You can download the themepack by clicking on the icon below:

The theme pack has a total of 15 different backgrounds which makes it a bit larger than other theme packs I’ve seen. I’m looking for feedback as to whether the theme pack is too large and whether I should produce a smaller version. If you’re on Windows 7, give it a try and tell me what you think! In the meantime, if you like Andy’s work, check out his photography website and see some more of his work.

One thing I’ll be doing will be to take a backup before I start. It’s funny how you don’t realise how important a backup is until you really need it. Interestingly, a friend of mine even keeps a keylogger running on his system, just a keep a complete history of all the keypresses he makes, in case he ever needs to recover or redo something. It’s also worth keeping in mind that sometimes even backups can fail though. A friend called me this morning because his computer was reporting all his photos as corrupted and when he plugged in his backup disk, it asked him if he wanted to format it (i.e. couldn’t read from it). John, I’ll be keeping my fingers crossed for you all day. He’s a passionate photographer and has thousands of photos on his computer. I can’t imagine how gutted he would be if something happened to them.

photo credit: Nikita Kashner

Great post down at NetStrife talking about Things to Look for in WordPress Themes. There’s lots of good advice in there which you can really apply to any technology that has stand-alone themes, not just WordPress. So, what does the article recommend? Here’s a quick list:

• Fast Loading Time: You don’t want your blog to feel like a snail, so try to go for a lightweight theme that you can load your own add-ons into.
• Widget-ready: Widgets make it really easy to add your own bits to different sections of the blog. Without these you have to mess with code and that’s not always something users can manage.
• Search-engine optimized: I’m pretty sure that how you rank in search engines is important for you, so try and pick a theme that is optimized for search engines.
• Valid markup: Some may argue that this isn’t necessary especially as widgets you introduce may break your validity, but it’s always good to start from a valid position if you can, making your site as accessible as possible
• Prominent advertisement spots: If you’re planning on selling advertising on your blog, make sure the new theme has allocated a good position for these slots as this is what advertisers will be looking for.
• Clean design and layout: The easier your blog is to read, the more traction it will have with your audience resulting in higher visit rates and lower bounce rates
• Colours that suit your blog topic: This one is easily overlooked. It’s important for your blog’s colour to suit the theme of your  blog. For example, pink wouldn’t suit a live event video streaming website, but would look great on website about your love life.

I’ve started getting my themes from FreshPress themes because they score highly on all the points above, but there are quite a few themes out there that will work too.

There’s much more on the post, so pop down and read it.

served by picapp.com

It looks like WordPress has decided to revamp their theme directory and turn it into a fully fledged source repository. This is a step in the right direction and a possible route to order in the previous anarchy that represented the theme market prior to this move. There are a number of requirements for a theme to be accepted:

• A single zip file, with all of the files themes file included.
• There must be a style.css file containing:
  • Name (which must be unique to the directory)
  • Tags
  • Version (in the format of x.x or x.x.x and must be unique to the theme)
  • Align classes: .alignright, .alignleft, .aligncenter (see http://codex.wordpress.org/CSS for more details)
• The screenshot file name must be screenshot.png, and be a real screenshot of the theme, not a splash screen.
• Licensing must be GPL compatible.
• No hidden, paid or sponsored links in the theme. Links back to the author’s site are fine.
• Support Gravatars
• Show post categories and tags
• The theme must be your own original work.
• Adult/mature themes are not allowed.

(Interesting to note that now themes should position images correctly in posts, Gravatars will just work and you’ll be hard pressed to find themes with people in swimwear)

So, where does this leave WordPress. Well, for a start they are now in a position to guarantee quality in the themes they represent. In the past themes were riddled with bugs, unimplemented features, encrypted sections and sponsored links, all of which reduced the confidence of people trying to use them. All these reflected badly on the underlying product and now WordPress has a way to control all this. Another change we are bound to see is the ability for WordPress to automatically notify a user when a new version of a theme is available, in the same way it currently does this with plugins.

With a change like this, there are bound to be people who are unhappy with the decision. A number of people run directories of templates, these are bound to fade away now that there’s a quality offering and WordPress can direct people in that direction. Theme designers who earn a fee for maliciously hiding sponsored links in themes will also suffer. I still think there’s a market for premium themes that have a cost attached to them, if they offer additional functionality and support that the free theme directory doesn’t offer, but that would be an honest transaction rather than persuading users they have a “free theme” that has dangerous bits attached to it.

The other interesting fact is that WordPress is not only pushing to increase the quality of their product, but also tying it it’s other assets (like Gravatar) and encouraging people to use them. It’s advice that any IT Service organisation should take on board and use their position to maximise their utility and return. That’s what strategic planning is all about.

Should be interesting, check out the theme directory

• Rainbow Garden Theme: I have a couple of friends who use this one and it actually makes quite a big impact when you see it the first time.
• Hall of Excitement: I’ve actually used this theme on Shopaholic? Me? Works very well I think.
• UltraBlue WordPress Theme: I like the subtle touches in this one. It’s not one I’ve used, but I might sometime in the future.

I would say that there are easily hundreds if not thousands of wordpress templates out there. If you have any doubts about the best way to go around installing your theme, check out this great guide on how to install a WordPress theme. So, if you run a WordPress blog and are looking for a fresh look, just have a look around as there are lots of free themes to play with.

• Easy to manipulate: WordPress has an extensible API that has allows 3rd party developers to write plugins for it. There’s a wealth of plugins out there doing everything you can imagine. And if you can code in PHP you can write your own plugins for it too. I needed a plugin that sends an email to a commentor on my blog when I reply to their comment, so I just wrote one.
• Spam: For me, spam has become a thing of the past. WordPress comes with a magnificent plugin called Askimet which catches 99.9% of the spam that hits my website. If that’s not good enough for you, you can also implement another plugin called Bad Behaviour which makes it practically impossible for automated spam to get through. That’s unless you want to implement any captcha or another other anti-spam plugins that exists out there.
• Customising layouts: There’s a wealth of themes for WordPress out there and I mean literally thousands of them. Creating your own is also very easy if you know a bit of CSS/HTML. It’s always much easier though to find one similar to what you want and customise it.

Anyone out there think highly of WordPress?