Archive for February, 2009
| 28 Feb 2009 |
10 days of awsome releases(plugins,themes,ebook) |
Here’s the deal: 10 days, 10 releases. We’re talking about WordPress Themes, WordPress Plugins, and an ebook. If everything goes better as planned we might even release the most awsome mybb(mybb is a forum software) theme you’ve ever seen!
Me and mbogdan(he’s betng4u and yes yes he finally bought himself a domain, suggested by me of course 
) decided to take a challenge and release 10 goodies every day for the next 10 days, it will be hard, but hopefully we’ll manage it next to college and other projects.
Here’s what we’ve prepared for you:
The order of the releases might change without prior notice, we’ll try our best to keep the order though.
Custom Widgets v 2.0 – fully upgraded to flawlessly work with WordPress 2.7 and packed with all the requested features including naming for the text widgets and the possibility to assign widgets to static pages set as homepage(can’t guarantee anything!)
Ad integration v2.0 – The release of the first version of this ad-management plugin was in august last year. We decided to upgrade it to 2.0 and to make it fully compatible with the wp 2.7 legacy along with some very very nice tweaks.
Post Quote v1.0 – This will be a brand new plugin, something you’ve never seen before! Basically you will be able to include as many posts you want to refer to in your current post. A bar will be shown which will be expandable. After expansion the post you referred to will be grabbed(ajax baby!) and displayed. The best thing is that we already started working on this. Sweet huh?
Siggie 1.0 – TS Siggie will generate an image which will contain your blog title, the latest post and 3 statistics(for example: total posts, comments and tags). The image will auto-update and by this way you will be able to show off your blog stats in your signature on forums you use.
Folio – The theme is already done, we need to make a few revisions on it. It’s a theme specially made for freelancers to showcase their work. It features ajax sliding for recent work, custom lightbox, automatic thumbnail generation and a very very sleek look. The best thing is that its load time is lightning fast! Ehh what the hell, you can preview it at http://mbogdan.com/playground/wp1/?p=29
Comment Ranks – This plugin will make your blog readers want to comment even more. Basically as the number of their comments will rise they will gain rewards like different color name, rel=”nofollow” removal from links and many other features.
7. All of the old themes will be updated to be fully compatible with WordPress 2.7 legacy.
Clouds theme - this will be a fast loadingsleek looking theme. It will have a right sidebar and the main colors will be grey/light brown/white.
Royale theme - a magazine alike theme packed with lots of amazing features and loaded with ajax features. Fluid width, featured posts, featured post switch and many many other features(curreently the index page has to be done, the comments page is ready)
Install scripts without fantastico - ebook will contain all the tutorials i’ve published on my blog. This way anyone will be able to access it anywhere and share the tutorials with friends.
Contribute to new theme & plugin releases
We work our asses off to release new plugins and themes for free. Working for free isn’t very motivating as you might know. If you wish to make a small contribution(you will be redirected to a paypal secure page) please use the widget below(greatly appreciated).
Thanks!
| 26 Feb 2009 |
The real way of changing your video card |
I got this method from an old colleague from a PC shop. The presentation was in a .doc format and it was in hungarian. Its damn funny and yet it shows us a brand new method of changing pc components(one time change). I translated the text and added a bit of spice to it to make it more enjoyable.
STEP 1
In the first step locate the video card’s position which requires replacement. Make sure the pc is in a vertical position to avoid any damage the disassemble might cause!
Before starting the replacement process make sure you are psychically ready to do the job.
STEP 2
This step is one of the simplest steps: Take a permanent marker and mark the area of the video card on the PC case.
Make sure the height of the lines is about 15cm and the width 2cm. If you make the mark bigger the replacement process may lead to injuries of your machine.
STEP 3
Grab your friendly Circular saw(which you will find in any retail PC store) and make the incision on the pc case.
PLEASE! Beware not to injure the exterior of the pc case more than needed!
This might cause unforseen difficulties to the pc.
STEP 4
After the incision is made you can clearly see your video card.
Using your plier smoothly grab its torso and make the extraction.
In case the video card doesn’t want to come out put some muscle into it and gently rip it out from its metal body.
STEP 6
Now you’re ready to insert the new video card. After taking a deep breath insert the new video card in its slot on the mainboard.
You want the video card to be 100% stable & fixed after insertion. In this case a hammer is really useful which will help you “knock it” into position.
STEP 7
Great job lad! You’ve successfully finished the replacement procedure. To seal the deep wound you’ve caused use regular household duck tape.
The duck tape will make it simple to replace the new video card in case it fails and will facilitate the healing process.
* Note: This procedure was performed by proffessional stunt PCs. DO NOT LET YOUR PC TRY THIS AT HOME!
| 26 Feb 2009 |
Care to free some disk space? |
After getting my MP5 player(i’ll tell you about it in an other post) which supports .flv playback i decided to search for a bulk youtube video downloader. I’ve tried various applications among which i tried Tube Sucker (link omitted deliberately) which is one dumb application(its design sucks also). (Click image to Enlarge)
Now really! a big LOL at that error message. Basically tubesucker didn’t allow me to install it because i had ONLY 2.7G disk space on C:\. What if i want to save the videos to D:\ where i had 60G’s free?
Man…what a dumb application. Anyway the “Windows needs a lot of free space to keep your machine working cleanly” message is hilarious. What does he mean by “working cleanly”? Does he mean that if i keep my hard drive empty my PC will clean itself? If so then i’ll go and delete some of the winDOS system files to free some space, those files are useless anyway.
| 25 Feb 2009 |
5 Great icon sets for web design |
I browsed the web and did lots of lookups till i managed to gather these 6 icon packs(some of them you most probably haven’t seen). They are all awsome icon packs and perfect for personal projects. Remember that all icon set preview are linked to the author’s websites.
1) Monofactor Vector Icon Pack 1
As the title says these icons come in .Ai format(Adobe illustrator), the author recommends you open the pack with Illustrator above v8.0(CS). These icons are free to use on personal projects. If you wish to use them on commercial projects(from where you earn money) you need to purchase the commercial license which costs $50.
2) Pixelresort Pixelicious Icon Pack
Its pretty useless for me to write a description of the pack, because the author has already written one which contains all the essence:
“150 pixelcrafted icons mainly intended for developers. These have been a few months in the making, so enjoy them and put them to good use. The Icons are free for personal use or non profit organisations.”
3) Function Icon Set
The guys behind Wefunction.com really put lots of hard work in creating the icon pack. The pack contains 128 high quality 48x48px icons. This is their first icon pack and i must say it turned out wicked! The pack also contains social media icons. All icons have a sleek glossy look which you will definitely love. You have the right to use the icons anywhere.
4) On-Stage Vector PSD Icon Set
The pack contains 49 vector icons accompanied by their PSD forms. You may use the icons anywhere for free, but you may not redistribute or sell them w/o smashing magazine and the author’s permission! The icons were made by deziner folio(you know him form his famous wp themes) and the icon’s quality isn’t below his wp theme’s quality!
5) Aquaticus.Social
Social.me is an icon set consisting of 30 individual icons of the popular social networks/Web 2.0 sites out there Mmmm yummy! Thgese awsome icons will get you more thumbs up and traffic. The pack contains the sharing icons in 4 different sizes(size DOES matter). They were released under Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported which means you can share the icons but you may not alter their original form.
| 24 Feb 2009 |
I finally sold the adult video sharing design! |
I made this design a year ago for a customer who ended up not paying because he apparently ran out of money. Anyway ever since i tried to sell it, but was unsuccessful. A week ago a potential customer popped up so i messaged him and voila he loved it and bought it instantly!
I sold the design at the initial price i asked one year ago – $195
As you can see the design is really sleek and ordered, along with ad optimization for maximum CTR. As you can see pink(slutty pink) and black are the dominant colors, excellent for an adult video sharing website. The psd itself is huge due to the lots and lots of layers and filters used: it has 55mb, and its cache is almost 7GB(meaning that you can’t open it if you don’t have 7GB free disk space).
Phew. I finally got rid of it. This is what happens if a customer doesn’t pay! You get stuck with the design for a very long time.
| 19 Feb 2009 |
New Feature in Paypal – Where to go after login |
Yesterday afternoon i saw the notification message in My account page, that maintenance is performed on the paypal website. Today when i opened up paypal to check my balance and incoming payments i noticed that they added a new feature to the login screen, a dropdown box where you can select to go to Your account page or to Transaction history page.
This is the only new thing i could notice, most probably there were other updates as well. If you frequently use paypal you can notice that almost every 2-5 days maintenance is performed. I find this feature quite handy and saves me some time, especially when i need to check on my invoices and bills.
TIPS FOR PAYPAL USERS:
1) NEVER, and i mean NEVER click links in emails which look bogus to you. Browse manually to paypal.com and login. Find more info in paypal security center.
2) Make sure you are protected! A simple antivirus won’t do. I highly recommend you use an anti-keylogger every time you do transactions online or use paypal/your credit card. Heck use an anti keylogger every time you log in somewhere. You don’t have to fear viruses, you have to fear keyloggers!
I personally recommend AKlog NT+ which runs in background and doesn’t affect any processes. It is free to use and doesn’t bug you with annoying pop-up purchase messages. You can check more info on AKlog NT+ Help page.
3) Never log in to paypal from public workstations(pc’s at school/work/net cafes), because you don’t know anything about the security of those PCs.
4) If it’s possible use a virtual keyboard and type in your username and password using the mouse pointer.
5) last but not least remember that you can NEVER BE TOO SECURE. Take precautions and avoid difficulties.
| 19 Feb 2009 |
5 Awesome fresh free wordpress themes |
Nowadays its getting harder and harder to find some decent free themes, but luckaly there are still some designers which release free high-quality themes. After 1 hours of research i gathered 5 awsome themes which were recently released.
Comfy News theme arrives from the creator of Guzel Magazine theme, Gabfire. As usual the theme design is extraordinary and makes some premium theme designers feel ashamed.
“Comfy comes with many features, some of them are basic magazine features such as dropdown navigation, feedburner subscription, advertisement spots, featured entries, ajax tabs, widget-ready, gravatars built-in, and more. [...] utilized jQuery to make the widgets fully controllable, you can minimize, maximize, or close any widget from homepage.“
As the author states the theme has some awsome features and its definitely worth checking out.
Theme Name: Comfy News theme
Theme Demo: Testrun Comfy
Theme Release Post: Comfy WordPress News Theme is released
Compositio was designed by Elena of Design Disease and as usual released by smashing magazine . Its a cool theme but a bit too clean, lets be serious now, besides the comment section and box there’s nothing special in it. It has the same old structure as the other free design disease themes do.
Theme Name: Compositio
Theme Demo: Testrun Compositio
Theme Release Post: Compositio: Clean, Beautiful and Free WordPress Theme
The Emplode wordpress theme is based on the Emplode website template by the same author. It was a good move to release it for the wordpress platform also. There aren’t many special features i could mention besides the clean look of the theme and how appealing it is.
Theme Name: Emplode
Theme Demo: Testrun Emplode
Theme Release Post: WordPress Theme: Emplode
I can watch movies(long name) theme was made by ACosmin who’s themes were featured quite a few times in my theme relases. It’s a cool theme but still i have a hard time deciding if it’s a retro or a 3d theme. It has a more out-of the ordinary look, and i’m sure many of you will find it appealing.
Theme Name: I can watch movies
Theme Demo: Testrun I can watch movies
Theme Release Post: Free wordpress theme – I can watch movies
Magasin Tres is an awsome magaizne theme. It would have been even more awsome if it’s width would have been 90% fluid, but eh, the fixed version looks good also. Its main features are: Featured Post, Feedburner Email Subscription, Twitter Account integration, Flirck Thumbnails, Automatic Thumbnail Resizer, Adsense ready with advertising blocks easily customizible via an Option Page.
Theme Name: Magasin Tres
Theme Demo: Testrun Magasin Tres
Theme Release Post: WordPress Theme: Magasin Tres
That’s it for this week. See you in next week’s post.
| 11 Feb 2009 |
WordPress upgrade process easy as 1-2-3 |
The most awsome features in WordPress are the automatic plugin and core updates, no need to download new package and reupload, with one click you can simply upgrade both your plugins and core. I just upgraded to 2.7.1 and it took like 5 seconds to upgrade. I was stunned!
This is both awsome and secure(remember the old wordpresz.org exploit, which infected lots of bloggers), with this process you surely know that the package is the real deal. If you’re running WordPress 2.7 and haven’t upgraded yet to 2.71 click the yellow bar in your admin panel and check out the upograde process!
| 7 Feb 2009 |
Take the Theme Switcher plugin to the next level – static URLs |
Lots of WordPress theme designers & developers use Ryan Boren‘s Theme Switcher plugin, a very light-weight plugin which does exactly what its title says. It gives the possibility to preview any uploaded theme.
As you know the default string to preview a theme is index.php?wptheme=theme name . That isn’t very cool is it? TBH its damn ugly and long. Doesn’t testsite.com/theme name/ sound a lot better? I bet it does!
If you take a look at my blog’s free themes seciton you will notice that every live demo url is a static. I have lots of customers to manage, and spending my time on setting up 10 tets blogs would be dumb, so i did this trick and i can show every customer his theme and wait for feedback. Its a lot cleaner than the dynamic url.
Here’s how to rewrite the dynamic url to a static one:
Options +FollowSymLinks RewriteEngine on RewriteRule ^([A-Za-z0-9]+)/?$ index.php?wptheme=$1
Copy this code and paste it into your .htaccess file right in front of # BEGIN WordPress.
Other info:
- This tweak was tested and is fully functional if you do it as instructed.
- It does not affect in any way your permalink structure.
Have fun & enjoy!
| 7 Feb 2009 |
Photoshop CS4 more powerful and lightewighter than CS2 |
Okay, now this is unbelievable, BETng4U installed Photoshop CS4 and on the other day he was telling me about how better CS 4 runs on his system(he has a PC similar to mine). Yesterday night i removed CS2, and installed CS4(trial version), and i have to say that it’s tempting me to buy CS4 and let CS2 go.
We all know that CS3 was a huge resource hog, many designers hated it(just like people hate vista now), and now that Adobe came out with CS4 which doesn’t devour your system everyone seems to be in love with it.
To check if my colleague was really right about performance and resource consumption i did a small test: Before uninstalling CS2 i opened up a PSD in it and checked how much memory it eats, after which i did the same thing in CS4 and voila CS4 ate about 31MB memory less than CS2. Same PSD, different photoshop version. Check pics below(enlargeable)
During the next 30 days i’ll do some more extensive testing and work with it, after the month passes i’ll decide if i’ll permanently switch from CS2 to CS4.
