The Revolutioners » Wordpress

My first Minimalist, Typographic and Simple WordPress Theme

Administrator — Sun, 19 Sep 2010 17:36:29 +0000

I have been working on a theme for a long time now. I am pleased to announce my first ever theme. I have named it revolutioners on my own blog. This theme is inspired from an existing tutorial created by Jon Phillips. I have worked up on the design and layout and customized it to my needs. I have always wanted to have a WordPress theme with lots of widgets. Most importantly the widgetized footer. I really feel the widgetized footer gives a theme a professionalism and grace. And this theme is so amazingly simple and minimalist that it just loads in seconds. Just check this post out where I have done a thorough analysis of the revolutioners theme with the use of various website speed test tools. OK enough of talk lets look at the design and what I have in store for you guys. This is how the layout looks like.

OK, let me explain the layout to you first. There is a header like you have in most of the themes. Then we have a post area. Then comes the sidebar. In sidebar I have created 3 widget areas. Normally you find just one sidebar widget area with full sidebar width. I felt the need of having more sidebar widgets so I added 2 more sidebars with half the width of the original sidebar. I added 3 footer widget areas as well. I have seen most of the good quality themes with widgetized footer. So I wanted to add 3 widgets in footer. That way I can easily add anything in the widgets and that shows up in the footer. Coupled with Widget Logic plugin my any WordPress blog can be killer. Then I have the footer links in the normal area. So that was about the revolutioners theme layout.

I think I have already summed up the features of the the theme but I think its mandatory to put up the list of features of any theme. So I created a small list of unique features which makes revolutioners theme stand out amongst other WordPress themes.

Image Free – There is not even a single image associated with the image. I have not included any image with the theme to keep the design fast and clean.
Minimalist – Only HTML, CSS and php code, nothing else. And yes, your content for sure.
Fully Widgetized – Total 6 widgets added in the theme. 3 for sidebar and 3 for footer to give you complete freedom to position your content anywhere you want.
Valid XHTML and CSS – As long as you stay valid on your end…
2 column layout which can easily be converted into 3 column since theme supports multiple sidebar widgets.
100% focus on typography. You would not be let down by the end product once you install the revolutioners theme on your blog.
Browser Compatibility : Theme works with most of the browsers. I performed a browser test with the theme on my blog and there was no problem at all.

Demo can be seen on this blog and here.

You can download the theme from the link below.
The Revolutioners Theme (313)

And finally a full picture of the theme in action

So, you’ve just finished writing a new post huh ! What next ?

Administrator — Sat, 07 Aug 2010 15:04:19 +0000

Do you also feel the same way as I do. I mean do you not feel a bit relaxed after writing that post. I get a sense of accomplishment every time and I am sure you do too. But remember that when you’re done writing a new blog post, you still have some work to do. There are many things you should be doing after writing a new post and I will try and explain a few of the most important things you should do after every blog post you write.

#1 Edit Your Post

Well, I do it all the time and still end up with some minor typos. Why I am saying you should always edit your post is because I don’t know about other people but I like to write my posts in one go. I am not that blogger who sits back and writes one post in 1 month. So most of the time I write my posts in 10 to 15 minutes max. Don’t publish your post until it has been completely edited and checked for spelling/grammar errors. Read over it carefully and make sure everything flows and that everything is written correctly. Like I said, It doesn’t have to be perfect but you don’t want it to be full of errors either. You also want to make sure all your spelling and punctuation is correct. One good way to do this is to paste it into MS Word and run a spell check. Like I am doing it right now

#2 Share the Post

In the recent past a lot of Social boom has happened so everyone is jumping in the wagon. Therefore the next thing you want to do after you write a blog post is to share your post with as many people as you can. There are a lot of social bookmarking websites on the internet that you can use to do this. Some of the best and most popular are Stumbleupon, Digg, Delicious, Mixx, and Reddit. Make sure you bookmark your post to at least a few of them.

#3 Tweet It

Twitter has really picked up the speed in social networking in the last year or so. Its like the small version of big posts. Sometimes people want to elaborate on their thinking and sometimes they just post a shorter version of that. Any which ways twitter is hot nowadays. So after you write a new blog post you should always “tweet” it. Twitter is really popular right now and it only takes a few seconds to tweet your followers about your post. This can give you extra traffic and maybe even a few people will retweet it or link to your post, which will help even more. So make sure you take a little time to tweet about your post whenever you publish a new one.

Alright, that should be enough to get you started. Just remember that after you finish writing a blog post you aren’t done with the work. If you do the things listed above then you will have a much better shot at building a successful blog.

#4 Comment on other Blogs with post link

This in my views is one of the most effective way ot getting traffic to your blog or site. As soon as you write a post, start going to your favorite blogs and comment with url of the new post that you written. Give the Name accordingly. Some Blog admins don’t mind accepting your name as your blog name if the comment adds something to the conversation.

Use WordPress.com Blog as your Image Host

Administrator — Fri, 06 Aug 2010 20:57:48 +0000

I recently got this idea and implemented it on this blog. I always run out of bandwidth if I use lot of pictures in my post. I like to add pictures in my post but as you might have noticed for the past few months I am not using much images while writing post. So I came up with a solution for that. I had some blogs setup on WordPress and I was not using them very frequently. So I basically used the WordPress blog to host my images. Its very easy to start a blog of your own with having to have hosting or any technical knowledge.

In a nutshell, the idea is that you create a new Blog on WordPress. Upload new media on WordPress and then hotlink those images back to your own blog. See recent posts on this blog. All the images are either hotlinked from original source or they are all uploaded on WordPress blog.

So, What are the benefits ? Well the benefits that you get by hosting your images on WordPress blog are :

Unlimited Bandwidth so no need to panic while posting those big images post.
You get a control panel of your own to manage your images
Can be used for any purpose i.e. with any file type that is supported on WordPress.com
You get 3GB space to be used.
And I heard Google likes if you link something to other reputed websites, I mean its good for SEO purpose.
Your images never ever get expired.
Saves you from embarrassment.

If you are really new to WordPress then please leave comments and I shall get you started.

17 WordPress Footer or Header Bar Plugins that you can use

Administrator — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 18:42:56 +0000

Seen that Digg Bar on Digg website. Well I have been trying or rather say thinking of adding a bar of that sort on this Blog. But I have not been able to get what I really need actually. All of these bars give you certain good functionality but they all have their own pros and cons. I am not going to go into too much of depth for each one of them. I will leave that part for you to decide which one to use. For me none of them worked. I think I would have to develop one of my own plugin. I have been thinking of getting rid of these social bookmarking icons for the first and then think about adding some more features of the plug-ins listed below.

Here is the list of Plug-ins that I could find on the web.

Do let me know about any other plugin which serves the same purpose, if you stumple upon one.

Update 1 : Found more; Apture and Quick Navigation panel. Added to the list.

Update 2 : Added Hello Bar in the list on 11 May 2011. I removed the images so that you go and check out and each and every plugin and decide what suits best for you

Update 3 : Added Viperbar which lets bloggers have an email subscription form in the bar. It supports feedburner, awber and many more services.

Update 4 : Found another great post and added some more paid and free header footer bar plugins.

Update 5 : Thanks for the comment DD. I have added another Toolbar, Social Toolbar.

Over 1300 Free and Premium WordPress Themes

Administrator — Sun, 25 Apr 2010 06:18:43 +0000

A must watch collection of over 1300 premium and free themes for WordPress. No matter what theme your blog has but I am sure you will definitely find the theme you are looking for your blog.

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Don’t forget to bookmark this page as you will need it in future. I will also keep this page updated like the Over 1000 dofollow Blogs Post.

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Updated on 05 May 2011 : 21 Free Premium WordPress Themes in May 2011

http://www.tripwiremagazine.com/2010/04/26-premium-wordpress-themes-released-in-2010.html

Mission – 1 Million Digg Post

Administrator — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 10:51:01 +0000

Have you ever wondered how would 1 Million dugg post look like. I am not sure whether anyone has ever checked Digg’s compatibility for that many Duggs. This has been going on in my mind for a long time. Looked out and searched for most dugg posts but they were just in thousands. Now I have created this post which may get maximum number of Diggs ever. Leave Your Digg and be a part of History.

Note : This post has dofollow tag, so maximize it to fullest

14 Must To Do after WordPress Installation

Administrator — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 11:39:49 +0000

Change the Default Admin Username and Password (This is must do as soon as you login after installation)
Change Permalink as per your requirement. Mostly people use /%post name%/
Change the theme. if not millions then thousands of themes are available over the internet for free. Just do it man !

As you start blogging, you would need to add Categories and Blog rolls. Its important that you choose your category wisely, so work on it for some time.
Spam is the biggest virus for Websites/Blogs so make sure your blog is accompanied with at least 2-3 Spam Busters. I use askimet and Wp-Spamfree.
Your visitors may want to look at the sitemap so install Google Sitemap and Create a sitemap link for your visitors as well. I use Google XML Sitemaps and Dagon Design Sitemap Generator.
Backing up your Blog should be on your top priority. You don’t want to lose your posts just because of any reason.
Get your visitors an option to get the posts delivered in their mailboxes. Add your RSS feed to Feedburner
If you want to track your Blog’s activities then Activate your Analytics. Its worth the hassle, believe me. I am using Ultimate Google Analytics.
If you started the blog for discussion purpose then you want to allow every visitor to comment on your post without registering. Make sure this setting is correct as people don’t want to spend time in registering on your website. One who is really interested in registering will find his own way to do that.
If you are concerned about your blog’s visibility in Search engines then make sure you have Ping service configured. Here is a list of some RPC servers. You can also search for the same in Google.
Once you are In, you would want to install some plug-ins and themes. Installing them is not a tedious job but uploading them is. Make sure you have One Click Plug-in Updater installed in your Blog. Its the most useful WordPress plug-in I have ever come across.
There is something called, Hacker. There are good one and some bad asses as well. The bad ass Hackers just want to do bad things. And leaving your host directories not properly CMOD is like inviting these guys to attack on your Blog. I suggest you install WP Security Scan, it takes care of most of the open vulnerabilities of your Blog and lets you know how to fix them.
Before I come to the last point let me crack a joke first. I am basically from Software Development Background. NO.. NO.. I am not the developer. I am the one who is around developer. I am in to IT Applications, taking care of all Compliance related activities. Like security and UI (sometimes) a little bit of PM. I was just testing a build of one of our applications that we were suppose to deliver to our customers. Suddenly, page crashed and what I saw was really funny. It was an error page and the label was “Error happens”. It obviously was a typo but It was so funny that we all laughed after looking at it. So all I want to say is that you might see in your Analytics report that there are so many error pages being served by your Blog. So you want to maximize and optimize your Error 404 Page. I created a small tutorial around it. Perfect WordPress Error 404 Page.

Socialize this post if you like it.

WordPress 2.8.1 Plugin Compatibility List

Administrator — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 06:45:25 +0000

I logged in today in my WP-Admin panel and saw that there is an upgrade available for wordpress 2.8. I was about to upgrade it manually as usual but then I stopped and thought about the plugins installed. Will the be compatible with WordPress 2.8.1 or not. That made me think about publishing this post. I may not be able to give you the complete list of compatible plug-ins but at least those I am using I will definitely check those. I will be installing a local copy of WordPress 2.8.1 and will check them one by one. I will be posting the list of plug-ins compatible with newly released WordPress 2.8.1 after I check them.

So stay tuned..

Simplest way to Display Random Rotating Dynamic Posts in WordPress Widget and Sidebar

Administrator — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 19:05:47 +0000

I have been trying to do if for a long time but could not find any plug-in to rotate posts in sidebar. Actually I wanted to display my featured posts in sidebar that too in random order and with some effects if possible.

After a lot of research I found out some plug-ins that could display random posts in text format only with some more limitations like; no pictures can be attached, no random display, no effects while displaying the posts. With the this wordpress technique you would basically be able to fulfill the following requirements.

Display random posts in sidebar.
Display posts with pictures of your choice
Display posts with amazing jQuery effects.
You can display n number of posts.
Everything is customizable in WP-Admin panel.
No touch of code required.
Works with the newest version of WordPress 2.8.2

A Demo can be seen at the right hand side of this post. Alright, lets get started now.

Things required to get Random Rotating Posts in WordPress Sidebar:

Any WordPress installed (Only checked with 2.8.2 though)
Sponsor Slideshow Widget Plug-in
Images of your choice to be displayed in the Slideshow.

I used it to display my random posts however It can be used for any other purpose. You just need to extend your creativity. Alright, so here’s what you need to get it working.

First of all install and activate Sponsor Slideshow Widget Plug-in.
Go to your Links section and create a new category called Random Posts.

Upload new media and copy location of the image that you have uploaded.

Now create links with your Posts and insert the images accordingly. I choose 300×300 px pictures as my sidebar width is 300. You need to choose images as per your sidebar width.

Select Random Posts from drop down in Slideshow Widget. Also make sure to select the width of the Slideshow widget as per your Sidebar widget. Do not use anything under title section as you don’t want it to be displayed as some category. Also check the order of the post. If you want them to be displayed randomly, you can select random or in order. The effect can also be selected. I selected random again as I like it to be different all the time.

That’s it. Now all you need to do is go to your home page and see the beutiful random posts without any file change. This is the simplest way to create this amazing Rotating Random Posts Widget in WordPress Sidebar.

While writing this post I am getting a really nice idea, may be you guys can try and let me know if that worked or not. You can add as many Slideshow widgets as you can. So create another category and add links to that category, may be with different size of the images and display them anywhere you want. It will definitely work with 2 column and 2 column themes. I am using vigilance Theme. Not checked with any other theme.

Leave feedback and share if you like this post

Using Windows Live Writer to Publish this Post

Administrator — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 13:07:00 +0000

Well I am still learning to use WordPress. Countless wordpress plug-ins checked and still installed in my Blog. Still not satisfied with the setup of my Blog. Though the theme seems to look good but at times its just plain. I need something useful and flashy things on my Blog. Things that when visitors see they just say “Wow !” Anyways lets get to the point. I was actually really tired of going in WP-Admin panel and posting the post from there. So I was looking for some tool which can do it from Desktop. And Voila look what I found. I have actually found a windows based free tool which can be used to blog directly from your desktop. The best thing is that it can be done while you are offline. So its really handy I must say. I don’t really have a mobile internet connection and I spend a lot of time travelling everyday, around 3-4 hours so it will really come handy in that. I am just checking how the post will look like. Basically I am just using the software and will give you the review of Live Writer once I have used it.

Till then Bye and I am really missing Google