WordPress Wednesday : BlogDesk
“Blogging should be simple, but it gets complicated and time-consuming if you are serious about it. BlogDesk makes it easy to write, speeds up lavish processes and assists the author with smart features.
A huge benefit for beginners and professionals who want to focus on content. Even the more ambitious work is done with ease.
BlogDesk is totaly free of charge and optimized for the blog systems WordPress, MovableType, Drupal, Serendipity and ExpressionEngine.
Whether it’s grandma & grandpa or the corporate blogger, whether it’s an online diary or a high traffic blog, they all will profit from BlogDesk. And sure enough, their readers will, too.”
Many thanks to Edwin for contributing the link for today!
WordPress Wednesday : A Classy Theme
If you’re looking for a sleek, news type theme, we think Arthemia is for you.
WordPress Wednesday : Power Your Storefront!
Can you power a storefront with WordPress? Of course! With WordPress, you can do just about anything these days. Check out The Market Theme for their details on how to do it right!
WordPress Wednesday : Last.fm Plugin
Do you like-a-WordPress? Do you like-a-last.fm? You’ll like-a-this! Sorry, this quote is from their site and I just couldn’t help it:
WordPress + Last.Fm = iLast.Fm! We make your blog a lot more fun, like a music!
WordPress Wednesday : More Smashing Themes
Smashing Magazine continues to release great blog themes, this time collaborating with Design Disease to push another great look for your WordPress blog.
WordPress Wednesday : Classified!
Classipress is a very (shall we say it) classy looking classifieds theme! It can likely be used for other ideas though. This is one of the best designed WordPress themes to date!
WordPress Wednesday : iPhone App!
“Introducing the first Open Source app that lets you write posts, upload photos, and edit your WordPress blog from your iPhone or iPod Touch. With support for both WordPress.com and self-hosted WordPress (2.5.1 or higher), users of all experience levels can get going in seconds. Download it now!”
WordPress Wednesday : Theme Find
We found a nice theme today to share with you - it’s available here at Smashing Magazine. This theme has a grungy, paper feel.
WordPress Wednesday : Woo!
These themes are sizzling. Visit to believe it - we love Woo!
“WooThemes is a project started by four respected designers - Adii, Magnus Jepson, Mark Forrester and Elliot Jay Stocks - whom all share one thing: their passion for WordPress. All of the themes available on WooThemes are 100% unique and we can assure you that you won’t find similar CMS solutions elsewhere for any other platform.”
WordPress Wednesday: Instant Upgrade!
Has upgrading your current WordPress version to a newer one always been a hassle to you? Well worry no more, with the InstantUpgrade plugin, you’ll have your WP upgraded in no time! All it takes is a few clicks of your mouse and that’s all! Of course, always be sure to have back ups of your files, just-in-case!
PS: If your WordPress was installed through Fantastico, it is highly recommended to use the upgrade feature available through Fantastico, rather then manually.
WordPress Wednesday: Time for your Lessons!
One of the many features I like about WordPress is their wide array of themes. There are so many out there its hard to not use all of them, but after a while you sort of lose the joy of looking up a theme that someone else made and fits your style. If you’re a designer you usually miss creating your own layouts and coding from scratch too. No worries! WordPress pretty much explains everything in regards to creating, designing, and publishing your own unique theme with how WordPress works! These easy to understand and read tutorials/articles (overall lessons) can all be found in the codex section on WordPress!
Not only will you find how to’s and coding help for themes, there are a few other well written articles for color schemes, CSS, plugin use, menu help and so much more! The WordPress Codex section is the place to find all useful tutorials, articles, and lessons to help with the development of your WP website!
WordPress Wednesday: StatPress!
When it comes to our websites, we love to know who visits what, how many people visit and where they come from. There are tons of programs to help out with this, but only a few who are actually accurate and true in number. It also never hurts to have more then one source, well that extra helpful source for your website’s stats is StatPress!
With StatPress you are able to see how many visitors you get on a monthly and weekly basis. Not only that but you are able to view where they come from and what pages they look at while at your website! A very neat feature to help improve your websites content, see what people look at the most and make more of it! I’ve been using StatPress for a while now and couldn’t be happier to have it. So what are you waiting for? Download the plugin today!
WordPress Wednesday : WordPress MU Supercharged!
You probably already know that we support (and love!) WordPress MU (Multi User) and support it on our servers. (Our tutorial from start to finish, plus tips and tricks, is in our forum here.) For today’s WordPress Wednesday, we found a very interesting package of plugins to turn your install of WPMU into a social networking powerhouse. And it’s fast and easy to get your new community started! Say hello to BuddyPress.
“Each member of a BuddyPress site can upload their own avatar. Avatars can be cropped to size within the browser. BuddyPress administrators can create completely customized profile templates for members. Create any number of groups and field types. Private messages are threaded like a conversation making them easy to follow. Messages can be sent using the built in TinyMCE editor. Members can send messages to other friends and groups.”
Now how fun does all of that sound? Just go to the BuddyPress website to become more familiar with it, download, and install! And don’t forget to follow BuddyPress on Twitter! (Hey now, don’t forget to follow us either!)
WordPress Wednesday: Comment Plugins!
One thing WordPress is famous for is their comment system! And who doesn’t love to receive comments, I know I sure do! The only downside anyone can think of when it comes to comments: SPAM! I know, hated everywhere, whether it be your email box, forum posts, and yes sadly blog comments. So how do you get rid of these little buggers? Simple, you install a very handy dandy comment plugin for your WordPress blog.
While there are tons out there, only a few are well known for actually working and keeping your comment queue free of spam. One of the three already comes default with your WordPress install, Akismet! All you need to do is activate it and make sure to enable your API code with it, which you can easily retrieve for free by creating a wordpress.com account.
The second best comment plugin is Bad Behavior. Sounds like a tough name, no? Well it is one tough plugin! Helps protect your comment box from spam bots by analizing their HTTP request.
Last, but not least in any way, we have Spam Karma! Don’t mess with karma or Spam Karma! This neat little plugin helps protect your comments from automated spam comments being generated. Handy and always being updated each day! What can be better then that?
So, now that I’ve guided, pointed, and practically pushed you into the right direction for fantastic anti-spam comment plugins, what are you waiting for? Go download them and upload them to your WordPress blog today! You’ll thank us in the end! 
WordPress Wednesday : Flickr Albums
W is for WordPress and W is for Wednesday! A perfect fit we think! Every week we will bring you a new tool to spice up your WordPress blog. Today’s tool is Flickr Photo Album for WordPress by Tan Tan Noodles. If you have a Flickr account you know that sometimes if you’re showing someone (who does not have Flickr) your albums, they really aren’t sure how Flickr works. It can be confusing to a new user. Wouldn’t it be nice if there was a way you could easily put your Flickr photos on your website in a more friendly way? Tan Tan Noodles shows us how!
This is what this tool is capable of doing:
* Display your Flickr photo sets as albums on your site
* Search engine friendly URLs
* Complete control over the look and feel, see below for customization details
* Show or hide your photos that have been marked ‘private’
* Flickr notes (Firefox only) and Flickr comments are supported
* Adds a new Flickr icon to your media bar which allows you to easily add Flickr photos to any blog post. Browse your photos by tags, album, or search everyone’s photos by tags
* Use WordPress shortcodes to easily insert photos from an album into a post. Eg: [flickr album=1234567] will insert into your post photos from album with id of “1234567”.
* Supports WordPress Widgets: Pull in your recent photos into your sidebar.
Check out the demo to see for yourself how easy and useful this tool is! Just click here.
10 WordPress Themes (You Never Heard Of)
If you’re already a WordPress user, you probably know how hard it is to find good themes. Maybe you’ve even created themes of your own. Either way, throughout this process it’s easy to get lost in a jungle of either wacky looking themes or good themes that are just overused. We’ve searched the Internet over to show you the 10 following themes that you may have never heard of! Let us know in the comments if you liked this post so we can find more. We’ll probably keep looking anyway though.
1 - Gangway by Perfomancing.com | Download
This 3-column theme can fit ads and other plugins easily. The text is easy to read and the navigation is not hard to follow. Its focus is really on content and this is good for sites with multiple authors.
2 - Minibits by CreativeBits | Download
With its creatively placed publish date and comments boxes, Minibits has a fresh and unique look. The colors are pleasing and remind us of Flickr.
3 - Pecton by Livetr.org | Download
Pecton is a very nice theme with a grayscale feel that you may just want to keep. It would be good for a technology site or even a news blog.
4 - Purple by ThemeLab.com | Download
This theme has a fresh and clean look with good spacing that is easy on the eyes. Because of that reason we think this theme is good for a product reviews site or any site where you really want to make sure your visitors read everything.
5 - Fauna by NoScope.com | Download
Fauna has a fun look and includes both a light and dark theme. Be sure to read the Fauna page for more information.
6 - Particles by Devlounge.net | Download
For those of you write more than most, Particles has a unique layout that summarizes many posts on the main page.
Photo Themes
Want to show off your photos the easy way? Use WordPress of course. These are two of the best photo blog themes which are highly customizable.
7 - Photo Blog by BlogOhBlog.com | Download
This theme is very simple and the colors can be changed easily.
8 - Grain by Mac.defx.de | Download
Needs this plugin to work This photo blog theme has a very elegant look and by using plugins you can show all of the photo information.
Alternatives
Need something completely different before you go crazy? Try these.
9- Canvas by FreshPursuits.com | Installation instructions are here.
If you want to try something very different and more personalized, try Canvas which lets you build your theme yourself. It’s one of the most impressive packages out there to customize your theme.
10 - Starkers by ElliotJayStocks.com | Download
Speaking of canvases, if you want to go all out, I’ve saved this next theme for last. Elliot Jay Stocks created a naked theme called Starkers. Naked as in he removed all unnecessary elements and anything non-semantic. He calls it a true clean slate to create your own proper theme. Read about it here.
We’ll discuss more about creating your own themes in our next WordPress post. Perhaps we’ll have “WordPress Wednesday” or something like that. Thoughts?
Note: If you have made any of themes here and would rather link the downloads to your own site, just let us know. One big problem as posts age is that linked files are suddenly not found so we’re trying to avoid that, while also saving your bandwidth.
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