WordPress Hosting

Are you a blogger and interested in making your own professional looking themes for your blogs ? but don’t have a technological knowledge about creating theme ? it’s ok, now it is possible to create your own theme without know anything about css and html knowledge. This can be made possible with the Artisteer software the one and only Web design automation  product. This post explains how we can create our own template with the help of Artisteer software.

Most of the blogger have there own dream towards there blog design but it is not possible to achieve as they dream because they may don’t have the knowledge about the Css and Html. But now there dream can be converted into themes without knowing the html and css with the help of Artisteer software. Yes, it’s true we can make theme with the artisteer.

Artisteer:

Artisteer is the first first and only Web designing product that can create a themes for you as you wish with the help of Artisteer we can create theme for most blogging platforms such as Joomla templates, Drupal themes, Wordpress themes, DotNetNuke skins, and Blogger templates .

The above image is the screenshot of Artisteer software. It looks similar to the Microsoft word using the Artisteer software we don’t need any technical knowledge because the software is designed in such a way they any one can easily understand the function of this software.

This software contains 11 tabs. These tabs are the main working areas in the software They are  Ideas, Colors & Fonts , Layout , Background, Sheet, Header, Menu, Articles, Blocks, Buttons, Footer. We will explain the functions one by one.

Ideas:

Suggest Design: The suggest clicking on the “Suggest Design” option you will get theme suggestion that it goes on changing the themes what they have in the software. You won’t get unlimited number of themes but it can able to display some amount of themes what the software contains. In the above image you can see one theme is displaying after clicking on “Suggest theme” option the theme is changed to next theme. The Suggest Design option is used only for the purpose of the changing the theme.

Suggest Colors: The suggest color options goes on suggesting the color of the theme i.e in the first screen shot you may see the white+blue+gray color theme when you when on the suggest colors the theme color may changed to black+read+blue. When go on clicking the suggest colors may go on changing the color combination of the theme. It only changes the color combination of the theme but not theme as in Suggest Design option.

Suggest Fonts: The suggest fonts works same as suggest colors option but it changes only fonts not color.

Suggest Layout: The suggest Layout option goes on changing the layout design of the theme. For example the first image which contains the white theme with one sidebar if you click on suggest Layout property the layout of the theme is changed to some other layout i.e the sidebar may moved to left or two sidebar may comes in this way it goes on changing different property.

Suggest Background: The suggest background helps in changing the background color of the theme without making any changes in the theme it just changes only background color of the them making all the things constants.

Suggest Sheets: This works like a style sheet. It going on change some looking property.

Suggest Header: It changes the headers of the theme means it change background images of the header to another images with different sizes of images.

Suggest Menu: Changes the menu placement, structure and etc . This property deals with menu item.

Suggest Article Design: This goes on dealing with the title property, tags etc

Suggest Blocks: This changes the blocks design structure for example the sidebar blocks design pattern goes changing when you start clicking.

Suggest Buttons: If the theme contains any buttons then you can change the button appearance with the suggest button.

Suggest Footer: This property changes the footer display style.

This completes the Idea Tab. I think you will get some knowledge about Idea tab.

Colors & Fonts:

The above image of the colors and fonts tab. This tab gives the more option which is used in the Idea tab for more customization. You can see the same option which is available in the Idea tab but here it goes in depth option means you can find more property which is not displayed in Idea tab.

For example you can see the above image which is the property of “Color Themes” this option works same as Suggest Colors: option which is available in the Idea tab here is the we can easily choose the properties. All other option available in this tab gives more option so that we can easily customize our theme.

All the other tabs i.e layout, background etc which provide the same functions which are explained in the Idea tab but here they give more property or for every there they will displays the dropdown menu as showing in the color Themes option in the above image.

Official Videos:

Introduction to Artisteer

Working with Artisteer

Pros:

• Easily create themes for any blogging platform.
• Easy to use
• No need to have a technical knowledge
• professional looking theme can be created
• We can add personal images in the header what we see in most professional blogs

Cons:

• Slow: If you click to change the theme color then you may need to wait for 5 to 8 sec of time to change
• Cannot able to change the size of the sidebar or content area.
• You cannot able to apply any creativity to design. All are fixed you need to work within that boundary itself.

This software is only recommended for those peoples who don’t have the knowledge of theme creation. This software is not for the people are who the some what css and html language because those peoples can create there own theme with there own creativity.

Download Link: Artisteer software

If you, too would like to write for Devils Workshop, please check this. Details about our revenue sharing programs are here.]

Win $150 Every Month in “Bloggers$ of The Month” Award

Writing for Devils Workshop and other blogs in our network just got better!

Now you can be “Blogger$ of The Month” and win from $150 cash prizes, in addition to direct 100% AdSense revnue from your post.

Read More…

Related posts:

• Easiest Way To Create Wordpress Themes: No Skills Required
• Easily Create Decent HTML Email Signatures with WiseStamp!
• How to create pop-up window in html (for blogger blogs)

well,An year ago,I showed ,how to list the recently created blogs using some php code.
Today,I had a chance to update the code and I created a the widget for ease of use.

Screenshots

Recently Created Blogs widget Option

Recent blogs-with description

Recently created blogs list without description

You can get the widget from buddydev here (Yeh! It’s free )
http://buddydev.com/plugins/buddypress-free-plugins/bpdev-recently-created-blogs-widget-list-the-most-recently-created-blogs-on-your-wordpress-mubuddypress-site/

I have provided the install and use information there
and yeh! Drop me a line here or on buddydev if you liked it or got any troubles.

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2. Allow Users to select blog theme while they signup for a blog or create a new blog on your wordpress mu/buddypress powered site How about allowing your users to select a blog theme…
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Blogger$ of the Month contest is now adopting a new face for the month of December,2009.

Previously we had the format in which we  have selected the top 3 bloggers for their posts from all the blogs across rtBlogs Network.  The total prize money was $150, which was distributed as $75, $50 and $25 to the these bloggers as per the ranks in the ratings table.

Whats New ??

For this month onwards we will have individual rating tables for 3 of our blogs namely,

• Devils Workshop
• Facebooknol
• CricTalks

A cash prize of $50 would be awarded to the highest ranked bloggers in each of these  rating table’s. The ratings format will be the same as it was in the preceding months and the posts will be rated by our editors.

You can use the same user id and password to login into Facebooknol and crictalks.

Why the change?

The basic idea yet again is to promote the new Bloggers on our platform. But this time, we are also looking for bloggers who are passionate to share information on topics like Facebook and our beloved cricket

A suggestion to guest bloggers

Please try to follow the guidelines given by the editors before writing a post.

Important thing to consider is to write quality article! Spend time on writing good and original article. Refrain from copy paste. A copied article will result in an immediate ban from our network. Include link and image credits if applicable in your posts.

Keep reading..Keep writing

Win $150 Every Month in “Bloggers$ of The Month” Award

Writing for Devils Workshop and other blogs in our network just got better!

Now you can be “Blogger$ of The Month” and win from $150 cash prizes, in addition to direct 100% AdSense revnue from your post.

Read More…

Related posts:

• Now win $150 for “Blogger$ of the Month” Awards!!
• Win $100 in “Blogger of The Month” Every Month! DW’s New Initiative
• “Blogger Of The Month” for September 2009

I am pleased to announce that “Blogger of the Month” is now “Blogger$ of the Month” The cash prize would be now of $150!!!

Why Blogger$ of the Month?

Well we at Devils Workshop conceived the idea of ‘Blogger of the Month’ few months back to promote the guest authors. The primary goal was to encourage new bloggers to write, and secondly to bring them appreciation in terms of exposure and revenue. We promised to increase the cash prize and it’s distribution too. “Bloggers of the Month” is an exertion to keep that promise.

What’s in Store for you?

Now we will select best 3 amongst the guest authors instead of 1 previously. The breakdown will be $75, $50 and $25 to the first three guest authors in the ratings table respectively. The ratings again will be given by our Editors which will again be based on..

• English – be generous to run spell-check atleast. Use windows live editor for blogging.
• Presentation – Use headers like h2/h3 to highlight sections of your articles. Add screenshots wherever possible! Break posts in small paragraphs. Things like this will be considered.
• Ethics – Spend some-time on linking back to other sources you may use in post. Do not excessively promote anything particularly. We hate links that open in new tab or window. Do not force or irritate visitors!
• Tools - Use blogging tools that generate nice markups and respect web-standards. We recommend using online wordpress post editor or windows live editor. Never use Microsoft word!

Important thing to consider is to write quality article! Spend time on writing good quality and original article. Refrain from copy paste. Include link and image credits if applicable.

What about posts published till now in November?

The contest will include the ratings given to posts published from November 1st, till date!

Where to Post?

I will re-mention this point that the Bloggers of the Month is applicable to all the blogs across rtBlogs Network, which includes:

• Facebooknol
• WpVeda
• Orkut Diary
• CricTalks
• Devils Workshop

It means that you can write for any of the blogs mentioned above, whichever interests you. Every post by you will be rated.

Keep reading..Keep writing

PS: New to Devils Workshop !!! Register here.

Related posts:

• Win $100 in “Blogger of The Month” Every Month! DW’s New Initiative
• [Result] Blogger of The Month – July 2009
• [Result] Blogger of The Month – August 2009

Been awhile since we’ve had something to vote on but I’ve finally found a topic where we you can weigh in on one side or the other. Recently, there was a discussion on the WordPress Hackers Mailing list that discussed the idea of changing the blogging nomenclature found within the administration panel of WordPress. The line of thought is that WordPress is constantly being used for more than just blogging but it will never be taken seriously as a powerful CMS until the blog nomenclature is removed in favor for something more generic. As for myself, I’m fine with both sides but I lean slightly more in favor of switching the words to something more generic because by having the word blog splattered everywhere in the backend, it gives the sense that WordPress is only meant for blogging and nothing else. That may have been the case when the project was lifting off the ground but these days, WordPress is powering some pretty hefty sites that blow blogging out of the water. It’s a simple change that I think would have a big impact on the software especially as it relates to perception. What do you think?

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Google has now added some new options to their search engine. Once you enter a search, there is a link right at the top of all the search results which is ‘Show options‘. Click on that link and the list of options emerge to the left as shown in image below.

Blogs and Reviews.

• Once done with the list of search list there is an link to filter the search results with Blogs. That will show results which are related to blogs. Check the image below and see how on clicking blogs it shows all cricket related blogs.

• Similarly if you click on Review it will bring up a list of reviews of cricket plans for mobile phones and also a few reviews of some cricket based video games.

Shopping: More and Less

• Google is fantastic to look up details for something you want to buy online. But sometimes you want to look up sites which only has related information and not necessarily a site from where you can make a purchase.
• Click on More Shopping Sites or Fewer Shopping Sites and toggle the results. As it shows in the image below the moment I clicked on More Shopping Sites it showed search results from where I can buy cricketing gear online. I have highlighted the result.

Link: Google Blog

Related posts:

• Google Launches “Show Options” on Search Results
• Bing adds buzz with real time Twitter search results
• Bing Adds Filter to its Search for Adult Images and Videos

The countdown continues with plugin number 95… the blogs directory plugin.

This one is a direct relation of the members list plugin and operates in a very similar way… except this time for blogs.

Once installed you need to simply creates a new page at with the slug blogs and it’ll place a rather beautiful directory of all of the blogs on it.

The blogs will display alphabetically and in a paginated form – which you can easily change with a few tweaks.

Alongside each blog is displayed it’s avatar (as set by our avatar plugin).

At the top and bottom of every page you have Next and Previous pagination.

And there’s even a search field

Here it is in action on one of our test sites…

Not bad, huh You can download it here.

And… remember, that entries are still open for the opportunity to win 5 yearly WPMU DEV Premium memberships worth $419 each to celebrate 100 plugins, themes and videos at WPMU DEV Premium… and it’s 100% free to enter and enjoy! Click here to participate.

WeblogToolsCollection.com recently published an article that discussed how to develop post ideas. Near the end, the author wanted to know what individuals did to generate post ideas on their own and quite a few people responded in the comments. Most people used the drafts section of WordPress to write down a block of notes for a particular post and then saved it for future use. Others used a text file on their desktop, sticky notes, note taking applications, etc. As a blogger myself, I thought I’d share my tips and techniques for how I generate ideas for posts. This list is in no particular order.

Twitter – Without a doubt, the biggest source of ideas to write about has come from Twitter. The WPTavern twitter account follows 237 people, 95% of these folks have something to do with WordPress. Through theme and their streams, I get links to interesting sites, ideas, discussions, etc. For a long time, I practically stopped using my feedreader in place of Twitter because it was that effective for me.

RSS – It’s interesting that just the other day, Adii of WooThemes asked this question:

I seem to get most of the most important news stories via Twitter. so why bother with RSS?

The short answer is, Twitter can’t give you the scoop on everything WordPress related and that is how I maximize my use of RSS. While Twitter is the pulse of what is going on right now, RSS and the feeds I have subscribed to provide me a bigger picture with regards to what is happening with WordPress. Everything from development to plugin and theme releases, RSS does a great job at filling the gaps that Twitter leaves open. I can’t tell you how often I’ve found a great story in my feedreader that was not mentioned on Twitter. Also, you have to subscribe to feeds and searches which give you a non-WordPress community perspective on things. Too much in-house linking and you begin to lose focus on the bigger picture.

Comments – I envy those blogs who have an intelligent audience such as the case with WPTavern.com. All too often throughout a conversation, I’ll see bits and pieces of opinions or topics that generate new posts ideas. Whether it be the passing on of a link to a relevant article or a plugin that fixes a problem, I’ve always enjoyed reading thoughtful comments which continue the conversation rather than derail it. Comments are like additional food for thought.

Normal Conversation – Whether I’m chatting in IRC, on Skype, or through any other real-time means of communication, I’m always on the lookout for ideas to talk about. There have been many times where I’ve conversed with someone about a particular topic I had in mind and because of the conversation, I’ve changed the way I was going to write the post or, I come up with two posts on the subject.

Community – Luckily, I have a strong community of folks who participate on the forum and who I communicate with on a daily basis. If they find something interesting or newsworthy, they generally say so on the forum or send it to me in an email.

Not Thinking About The Topics – To be honest, this is when I think of post ideas the most. When I’m not thinking about the subject. When I’m reading a magazine or when I’m outside on a hike, I’m thinking about things I’ve written already or things I’ve seen pop up and I have time to formulate ideas or ways to approach the topic for a future post. This is also when I have free time to think of random, insane ideas which are always fun as they challenge my imagination.

Note Taking:

This is the point where I think most people will be shocked in that, I don’t write down ideas or write draft posts. I’m one of those people that if an idea is flowing or I need to write a post, I do so right then and there either on my iPhone or in the write panel. Although because of the iPhone, I’ll sometimes just write the majority of my thoughts regarding the topic and then attack it again once I reach a desktop or my notebook. That’s as far as I go with drafts.

The bottom line is, I am open minded to any and all ideas. I’m always on the lookout for them and thankfully, I have a knack of choosing some good ones to write about.

Related posts:

1. Your Plugin Ideas Are Needed
2. An Idea For WordPress Ideas
3. Is WordPress Porn A Good Idea?

Sampa.com which was a service aimed at the family-oriented blogging crowd for blog and media hosting has announced that it will be closing its doors on August 17th, 2009.

Sampa is closing its service on August 17, 2009. Like many startups, we tried to change the world but didn’t succeed. We tried to make it easy for people to share personal stories and pictures with friends and family, and although the product worked and we amassed tens of thousands of happy customers we weren’t able to pay the bills to keep the service running.

Sampa does provide a way for users to export their data which will contain their blog posts, pictures, family tree, etc. One of the services they recommend their users try if they want a blog is WordPress.com. I wonder how easy it will be for Sampa members to take their export file and import it into WordPress.com?

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I’m not sure if any of you have noticed but on the right hand side of this site on the frontpage, there is a widget in the sidebar called WordPress Links And Resources. It’s been there for quite awhile and it’s my parsed RSS feed coming from my shared items bin from within my feedreader. If I don’t get a chance to write about it or share it in the forum, then I place it into my WPTavern links bin which shows up within this widget. Thanks to some changes I’ve made this morning, you can now subscribe to this link roll with your own RSS reader by clicking on the little orange icon. Or, just keep an eye on that block as every time I open my feedreader, I add a few items to the bin.

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As I finally had a chance to sit down and add content to my feedreader last night, I thought it would be a good idea to provide an update on all the Automattic owned services and also provide a list in case anyone was wanting to know which services or blogs were Automattic owned. So without further adieu.

Akisment – Last night, a new version of Akismet was released which fixes a diagnostic error which was responsible for reporting spurious errors. The new version should already be available on your plugin management page.

blo.gs – Blo.gs which was acquired back on April 21st, 2009 by Automattic is still sitting pretty. I have no idea what will become of this site but based on what it’s capable of doing, I have to wonder if this will end up being a merged version of Ping-O-Matic and Blo.gs.

Gravatar – The Gravatar blog has been silent since March so I’m going to guess not much is happening on that front. But Gravatars are working well so at least we know the lights are on!

IntenseDebate – I don’t think I’ve ever mentioned these guys on the site but one day, I plan on writing a review about their commenting system. IntenseDebate has been busy as of late with the most recent post being published on July 10th. They have now added the ability to ban users and view deleted comments, two things which should make administrators happy.

Ping-O-Matic – Ping-O-Matic received a complete make over earlier this year but since then, not a whole lot of things happening with this service. It still works for pinging but as I’ve noticed last night, the stats page which I’ve been complaining about for awhile now is still broken. It’s been broken for over a year now. Blog posts that are there are published in the UnCategorized section and I don’t think anyone is looking over the comments box. Publish and forget seems to be the name of the game.

PollDaddy – This service has been busy as well, just like IntenseDebate. They have recently launched a brand new support page which you can find here which I think looks a lot like WordPress.com. They have also worked on various bits of the User Interface so all is well on the PollDaddy front.

WordPress For Blackberry – Although not a service, this is an Automattic backed project so I felt it necessary to include in this list. Recently, a new beta of the app for the Blackberry phone was released that now displays text encoded with some additional character sets.

WordPress Publisher Blog – An Automattic backed blog that is used to showcase big time folks who have chosen to use or move to WordPress. Raanan Bar-Cohen does a good job keeping the site updated and it’s through here that I find out about celebrities or other big names choosing to go with WordPress. The most recent post deals with the Telegraph.co.uk moving to the WordPress MU platform.

WordPress.com – WordPress.com is doing just fine, no need to go into details there.

iPhone App For WordPress – Since I own one of these devices, I now have a reason to read Apple related content. I use the app on my iPhone 3GS and it works flawlessly for me. Recently, the team announced that Version 1.3 went live.

WordPress.TV – WordPress.TV is kicking. I’m sure Michael Pick has quite the backlog of video content to go through along with his partner who was hired back in April or May. WordCampTV is also doing well which is a subsection of the site.

Automattic – I don’t know of anything new taking place at WordPress headquarters but I did notice that the job for Theme Czar was still open or at least, they are still taking applications for the position.

Some Things Omitted

While bbPress, WordPress.org and BuddyPress all show up on the page showcasing the projects Automattic is involved with, I decided not to group them in with this post and keep them separate for the sake of confusion. However, Sam Bauers of bbPress and Andy Peatling of BuddyPress are employed by Automattic and we all know a few people from Automattic who work with the WordPress.org software.

If I missed any services or blogs, point them out to me in the comments as I’d like to create a sticky thread in the forum so I can have them all in a list format.

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1. TalkPress bbPress Domain Dilemma

I wasn’t what you would call an “early adopter” of Wordpress. In fact, I sometimes feel like I was one of the last to make the switch from Movable Type, which I loved and recommended to anyone who asked me what a blog was (yes, those were the days). Today, of course, over 90% of the work I do is on Wordpress- and I’ve fully embraced this powerful publishing system.

But there are alternatives. And today, I want to show you three of them.

Habari. This, in comparison to WP, is one of the latest blogging systems, and you can tell right off the bat: it feels more modern somehow. Indeed, their FAQ explains just how modern it is:

Habari is being written specifically for modern web hosting environments, and uses modern object-oriented programming techniques. Using these recent but well-established additions to the PHP language allows Habari to make use of PDO, enabling prepared statements for all interactions with the database. This greatly reduces the system’s vulnerability to SQL injection attacks. This is just one of many benefits of modern object-oriented techniques.

LifeType is worth a look especially if you’re tasked to build a blog for a non-techie client to use- its really simple to use, and offers multiple blogs and themes built on Smarty. I haven’t had much experience with LifeType, but its loyal users sing praises about its clean code and lightness.

And finally, Movable Type. Okay, so I’ll always have a soft spot for MT- but you know what? It’s a great system, maybe the only one on this list that can truly go head to head with Wordpress in terms of features. It features multiple blogs (something I would love regular WP to have), supports both static and dynamic page generation, and has some of the most beautiful blog themes ever to grace the Internet. Movable Type is powered by Perl and not PHP, so if you’re more comfortable with the former, this is probably a better choice for you.

Do you have any Wordpress alternatives to suggest? Let us know.