If you are a fan of simple, clean, easily customizable templates, you will enjoy the Markus theme.

The free theme allows users to quickly change colors, headlines and fonts.

The theme is also optimized for Disqus comments, Twitter, Flickr and Google Analytics.

A full demo is available at markustheme.tumblr.com, but it’s stripped of most bells and whistles.

The best way to get the full experience is to install it yourself.

Feel free to leave questions and comments below.

After polishing up my custom WordPress theme this morning, I happy to report that this site is now backed by the WordPress CMS.

I built Rick Markus 1.0 from scratch to mirror the look of the site when it was ran solely on HTML and PHP files, so returning visitors might not notice much of a difference.

It’s fulfilling to break away from pre-made themes, especially considering the popularity of WordPress around the Web.

• In your dashboard go to Users, choose your profile and then check “Disable the visual editor when writing.”

Next, you have to install a plugin that lets you choose to keep your page in it’s raw code form. I chose Text Control, as recommended in the WordPress codex. Note: There seems to be a newer version (2.3) if you choose to install the plugin from inside the WP dashboard, but I couldn’t get it to work properly.

• Install Text Control.
• Go to the page you want to include JavaScript on and make sure there’s a saved version/draft. The plugin options may not appear in the backend of the individual page until there is a saved version.
• From Text Control’s two drop-down menus, choose “No Formatting” and “No Character Encoding”.

Next you have to create a JavaScript file and upload it to your server. Put all of the JavaScript defining code in that file. All functions and variable creations go in in there.

So for instance, if you have the following code:

<script type="text/javascript" charset="utf-8">

	function myFunc() {
	sum = 5 + 10;
	return sum;

	}

	myFunc();

</script>

You would put this in a .js file:

	function myFunc() {
	sum = 5 + 10;
	return sum;

	}

• Upload your JavaScript code to the server. I put mine in a folder called “scripts”.
• Finally, call to your javascript to run from inside your WordPress page.

Following the above example, we would post the following code into the WordPress page we want to run the JavaScript:

<script type="text/javascript" src="http://www.yourdomain.com/scripts/yourjavascriptfile.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript">
<!--
myFunc();
//--></script></pre>

“myfunc();” is the call to action that fires up your JavaScript code from the .js file.

That should do it!

The Washington Spectator has yet to launch the redesign. I will post a graphic example once they release the new look.

The Washington Spectator describes itself as a “feisty bi-weekly bulletin” which gives “independent-minded readers behind-the-scenes insight into significant news that is ignored by the corporate media.”

Independent Living Solutions provides home safety assessments for aging individuals in Columbus, Ohio, who wish to stay in their homes as long into advanced age as possible.

See it live

Eleven is a hard rock band from Los Angeles.

Forget Yahoo! Pipes, or Google modules or RSSinclude. There’s an WordPress plugin called Embed RSS that is all you need.

It places a button up in your post/page editing links that lets you enter an RSS feed on the fly. You can choose the number of items posted and whether to include post content, author or dates published. The drop down menu appears to limit users to posting 1-20 or 100 links, but if you edit the number in HTML view, you can choose mid range output, like 50 links.

This plugin would have saved me some time, but it hid from me quite well over the past month.

ONA is the trade association for more than 250 Ohio daily and weekly newspapers and more than 150 Web sites.

See it live

Most clients will reject third-party ads on their site. Otherwise, the plugin runs smoothly. Although I didn’t like the print popup box’s green color (which isn’t quickly changed in settings), I considered removing the ads legitimately with the plugin’s ad-removal fee ($4 a month).

I also tried some other print friendly plugins, but liked them even less.

Luckily, WordPress has this great “how to” codex for setting up your own printer-friendly styling via CSS. It walks you through it pretty nicely, although I noticed some repetitive code in their final example of printer-friendly CSS.

Depending on the WordPress theme you are using, the code you need could end up quite different than this, but here’s what I ended up using for PageLines’ WhiteHousePro3 theme:

/* Print Style Sheet */
@media print {
body {background:white;
font-size:10pt;
margin:0 }
#header { height:75px;
font-size: 24pt;
color:black }
#content { margin-left:0;
float:none;
width:auto;
color:black;
font-size:12pt }
#maincontent a { font-weight:normal;
color:black;
text-decoration:underline }
#contentcontainer { display:block }
#contentborder { display:block }
#comments { display:none }
#commentform { display:none }
#sidebar { display:none }
.post-footer { display:none }
#footer { display:none }
#widgets{ display:none }
#wrapper { display:block }
#nav { display:none }
#subnav { display:none }
#header { display:none }
#grandchildnav { display:none }
#overview { display:none }
#searchform { display:none }
#sidesearch { display:none }
#morefoot { display:none }
#searchsubmit{ display:none }
#welcome { display:none }
#fcolumns_container { display:none }
#subfoot { display:none }
#cred { display:none }
#calendar-wrap { display:none }
#wp-calendar { display:none }
#caption { display:none }
h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6 { page-break-after:avoid;
page-break-inside:avoid }
img { page-break-inside:avoid;
page-break-after:avoid; }
blockquote, table, pre { page-break-inside:avoid }
ul, ol, dl  { page-break-before:avoid }
img { display:none }
.right { float: right; }
.left { float: left }
margin: 0 7px 2px 0;
display: inline; }
img { display:none }
}

I opted to remove the images from printing in the above example.