Tagged: Templates

April 23, 2012

New Look at website

You may not have noticed, but in the past few weeks I have been trying out some different WordPress themes. I have found one that is free and fantastic. It is my favorite theme yet and I wanted to share it with other people. It is called Suffusion and has several features that normally you have to pay for. I actually paid for a theme two weeks ago, and it cost $25. It was ok, but I didn’t like it. It was the first theme I ever paid for, and I probably won’t pay for another theme again. It takes time, but you can find great free themes.

What I wanted to share is that I looked at my webpages that had lists of the top 50 themes of 2011 or something like that, and while they looked nice, they worked very poorly. Lists on the Internet are not valuable to me because they take a tremendous amount of time to fit the features to your needs. What I think would be far more helpful on webpages is a matrix that shows features and products. It always amazes me that the description of things on the Internet is so vague when there is no cost to go into great detail about what it can do.

October 23, 2011

What to do if your WordPress site has been hacked

14102011-IMG_1434 — Image by jmanteau via Flickr

Nice informative article. I wish I had read this when my site got hacked. If you run a WordPress site this is required reading.

July 31, 2011

40+ Most Useful WordPress Plugins | Dzinepress

40+ Most Useful WordPress Plugins | Dzinepress. I have used many of these plugins and they are very useful. Some are not currently working with the latest shipping version so check the details before you download them.

July 13, 2011

The History of WordPress 2003 until 2011 | Inside-WP.com

The History of WordPress 2003 until 2011 | Inside-WP.com. It has really grown from its humble beginnings hasn’t it?

June 30, 2011

Need a simple Banner plugin for WordPress?

You might want to take a look at a plugin called BannerMan. I have been using it since yesterday and it works great. I wanted to share why I am using this now, and what it means for WordPress plugin creators.

I had been using a plugin for Banners in the past called WordPress FrontPage Banner. It worked great, and I was glad to have it. The problem happened yesterday when WordPress had an update, and that also triggered an update for the WordPress FPB plugin. That new plugin created a notice at the top of the WordPress Interface, that is rarely used and only used for emergency messages. It was invasive, and unnecessary. A one time message would have been fine. I logged out and back in thinking perhaps it was a one-time trigger, but it stayed advertising its new services. Listen I don’t mind an author making a one-time plea for their services, but if they attempt to hijack my interface, that isn’t cool or acceptable. So I started looking for alternatives, and found BannerMan.

BannerMan has features that the WFPB did not. I am thrilled with it. Officially it is not supported on my version, but it is simple and seems to work great. I think WordPress authors would do well to have a free version of their software, and then a premium version to entice people who need additional functionality. Especially those of us like me who are paying for our own hosting, and using free software, having a forced commercial message does not sit well with us. We know you have to pay the bills, just stop being so pushy about it.

Another option is called Add to Header. It works on many themes in which Bannerman failed to work on. I think it is more straightforward but it requires that you understand more technical things. If you understand URLS, and how to get the URL of your banner (photo) you wish to use, you can use it.