Have you ever wanted to change to homepage to Google.com? And you just didn’t know how? Well the folks who created Firebug must be the smartest people around. Sammy decided it was time to revamp the google page. We rather like it now; the guys especially love the Hooters addition.
(click to enlarge)
I 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.
Spotify haven’t been around for all that long but they’ve managed to create quite the stir concerning themselves. What you do with Spotify is simply to install the program and then you’ll have access to millions of songs – for free (with short ads) or for a small monthly fee (no ads). Waiting for the songs to download or buffer won’t be necessary as they will be able to be played instantly. The program is still at a BETA level as well as only available in Europe but this seems to change any day now. And it’s all very legal of course.
Everyone from tech geeks to music lovers all over the world has praised Spotify for their great little product. It’s with this in mind that I’m sorry to say that someone has hacked the program making it possible to save and download the music you’re listening to via Spotify. Hopefully people will see the benefit of not having to store a massive amount of files on their computers and keep on using this great service the legal way. It’s also quite sad to see a solution that everyone – the artists, the record companies and we as listeners/users – can benefit from become hacked and destroyed.
On a happier note can we end with saying that it seems as if you soon will be able to use Spotify via your iPhone, making it even less necessary to download music illegally. Just hope, hope that all US residents will be able to use Spotify soon as well.
Google Chrome has been available for people using Windows a couple of months now and it seems as if all Mac users soon can take advantage of it as well. Ok, I don’t know if all these Mac lovers, including me, want to use Google Chrome as the standard web browser since Google has a tendency of acting and appearing as “big brother”. But that put aside it at least seems as if they have begun to see the end of this, apparently, very complicated process. Now, my question to you is (which means that I probably haven’t put the issue aside ): What do you think about Google Chrome in general and if you are working on a Mac – will you use it when launched?
/David
Want to market yourself as a competent web designer? Spread the word that you are open for business?
Then I recommend designing a free unique and stylish Wordpress theme. Not only is this a perfect opportunity to show off your web design skills, design the theme mind-blowing enough and you’ll have a great number of webmasters using it in no time.
Visitors by the thousands will flood your online portfolio in search for a hi-quality free Wordpress theme or freebie as it is also referred to. In fact, free hi-quality Wordpress themes are so hard to come by nowadays, it’s like gasoline in Mad Max, so don’t be surprised if Smashing Magazine themselves make space for your theme. This popular online web design magazine is devoted in bringing Wordpress freebies to their readers. If you theme is hot enough, they’ll surely pick it up.
Your site will also get better ranking in search engines thanks to the link you’ve included in the theme footer leading back to you the creator. More potential customers will find you site and contact info hopefully leading to more work for you.
In any case, making a Wordpress Theme of great quality and top notch web design will at least prepare you for future web design projects. Already a market has expanded around the Wordpress CMS with more and more websites using it, thus increasing the demand on unique and differentiating themes. Becoming a Wordpress Theme devoteé is entirely realistic as there are whole agencies doing it already.
Here are 2 examples of freelancing web designers who have gotten great recognition thanks to their impressive designs of free Wordpress themes:
Andrew Lindstrom, WELLMEDICATED – created free theme ZinePress that got picked up by Smashing Magazine and embraced by the Wordpress web design community.
Paul Bennett – creating the Viewport theme this web designer not only broke new web design territory with an innovative theme design, but used the good name of Wordpress to prove his skills and potential.
If you have come to this site in search of web hosting, you are on your way to a proper presence on the web. But, in order to get a website set up there are two vital components left: web design and site development. Now, the most common problem isn’t to identify them, the problem for most of us is affording them. The hardship of getting a hold of a web designer and developer does not make things easier. If you know a friend or friend of a friend who can create and design your website, good for you! But if you lack sufficient networking skills and still require a cheaper alternative to expensive and blown up web agencies, listen up! I will give a personal recommendation of a web service through which you can get a professional website done for only a couple of hundred dollars.
I recently found myself having a, according to me, great idea for a website but not nearly enough fundings to hire a local web agency. Of course I requested proposals from a dozen of them and to little suprise got back figures that could buy entire countries. So I started looking for an alternative and cheaper web design and web development. After Googling till my fingers were bleeding, I found it. The cure to the thousands of lost souls who register hosting account only to realize they can’t afford to make their website dream come true.
A place where thousands of freelancing web designer and developers offer their services. An internaional dashboard for any skills that is connected to the web. Web design, programming, writing, distributing. You name it! The web service I am talking about is called Elance.com. Like myself, you will be able to create projects and invite providers that offer what you need. Within hours you will have proposals in your inbox, not exceeding more than couple of hundreds of dollars. I am currently using Elance to hire a team of Wordpress designers and developers in India, with excellent customer-ratings, that has agreed to mark-up my web design and implement it to the Wordpress CMS, for a mere $280 dollars. Any local agency would probably charge you $2000-$3000 for it.
The reason why these freelancers charge so little is the same reason multi-corporations outsource their factories. The cheapest online freelancing web designers and programmer can be found in India, the Ukraine and Rumania. And perhaps there is a moral dilemma here whether or not to use their services? But that is for another blog post. For know, visit Elance.com and you’ll find cheap web design and site development, finally being able to realize your website ambitions.
I recently read an article in the USA Today which said that about one in four American adults don’t use the Internet and that many of these don’t have any desire to go online either. Close to one third of these adults apparently don’t have any plans to use the Internet – ever.
These figures must come as a slap in the face for Mr. Obama and his colleagues as they’ve just set aside a couple of billions for broadband expansion. I’m obviously all for this expansion as I like every improvement of the web. The reason for this alienation of a huge part of the population apparently has to do with costs for switching from dial-up to broadband and the fact that these adults don’t know how to use the Internet.
Ok, I can go along with the fact that people aged 80+ (of course there’s exceptions) might not be a good target group for the web. But what about the rest? Perhaps it’s just me but I would feel handicapped if I wouldn’t have access to the Internet each and every day. And I really mean EACH and every day. I can’t even resist going online when I’m on vacation. You know, just to check my email or browse the web for something totally useless. Anyways… I just think it’s funny how America, the great superpower, is slacking behind on the usage of the Internet. I’m sorry, but sometimes I keep thinking about the good old states as hillbilly-nation (hence the picture)…
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