Learn more here: OcTwitter Contest

Prizes

Grand Prize
(1) 125×125 Banner Ad on WPForSale.com for 4 Months.
(1) 125×125 Banner Ad on Gift Reviews for 3 Months.
(1) 125×125 Banner Ad on Free Famous Quotes for 3 Months.
(1) One year VIP membership to CreateBanner.com at a value of $35. Sponsored by Xavier Media Blog.
(1) 125×125 Banner Ad on The Pinay Blogger for one month.
(1) 125×125 Banner Ad on Momma Wannabe for one month.
(1) 1 year backlink on The Stay Fit Blog.
(1) 1 year backlink at Barack Obamas Blog.
(1) website review on Everything Web Related.

Second Place
(1) 125×125 Banner Ad on Better Interpersonal Communication for one month.
(1) One year VIP membership to CreateBanner.com at a value of $35. Sponsored by Xavier Media Blog.
(1) 125×125 Banner Ad on Journal of Journey for one month.
(1) 125×125 Banner Ad on 24Patrol for one month.
(1) 125×125 Banner Ad on NickThrolson.com for one month.

Third Place
(1) Text link ad on Blogging From Scratch.
(1) Text link ad on Ragnarok Guide.
(1) Text link ad on Dota Hero.
(1) One year VIP membership to CreateBanner.com at a value of $35. Sponsored by Xavier Media Blog.

Fourth Place
(1) One year VIP membership to CreateBanner.com at a value of $35. Sponsored by Xavier Media Blog.
(1000) - EntreCard Credit’s from Everything Web Related.
(1000) - EntreCard Credit’s from Multilpy Themes

Fifth Place
(1) One year VIP membership to CreateBanner.com at a value of $35. Sponsored by Xavier Media Blog.
(1) 125×125 Banner Ad on Positive Thinking for 2 weeks.

Rules of the Contest

Void where prohibited or restricted by law.

All entrants must be 13 years of age or older.

Prizes will be awarded either by the Everything Web Related or by its sponsors in a timely manner. The Everything Web Related reserves the right to substitute any and all prizes with prizes of equal or greater value, if an advertised prize becomes unavailable.

Odds of winning depend on the eligible number of entries received.

Prize winners will be notified via email. Winners must respond within a timely manner (3 days) or the prize is forfeit and a new winner will be selected. This means you must have a Twitter account.

By accepting a prize, all winners agree that the Everything Web Related may post his/her name on the “Previous Winners” page and in any and all media, including future advertising or publicity, without further consideration or compensation, unless prohibited by law.

Contest begins at 12:00 AM (CST) on October 1st, 2008 and ends 11:59 AM (CST) October 10th, 2008.

Learn more here: OcTwitter Contest

Here is a cool WordPress Plugin that converts WordPress into a full-fledged review website. You can review anything you like: movies, celebrities, restaurants, contractors, web designers, albums, web hosts, etc…  Your imagination is your limit.

Features (from the author’s site):

WordPress Review Site Features

WP Review Site 2.0 has all the features you need for affiliate marketing success or adding reviews to an existing website or blog. Designed for WordPress 2.5+, it’s easy to add ratings to any blog theme, or start with the included theme that’s ready to go out of the box.

• Adds Star Ratings To Your Comment Forms
• Horizontal (List) or Vertical (Tabular) Display
• Sorts Your Posts by Weighted Average
• Integrates With WordPress Administration
• Powers a Whole Website or Just What Parts You Want
• Doesn’t Modify WordPress Database Tables

There are also 3 big bonuses!

Check out this beautifully designed theme, with a rich wood background and beautiful color palette.

This theme is a breath of fresh air. It has a clean, professional look, and is filled with premium goodies. Note that the developer version also comes with the PSD file, for easy editing.

Here are the features of this theme, as noted by the theme’s designer.

Features:

• Clean, wood design
• 2 columns page layout
• Cross-Browser Compatible, IE6, IE7, FireFox 2 & 3, Opera, Safari and Google Chrome
• Widget compatible
• Flickr Integration
• Gravatars built into comments
• Ad Placement
• Related posts and comments
• Custom 404 Error page
• SEO Optimised
• Extensive theme support
• and more …click button below to check it out.

Needed the home page button status to appear active, or in WP terms, as the “current_page_item”. So I need to determine if the page I was on was the home page or not, and if it was, I needed to add a class to it of “current_page_item”.

Solution:

Just a little PHP script does the trick- added into the LI element.

<ul>
<li <?php if (is_home())
echo ‘class=”current_page_item”‘;?>><a href=”<?php echo get_settings(’home’); ?>/”>Home</a></li>
<?php wp_list_pages(’sort_column=menu_order&depth=1&title_li=’);?>
</ul>

That’s it!

NOTE: Here is a useful plugin to check out and that I am using with the code above: Current-Page-Bugfix

It’s so easy you don’t even have to be a web designer to use Viva 7!

No Code Edits! Everything is managed from the Theme Options Page in the admin console. - Tim Waddell

MediaTricks create the great Viva Thumbnails plugin and the Viva Carousel plugin. Well, if you have used these plugins, you’ve seen how easily you can update thumbs and images on your site.

Now imagine having this awesome convenience built into your theme, so you don’t have to edit your templates, no custom fields, etc.. Everything you need to maintain your site is built-in to the Viva 7 Theme, and you control it all through the admin panel.

MediaTricks boasts this is the smartest magazine theme on the market, and here is why, as taken from their website:

AT A GLANCE

• 7 colour schemes (red, orange, green, blue, teal, purple, pink)
• 2 layout widths (800px and 1024px)
• Intelligent Content Limiting trims homepage content display based on theme layout.
• Narrow or tall Header Graphics - plus EZ Per Post headers and/or random header graphics.
• Drop down Page Menu bar that can be positioned left, right or center.
• Homepage layout fully configurable using 7 different sections
• Mark posts as EVENTS and list sections with and by event dates.
• Quick Links box in the sidebar neatly offers Search and Archive menus
• Image thumbnails are all generated on the fly - NO CUSTOM FIELDS!
• Homepage thumbnails all ZOOM to reveal more information and larger image
• Integrated Feedburner Sign Up Form
• Integrated, Widgetised Adsense in Sidebar and Posts (colour themed to each scheme)
• Viva Video in sidebar allows for random display of YouTube and/or MySpace videos via playlist and/or specific videos by post, page or category
• Integrated Viva Carousel with 2 postion options and choice of POST or GALLERY IMAGE display
• Smart Menu plugin adds a hidden Menu bar to the site.
• Fully Widget ready with sidebar, top and bottom widget locations
• Ability to add custom page content without editing theme code.

If you are a Revolution Theme fan like me (this site is actually built on the original them, albeit a very customized version), you will be excited to know that the theme has undergone a transformation.

From Brian Gardner’s Website:The biggest change in this theme is the backend to the homepage. Originally, all of the content on the homepage needed to be modified within the theme files, but all of that is now accessible through the Theme Options page. (very important in my opinion for those wanting an easy solution for a CMS!)

Some of the changes that have been included are:

• Both sidebar areas are widget-ready
• Theme options page inside WP dashboard
• Comments section coded for Gravatars
• Archive & Blog page templates
• Multiple Site Colors - you can see the blue version to the left

I was creating a portfolio of case studies for a client and I want to use the “posts” within WordPress to list the case studies. However, the main menu uses the ‘wp_list_pages’ function, so I cannot interject a “portfolio” category link where I want that link placed within the menu, since it is auto-generated.

This means I could hard-code the portfolio category link at the beginning or end of the menu - but I need it somewhere in the middle, so I devised this workaround.

I have found the best way to do this is through the creation of a page template. This offers you the greatest flexibility, and will also help you learn a bit more about WordPress.

OK - enough blabbing, let’s get started.

1. First thing to do is look in your theme folder for a file named page.php - make a copy of it and rename it to an appropriate name - we’ll use Portfolio.php for this example.
2. Next, open the new file (portfolio.php) and copy and paste this into your file at the very top (change the name ‘Portfolio’ in the code to the name of your choice - this is the actual name of the template that will be listed when selecting the template from within the Write/Manage Page editor:<?php
/*
Template Name: Portfolio
*/
?>
3. We will be pulling all posts from within a single category into this page. Create your new category now, and take note of the category’s ID. If your category already exists, just get its ID.
   
   Note: To find the ID, go to Manage >> Categories and hover your mouse over the Category Name. You will find the ID as the last parameter of the URL in the browsers status bar (bottom-left corner)
4. Ok, back within the Portfolio.php, we need to replace the default code with new code that will import the posts from the category we’ve created / selected. Here’s how:
5. Replace the loop (code varies so I have just included the beginning and ending tags - replace / remove everything between the tags and the tags themselves: <?php while(have_posts()) : the_post(); ?>
   ………
   <?php endwhile; ?>

   with this below - where ‘category=[the ID of your category you noted in step 3]‘:

   <?php
$lastposts = get_posts('category=3');
foreach($lastposts as $post) :
setup_postdata($post);
?>
<h2><a href="<?php the_permalink(); ?>" id="post-<?php the_ID(); ?>"><?php the_title(); ?></a></h2>
<?php the_content(); ?>
<?php endforeach; ?>

6. Save the template.
7. Create / Select the page you want to import the posts within - you should be in the page editor
8. From within the page editor, under the Page Template dropdown, select ‘Portfolio’
9. Publish / Save the page.
10. Create posts under your selected category, if they are nor already present.
11. Go to the front-end of your website and locate your new page. You should see the page displaying the posts you have created from within your selected category.
12. As for placing the page’s link in the menu - just set your page order for the page.

That’s it. Pretty cool, huh?

WordPress templates are easy to create and offer you tons of flexibility.

Obviously, you can place any code you like in a template. The above is just an example of including the posts from a specific category. There are more option at WordPress.org.

Why?

• you can create multiple forms for your site - you’re not relegated to just using one contact form to meet all your objectives
• you can add html and CSS directly into the form, thru the management page
• Easy to install on a page - just cut and paste a single line of code
• It’s free!

I just stumbled on this software for a need I have with a client’s website. It is the perfect solution.

Hope it may help you too!

Again - Here is the link: Contact Form 7

I apologize for anyone wanting to purchase the “WordPress on Crack” product. Seems the affiliate I signed under went AWOL. Anyways. I contacted the author and we got it fixed.

I haven’t received a response from anyone on the original post, asking if anybody has tried this product, so I decided to purchase the software and try it out myself.

First impression? Good stuff! Worth $97.00 to me because I like to see how things are done by experts. I suppose I could thumb my way thru the WP docs, but I honestly do not have the time. This video has allowed me to learn the basics of writing a plugin - and I have just watched the first one .

There are 7 total video tutorials with full code. And the tutorials are actually useful - something you may want to add to your WP site.

The first video has given me an understanding however of how simple it is to “hook” into WP and create a plugin. The more I learn about WordPress, the more I love it!

Stay tuned for more posts on this or check out this page.

This theme has a nice clean crisp look, but so do many of the News Themes out there. What makes this theme special is what is under the hood. Let’s take a peek.

From their website:

With so many themes calling themselves “news” themes these days, it’s hard to decide which theme you should go with. Should you risk putting down $60-$100 for a theme you know nothing about?  Should you try a free theme, and see how far you can get?  We understand.  We’re here to help.Proximity was developed primarily for ease of use, and I don’t use that phrase lightly.  Just take a look at our instructional videos before you purchase.  If you don’t agree that Proximity News is the easiest theme to install and set up, feel free to keep shopping around.  But we’re pretty confident that you’ll agree, and be publishing content in no time!

Custom Header Image

It’s surprising how few themes allow you to upload, crop, and activate a new header image from the back-end.  Not Proximity News.  We made sure that your new header is just a few clicks away … no code editing involved!

Theme Options

The innovative Options panel in Proximity News is one of the most advanced available.  Choose from options ranging from excluding pages from your top navigation, to choosing an alternate feed URL, to adding your own adsense code, all from the Proximity News Theme Options panel.  The home page is also completely configured from within this panel, so say goodbye to the days of editing code to get things working out of the box.

Drop-down Navigation

The main horizontal navigation bar features drop-down menus for easy browsing of the pages you create from within WordPress.  Simply place a page under another page by making it a “child page”, and it will automatically be added to the drop-down of the parent page.

“Smart” Home Page

As mentioned before, the homepage content is pulled using the options you select in the Options panel.  But what I didn’t mention was that the homepage has “intelligent” characteristics too.  The code has been written in such a way as to completely avoid duplicate content, without using categories.  Too many themes rely on excluding categories as a means of avoiding duplicate content.  Proximity’s smart homepage will NEVER let posts fall into the archives, just because you haven’t taken them out of the “feature” category.

Archives/Blog Page Template

For readers that prefer a more simplistic means of browsing content, you can always set up an “Archives” page that displays posts in reverse chronological order.

Advanced Sidebar

The sidebar keeps things clean with features like a spot for a video, a tabbed section, and an adsense block.  The tabbed section is pre-styled and ready for the Popularity Contest and Most Commented plugins too, so all you have to do is activate them, and watch the content show up.  The featured video and adsense code can be entered using the Proximity News Theme Options panel too!  And under the adsense section, you’ll find a fully widgetized sidebar ready for you to place custom content*.

*not all widgets supported

Pretty Category Archives

Let’s face it.  Browsing most WordPress sites’ category archive can be a little bland.  Taking a page from many major news sites’ playbook, I decided to make Proximity display category archives in a much more attractive way.  You can now split up your site into categories and not be embarrassed by the end result.  Take our demo US News section as an example.

Author Archives

Our author archive page is, in many ways, even better than our category archives.  It pulls the author bio and link from the main WordPress database (configured in the user options), and pulls the author’s Gravatar based on their email address.  It then pulls stories written by that author in a very attractive way.  See our demo author archive for a sample.

Search

Our search results page was meant to mimmic the simplicity of a Google search.  Future versions of the search results page will feature keyword highlighting too, so stay tuned for that!

Single Post Templates, second to none!

Our single post template was inspired by hours of research on other major news sites.  It features social bookmarking links, a print stylesheet to make printing stories a breeze, integration with the related entries plugin to encourage your readers to continue browsing your site, and a comments section featureing commenter Gravatars.  Just take a look at this single post demo to see what I mean.

Story Thumbnails

Each story can have both a 300×200 and a 100×100 pixel image attached to it via custom fields.  These images will be used throughout the theme to help bring a bit of spice to your stories, encouraging clickthroughs and giving your site that professional look that so many WordPress themes lack.  And if you ever forget or neglect to attach an image properly, the theme is smart enough to insert a backup image for you, so your story doesn’t look empty, and the theme doesn’t break.  Neat, huh?

Breadcrumb Navigation

Whenever viewing an interior page, you’ll notice little grey links under the main navigation.  This bit of custom code was implemented to make sure your readers always know where they are on the site. And… it’s all automatic!  No author input required!

And So Much More …