HeadsetOptions Web Design, SEO, WordPress, Etcetra

A high level opinion poll concerning WordPress themes and its future is presented on Ian’s new site Theme Shaper. Highly recommended read for WordPress theme designers and enthusiasts alike. I have my 2 cents in there too!

Al might think he “invented the internet“, but he sure failed to upgrade his WordPress CMS, which resulted in negative publicity for the best open CMS out there. His site was powered by version 2.0.4, which as Matt points out, was released a good 16 months ago, and even beats the version I was running a few weeks ago, with my own patch nonetheless. My excuse, I did not invent the Internet!

I guess folks at WordPress.com start talking about copyright violation only when it hits home. When we cried foul about WordPress themers ripping our work and calling it their own, no one cared except Thomas (and Lorelle).

The reality is, you can’t stop people from stealing content or code, it pinches those of us on the receiving end and it sucks. Google can de-index a few sites, but many more will pop-up.

Although Google is the search engine leader, how many …

I know a lot of people who write posts about how one should blog based on their personal experience, I get a lot of emails asking for pointers, so here’s a list I compiled that is the anti-advice or what I call “5 blogging mistakes I make that you should avoid”.

Be irrelevant: Over 50 percent of my visitors stop by for themes and support, another 35 percent make it here by clicking a link related to, you go it, themes or support, yet I write blogs on issues that bother me like George Bush, or our environment or our absolute disregard towards the value of human lives outside of America. Should …

This ‘how to’ tutorial was written for beginners/users designing a Sandbox based theme/CSS redesign using minimal CSS hacks and imagery. The objective of this exercise was to do “as little work as possible” while ensuring the result appears “significantly different” from the starting template. This is not the end-all strategy to design a Sandbox theme/skin, but merely a guide to get started. Enjoy.

Tools needed: Notepad, FTP (SmartFTP or similar) and PhotoShop or similar (any image editor should do).

In less than a couple of weeks, the Sandbox theme competition will decide a winner, but if you are anything like I am, you would probably wait to the very last day to create and submit your entry. So I feel it’s the perfect time to have a “how to” demonstrating the endless possibilities of CSS redesigning for those procrastinators waiting for a sign to get started. And no, this demo theme will not be submitted to the competition but will be released freely for Sandbox users sometime soon. Here’s a quick reminder of the rules.

Just to briefly touch on the Sandbox theme, as described by its creator(s), “The real feature of the Sandbox is its markup. The use of class-generating functions in key elements (the body, post div, and comment li elements) creates the most extensible WordPress theme available”. So all you need is some basic understanding of CSS and you should be ready to roll.

So we are not trying to wait it out or anything like that, we are just as sick of it as y’all are so let’s get this thing done and over with. Today will not go down in history as the day WordPress died; in fact it’s the opposite. In my opinion, WordPress is the best open source CMS out there, and can remain that way if we all took the chill pill and got our acts together.

Talking about acts, here’s a confession to add for your weekend gossip, Mark and I have lived a dual life for the past 4 months on WordPress both as designers and as the moderator of themes.wordpress.net, yes we were cleaning out the mess and doing the dirty job while Matt and Mark (Gosh) were busy smearing us with the tar of being the bad guys. But as Matt would thanklessly say, “no one asked us to do it”, we volunteered!

So why are we only coming out now? We do not seek attention, but this might be the best opportunity to bring to the attention of the WP communities some of the challenges we are facing today that must be addressed and could very well be prevented when Matt takes over the themes repository completely (as widely speculated) for whatever the reason. Think of this as the “Moderators” public service announcement. But before we go, I would like to clear the air and talk a little about why and how we got here in the first place.

Gathering 3C: Download | Test run

3 Column, White, Black, Fixed width, Widget ready, Right sidebars, Corporate, Business Blog, Personal Blog Template

Gathering 3C is a 3 column “adsense and widget” ready Web 2.0 WordPress theme with a professional look by headsetoptions.org and MandarinMusing. Clean Corporate, business, technology, personal blog template.

Please visit WordPress Support or WordPress Themes for support and downloads. For or queries or customized web design projects, visit web design.

Please do spread the word if you like our themes, make a donation if you love it!

The top tip for better SEO ranking is to submit your website URL to search engines and web directories. Yahoo has a paid directory and DMOZ takes forever to list new websites!

So quality free directories are your best bet and here’s a quality blog directory that is totally free!

All-blogs.net is a manually edited blog directory, unlike a lot of free directories which accept submissions from one and all. It is designed to support webmasters to promote their sites, by providing SEO-friendly static HTML links to help improve Pagerank. Spam submissions from pharma or related sites are rejected. Also, sites that contain only affiliate links and that are only …

ELITE CIRCLE: Download | Test run

2 Column, White, Red, Adsense Ready, Fixed width, Widget ready, Right sidebar, Personal Blog, Corporate/Business Template

Elite Circle is a neat and clean, white, 2 column, “widget ready” WordPress theme with a right sidebar and a professional Web 2.0 looks by headsetoptions.org and MandarinMusing, based on a design by Styleshout for Diabetic Socks Corporate Gift Baskets.

You can also download this theme from Theme Viewer and MandarinMusing.

Please visit WordPress Support or WordPress Themes for support and …

Is AOL trying to be the next Yahoo?

Did Google try to be the next Yahoo? Yes and no.
Google has got extraordinary attention in the last two years, most of which could be attributed to the contribution of users. Google’s strategy of becoming bigger and better is by buying everything that has potential for growth, mostly in terms of numbers.
In the Web 2.0 Expo this month in San Francisco, Jeff Weiner, Yahoo’s executive Vice President  listed some significant differences between Google and Yahoo:

1. Yahoo places a value on intellectual properties. Google does not.
2. Media companies are attracted to Yahoo because of it’s capability to program and package quality  content.
3.  Google …