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Three Great Free WordPress Themes

Wednesday, February 24th, 2010

WordPress is the most popular software for blogs today and it’s for a reason. Or perhaps I should say that there are many reasons for this but one of the main causes surely is that it’s a simple way to maintain a professional appearance on the web. With the help of free WordPress themes anyone can set up a sleek looking website in no time at all. There are a couple themes that stand out a little extra and here are three of them.

Autofocus

Autofocus

Autofocus is a very clean and modern looking theme that is especially designed with photographers in mind. Use this theme if you want to showcase your work in a stylish environment. You won’t have that much freedom when it come the settings but it’s very easy to work with so it shouldn’t cause you any trouble anyways.

Snapshot

Snapshot

This is yet another great theme if you want to showcase your pictures, design or any other kind of portfolio. With Snapshot comes a free voting system which allows your visitors to rate your work. Very cool indeed.

Crafty Cart

Crafty Cart

If you want to sell products directly from your blog, then Crafty Cart is a great free theme to choose. It has somewhat of a retro style and it’s simply an easy manageable eCommerce WP theme. Good stuff!

Posted in Industry insights, Wordpress | 3 Comments »

Monitis Review Pt. 2

Friday, July 3rd, 2009

monitis_logoOriginally launched as a free service (Mon.itor.us), Monitis SaaS has now released the Monitis Central, Cloud Edition and Web Load Tester, all provided as a managed service. And while many of the services apply to large online commerce sites mainly, there are still some highly useful tools for the small website owner. Here, we take a closer look at Monitis Central as a selected review for you the site owner.

Monitis Central

Offering up to six different services, Monitis Central makes sure to cover the vital needs of any website owner, self or remotely hosted.

External Monitoring

This service includes monitoring from the US, the UK, Germany, China, Australia and Panama, thus including all continents except Africa. Watching your servers 24 hours a day and seven day a week, if your website is performing poorly or becomes unavailable from any location worldwide, you will be notified instantly.

External monitoring requires no software or local installation.

Traffic Monitoring

Through Monitis Central service package you are also offered the option of including a site traffic statistics tool, Traffic Monitoring. Rather than having Analytics set up, thus adding yet another tool to monitor, you can track UV (unique visitors) page views, referrers, browsers, OS, geography etc. And while Traffic Monitoring offers little else than most standard site statistic tools, if you are planning to use Monitis it may be smart to include it.

Web Ranking Monitoring

An exceptional additional service with Monitis Central that many other traffic monitoring tools lack or overcomplicate (e.g. Google Analytics) is Web Rank Monitoring. This service makes it super easy to track you current keyword position, search engine ranking and backlinks.

Monitis Central is truly a full serviced website monitoring tool that may seem overcomplicated upon first glance. This is however understandable and soon forgotten and replaced with amazement.  Monitis Central comes with all the features you need as a site owner. Before purchasing, try out the 15 days trial offered.

Posted in Industry insights | No Comments »

Monitis Review Pt. 1

Monday, June 29th, 2009

monitis_logoKeeping track of the status of your servers can be something that keeps you up worrying at night. With Monitis monitoring services however, you can rest assured that your servers, site traffic, rankings and overall performance are being tracked.

IT monitoring is high on demand and whether you run a small e-shop or a multi-site empire, Monitis’ professional web monitoring and management services may be a useful addition to your toolbox. If anything, a simple way for you to monitor your web hosting provider.

On the market since 2007, Monitis is already trusted by companies like Acer, BMW, Arizona State University and many more. With an easy sign up process and a devoted customer services team, choosing and setting up Monitis various service packages is fairly straight forward as well.

Divided into two plans, Monitis services comes with external monitoring, internal monitoring, transaction monitoring and traffic watches, each plan differing in volume. The basic plan costing a mere $95.80 a year and the plus plan $383.80, it is safe to classify this web monitoring tool as affordable.

Of the three main service packages, Monitis Central is perhaps the one that with the broadest customer base. Additionally, all services are provided as a managed service, which requires little effort from the customer. Notifications on monitoring results can be sent through SMS, Email, Twitter, IM or RSS on a monthly basis.

For more in-depth information about included services with Monitis check out part two of our review next week. Sign up for our RSS feed.

Posted in Industry insights | 1 Comment »

Mac Vs. PC and other hilarious flame wars

Tuesday, April 21st, 2009

pacvsmac1

Since the dawn of computer science, Microsoft and Apple have stood face to face as mortal enemies. Steve Jobs and Bill Gates, leaders of two great armies of loyal users in the eternal struggle between Mac and PC. Battles are fought in cyberspace, in long and gruesome forum threads. Historians will name them the greatest flamewars of all time. But is this opposition rational? Is one actually better than the other? Let’s find out.

What is flame war?

Wikipedia formulates the elegant answer “Flamewar is a prolonged exchange of deliberately hostile messages over the Internet.”

CollegeHumor takes it to completely different level of truth:

The flamewar of flamewars

Forums and chat rooms have always constituted the core of the online world with its capacity to quickly link people together for instant information sharing. Mac vs. PC has been a topic of interest for the forum devotees ever since computer buyers’ have had the two options. And though it rarely stays behaved, there is always the occasional truce:

mac-vs-pc-truce

Link in thread: www.youtube.com/watch?v=Id_kGL3M5Cg

In most cases however, flaming emotions halt any constructive discussing to instead make room for some good old destructive personal criticism.

This image led to flaring emotions between AlecDalek, Stephen S, bee1215, coolfactor and STEVEBALLMERISGOD:
wall-e-mac-vs-pc-500x400

Click on the screenshot below for enlarged image.

flamewar1-small

How is a PC vs. Mac flamewar typically conducted?

Science teacher Jeff Adkins has created the standard Mac vs. PC flamewar conversation. He is however an apparent Mac-lover and thus not neutral. Regardless, Adkins makes some good points, in one of which he insists that all forum debates, and especially this one, ends in up right smearing.

flamewar

It is in conclusion safe to say that mac users and pc users always will be trying to convert each other to the other side. And regarding flamewars, perhaps the opposition between these two groups indeed were the first to hit the forums to battle it out. Mac vs. PC is a common thread in tech and computer forums and it will keep on threading ’til one of these brands monopolizes the market. But by then angry mobs of computer nerds will have taken to the streets.

More Famous Flamewar Examples

If you haven’t had enough, here is a couple of more examples including two hilarious celebrity flamewars: Kevin Smith vs. Karl Trale and Joe Rogan vs. Kevin

Kevin Smith engages in a flamewar about Clerks 2

Click the screenshot for enlarged image
kevinsmith-small

Joe Rogan from Fear Factor declares war

Click the screenshot for enlarged image
joerogan-small

Guys get rediculed when exposing personal photo in forum thread

Click the screenshot for enlarged image
beomhjalp

Posted in Fun | No Comments »

10 Weird and Wacky Online Business Ideas

Monday, April 20th, 2009

Making money online is a presumably easy achievement, at least if you are to believe the self-proclaimed experts of the industry. What does not work IRL has seemingly every chance of making it online – and has. After some looking around I found ten really stupid online business ideas that probably has made or will make some money.

10. RedneckAndSingle.com

redneck

Living alone in the South is a feeling RedneckandSingle.com founders know all to well and have decided to do something about. This site is yet another prime example of online dating taken slightly too far.

9. MillionDollarHomepage.com

milliondollar

I cannot assemble a top 10 list without including the MillionDollarHomepage. You have probably heard of the 20 year old who decided to set up a website and sell a million pixels as ad space $1 per pixel. Thanks to some media coverage every single pixel was sold, resulting in $1 million turnover. The site could not look any spammier and I take it as plain luck that he even got the ad space sold.

But this was many years ago, when internet advertising still was naïve and innocent. In other words – perfect timing.

8. PetButler.com

petbutler

Yet another online business idea that has been around for a while. PetButler.com offer the service of cleaning up after dogs/pets. It is not the genius of the busieness idea that has made PetButler a success, it the laziness of the pet owners.

7. SoulsCalling.com

soulscalling1

Selling all kinds of accessories, Soul’s Calling is the spiritual type business that I cannot stand. Ribbons saying “ We’re all connected”, bracelets advising to “Reach In”, Sandals that leave words like Earth and Love in the sand.

To me it is basically ugly accessories pimped up with cheesy words. But it will probably sell.

6. LuckyBreakWishbone.com

luckywishbones1

Plastic wishbones has turned out to be quite the profit booster. LuckyBreakWishbone.com sells and distributes fake lucky wishbones for customers in need of some good fortune. It is all bogus of course but a successful bogus nonetheless. People are buying them like crazy and sales figures are expected to rise even more during these ongoing financial crisis.

5. Omegle.com

omegle1

Want to chat with a complete stranger? Then Omegle.com is the place for you, and about half the nation’s sex offenders. In the chat window, no real names are given the participants, it is simply You and Stranger.

4. Kotulas.com

kotulas

Flair Hair with Gray Hair and Camo Visor is one of Kotulas.com’s finest products as it solves the many problems associated with the regular toupee. Attached to a hat, the hair is stylishly visible while still discretely hidden in its seam lines. A practical yet fashionable alternative for the hairless man. Not!

3. DollarHotDogs.com

dollarhotdogs

What sounds better than mail ordered hot dogs? DollarHotDogs.com cooks and sends hotdogs in the mail for one buck only. The main concern at the website seems to be to answer the question how such excellent hot dogs can cost so little. My concern is however, how the hotdogs can stay fresh in the mail and who would actually consider buying mail ordered hotdogs?

2. SomethingStore.com

somethingstore

Now this business idea I like. Using the element of surprise the customer can buy something at the SomethingStore.com and know what he bought only when the item is delivered. For the lonely ones or the bored, ordering a surprise gift to yourself is a perfects way to feel appreciated and pass time.

1. TotalDivaPets.com

divadog

If you think pet clothing is funny, you haven’t seen pet wigs. TotalDivaPets.com seriously sells a wide variation of wigs for people’s pets. Lacking any practical functional what so ever, these pet wigs are simply to make your dog or cat look hilariously stupid. And they do.

Posted in Fun | 8 Comments »

Irresistible – A Free Wordpress Theme by Woothemes

Friday, March 20th, 2009

irresisteble Irresistible is made for the personal blogger. This theme is free for download and usage and a real treat from the dudes over at Woothemes. With sections such as MyWritings, MyLifestream, MyVideo and MyPhotos, this theme gives your site or blog that personal touch that will make the site feel like home.

Woothemes are known for their high-quality theme productions, free and premium, and Irresistble is no exception. Handling this theme in the admin is no problem at all. And regarding the design, I like it so much I might even use for my own online cave.

Screenshots

irresisteble-footer

Footer
irresisteble-single

Post page

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Posted in Wordpress | 12 Comments »

Imprezz – a new free hi-quality Wordpress theme

Friday, March 13th, 2009

imprezzI have made it a routine to crawl the web at least once every week to find a new Wordpress theme worthy to tell you guys about. Let me tell you, as I dugg deeper into the web design community, I found Imprezz. A theme  made for any good old fashioned blogging in a modern package.

Imprezz is a free hi-quality theme that has been created by Gopal Raju and promoted by Smashing Magazine. This 3-column theme contains all design elements to be called a modern Wordpress theme.

If you entered this site looking for web hosting and want your site to look like Imprezz, take these steps:

  1. Go to our Wordpress Hosting toplist to find a cheap hosting plan that supports Wordpress (MySQL, PhP). Set up an account.
  2. Return to this blog post and download Imprezz.
  3. Extract it on your local computer and upload the files to this directory on your hosting account: wp-content/themes/
  4. Log in to the Wordpress admin and activate the theme

Full screenshot

imprezz-screenshot

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Posted in Wordpress | 5 Comments »

Spotify Hacked Again

Thursday, March 5th, 2009

spotify_logo-150x1501Since its full launch less than a year ago, Sportify has had its share of intruders. Only this time it’s not about illegal audio-file downloads or spyware to remove advertisements. This time the users, over 1 million member-base, are been directly threatened.

Stolen Passwords

On March 5th 2009 news sources reported that Spotify yet again had become the victim of “hackers” who this time got access to a large number of user passwords and personal information. In a statement to the papers, Spotify spokesperson spoke to all Spotify users, strongly recommending that if the same password is used elsewhere, it should be changed directly. This to avoid the “hackers” accessing your email account or even worse, accounts where your credit cards info is registered.

To learn more about Spotify, check out Davids post Spotify – So Hot Right Now

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Posted in Industry insights | 2 Comments »

Star Trek XI The Movie in Cinemas December 2009

Wednesday, March 4th, 2009

star_trekAs I was opening Safari to take a screenshot I saw it. Something I, for years, been hoping would happen. Star Trek XI is coming to a cinema near all of us and from the trailer to judge it will be the top sci-fi flick of the year and perhaps even the century.

To all die hard Star Trek out there who have lived long and prospered, who have wished to be beemed up by Scotty. The time is here – Star Trek the Movie is here. Just about 10 months to go and to make there period of time not seem like a life time, I have taken the liberty of putting together a whole post of juicy info.

The Official trailer, part 1 & 2

Unembeddable movie trailer here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5cAipU2fBqA

Cast

Used to seeing the old Spock, Scotty and Kirk run around the USS Enterprise, the new cast have a tough job a head. Here they are:

  • Chris Pine – Kirk
  • Zachary Quinto – Spock
  • Eric Bana – Nero
  • Simon Pegg – Scotty
  • Winona Ryder – Amanda Grayson
  • Karl Urban – Dr. Leonard ‘Bones’ McCoy
  • John Cho – Lt. Hikaru Sulu
  • Zoe Saldana – Lt. Nyota Uhura
  • Bruce Greenwood – Christopher Pike
  • Ben Cross – Sarek
  • Anton Yelchin – Pavel Chekov
  • Leonard Nimoy – Old Spock
  • Greg Ellis – Chief Engineer Olsen
  • Chris Hemsworth – George Kirk

For full listing of cast member, visit IMDB.com

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Posted in Fun, Industry insights | No Comments »

Magazeen – My Favorite Free Wordpress Theme of All Time

Friday, February 27th, 2009

magazeen-thumbI am not exaggerating. Of all the free themes I’ve been crawling lately, Magazeen is the absolute sh*t. Front end and back end are well crafted to ensure a secure user experience. The web design is off the hook including jQuery and trend-setting design elements. The fact that this theme is free blows my mind. WeFunction Design Agency could easily have charged $70 for this theme and still have a large number of downloads.In an earlier post I recommended 4 hi-quality free Wordpress themes but in all honestly none of them can measure with Magazeen.

Big up’s to Smashing Magazine for releasing this theme to the public for free. Whether you are just starting out as a wp blogger or have numerous sites on the CMS, Magazeen simply needs to cover at least one of them. See below for screenshot and theme download.

A clean design with large headers and soft typography are few of the things that make Magazeen my absolute favorite free Wordpress theme of all time. The horizontal jQuery slider on top and Feature News-widget to the right are also pure brilliance. This theme is also easily tweaked in the admin.

Take some time and live demo this theme and you’ll find hidden surprises. WeFunction has spared no expenses in creating this theme and have made sure it holds perfection in every last detail.

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Posted in Fun, Wordpress | 6 Comments »

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