A Higher State Of Consciousnes
Created by combining clouds, fractal, an image of an eye, an eclipse image and solar flares. This wallpaper’s size is 2560px by 960px.

Island
A simple serene image. Available in 3840px by 1200px.

Retro World
Intended to look somewhat like a vintage photo. Available in the following sizes: 1280px by 1024px, 1600px by 1200px, and 1920px by 1200px.

Globophobia
Another vintage-looking photo. This wallpaper uses a lot of textures to create its vintage effect.Available in dual monitor size: 2560px by 1024px. Also available in various widescreen sizes.

Solitude
Made by blending over 7 different images, the final result is a dream come true. Available in dual monitor size: 2560px by 960px.

Bowbay
A beautiful image full of details. Available in the following sizes: 5120px by 1600px, 5120px by 2048px, 2560px by 960px, 2048px by 768px, 3200px by 1200px, 3840px by 1200px, 2560px by 800px.

Magic Tree
A wallpaper full of beautiful colors. Available in the following sizes: 2560px by 1600px, 1920px by 1200px, 1680px by 1050px, 1440px by 900px.

Lakeside
A simply stunning wallpaper. Available in the following sizes: 2560px by 1600px, 1920px by 1200px, 1680px by 1050px, 1440px by 900px.

The Rock
Available in the following sizes: 2560px by 1600px, 1920px by 1200px, 1680px by 1050px, 1440px by 900px.

The Beach v.4
Available in the following sizes: 2560px by 1600px, 1920px by 1200px, 1680px by 1050px, 1440px by 900px.

The Beach v.5
Available in the following sizes: 2560px by 1600px, 1920px by 1200px, 1680px by 1050px, 1440px by 900px.

Waterfall
Available in the following sizes: 2560px by 2048px, 2560px by 1600px, 2048px by 1536px, 1920px by 1200px, 1600px by 1200px, 1680px by 1050px, 1400px by 1050px, 1440px by 900px, 1280px by 1024px, 1280px by 800px, 1280px by 720px, 1024px by 768px.

The Truck
Available in the following sizes: 2560px by 1600px, 1920px by 1200px, 1680px by 1050px, 1440px by 900px.

Hillside
Available in the following sizes: 2560px by 1600px, 1920px by 1200px, 1680px by 1050px, 1440px by 900px.

The Valley
Available in the following sizes: 2560px by 1600px, 1920px by 1200px, 1680px by 1050px, 1440px by 900px.

2 Roads to Nowhere
Available in the following sizes: 2560px by 1600px, 1920px by 1200px, 1680px by 1050px, 1440px by 900px.

Location, Location, Location
Available in the following sizes: 2560px by 1600px, 1920px by 1200px, 1680px by 1050px, 1440px by 900px.

Valley of Dreams
Available in the following sizes: 2560px by 1600px, 1920px by 1600px, 1600px by 1200px, 1280px by 1024px.

Floating Island
Available in the following sizes: 2560px by 1600px, 1920px by 1600px, 1600px by 1200px.

Swedish Skies
Available in the following sizes: 2560px by 2560px, 1920px by 1200px, 1600px by 1200px, 1280px by 1024px, 1280px by 960px.

Strange World Series

Strange World V
This wallpaper is available in the following sizes: 1280px x 1024px, 1600px x 1200px, 1920px x 1200px.

Strange World VI
This wallpaper is available in the following sizes: 1280px x 1024px, 1600px x 1200px, 1920px x 1200px.

Strange World VII
This wallpaper is available in the following sizes: 1280px x 1024px, 1600px x 1200px, 1920px x 1200px.

Dreamy World Series

A collection of stunning images of a world envisioned as dreamy. All of the images are available only in 2560px by 1024px.

Let’s take a look at the basic Wordpress comment loop:

<li class="<?php echo $oddcomment; ?>" id="comment-<?php comment_ID() ?>">

Edit Author (and guest author) Comment Style

I’m only going to show you how to make the authors’ comment a different colored background and text (I’ll make it gray and orange in this case), since this is meant for you to learn the basics so you can continue being creative with CSS styling.

What we’ll do first is edit the loop code above so that comments made by the blogs’ author are different from the rest:

<li class="<?php if ($comment->comment_author_email == "author@domain.com")
echo 'author'; else if ($comment->comment_author_email == "author@domain.com")
echo 'author'; else echo $oddcomment; ?> item" id="comment-<?php comment_ID() ?>">

For author and guest author loop:

<li class="<?php if ($comment->comment_author_email
== "author@domain.com") echo 'author'; else if ($comment->comment_author_email ==
"guest@domain.com") echo 'guest'; else echo $oddcomment; ?> item" id="comment-<?php
comment_ID() ?>">

Simply replace author@domain.com with the blogs’ author email. If suing it to identify an author and guest author as well, replace the guest@domain.com on the corresponding code snippet. Now that we have the correct loop to identify the authors’ comment, we simply put the following snippet of HTML/PHP so we can style the comment:

<span class="author_meta"><?php comment_author_link() ?></span>

The CSS that will style this looks like this:

li.author span.author_meta a {
     background: #EFEFEF;
     color: #CF4900;
}


This will style the authors’ comment (and guest authors’ comment).

Make alternating comments different

Paste this code snippet before the comment div (and comment list obviously as well).

<?php
return;
}
}

/* This variable is for alternating comment background */
$oddcomment = ‘alt’;
?> 

The corresponding CSS to edit the style is this (This is the CSS I use on my site, change the EFEFEF to the hex number color you desire):
.commentslist li.alt{
     background:#EFEFEF;
}

Another article is to be published given the fact it would have made this one too long. Look forward to Wordpress Comments Part Three: Styling with CSS II

This next post will feature some examples of styled comments (like the style used on this site) and maybe feature a few examples of beautifully done comment styles.

Wordpress Comment Plugins

Spam Protection

1. Akismet: The ultimate spam protection. One of the favorite among numerous blogs. The most probable reason why? It’s created by the geniouses behind Wordpress itself. The plugin requires an API key, which is free, from Wordpress.com
2. Spam Karma Plugin: Effortlessly blocks spam comments without interrupting regular commentators.
3. Defensio Plugin: Blocks spam comments and holds them in quarantine for your review. It rates a comments “spaminess” to identify is it’s a legitimate comment or not.
4. Spam Stopper Plugin: Blocks spam by asking users to answer a simple question before posting a comment.
5. ReCAPTCHA: The reCAPTCHA uses Captcha to prevent comment spam and also prevents email spam. This pulgin also uses an API key given by the site, which is as well free of cost.
6. Anti-Spam Image Plugin: This Anti-Spam plugin displays a random word image that users need to re-type to leave a comment. Comes with audio option for visually impaired.
7. Did you pass math? Plugin: This plugin requires users to solve a simple math problem before being able to comment.
8. Bad Behavior Plugin: Bad Behavior is a PHP-based solution for keeping unwanted blog, wiki, forum, guestbook and referrer spam away from your site.

Trackback Spam Protection

1. Simple Trackback Validation Plugin: Verifies IP address to identify spam trackbacks.
2. Trackback Validator Plugin: Performs a simple and effective test to verify authenticity of trackbacks.
3. Moderate Trackbacks Plugin: Puts trackbacks in comment moderation queue.

Encourage Commenting

1. Top Commenters Plugin-Widget: Adds a linkable list to the sidebar of the top commenters on your site.
2. Show Top Commenters Plugin: Uses PHP to show the top commenters on your site. Might need this guide for a quick trouble-free install of Exec-PHP, since it is necessary for the commenters plugin. Alternately, you could install the edited version of Top-Commenters which is widget ready, here.
3. Comment Plugger Plugin: Lists the people who’ve commented a post, linking to their site if a link is provided.
4. Strip No-Follow Plugin: Strips no-follow attribute from links in comments and comment authors.
5. Do-Follow Plugin: Removes no-follow from links in comments.
6. Do-Follow Trackbacks Plugin: Removes no-follow from trackbacks.
7. Lucias Linky Love Plugin: Removes no-follow from comments with some features to control it.

Threaded and/or Pages Comments

1. Wordpress Paged Comments Plugin: Control how many comments are displayed by page.
2. Threaded Comments Plugin: Allow users to post threaded comments.
3. Yet Another Threaded Comments Plugin: …is another threaded comments plugin.
4. Ajax Paged Comments Plugin: Page comments that use ajax to search through them.

Display Most Recent/Commented

1. Most Commented Plugin: Displays a list of most commented posts.
2. Most Commented Plugin and Widget: Display most commented within a page or in the sidebar as a widget.
3. Most Recent Comments Plugin:Display most recent comments in a highly customisable way.
4. Brian’s Latest Comments Plugin: The plugin shows latest comments as a list of the last commented-on articles and their commenters. Comments can be colored to show age.
5. Fresh Comments Widget: Widget displays latest comments.
6. Recent Comments Plugin/Widget: Display recent comments.
7. Customizable Post Listings: Display recent comments and much more.
8. Latest Comments with Avatars Reloaded Plugin: Display recent comments with author avatar.

Moderate and Manage Comments

1. Bannage Plugin: Ban users by by IP, username or email address.
2. Numbered Comments Plugin: Not only does it number comments, but it also can display total comments in a post and in your whole site.
3. Reverse Order Plugin: Organize comments from most recent to oldest.
4. Comment Central Plugin: Batch open/close commenting.
5. Comment Timeout Plugin: Closes commenting on old posts.
6. Old Post Alert Plugin: Warn users the age of the post they’re going to comment on.
7. Autoclose Plugin: Auto close comments, pingbacks and trackbacks on old posts. Set what you want closed and when to close it (Only comments on posts 90 days old for example).

Conversation Improving Plugins

1. CoComment Plugin: Track comments using CoComment.
2. Comment Karma Plugin: Allow users to rate comments.
3. Quoter Plugin: Allows users to quote a post or another comment.
4. Whisper Plugin: For registered users only. It allows them to send private comments to admins or other users.

Appeareance Plugins

1. Comment Highlighter Plugin: Add different style classes to comments.
2. Author Highlight Plugin: Apply a different style to the author’s comments.
3. No Sh*t Plugin: Filter rude language from comments.
4. Edit Comments XT Plugin: Allow users to edit their own comments.
5. Ajax Edit Comments Plugin: Allow users to edit their own comments for a limited time, also has other features for admins.
6. Live Comment Preview Plugin: Let users preview their comments live before posting them.
7. Comments Preview Plugin: After writing the comment the users chooses to click the preview button or the submit button.
8. Custom Smilies Plugin: Change default smilies for ones you prefer.
9. Smilies Themer Plugin: Replace Wordpress’ default smilies.
10. MCE Comments Plugin: Give users a WYSIWYG editor in the comment textfield.
11. Favatars Plugin: Shows the favicon of the corresponding authors’ site if applicable on comments, trackbacks and pings.
12. Comvatars Plugin: Shows avatar images on user comments .
13. Gravatars Plugin: Shows gravatar images on user comments (Gravatar, MyBlogLog, OpenAvatar, Wavatar, Identicon, monsterID).
14. Gravatars Plugin: Shows gravatar images on user comments.
15. MBLA Plugin: Add MyBlogLog and Gravatar to blog posts and comments.
16. Relative Date Plugin: Displays relative date alongside with your post/comments actual date.
17. Comment Quicktags Plugin: Help users use codes easily with quicktags.
18. Wp-Chunk Plugin: Makes long URL’s posted in comments shorter.It does not affect urls within posts, just comments.

Subscribe to Comments Plugin

1. Subscribe to Comments Plugin: Encourages users to sign up to recieve notices of follow-up comments.
2. Enroll to Comments Plugin: Enroll to receive an email when someone comments on a post.

Traditional Style

Feed Icons.com: The “official” site for feed icons. Traditional style in two sizes (28×28 & 14×14 pixels). They also offer 50 12×12 pixel icons in different colors based of the Photoshop palette.

Perishable Press: A collection of different sized traditional RSS icons, as well as differently colored ones.

Zeus Box Studio: A collection of icons, in orginal style and original style with added elements.

Grunge Style

Customize.org Grunge Feed Icon: They come in three colors: blue, red, and green. 128 x 128, 64 x 64 and 32 x 32 pixel sizes available. One of the icons come in a lovely floral style.

Glass Style

Bitt Box: Over 200 glass style feed icons in different colors. Available with and without reflection.

Snap 2 Objects: Several different neon-colored rss icons in a square shape. Available in .PNG and .PSD formats.

Square and/or 3D Style

Fast Icon: One free square 3D icon, with a bit of a glossy look for download.

Utom Box: Two different sized square icons.

Web Fruits: Keep it classic with a wooden icon!

Pete MH: Simple shiny square icon free to use.

Circle Style

Fast Icon: Four pairs of different colored icons in a circular shape.

Photoshop Star: Sticker/badge style icons. Comes in .PSD format.

Bati: Shiny circular icons, the author notes “free use for blogs”.

Cartoon and other Shapes Style

Smashing Magazine: Four creative ways to display an RSS icon. Show your uniqueness with these beautiful icons. Enjoy a cup of RSS coffee or read your RSS in the newspaper!

Smashing Magazine: Fun cartoon holding the icon.

Feminoise: Guitar pick shaped icons

Dock Icons: Cube shaped icons, brings two icons with different colored edges.

Design Freak: Have these kids show your feed icon.

X cChris: Show you have a rock solid feed.

Very Original Concepts

Davinness: Let people feel they can learn things on your feed by having the icon on a blackboard.

Design Freak- RSS Candy: Icon stored inside a clear candy wrapper! Very original concept!

Sheiladee- Drink up my Feed: Water fountain drain image that may be used as an RSS Feed icon!

Deviant Dark: Several original icons including a broken light bulb and a computer mouse.

Cavin: Have an acidic feed.

S-W: Use a Mini Cooper icon.

Sniffels: Wax Seal icon.

• 01. Open your photo in Photoshop (I’m using Photoshop CS2).
• 02. Select the Patch Tool .²
• 03. After selecting the Patch tool, make sure your settings match mine.
• 04. As if you were using the lasso tool, make a selection on a wrinkled area, like this:
  
• 05. Now, put your Patch tool inside the selection click and drag the selection to skin that does not have wrinkles. You should see something like this:
  
• 06. After finding a spot that looks good, let go of the mouse and the spot should now have the skin replaced by the sample you chose. Here’s mine:
  
• 07. Continue doing the same throughout the whole face. Keep in mind not to do big chunks at a time, as it may be hard to find big pieces of skin to replace the wrinkled one with.

Here is my final product:

If you have any doubts or want to show off your photo leave a comment below!

1. And to follow attribution rules the photo is credited here!
2. Photoshop Shortcut Key is “J”

01. Open your file in Photoshop.
02. Click on the “Edit in Quick Mask Mode” button in your toolbar. (It”s the one to the right)
03. Once you click it, your background and foreground colors will change to black and white. Select the brush tool, and set it to the size you are most comfortable with.
04. With black as the foreground color, start to paint your teeth. Whatever you paint will appear red.

05. If you color out of your teeth, switch the foreground color to white to erase it. After finishing simply click on the “Edit in Standard Mode” button. (The one to the left)
06. You will see that everything but the teeth has a marquee around it. Now go to the top menu and click “Select » Inverse”. Now you should only see your teeth selected like shown below.

Let’s go through the basic concepts, displaying date in text format only (no images). Date can be displayed in numerous ways. Here are some basic codes:

• <?php the_time('F j, Y'); ?> . That code gives you : June 16, 2008
• <?php the_time('l, F j, Y'); ?> . That code gives you : Monday, June 16, 2008
• <?php the_time('D, M j y'); ?> . That code gives you : Fri, Jan 16 08

If you want more options on how to display this, just visit the PHP date formatting options by PHP.net.

Now, you’ve probably seen those cute date clouds or other geometrical shapes, on some websites. Here I’ll show you how to do a basic Month-Day display. At the end of this post you’ll see links to download the icons used for this.¹.

We’re going to format the date so it’ll be aligned to the left of the post title. Let’s start with the HTML you’ll insert. Look for <?php while (have_posts()) : the_post(); ?> or something similar. You should see some king of coding similar to the ones above for displaying the date. Eliminate that coding. Be sure to check that the date is placed before the post title, and this is the code you’ll place there:

 <div class="post-date"><span class="post-month"><?php the_time('M') ?></span> <span class="post-day"><?php the_time('d') ?></span></div> 

Now, for the CSS (I was using one of the thought bubbles when I typed this CSS) :

.post-date {
	width: 60px;
	height: 60px;
	float:left;
        margin-right: 5px;
	background: url(img/FILE.jpg) no-repeat;
        background-position: left;
}
.post-month {
	font-size: 14px;
	text-transform: uppercase;
	color: #fff;
	text-align: center;
	display:block;
	line-height: 15px;
        font-weight: bold;
	padding-top: 5px;

}
.post-day {
	font-size: 30px;
	text-transform: uppercase;
	color: #e1e1e1;
	text-align: center;
	display:block;
	line-height: 15px;
	padding-top: 2px;

} 

Note that the CSS properties might vary depending on the icon you select. You may need to adjust the padding and font sizes.

Free Date Icons

[download#38#image]

[download#39#image]

[download#40#image]

1. Yes, they’re made by me!

01. Open your file in Photoshop.
02. Click on the “Edit in Quick Mask Mode” button in your toolbar. (It’s the one to the right)
03. Once you click it, your background and foreground colors will change to black and white. Select the brush tool, and set it to the size you are most comfortable with.
04. Start painting over the iris. What you paint will look red.

05. If you paint over other the pupil or other parts that shouldn’t change color, change the foreground color to white to erase the red.
06. After that, change to “Edit in Standard Mode”. (The one to the left)
07. You will see that everything but the eye has a marquee around it. Now go to the top menu and click “Select » Inverse”. Now you should only see your iris selected like shown below.

08. Now go to “Layers » New Adjustment Layer » Hue/Saturation”.

09. On the first dialog box that will appear click “OK”. Then, on the second one, in the Edit Select Box choose different colors to edit your eye color, since every eye has different eye colors the colors you change will depend on the colors you have.
10. I began editing the Reds in my eye.

11. I edited the blues, magentas and red. Editing them, changed my eye color to green, while maintaining a natural look.
12. Finally, I edited the Master Hue/Saturation and left the Lightness in 0.

13. Select “Hue/Saturation Layer” that is above the original picture, edit the other eye so it will have the same adjustments and maintains a natural look as well. To do so, simply paint over the iris with a white brush. If you make a mistake, paint over it with black to correct it.
14. Now you have two natural looking, different colored eyes.

“The Exec-PHP plugin executes <?php ?> code in your posts, pages and text widgets.” -Source

I downloaded this plugin a couple of days ago so I could post the code converter script, which I got from the wonderful site TutorialTastic. I must admit it was a bit troublesome to install, but worth it!

You can download this plugin here. Download, unzip, and upload the exec-php folder on your plugins directory. Go to Wordpress and activate it!

Now comes the hard part! Check if you have done the following before you test the plugin:

• Disable the WYSIWYG editor through your profile. Go to Users » Your Profile. At the very top you will see the following:
  
  Make sure the box is not checked. Having it on and just switching to the HTML tab will not work. You could try out other Plugins that turn off the visual editor for certain articles¹, such as the Deactivate Visual Editor plugin² and the Disable Visual Editor plugin.
• Next, go to Settings » Writing. When it loads, scroll to the bottom of the page and verify the box next to “WordPress should correct invalidly nested XHTML automatically” in not checked.
• You might³ need to install the Role Manager Plugin so you can allow yourself to write ‘unfiltered_html’.

Choose a post in which you’ll test if the plugin works or not. We’ll use the following text to try to execute a <?php ?> command:

 <?php echo "This is the Exec-PHP 'Hello World'"; ?> 

After you save the post, view it. It should be displayed like this: This is the Exec-PHP 'Hello World' .

Now, enjoy having the capability to use PHP scripts on your Wordpress Powered site!
Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars
Because of the bit of trouble installation might cause.

1. Articles you’ll add PHP coding to
2. I haven’t used this plugin but I see no posts in the WP Support Forums about this plugin
3. Don’t install this just yet, since it might not be needed