There are a few fundamental features in a Wordpress theme. To create a custom theme, a developer must simply have a functions.php, a stylesheet, and an index.php with the loop in it. However, the Internet is expanding, and not only are themes becoming more and more complex with a greater amount of options, but further additions are being added to the amount of files included in your average theme.

This post, however, is not directed at the aged Wordpress designer who has been churning out themes since 1.5. This post, instead, is directed at designers which are simply just beginning to explore the possibilities of Wordpress.

I was one such designer not too long ago. I became acquainted with Wordpress through a job opportunity – I was hired by a company to create and edit Wordpress themes. I received a day or two of training learning the needed PHP and other tidbits – such as what certain files did, and how to install themes. To date, I have been programming Wordpress themes for about a year now – whether editing them for SEO, or creating completely new themes, or even redesigning other themes. Through my work, I have discovered the power behind not just the CMS, but also through the lesser-known power of index.php and hierarchy. Read more »

I am very surprised at myself.

And I don’t mean in a bad way. I mean as in – wow, I can’t believe it’s a redesign!

As you can see, the comment form is back to where it was before. Provided it’s not abused by spammers again, it should hopefully stay as it is. If spammers do choose to abuse it as much as they possibly can, expect a much stricter captcha to be put into it. Oh, and yes, I’m aware that it disappears after you submit it; that’s to prevent you from re-submitting it. No, really, it is!

There are a lot more small tweaks to this theme than meets the eye. The older one was a bit more static; it worked pretty well, but I mostly wanted to do a few things with this design that I hadn’t done before. Read more »

Today, I looked at my design on a Dell monitor whose resolution is 1024 x 768. I was surprised at how cluttered my design had become; the original aspect of the design was to remove the clutter, and make the design itself one which was very sleek and elegant, similar to my older design in which there were four navigation choices, and one place for content.

Well, allow me to clarify. I like the top of the site; the choice of very simple horizontal navigation and a central logo. I like the front page, with its “Welcome” written in a sans-serif and a pulled title and 200 characters from the latest post in my blog. Read more »

It seems to me that spammers are getting more and more creative.

One of the most recent spams I received was actually through two IM conversations. The first was on GTalk; I have a GTalk account set up specially for BeLink’d to communicate with clients et cetera without utilizing my personal account. Well, I received a friend request; not sure what it was, I accepted.

Later that day, while working on a site, I received an IM asking if it was a good time to discuss web development software that I had been solicited in the past over my work line. I told said marketer to please remove me from their contact list when they initially called me, and now I was being IM’d by them.

And that wasn’t the last time. I also use Skype for personal, and received a friends request from a random person. I add them… and it turns out to be yet another marketer. Wonderful. Blocked and removed; the major annoyance, however, is that now they attempt to message me and send me notifications, which are… excessively annoying. Read more »

I am a Mac person. However, before I entered the world of Apple, I was a PC person.

I was introduced to Mac through Dre, who manages the server-side issues of this site. I wanted a computer I could do development and design work on, yet at the same time use casually.

Frankly, once you go Mac, you never honestly go back. Read more »