs it. All you have to do is to point the Plugin Installer to the source of the plugin and it will do the rest.

20. Batch Categories

Automatically adds a new page to category management which shows what posts are in that category so that you will be able to easily transfer them to other categories.

21. Ajax Spell Checker

One of the most powerful Spell Checkers created for Wordpress.

22. Custom Write Panel

This plugin helps you to select the way that your WYSIWYG panel looks like and choose what elements to show and which not.

23. Google Sitemaps Generator

Automatically generates xml and gz extension sitemaps for your blog which is very important for indexing your pages by Google.

24. Share This

Adds the social media links for every posts and pages.

25. Site Unavailable

Displays a message which alerts your visitors that your website is unavailable. The message is customizable.

26. Fluency

Changes the whole User Interface in Wordpress and creates a great experience for every user.

27. Simply Tags

Helps you to easily manage batch tags so that you will be able to save lots of time.

28. Adminize

Compress and hide unnecessary items in your wordpress blog.

29. Quick Menu

Create and customize your own menu in Wordpress Admin Area. You can add all kind of quick links in the menu section like: Google Analytics, Adsense account or just a simple other page.

30. Admin Notepad

Adds the Notepad in your Wordpress application. The Notepad panel can be hide or displayed by clicking one simple button.

I’ve personally tested all of these amazing plugins and I can confirm that they are great for every type of blogger. Hope it will help you too and stay with us to get more interesting articles about Wordpress and blog management tutorials.

Article source: Graphic and Web Design Blog -Resources And Tutorials

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It’s coming! WordPress 3.0 – Pros and Cons

Posted on 04. Mar, 2010 by Edward.

Alright bloggers, web surfers and simple web enthusiasts, we’ve got some fascinating news for you all. Yes, Internet community can’t stop buzzing about the forthcoming release of the new version of #1 blogging software – WordPress 3.0.

TemplateMonster being the biggest provider of WordPress themes just couldn’t miss the chance to express its own vision of this great event – after all we love WordPress just as much as you do. The official release is scheduled for May 2010 but now we have opportunity to mark the major advantages that this release will bring.

So, WordPress 3.0 will include the following features:

MU or Multi-User option now will be available to all WordPress 3.0 users. In case you still have no idea what it’s all about we can tell that this is one of the best features that will allow you to manage multiple blogs with different permissions – from a single admin panel. Alright, admit it – we all have at least a couple of blogs to work with, right? So MU is a very good – and anticipated – feature.
Another great innovation is the improvement of support for custom post types. These are great news for bloggers because it simplifies their work in creating and managing content, but it doesn’t mean that categories will disappear.
Menu management is one of the best improvements in 3.0 release because of the Custom Navigation menu system that will be included into the core – with drag and drop and other usability features brought to various types of menus. This menu enlightens widget management, submenus system and much more.
WordPress 3.0 will have a new default design theme that will be called 2010 – you can see the live demo of this design on official WordPress website. As you understand according to the new name of default theme every year WordPress will hopefully get a new default theme.

This allegedly will be the WordPress 3.0 2010 default design theme

Custom Background and Image support system will help you create new theme for your blog in a matter of minutes.
WordPress 3.0 makes it possible to use the specific author templates. So, you can easily mark your own post or entry with your signature.
Canonical Plugins will be available in WordPress 3.0. This means that from the moment it is launched you will be able to easily use your favorite plugins without being afraid that new release of WordPress will kill them.

Alright, these were the good news and now it is time to point out some disadvantages that WordPress still can’t get rid of (and most likely will not even in WordPress 3.0). It is not a secret that WordPress does have some peculiarities that are not quite comfortable for the users. So, here are some issues that were really irritating in older versions and that we wouldn’t want to see in further WordPress versions.

Security is one of the most important features for any platform and old WordPress versions’ minimal requirements of PHP4 and MySQL4 are quite insecure. But we know that now you can easily migrate to PHP5 though this fact only solves the problem partially.

Chmod 777 command security risks that were one of the favorite topics to discuss for the at least several years now. Anyways according to the NerdGrind -

This would make your WordPress installation vulnerable to a security attack. Some plugins might ask you to do this temporarily, and then ask you to change the permissions back to 755 after the plugin finishes its setup. This won’t fix your problem without adding more problems. The might allow the plugin upgrade to work, but it won’t fix the WordPress upgrade issue unless you chmod 777 the entire WordPress installation directory, which is a huge security risk, and should never be done.
Autosave and revisions issues that sometimes expand your database 20 times from what it was just ten minutes ago. There are some plugins for this problem but we hope this feature can be fixed on a higher level.
Re-installing WordPress database can cause WP database class bug. This may cause troubles for users especially considering Multi-User merging process. Hakre on WordPress states that this bug will remain in 3.0 version too.

When a replacement class is in use, the original WPDB one will get re-created under certain circumstances instead of the replacement one. That breaks the modular DB replacement concept once introduced.

With all that being said, even though WordPress 3.0 may have some bugs (and we’re not saying it will, let’s just hope for the best) the new release is really an amazing event and we can’t wait until it is launched. There is no doubt that the new WordPress 3.0 will change web into a better place, at least a little bit better and safer.

What’s the best thing about it is that most of the Internet users will be a part of these changes. Let us know in the comments what you think the new WordPress 3.0 version will bring into your personal online experience, we’d love to discuss it all while waiting for the big launch!

Article source: Template Monster Blog

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7 Must Have WordPress Plugins For Every Blog

Posted on 02. Mar, 2010 by Anastasia.

I’m sure you have seen lots of articles named something like “best 30 plugins for WordPress” or “The coolest 60 plugins for WordPress” etc. In my post today I’m not going to make another collection of links but rather list just a few plugins that I’m using in my own blog. Of course, I haven’t added all of them from the very beginning. Depending on the task set before me I had to make some studies followed by experiments and make tests, tests and tests. I will explain why I find these plugins extremely useful as well as speak about some widgets that are worth using.

1. Akismet

Akismet is a perfect spam catcher. Not sure how they do this, but 99% of spam comments will get under I’ve had the problem with Akismet only once actually shortly after installation. For some reason it was recognizing uberVU – social comments (the post mentions on twitter) as spam but once I approved it, the Akismet learned the algorithm and now it’s saving me from hundreds of funky comments. There’s also a cool option to “Automatically discard spam comments on posts older than a month” which means that spam comments for the early posts won’t even be added to the Spam” section of blog comments, they will be deleted automatically.

2. Google Analytics for WordPress

A simple plugin allowing to add Google Analytics to your blog pages and enjoy a variety of tracking options available at Google Analytics account. Once you upload and activate the plugin go to the Settings section in the main menu and look for Google Analytics. Here’s the place where you can make a Google Analytics WordPress Configuration. All you have to do is enter your Analytics Account ID and click on save. Now you can go to your Google Analytics account and track visitors, traffic sources, search keywords and most popular articles.

3. Yet Another Related Posts Plugin

As a blogger and project manager I know that it’s highly important to keep blog visitors on the website as long as possible, especially if you are selling ads and are going to earn something from them. This is where Yet Another Related Posts Plugin comes on arena. It allows to show links to related posts at the end of the article, and you can set this relatedness by a number of options, such as keywords in the text, titles, tags, categories etc. You can define the number of links to show and the period of time to check on related articles from your previous posts. You will find related posts section under the main Sections menu of the blog admin area.

4. SocioFluid

Seeking blog promotion and popularity I had to look for a nice plugin that would allow submission of the article to social networks on the fly. I might have tested around 10 plugins before I found and fall in love with Sociofluid. This plugin adds keen social network icons below the post that get bigger on roll-over. SocioFluid settings can be found under the main Sections menu of the blog admin area. There are 20 bookmarking site you can choose from (including my favorite Twitter, Digg, Facebook and Stumble) and you can also choose from the several icons sizes. You can define whether to display SocioFluid Bar for posts in home page or browse pages, to show it on the top of the page or after the article, whether the icons should open in the new window or not.

5. Dean’s Permalinks Migration

Dean’s Permalinks Migration plugin helped me to stay on board once I decided to update the URLs structure of the links on my blog to more friendly ones. I’m sure all of us do this from time to time having read some cool articles about SEO friendliness or deciding to test this or that option and to test the results. When your articles have been indexed by search engines and there are other websites linking to you, it’s vital not to lose this audience. What Permalinks Migration plugin does is it changes your permalink structure without breaking the old links to your website. The settings are quite simple and understandable. Once you have updated the permalinks structure in the General settings section just enter the old permalink structure and the plugin will be automatically sending visitors from the old urls to the new ones.

6. Banner Plugin

The reason why I needed the banner plugin is that I wanted to convert traffic from the blog into product purchases from the main website. I wanted to add the product pics, have them in rotation and link all of them to according product pages. If compared to the other multiple banner plugins I have tested, Banner Plugin doesn’t have many options like conversion and visitors tracking, multiple campaigns with multiple banners, deducting the cost per click from the deposit etc. But it’s extremely easy to work with, you don’t have to go to the blog code to update a single thing and it’s widgets supported. That means that having uploaded and activated the plugins you just add the pics and the links, save the settings and then simply drag and drop the banner widget into the sidebar. A perfect solution if the simple banner is enough for your needs.

7. All in One SEO Pack

All in one SEO Pack plugin is meant for advanced blog owners and allows to enhance your blog in terms of search engines friendliness. You may skip this one if you’re not into SEO yet as this one requires some basic SEO knowledge. One of the things that I like is that there’s a direct link to options configuration panel right from the plugins section and you don’t have to dive into the settings and check where they could have been added. All in One SEO Pack allows to set the titles structure of blog pages, use noindex attributes for the sections you’d like to close from the search engines and set meta title and meta description for the blog main page without going into the blog code.

Summing this up, I’d like to say that this is definitely not a full list of nice plugins and that I might need more in the future depending on the goals I set. But the factor that plays the most important role for me and makes me test tens of plugins is the simplicity. Since I’m not a programmer I always look for simple solutions that won’t require much of my time and where I wouldn’t have to go into the blog source code and perform significant changes. I hope this article will be useful even for those bloggers who have been working with WordPress for some time by now and will save you some time.

Good luck!

Article source: Graphic and Web Design Blog -Resources And Tutorials

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45+ Latest Free Wordpress Themes (January – February 2010)

Posted on 26. Feb, 2010 by Wajid Khan.

In this showcase below, you’ll find a 45+ Latest Free Wordpress Themes (January – February 2010) Around because We all know that we’re going to use our blog as a tool to promote our business, so we need to have a clean, professional, corporate look.

Also, if you wish to suggest a theme please comment below and we will consider it!

Free Wordpress Themes (January – February 2010)

So, Let’s start with this compilation that every web developer, designer and freelancer should consider. Just make sure to read the license agreements and installation instruction carefully as they can change from time to time.

Archive for 'WordPress'

Catch Up

Day 11: File Operations

Watch the Intro

The Full Series

Final Design

Join Net Premium

Authors & Individual Book Sites

Justine Larbalestier

Stephen King

Cherry Adair

Jim Collins

Jean Chatzky

Hank Phillippi Ryan

Caroline Tiger

Nicholas Sparks

Publishers

Dragon International Independent Arts

Arcadia Publishing

Melville House Publishing

Princeton Architectural Press

Penguin Group USA

Timber Press

Llewellyn

Storey Publishing

Gibbs Smith

Other Sites

IndieBound

The Fiction Project

Lulu

Readerville

DailyLit

Blurb

The Millions

Guys Read

Conclusion

Featured Content Section

Eventina

News WordPress Theme

1. FireStats and FireStats Charts

2. Custom Admin Branding

3. Post Video and Photo Galleries

4. Login with Ajax

5. Google Analyticator

6. Admin Management Xtended

7. Admin Menu Editor

8. Database Size WordPress Plugin

9. Hide Admin Panels

10. Favicons Chooser

11. Post Ideas

12. Broken Link Checker

13. Digital Raindrops Style Sheet

14. AdRotator

15. WP Super Cache

16. Genki Pre-publish Reminder

17. WP Grins

18. WP Super Editor

19. Plugin Installer

20. Batch Categories

21. Ajax Spell Checker

22. Custom Write Panel

23. Google Sitemaps Generator

24. Share This

25. Site Unavailable

26. Fluency

27. Simply Tags

28. Adminize

29. Quick Menu

30. Admin Notepad

1. Akismet

2. Google Analytics for WordPress

3. Yet Another Related Posts Plugin

4. SocioFluid

5. Dean’s Permalinks Migration

6. Banner Plugin

7. All in One SEO Pack

Free Wordpress Themes (January – February 2010)

01. Argentpress

02. Obscorp

03. Structure Theme