Wordpress News

WooThemes delays WooCommerce Plugin and e-commerce WordPress themes for the sake of quality

Tue, 02 Nov 2010 04:00:00 GMT

With WooThemes' customers requesting WordPress e-commerce theme options more and more, WooThemes founder Adii Pienaar has posted an update on their WooCommerce Plugin and associated themes, namely on their recent delays. Pienaar lists three main reasons for the delay:

In order for WooCommerce to be as perfect as it can be they are adding “a few more features” than they normally would.
The templating systems in an e-commerce system are more complicated than typical themes, and they want to “making sure that [their] commerce themes are just as customizable as [their] other stuff.”
Since WooCommerce will eventually be released as a Plugin and stand on its own, additional consideration is being made to ensure the initial structure is what it needs to be.

Pienaar also mentions that Malan “Foxinni” Joubert's recent extended sabbatical has also slowed certain development processes, though the recent addition of Matt Cohen should help with the workload.

There are four WooCommerce themes in development, with Shopify versions of three of them already available. Pienaar, in the comments on the blog post, states that they are “hoping to have [it] ready late November.”

WordPress for Nokia app now available on the Ovi store

Tue, 02 Nov 2010 02:00:00 GMT

Isaac Keyet announced on the WordPress for Nokia development blog that the Nokia WordPress app is now available on the Ovi store. He does say, though, that:

[T]he app is not yet compatible with Symbian3 devices such as N8, C6, C7 and more. We’re working with Nokia to get the app approved for these as well. Please report any issues you find with the app here.

On the WordPress for Nokia site there is a development blog you can follow, and a forum for any questions you may have.

WordPress Theme Releases for 11/02

Tue, 02 Nov 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Codium Extend is a minimalist theme for WordPress and ready for all the WordPress 3.x features like custom menus, colors or background.

iStudio is a very stylish Macintosh-inspired theme.

Magazine Basic offers many different layout possibilities. Two custom widgets, featured posts and user login help you create a fully functioning magazine/newspaper style web site.

WordPress.com launches FoodPress, showcase of food-related posts

Tue, 02 Nov 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Automattic launched a new blog on WordPress.com called FoodPress, an aggregation of quality food-related posts on WordPress.com. This is their first entry into aggregated user content driven websites.

In a new partnership with Federated Media and along with FoodPress editor Jane Maynard, WordPress.com hopes the site will be the “go-to destination for the hottest dishes from WordPress.com bloggers.”

All content on FoodPress is chosen by Maynard, mostly by reviewing tag pages on WordPress.com like food, recipes, baking, and cocktails. Those interested in being featured on FoodPress are encouraged to use tags like these in their posts.

The future of FoodPress

Matt Mullenweg, founder of Automattic, said on his blog:

FoodPress is a new collection of the best WordPress food writing in the world, right now from .com only.

It's likely that not only will FoodPress likely pull from other WordPress blogs outside of WordPress.com in the future, but that Automattic will over time add additional aggregation sites to WordPress.com.

What do you think would make for a worthwhile topic to aggregate on WordPress.com?

Win an AppSumo WordPress Blogger Bundle from WPCandy

Mon, 01 Nov 2010 22:00:00 GMT

AppSumo has taken on the WordPress cause recently, offering up a WordPress Blogger Bundle valued at $957 for $32. This is a great deal, and worth checking out. But we thought, why not take it a bit further and give away a couple of bundles for free?

What we have for you

We have two full AppSumo WordPress Blogger Bundles (say that five times fast!) packaged up and ready for two members of the WPCandy community.

Just to recap, the bundle consists of:

3 months of Page.ly Business hosting
Advertiser credit for BuySellAds
6 months of inboxSEO rank tracking
Themes from WooThemes
The PadPressed plugin
Two themes from Graph Paper Press
3 months of Clicky Web Analytics Pro service
WP101 tutorial videos
Inbound Marketing preview
SEOmoz PRO three month trial
WP Auctions plugin
10$ off for Arkayne Pro package
Lock & Load WordPress theme

For the full list of bundle items, see AppSumo's site.

How to win a bundle

For a chance at one of the available bundles, all you have to do is comment with which of the items in the bundle interest you the most. Are you a WordPress theme junkie? Are you after Plugins? Perhaps the services mentioned are most interesting to you?

Tell us about what you're after in the comments, and on Friday we'll draw two names from the group to win a WordPress Blogger Bundle from AppSumo.

So who wants a bundle?

Carrie Rocha speaking on “Monetizing Your Blog” at WordCamp MSP

Mon, 01 Nov 2010 20:00:00 GMT

Brian on the WordCamp MSP blog announced that Carrie Rocha, blog entrepreneur and financial advisor, will be presenting “Monetizing Your Blog” at WordCamp MSP next week.

Rocha seems qualified to give this sort of talk, as according to her bio:

Carrie Rocha and her family got out of $50,000 in debt in 2 1/2 years. In March 2009 she launched PocketYourDollars.com to help teach others to do the same. Within 10 months of her blog’s launch it became successful enough that it is the sole financial support for her family of four (and they aren’t broke).

Rocha's presentation will be during the Blogger Track. If you are interested in attending WordCamp MSP, be sure to register before next Tuesday. Registration for the event will officially close on November 9th at 11:55pm.

WordPress for Android 1.3.6 brings media enhancements

Mon, 01 Nov 2010 18:00:00 GMT

Dan announced on the WordPress for Android blog that version 1.3.6 of the WordPress Android app is now available in the Android Market. This update includes a few bug fixes, as well as the following feature additions:

New attached media display. Media added to posts is now displayed in the app in a horizontal scrolling gallery.
Multiple media item sharing. Multiple items (pictures, video, etc.) can be selected and uploaded to a new post.

See the video embedded after the jump for a demonstration of the new multiple media item sharing in the app.

Elegant Themes has a “Magnificent” new magazine theme

Mon, 01 Nov 2010 16:24:00 GMT

Nick Roach of Elegant Themes announced on their blog a new WordPress magazine theme called “Magnificent.” On the reasoning behind the new theme, Roach said:

Magazine-style themes have always been in high demand, especially those containing a multi-column, content-rich homepage. Now you can display loads of content in a beautifully simple and elegant fashion using Magnificent.

“Magnificent” has the following features:

A four column homepage with five widget ready areas
Seven available color schemes
Collection of shortcodes included

If you're interested, have a look at “Magnifient's” feature page or its demo.

Brad Williams creates IPFree.ly iPhone app using WordPress

Mon, 01 Nov 2010 14:18:00 GMT

Brad Williams announced that his WordCamp Philly presentation is now available online. The presentation, titled Spooky WordPress: Disturbingly Brilliant Uses of WP, highlights some unusual uses for WordPress, including a Facebook app, contact management theme, task management theme and a ticketing system theme.

Also in the list is the incredibly odd, yet totally useless awesome IPFree.ly iPhone app. The app, available now in the iTunes app store, is a “location based plot tracking app” that allows users to track where they pee. The app is attached to a WordPress backend at IPFree.ly.

The Spooky WordPress presentation is available here.

Podcast 009: Lash-tastic! edition

Mon, 01 Nov 2010 11:34:00 GMT

In WPCandy Podcast 009 we discussed how WordPress has been downloaded over 20 million times, the new FoodPress site from the WordPress.com folks, and AppSumo, the Macheist for WordPress.

This week's show hosts were:

Ryan Imel, @ryanimel
Justin Vela, @justindvela
Eric Lash, @sirlash
Justin Rouch, @justinrouch
Ray Angel, @rayrayangel

Subscribe to the show on iTunes, or directly to the RSS feed.

As always you can send any emails you would like to have included on the show to podcast@wpcandy.com. Download links and this week's WordPress picks are after the jump.

This week's WordPress picks were:

Justin Vela chose Graph Paper Press themes, since he recently added them to Theme Finder and thought they were cool.
Justin Rouch chose Socialize This, a WordPress Plugin that adds the social buttons you choose to your posts.
Ray Angel chose the WordPress Download Counter page.
Eric Lash just wants more emails sent to podcast@wpcandy.com.
Ryan Imel chose Date in a Nice Tone, a Plugin that makes your WordPress dates more pleasant.

If you would like to download the podcast in MP3 format directly, you can do so here.

Interview with Chris Coyier of CSS-Tricks and Digging into WordPress

Mon, 01 Nov 2010 10:00:00 GMT

I had the chance recently to sit down for a few minutes with Chris Coyier, of CSS-Tricks.com and Digging into WordPress fame. We spoke about his experience co-authoring a book with Jeff Starr, how WordPress has effected his experience online, and what he is working on right now.

Thanks to Chris for his time, and for giving (what I think) is a solid interview showing how WordPress can help you be an entrepreneur online.

The full interview is posted after the jump.

A “MacHeist for WordPress” that actually is a MacHeist for WordPress

Mon, 01 Nov 2010 08:01:00 GMT

AppSumo is now offering a MacHeist-like collection of WordPress and blogging-related goodies as part of their WordPress Blogger Bundle. The bundle includes:

3 months of Page.ly Business hosting
Advertiser credit for BuySellAds
6 months of inboxSEO rank tracking
Themes from WooThemes
The PadPressed plugin
Two themes from Graph Paper Press and more.

The entire package is valued at $926, but is on sale now from AppSumo for $32. The offer will only be available for about a week (6 days, 8 hours at the time of this writing.)

Theme Foundry’s Vigilance theme updated to version 2.1

Mon, 01 Nov 2010 06:00:00 GMT

The Theme Foundry has updated their Vigilance blog theme, also available on WordPress.com, to version 2.1. This theme update includes these features:

New PRO Feature: HTML5 support!
Speed Improvement: Consolidated an extra functions file to improve theme load time.
Miscellaneous: Cleaned up the master stylesheet and added a table of contents.
Miscellaneous: Organized functions.php file and added a table of contents.

Those members with access to The Theme Foundry's themes can access it on their site.

Tokokoo’s special two for one deal on e-commerce themes

Mon, 01 Nov 2010 04:00:00 GMT

The team at Tokokoo has announced on their blog a new deal on their e-commerce themes: a two-for-one deal, beginning today. There doesn't seem to be a limit on this new deal either; it seems it will last indefinitely.

The best part about the announcement post was when they described their reasoning for this special offer. In their words, they said: “Because we love you.”

You just can't beat that.

BuddyDress redesigns with a fresh focus on themes

Mon, 01 Nov 2010 02:00:00 GMT

BuddyDress, a source of commercial BuddyPress compatible themes, launched a redesign of their site recently, focusing more on their theme releases (of which there are nearly 20). The fresh redesign includes their theme gallery and pages, their blog, and their forum.

The redesign also comes with pricing changes. Previously the only option was to purchase a plan for support on all themes. Now each theme can be purchased with its own support plan individually. See their pricing page for more details.

Their announcement post also mentions upcoming community features, though no specific dates or timeframes are mentioned.

You can follow BuddyDress updates on their blog, as well as on Twitter @buddydress.

WordPress Nokia App Released

Mon, 01 Nov 2010 00:00:00 GMT

The WordPress mobile app for Nokia has been released and is now live on the Ovi Store.

Currently the app's listing mentions that it only supports the N97 Mini and X6, but the development team is working on getting the app approved for “Symbian3 devices such as N8, C6, C7 and more.”

The Nokia app joins the ranks of the other popular WordPress mobile apps for Android, Blackberry, and iOS.

Do you use an N97 Mini and X6, and will you be installing the new mobile app?

Stroll through “Garden”, Theme Junkie’s latest theme

Mon, 01 Nov 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Theme Junkie released their first gallery/showcase theme, designed by their own developer Paran.

Key features of this theme include:

Featured content slider (with dozens of custom options)
Built-in submission page template
11 widgetized sidebars & footer areas
Custom Flickr/Twitter/categories/advertisement widgets

Have a look at the Garden theme page or its demo if you're interested.

Matt “Matty” Cohen joins WooThemes as full time code wizard

Sun, 31 Oct 2010 21:33:00 GMT

Mark Forrester, partner at WooThemes, mentioned on Twitter this morning that Matt “Matty” Cohen has joined WooThemes today as a full time “code wizard.” This brings the total number of employed WordPress professionals at WooThemes to nine (made up of six staff members and three partners).

Matty describes himself on his blog as a “web developer, WordPress enthusiast, avid musician, music lover and blogger.” Matty's blog is filled with posts covering his work customizing WordPress and his life in Cape Town, South Africa.

You can follow Matty, the newest WooThemes team member, on Twitter @mattyza.

First WordCamp in Philadelphia considered a success

Sun, 31 Oct 2010 19:33:00 GMT

WordCamp Philly took place this past weekend, and with two dozen speakers and a full attendance, it was considered a success.

Event organizer Brad Williams updated the blog with news that formal reflection on the event will take place soon, and attendees will have a chance to complete surveys on their time at the event as well. Williams also said that presentation slides and video will be available as soon as possible.

You can follow the updates on the WordCamp Philly blog, or on Twitter @wordcampphilly.

Take a ride on Carousel, the new theme from Obox

Sun, 31 Oct 2010 14:00:00 GMT

Obox Design introduced Carousel this week, a new theme for photographers. You can see their excitement for launching this theme in their announcement post:

The moment we did the fist mockup of this theme we could not wait to get it out, usually we tend to stretch a themes development over a 5 week period but in this case it was only 3 weeks.

Key features of this new theme include:

A widgetized home page
A new archive design with jQuery Masonry effects
Gallery commenting (a brand new feature for Obox Themes)
Four dark and four light color options (eight total)

Check out the Carousel theme page, or jump straight into the demo.

Buckle up with Tokokoo’s new e-commerce theme, Kakileema

Sun, 31 Oct 2010 12:00:00 GMT

WordPress theme shop Tokokoo has released a new e-commerce theme called Kakileema. Tokokoo has published a number of WordPress e-commerce themes, and Kakileema seems to be just as solid as the rest of their work.

The theme's features include:

WordPress e-Commerce Plugin integration
Widget ready, with 9 widgetized spots
Tim Thumb support to resize images
Multiple product images
Supports multiple languages. You can change the inline text language on your own.

Read more about Kakileema, or jump into the theme demo.

Headway Themes increases affiliate program payout to 40%

Sun, 31 Oct 2010 10:00:00 GMT

Grant Griffiths and the team at Headway Themes have announced that they will be increasing their affiliate program from 33% to 40%. This will be a permanent change.

The increase coincides with the release of Headway 2.0.

Grant explains why they decided to boost the pay scale (bold is theirs):

In the past we were paying 33% on each sale our affiliates were making. With the release of Headway 2.0, we decided to increase our commission rate to 40% and not just through the end of the year. The 40% affiliate commission is from now and into the future. We will not be lowering our commission below 40% on the Headway Theme.

You can follow Headway Themes on Twitter at @headwaythemes.

WPCandy in Review: October 2010

Sun, 31 Oct 2010 07:38:00 GMT

We're excited to be posting about the last month of progress on WPCandy. We hope to build WPCandy into a community-driven site, and one way we think we can accomplish that is by being as transparent as possible about our progress.

This month we saw a general upward trend across the board, and have a few non-statistic items we're proud of as well.

October 2010 statistics

We're not all about numbers, not by a long shot. But they are fun to analyze!

Metric	Change
Google Analytics	Over 42,000 unique visitors this month (after crossing 30,000 last month)
Twitter	269 new followers
Facebook	41 new fans
RSS/Feedburner	~500 subscriber increase

We're pleased with the continued increase in traffic to the site, as well as the increase in folks sharing our content through Facebook and Twitter.

Analytics visitor chart for October 2010

Becoming a community-driven blog

But stats aren't the only thing we watch. I was personally very happy that Graham Huber, Brian Krogsgard, and David Coveney all contributed a post this month. That's probably the biggest success of the month, quite honestly. We want this site to be community driven, and it's only when community members contribute that it can happen.

If you feel the urge to guest post on the site (or would even like to discuss something more long term) please do get in touch with us.

Posting rate increased, quality maintained

We've been increasing our posting rate slowly throughout October, and this culminated in our goal last week of reaching 24 hour posting on the weekdays. So instead of previously posting 3-5 posts each day, we now post 10-12 posts Monday through Friday. We're excited about this because it helps us on two points:

We can provide fresh news to folks on the other end of the globe, during their waking hours.
We can cover even more WordPress news and events, as they happen.

Of course we take the quality of our posts very seriously, and haven't sacrificed quality while increasing our rate of posts. For instance, we were able to cover the launch of WPHonors exclusively, we covered the WordPress easter egg debate last week, and of course we post weekly video interviews with members of the WordPress community.

Launched Theme Finder

We launched a tool this month called Theme Finder, which now has over 500 themes in it (free and paid) and is growing every week. We're really happy with how the launch went, and hope to be able to improve it even more as time goes by. Have you used it yet?

Goals for next month

Since we're being transparent, we'd like to state a few goals for November at WPCandy.

We plan to cross 50,000 unique visitors next month.
We plan to cross 7,000 RSS subscribers next month.
We plan to reach 750 themes in Theme Finder.

Hopefully we can announce that we've reached these goals next month.

November is looking to be a very exciting month for WPCandy. We have a couple of announcements coming up that we think will help WPCandy reach an even larger audience, and give the community here here even more ways to interact.

Now it's your turn. How did we do this month?

Themify has released their eighth theme, Edmin

Sun, 31 Oct 2010 05:27:00 GMT

It seems like just yesterday Themify was launching and we were interviewing Darcy Clarke about their first month. And now Themify has released their eighth official theme, called “Edmin“.

“Edmin” is built on the standard Themify framework and features four color options. It also includes a customizable header slider and custom page and post templates.

Enter the coupon code “edmin” to save 30% on this theme until November 5.

WordPress Plugin Releases for 10/31

Sun, 31 Oct 2010 05:27:00 GMT

New plugins

AdsCaptcha allows you to put CAPTCHA boxes for spam prevention, and also gain profit from it.

Content Slide allows you to create fully customizable jquery fading image slideshows anywhere within your WordPress site.

Travelmap helps you show your travels on a Google map in any post or page.

Updated plugins

Edit Flow improves the WordPress admin interface for a multi-user newsroom's editorial workflow. (see the slides from the WordCamp Philly presentation)

Meteor Slides makes it simple to manage slideshows with WordPress by adding a custom post type for slides.

Shorten2Ping sends status updates to Ping.fm everytime you publish a post, using your own domain, bit.ly, wp.me, su.pr, is.gd and others for shortened permalinks.

WPtouch automatically transforms your WordPress blog into an iPhone application-style theme, complete with ajax loading articles and effects, when viewed from an iPhone, iPod touch, Android, Opera Mini, Palm Pre, Samsung touch and BlackBerry Storm/Torch mobile devices.

Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear site running on WordPress

Sat, 30 Oct 2010 10:00:00 GMT

Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert's “Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear” happened today in Washington, D.C. You can follow the progress on the rally's website, which just so happens to be running on WordPress.

At first glance the site is using the Flickr Gallery Plugin to pull in photos from the rally's Flickr gallery. So far we haven't been able to identify any other Plugins in use on the site.

Still, it's nice to know that no matter which side of the political spectrum you're on, WordPress is powering you online.

Frightening deals on themes this Halloween weekend

Sat, 30 Oct 2010 08:31:00 GMT

What says Halloween weekend like slightly-more-affordable WordPress themes? Technically plenty of things, but in the spirit of the season, let's say it works.

A number of theme companies have provided discount deals for their themes this weekend, including Tokokoo which we mentioned the other day. The new—ahem—spooky deals are:

All Themify purchases are 50% off this weekend when you use the coupon code “trickortreat”.
WooThemes themes will be 50% off as well when you use the coupon code “HALLOWEEN”.
RichWP themes are 15% off all weekend, with the discount code “richweekend”.

Hear about any other holiday deals this weekend? If you do, scare us with them in the comments below so we can let everyone know.

Photo originally by TheCulinaryGeek.

WordPress Applies to Google Code-in

Sat, 30 Oct 2010 00:00:00 GMT

The WordPress development team has applied to be a part of Google's Code-in contest to encourage eager high school and secondary school students to contribute WordPress' future.

The development team is currently compiling a task list and looking for suggestions from the community, which can be left as comments here.

Do you plan to be a part of Google's Code-in contest, and will you claiming any of the WordPress tasks this year?

Community Links: WordPress pumpkin edition

Sat, 30 Oct 2010 00:00:00 GMT

It's Halloween weekend and we have a WordPress pumpkin in the links this week to celebrate it. We also have interesting bits to read, tutorials and resources to grab onto, and—well what are you reading this for? Get into the post already and nom nom on those links!

The full list of links is after the jump.

First, in notable blog posts this week:

BP-Tricks posted an interview with Paul Gibbs about his Achievements Plugin and the future of BuddyPress.
Brian Clark of Copyblogger Media was interviewed on The WordPress Podcast.
Matt Mullenweg posted a picture of a WordPress pumpkin. Vitally important? Nope. But not everything has to be
WooThemes published a new WooVille comic.
Jeff at WPTavern posted about how WordPress projects are in large demand over at DoNanza.
Mark McWilliams posted a nice preview of what's coming in WordPress 3.1 custom post type archives.
James Huff posted a review of VaultPress over on WBTC.
Read about Scott Reilly's first patch to WordPress, on Peter Westwood's new site, Patches Welcome.

In tutorials and resources this week:

Daisy Olsen posted a tutorial showing how to auto embed video in WordPress text widgets on the StudioPress blog.
Josh over at North by North Interactive posted a nice walkthrough for creating a landing page template in WordPress.
Eko at DynamicWP posted a collection of tutorials and resources for styling the comment section of WordPress.
WPCandy's own JD Bentley has put together a list of essential Plugins for blogging.
Chris Coyier of Digging into WordPress posted a solid tutorial, showing how to build out a dynamic archives page.

That’s it for links this week. If you run across something link worthy, don’t hesitate to let us know about it. If it’s worth a story we’ll jump on it, and if it’s best suited for a community news post it will show up in this space next week.

iThemes interested in screen printing equipment for WPShirts

Fri, 29 Oct 2010 14:00:00 GMT

Cory Miller of iThemes and WPShirts mentioned on their blog recently that due to the high number of shirts they are ordering and sending out for WPShirts, they are now investigating the possibility of purchasing their own screen printing equipment for the shirts.

Miller describes their interest in the blog post:

Brad, Matt and Dustin all have expressed interest in learning how …. and although we don’t want it to interfere with our main business — building themes, plugins and training for WordPress — we’re ready to put our foot into producing them ourselves.

If you have any experience with screen printing equipment, drop by the WPShirts blog and share your knowledge with them. And whether you do or not, keep an eye out for more shirts from these folks—they seem pretty serious about it!

Simple Folio theme sprouts up at Organic Themes

Fri, 29 Oct 2010 12:00:00 GMT

Organic Themes has released a new theme this week called Simple Folio, a minimalistic portfolio theme. The theme's key features include:

Multiple column portfolio layouts
jQuery featured content slider
jQuery image hovers
Gravity Form styling

On the design of Simple Folio, Organic Themes describes it as:

There are no excess features muddying up the waters with the Simple Folio Theme. It displays imagery and text beautifully in a simple layout. Portfolio’s [sic] can be displayed in a 1, 2 or 3 column layout.

From a technical standpoint:

The Simple Folio uses custom post types to manage featured slides and blog entries, while all portfolio content is added using traditional WordPress posts.

For more information on this new theme visit the Simple Folio theme page, or jump into the demo.

Eventina Magazine theme from WPZoom updated to version 3.0

Fri, 29 Oct 2010 10:00:00 GMT

Eventina Magazine, one of WPZoom's earliest WordPress themes, is now available in version 3.0, completely rewritten by developer Dumitru Brînzan. New theme features include:

WPZOOM options panel
jQuery content slider on the homepage
10 built-in color styles
Banner management system
Localized theme files (a .po file is available) for quick translation

For more information on the new Eventina, visit the theme detail page or jump straight to the demo.

WordCamp Philly hosting after party costume contest for Apple prizes

Fri, 29 Oct 2010 08:00:00 GMT

WordCamp Philly is taking place this weekend at Temple University in Philadelphia, PA. On Saturday night at the after party a costume contest will be held for Apple prizes. Three winners will be chosen from the WordCamp attendees in costume, and they will be awarded the following prizes:

1st Place Prize: Apple TV
2nd Place Prize: iHome iP11 iPhone Alarm Clock (for the iPod and iPhone)
3rd Place Prize: $25 iTunes gift card

I'm normally the last one to suggest photo taking at a WordCamp after party (blasphemy), but it would be an incredible injustice if we don't see pictures after the costume contest. Speakers and organizers in costume, at least.

Send your costumed photos to WPCandy, and we promise we won't tell anyone you sent them in.

WordCamp NL sees a redesign, event on November 6

Fri, 29 Oct 2010 06:00:00 GMT

WordCamp NL (Netherlands) is coming up in a week on November 6th. A number of high profile speakers will be there, including Adii Pienaar of WooThemes and WordPress core developer Andrew Nacin. Four of the presentations will be given in English, the rest will be in Dutch.

The WordCamp NL website has seen a fresh design for the occasion, seen pictured in the above screenshot. Check out the WordCamp NL site, and consider registering if you are interested in the event. Tickets are $50.00 EUR and cover wifi, coffee, and lunch the day of the event.

Invulu launches Kahuna Host, WordPress hosting

Fri, 29 Oct 2010 04:00:00 GMT

Invulu Inc, the company behind Organic Themes, has this week launched Kahuna Host, a WordPress hosting company. After five months of preparation, the launch post says:

Taking advantage of automatic installation of the WordPress platform, and the dedicated resources of cloud hosting — Kahuna Host offers a service like no other in the hosting market. We are simply the fastest way to get started with a full WordPress content managed website, and the power of a limitless hosting resources.

Hosting packages come in three versions, “Just Me” at $20/month, “My Business” at $50/month, and “My Enterprise” at $150/month. WordPress is automatically installed with all hosting packages.

Kahuna has also created a number of WordPress video tutorials for users.

For more information visit the Kahuna Host website, or @kahunahost on Twitter.

WordPress application submitted to Google Code-in

Fri, 29 Oct 2010 02:00:00 GMT

Jane Wells updated the WordPress Development Blog to say that the application for WordPress to participate in the 2010 Google Code-in has been submitted. Specific tasks are still needed, as only high-level placeholders are in place right now.

The Google Code-in is described on the WordPress Codex as follows:

Google Code-in is a Google program similar to Summer of Code, but aimed at pre-university students. The code-in is different from GSoC in that it operates as a task-based contest rather longer pre-determined mentorships, and includes more than just code projects, to help expose students to “the many kinds of contributions that make open source software development possible.”

If you have input on how the WordPress project should best utilize the Google Code-in, visit the development blog and join the discussion.

Mention @wpcandy on Twitter today: it’s #followfriday

Fri, 29 Oct 2010 00:00:00 GMT

About a year ago, I was happy to get to meet Micah Baldwin, the creator of #followfriday. I met him at a WordCamp, actually—WordCamp Chicago 2009, in fact—where he spoke in part about how #followfriday came together. What stood out to me about Micah's story, in particular, was when he described how unintentional its creation was. He thought it would be something fun for he and his friends, but didn't anticipate anything of the size it is now.

In fact, I remember he even apologized for starting it during his presentation.

It's true that sometimes big things happen unintentionally. Today, we're hoping you will use some of your possibly unintentional influence on Twitter to share the WPCandy name with others. It's #followfriday after all, so let's share with others just why WPCandy is worth following.

If you'd like to send your own Twitter message, please do (just include @wpcandy in your tweet). Or, you can use this message we've put together:

Easily the best source of tasty WordPress news, you should follow @WPCandy!

WordPress Theme Releases for 10/29

Fri, 29 Oct 2010 00:00:00 GMT

ManuEdian is a modern look design with a slider in the home page for your featured posts or the latest posts.

Platform is a drag-and-drop framework for WordPress.

Suburbia is a clean and flexible WordPress grid-based magazine theme designed in a modern and minimalist style.

Kay Roseland and David Hedrick Skarjune will be speaking at WordCamp MSP

Thu, 28 Oct 2010 22:00:00 GMT

WordCamp MSP is taking place on November 13th, only two weeks from now. Two new speakers have been announced for the event, in the WordPress 101 track.

Kay Roseland will be leading a session titled “Creating a Post with Photos from Scratch”, which will cover basic WordPress post creation.

David Hedrick Skarjune will also be leading a session called “Working with Images, Galleries, and Lightboxes”

Sneak peak of new Builder theme settings screen

Thu, 28 Oct 2010 20:00:00 GMT

iThemes has a sneak preview up of a new Builder theme settings screen, one that adopts the WordPress menu UI from the Appearance→Themes screen, and groups Builder options into logical groups.

Chris Jean, iThemes developer, discusses the thinking behind the theme updates in the blog post:

A couple of months ago, the iThemes team talked about the future of Builder and set some short-term and long-term goals. One of the long-term goals was to make a big push for making Builder easier to use. A big part of this drive towards making Builder easier to use is to rebuild each of the settings and editor screens, to offer a section with easy-to-use basic options that most users need and and a section with more advanced options.

For more on these upcoming features and a full screenshot of the new settings screen, see the iThemes blog post.

Tokokoo offering Halloween e-Commerce theme bundle

Thu, 28 Oct 2010 18:00:00 GMT

For the rest of the month (only a few days now) WordPress theme company Tokokoo is offering four e-commerce themes, normally priced at $140, for only $29.95.

The four themes available in the bundle are Disco, Bangkoo, Dangdoot, and AppCloud.

The Halloween deal will run through the end of the day on October 31, so don't miss out if you're in the market for fresh e-commerce themes.

Max Foundry starter kits package WordPress with specific Plugins

Thu, 28 Oct 2010 16:00:00 GMT

Max Foundry makes themes, Plugins, and Starter Kits for WordPress. The Foundry's Blog Starter Kits are all-in-one packages containing popular themes and Plugins.

These Starter Kits could save WordPress users lots of time and energy by packaging common themes and Plugins into one downloadable file. As only freely available themes and Plugins are in the kits, the starter kits themselves are free as well.

The Starter Kits themselves are kept transparent on the site, with the versions of all of the assets displayed prominently on the download page.

You can follow Max Foundry on Twitter @maxfoundry.

November classes at WebDesign.com announced

Thu, 28 Oct 2010 14:00:00 GMT

Benjamin Bradley, instructor at WebDesign.com has announced the November class schedule. WebDesign.com is an arm of iThemes and runs regular classes training members to build websites using WordPress and iThemes' products.

November's first week of classes look like the following:

Date	Time	Class
Monday, November 1	6:00pm to 8:00pm	Customizing Flexx Theme
Thursday, November 4	11:00am to 12:00pm	Building a "Coming Soon" Website
Friday, November 5	1:00pm to 2:00pm	Plugin Focus: Gravity Forms
Wednesday, November 10	2:00pm to 3:00pm	SEO with Michael Tobert
	6:00pm to 7:00pm	Members ONLY chat

Most of the November classes are available for free to anyone interested, though a few are “members only” and restricted to those who have paid for a membership, annually at $397. For a full class listing, see the WebDesign.com announcement post.

Viva Themes released Method, a business theme

Thu, 28 Oct 2010 12:00:00 GMT

Viva Themes has released a new business theme called “Method”.

The theme has five different customizable styles, to start. In the front you can use a static page or show the latest posts, and it has a slider with a number of effects. Other features include a portfolio category template, custom shortcodes, and breadcrumbs.

Read more about the theme on its feature page, or jump directly into the “Method” theme demo. Viva Themes currently has a 50% discount when you buy two or more themes.

You can follow Viva Themes on Twitter @vivathemes.

StudioPress moves affiliate program to ShareASale, increases commission to 40%

Thu, 28 Oct 2010 10:00:00 GMT

StudioPress will be permanently migrated from eJunkie to ShareASale for their affiliate program come November 1st. Also, through the end of the year, StudioPress is offering 40% commissions (rather than their standard 35%).

In the post announcing the change in commission, StudioPress founder Brian Gardner explains the value of their affiliate program:

Our top affiliates make many thousands of dollars a month, and it’s because they use and believe in StudioPress solutions. This allows them to do high-value reviews and tutorials that naturally result in commissions. Now that we’re part of Copyblogger Media, our flagship content site Copyblogger also promotes the work of our affiliates to its 62,000+ Twitter followers, driving you more traffic that increases your sales even more.

You can read more about the details of the StudioPress affiliate program on their site.

RoloPress contact management theme version 1.5 released

Thu, 28 Oct 2010 08:00:00 GMT

RoloPress is a theme built by SlipFire and developer Sudar Muthu that, after it is activated, allows you to run your own contact manager by adding or importing your contacts and companies, and then customize it with your own child theme.

The most recent release, version 1.5, enables importing from Outlook CSV and Google Maps for any addresses added to contacts in RoloPress.

RoloPress is free to download and use, so go for it if it sounds interesting. You can also follow RoloPress on Twitter @rolopress.

Gorilla Themes released the Residence real estate theme

Thu, 28 Oct 2010 06:00:00 GMT

Carlos Aguaron, founder of Gorilla Themes, announced this week that their new “Residence” real estate theme is now available. Key features mention in the announcement post are:

Ability to add labels and values in your own language
English and Spanish files included, with the ability to add your own language
Multi-category search with breadcrumb filtered results
Easy photo gallery management with drag-and-drop sorting of images
Add listing addresses and the automatic Google maps integration will show the exact listing location

The theme includes seven different color options. For the full theme description, visit the theme feature page, or jump straight to the “Residence” theme demo.

WordPress SEO Plugin version 0.1.3 has been released

Thu, 28 Oct 2010 04:00:00 GMT

Joost de Valk released the first version of his new WordPress SEO Plugin on the Plugin Directory on October 11th. He describes the in-progress Plugin as “the most complete all in one SEO solution for your WordPress blog.” This week he released version 0.1.3, which included a few new features:

Added option to regenerate SEO title (just click the button).
Now pinging Ask.com too for updated sitemaps.
Added plugin version number to “branding” comment to help in bug fixing.

The update also included a number of bug fixes marked in the changelog:

SEO Title no longer being overwritten when it's already set.
Titles for date archives work too now.
On initial page load or SEO title regeneration number of chars remaining updates properly.
Entities in titles and meta descriptions should now work correctly.
When editing SEO title snippet preview now correctly updates with focus keyword bolded.

For the full set changes, see the WordPress SEO changelog.

WPZoom releases Cadabrapress, new magazine theme

Thu, 28 Oct 2010 02:00:00 GMT

WPZoom has released a new magazine theme called CadabraPress, designed by Oleg Dubinovic.

Key features of this theme includes:

Custom widgets to embed popular posts, Flickr photos, and videos
A custom login form
A featured carousel
Tabs with featured categories
Widgetized tabs

For more information about the theme visit the CadabraPress theme page, or jump directly to the demo.

VaultPress Review

Thu, 28 Oct 2010 00:00:00 GMT

There are many ways to backup WordPress, but none as easy and thorough as VaultPress. VaultPress is one of the newest Automattic projects and is definitely a powerhouse in its field.

One of the many things that sets VaultPress apart from the rest is its set it and forget it ease of use. Simply install the VaultPress plugin and watch as it begins to analyze and backup your database, plugins, themes, and uploads. After the first backup is complete, VaultPress will update your backup whenever a change is made, even for something as trivial as adjusting a setting. The result is a series of up to the minute full backups ready to be restored as soon as you need them.

In contrast, iDrive is VaultPress' closest competitor. Though iDrive's service starts free, you're only allotted 2GB before a paid upgrade is required, and the backups are only generated once every 24 hours. VaultPress is not free, but space is unlimited and backups occur immediately and as often as necessary.

In addition to extensive real-time backups, VaultPress offers intuitive stats that use data from your backups to help you determine your blog's most popular day and hour (based on % of comments received) and your blog's most productive day and hour (based on % of posts published), and if you upgrade to a premium account, VaultPress will regularly scan your files for known exploits and threats. This is an invaluable feature for popular sites as VaultPress will notify you the minute an exploit or threat is found and you'll be able to immediately restore from the latest clean backup.

Fortunately, I have not had the need to test the restorability of VaultPress' backups, but I have determined by visual inspection that they seem to be complete, and several success stories have been recorded.

If you're in need of a simple and complete backup solution, look not further than VaultPress. VaultPress is still in beta and new features are being added often. After applying for VaultPress, you'll be placed on a waiting list until space is available, but the special beta rates are well worth the wait.

Disclaimers: VaultPress is one of our advertisers.