Web & Technology

An eclectic list of design resources this week!

• Looking for design inspiration? Learn how to Destroy Web 2.0!
  
• Adding a “tabber” to the sidebar of a WordPress theme. 
• 10 WordPress plugins for Flickr
  
• Fonts for Web 2.0 logos
  
• Adding thumbnails to a WordPress post using custom fields
  

Why start with a premium theme when there are so many free themes available?

WordPress uses PHP, CSS and XHTML to separate content from design.  This allows users to switch themes and make site wide style changes with the CSS stylesheet. 

Your theme is the basis of your unique WordPress setup and design.  Because what your site is built on matters, consideration of a quality and professional design is highly recommended.   Any theme you are considering  deserves a serious and in-depth look.  It is difficult to find free themes that offer the value of a quality premium theme. 

And prices are reasonable — $20 to $100+ gets you:

• Valid CSS and XHTML
• Cross-browser optimized:  IE6, IE7, IE8, Firefox, Safari and Chrome
• optimized for multiple screen resolutions:  1024 and 1280 px screen widths
• expandability and customization
• innovative designs and functions
• unique menu navigation
• professional support and documentation
• upgrades

Here are some of the premium themes that we use and suggest here at YourCustomBlog.com.

Slurpie Theme from blogohblog.com

“Slurpie is a Grunge-styled, artistic premium theme that comes packed with features that will give a brand new face to your blog. The theme comes with both Grunge and Non-Grunge styling options, a customizable featured post section, RSS subscription options, 125×125 banner ads and a content-rich layout.”

Portfolio Example: http://www.sfweddinggiveaway.com/

ephoto theme from elegantthemes.com

Elegant themes offers the most cost effective licensing option.  $20 a year gets you access to 24 unique themes. 

“ePhoto was created for those looking to turn their blog into a photo gallery. While the theme was created with photographers in mind, it can certainly be used to display any type of digital imagery. While the main content of the theme is image based, there is also the ability to create separate blog pages where normal blog posts can be integrated with your photos.”

Portfolio Example:  http://www.im-brue.com/dev/

This is the test site for a new project — a customization of the ephoto theme from Elegant Themes.

wp remix

yourcustomblog.com is built using the wp remix theme.

http://wpremix.com/demo/

revolution code blue from studiopress.com

We have done many customizations of revolution themes — now from studiopress.

http://www.studiopress.com/

Portfolio Example:  http://www.fredricschwartz.com/

Work in progress — customization of revolution code blue theme. 

A heads up to all in the Bay Area this Friday. Indy Arts and Media,along with the Society for Professional Journalists is hosting the 2nd annual Innovations in Journalism Symposium at University of San Francisco. The all day event is a chance for journalists, techies and media professionals to get together, commiserate on the changing industry and hear from the industry innovators that are changing the way we think about media, collaboration and communication.
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Alright class pay close attention.  This is exactly WHAT YOU DON’T DO with a Twitter account, or with any readily archived, publicly accessed social platform.  To be honest, hopefully you don’t do anything like this at all.

So the Twitter echo chamber started buzzing a couple days ago about a very public meltdown by a very disgruntled reporter, namely David George Cosh, tech reporter for Canada’s National Post.   

Apparently Cosh was upset that a potential source for a story he was working on didn’t jump as high and as quickly as he would have liked.  Cosh was apparently upset because the potential source, marketing consultant April Dunford, had not returned a phone call in time for him to make his story deadline.

When Dunford, who had no other involvment in the story says she didn’t know Cosh before the event, returned the call a couple of days later all digital hell broke loose.  Apparently the exchange was pretty heated, and resulted in this Twitter post from Dunford:

“Reporter to me “When the media calls you, you jump, OK!?” Why, when you called me and I’m not selling? Newspapers will get what they deserve”

Oh, baby.  Hell hath no fury like a reporter backtalked.   continue

For all you sync happy Wordpress/Twitter junkies, Tweetsuite has the integration cure for what ails ya’.

Tweetsuite, the new Worpress plugin by Dan Zarella lets you fully integrate Twitter into your Wordpress blog in pretty seamlessly.

Think of Tweetsuite as a supersized version of Zarella’s Tweetbacks plugin. Not only will the plugin display all tweets that reference a particular post, but it feeds posts directly to your Twitter account and automatically adds buttons for Tweeting, Re-Tweeting, and adding to your favorite tweets.  There are also side bar widgets that display your latest, favorite, and most popular Twitter feeds. Twitter Overload? Pretty close.

So far I’ve installed the plugin on all my sites and it’s working fine. While it would be easy to OD on this feature heavy plugin I’m using it primarly for the Twitter auto post and Tweet this features. continue

By now this video by Gary Vaynerchuk, WineLibrary founder has become the stuff of internet cult legend, and for good reason. In a down economy companies big and small are asking themselves how to stay afloat, how to make a profit and the best ways to position themselves for the upcoming years. It’s a strange time for the force, folks. Yes, the economy’s in the tank. Yes it’s becoming harder to make it as a start up, small business/business/idealistic entrepreneur. But on the flip side, now’s the time to get everything together-what’s that crazy business idea you’ve been mulling over? Do it. That new direction you’ve thinking of taking? Now’s the time.

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