Well a lot has changed since I left the WordPress world 4-5 months ago.. I've gotten so many support messages about SimpleFolio and i don't even know if it works correctly with WP3... The thing is for the next couple of weeks I will be reading and learning all about the new version of WordPress, once I get the hang of it, I will start working on version 2 of SimpleFolio. Ohh and gratz me! 15k downloads of SimpleFolio 1.5

Also I will be renewing the design of the site along with the style. The blog will be some what ignored and updated when i see fit. Will try and concentrate on making themes and designs mostly this time around. So expect a lot of downtime and changes for the next month or so.. Also if you know any good wp3 tutorials and guides send them my way.. lost my bookmarks so I'm walking in the dark here.

1. Log into your server with your favourite ftp program (I recommend filezilla.)
2. Navigate to your wp-includes folder, and download your "media.php" file to your desktop.
3. Open media.php in your favourite code editor.
4. Press ctrl+f (windows) cmd+f (mac) and search for "function wp_embed_defaults" and press enter.

You will end up seeing something like this:

function wp_embed_defaults() {
	if ( !empty($GLOBALS['content_width']) )
		$theme_width = (int) $GLOBALS['content_width'];

	$width = get_option('embed_size_w');

	if ( !$width && !empty($theme_width) )
		$width = $theme_width;

	if ( !$width )
		$width = 560;

	return apply_filters( 'embed_defaults', array(
		'width' => $width,
		'height' => 700,
	) );
}

where you see

 if ( !$width )
        $width = 560;

Change the width, to what ever width you need to fit your content box accordingly. Dont worry about the height of the video, it will set the height auto. Play around until something fits, and there you have it, a quick simple way of resizing embeds throughout your entire blog.

Quick update:

If you are using a theme and it has a functions.php file in the theme folder, check it for $content_width = (x width); be sure to play around with that for the video to strech to that width.

According to the lead programmer of WordPress, Mark Jaquith, the hack was most probably because of an insecure WordPpress plugin which allowed the hacker to use the method of php injection to hack tech crunch. It wasn't a server side hacking. Somehow the hacker managed to get to the WordPress admin panel of TechCrunch and was successful in defacing it.

TechCrunch has the best security experts to protect their website but looks like no one can compete with hackers. There are lots of WordPress plugins to secure your blog but once again its difficult to choose which to install or not.

I'm writing down some basic WordPress security tips and the best WordPress plugins which I'm using for a long time and have a good experience with them.

Basic Tips

• Don't install WordPress in the root directory. Install it in some folder with a weird name which is not easy to know. Something like 1w3erfdefr. This will save your wordpress installation from bots as well as hackers. Follow this guide on how to open WordPress on the main url after installing it in a sub direcotry.
• Change the WP prefix of database tables. It will save you from sql injection hacking.
• Never use the admin account. After installing WordPress, you should change the administrator user name.

Plugins

Chap Secure Login

It encrypts your admin password when logging in without the use of SSL. This is the best plugin if you want to encrypt your passwords and don't have ssl certificate to use.

Stealth Login

This plugin enables you to create custom wordpress admin links to login and logout. By default you will login at http://yourdomain.com/wp-admin but with this plugin you can replace that wp-admin with any word hence only you will be able to access the login page.

WordPress Antivirus

AntiVirus for WordPress monitors malicious injections and warns you of any possible attacks. It saves your blog from spam injections. A must install for every one.

WP Security Scan

This plugin checks the necessary ftp permissions and htaccess permissions so that if there is something wrong you can set it up. You can uninstall it after checking.

Backups Backups and Backups

The best approach is that you should atleast back up your WordPress database once a day and the whole directory once a week so that if something gets wrong, you can easily restore the backup. You can use WP Database backup for this purpose.

I'm looking for writers that can post either articles, tutorials or roundups in the following categories:

• WordPress
• xHTML/CSS
• Inspiration
• Useful tools for web-developers
• Software for designers and web-developers
• Photoshop or any other designing tool.

Benefits

The benefits aren't much to start with but as the site grows you will get more. As for now you will get

• $15-50 Depending the quality of your post
• Author box with your bio and back-link to your website and twitter account.
• Integration of an adsense banner of a size to be decided later.

If you are interested in writing for Slimmity please use the contact page and let me know either your post ideas or to talk further details.

Great Design

Of course this is a must, here at Slimmity i sure dont have the best looking themes but I do what i can since I'm not a designer. Users download/buy a theme because they like how it looks, or because they see a good base for there project. They don't look at the options panel or the integrated widgets the theme might have. It's also important that the theme looks good in all the latest browsers.

Social Bookmarking

This is a must even if it's something basic. In this aspect the community needs to figure out what exactly would be a good default set of social bookmarking sites to add to themes. To be honest I add the ones I have icons for or the best looking icons. Another approach is integrating an existing plugin so the user just needs to install and activiate the plugin and mange the sites from the plugin's option page. As for social media links to the authors profiles well sure why not, just add some fields to the profile page and let the admin worry about this.

Plugin Integration

I remember way back when premium themes were still something new and free themes ruled. Most theme authors would integrate existing plugins rather then making a robust theme and including thousands of options. This gives the user the option to add functionality threw the selection of plugins rather then having to go threw the options or code to disable somethings they wont use.

Option Page

This is a good thing, option pages were made to be used but not abused. The best use of this is to let users upload or specify the url to there logo and favicon. Maybe some tracking scripts. And yes for the core functionality of the theme. Take my latest two themes as an example. SimpleBlog has exactly 5 options, the necessary ones for a simple blog theme. While SimpleFolio that is more of a CMS has 24 options, and now that i think of it this could be reduced to 10-15 easily.

Commented Code

While I don't do this (yet) it should be done by all web developers and designers, this gives the user the facility of customization and it also helps the developer from having to answer a bunch of silly question like "how do i change the position of the post image".

Regular Updates

It's important to provide updates and fixes for the bugs that one as developer didn't notice or just didn't want to deal with at the moment. This makes the users of your themes think that you offer a solid product and that they can expect to have all the issues with the theme solved as soon as possible. Even for future themes. Also try to always incorporate the newest features that WordPress adds with each new version.

SEO Ready

Themes should never be SEO ready, for this there's plugins like AIO SEO. Incorporating SEO in themes is a big mistake, so sure for now it's a great thing, but what happens when the user gets tired of the theme all there SEO setting is lost they will have to setup everything again on the next theme.

Conclusion

While everyone has there own opinion on this topic, this will be my guideline for future themes and please understand that this is my opinion, you can disagree or give your own opinion threw the comments. I'll happilly take them in consideration if I see there worth the time.



Pros

• You don’t have install any software for recording the screen, just an active internet connection would do.
• Web based screen recorders are generally written in Java and hence support all major platforms and browsers.
• The recorded video gets uploaded to the web automatically so you don’t have to worry about web hosting or what format to choose when saving the video.

Cons

• The recording length is very limited
• The quality of the video and sound is very poor
• Can't control the format of the videos
• Can't edit the videos to erase mistakes, got to do the whole thing over again

Currently there are only 5 websites that offer this service (that I know of). Lets go over them.

1. ScreenCastle

This website offers a very simple and easy way to record the screen. All you have to do is, click the "record" button and start recording your screen. After you are done with the recording, you can preview the video directly and save it to your computer. The video is saved to screencastle servers so that you can share the created video with others with ease.

2. Screencast-o-Matic

This is also a one click screencasting web service. No prior registration is required to use this service. Just click on the "create" button and accept the Java template and proceed to next screen. Here you can select the "Capture size", and select the "microphone" option to record voice. Click "go!" to start capturing the video, you can also pause the recording in between and continue. You can record videos up to 15 minutes long using this web application and export it directly to YouTube or download to your computer.

3. Screen Jelly

Screenjelly is another web application that allows you to capture the screen and create screencasts easily. Registration is not required to record screencasts. Just push the "record" button and select the audio option. After you have done with the recording, you can tweet the same with your Twitter account directly or email the link to a friend or simply share it on social bookmarking sites.

4. ScreenToaster

This one is another online screencasting tool that allows you to record your screen easily and get a flash file to share with others. You can register on the site to save all your work at one place and use them anytime from anywhere..

5. Screenr

Screenr has to be the best one available currently. It allows you to record up to 5 minutes. To use this Screenr you need to login with your twitter account. With this service you can choose to send a tweet about your newly recorded screencast or just file it under your account where all your videos are saved.

Like i said, these were the only ones I could find. If you know of any other sites that offer this services I would gladly add it to the list. Also would be nice to hear your experience with any of them. I personally like Screenr and doubt I would change it for any of the other 4.

This theme was released on SmashingMagazine, I am no longer giving support for this theme.

UPDATE

v1.1 Bug fixes
- Prevention of Malicious Code Injection when no search results
- Custom post panel now working properly.
v1.2 Bug fixes
- Updated theme version
- Attempted to solve localhost problems
v1.3 Bug fixes
- Solved localhost problems (thanks to qwerty7)
- Solved bug that I made in v1.2
v1.4
- Took out timthumb script seems its causing to many problems. (Download 1.3 from this link if you wish to use timthumb)
v1.5
- Fixed the adding of slashes with in the theme options panel.

Here's a screencast on how to add images to the slider.

Since this is the first giveaway i have ever done I thought i should use random.org to find the users and do a screen cast of it so that there's no one unhappy with the results.

Please ignore the sound, had the television a bit loud during the making of the video heheh. As you can see the first two numbers repeated them selfs so I kept trying until there was no more repeated numbers.
The winning numbers are: 3, 4 and 13. So if you go and visit the original post you that this numbers correspond to the follow users:

3 .- Saad Bassi - @saadbassi
4 .- Muhammad Adnan - @hiddenpearls
13 .- adone - @warstwydotcom

Congratulations to the winners and don't worry I have sent the information of the winners to Nick Roach so expect more information from him in the next couple days.

Don't forget to subscribe to the feed or follow me on twitter for information about the next giveaway.

Today I decided to create a list of WordPress Premium Theme site that offer the some of the best looking themes, or pretty darn good support. I will be making small comments on how i feel about the themes, prices, services and such.

Lets start with some of the most known now a days.

WooThemes

They have 59 themes at the moment from which 9 are free. You can either buy single themes for the price of $70 for a "Standard" package or $150 for the "Developers" package. Or you can even subscribe to there theme club. I personally haven't used a theme by them but I do have various friends that use(d) one or more themes and say that the quality of support is impressive. I have tested there themes threw a WordPress MU installation they have, that allows you to try out there themes for a period of 24 hours. Did i mention they are PRO-GPL?

Elegant Themes

This has to be the cheapest theme club available right now. For the price of $19.95 you get a one-year subscription. Currently they have 30 themes available. I must say that there latest themes look amazing. They were the first to make there own framework for the themes option panel, since then a lot of theme companies have followed there steps on this path.
Here at Slimmity we are currently giving away 3 subscriptions to there theme club. Click to find out more.

StudioPress

StudioPress doesn't only have 14 themes but it has its own theme framework called Genesis. Genesis was actually launched yesterday. Of course most premium theme companies now a days have there own frameworks but they use them to create there theme, rather then offering it so others can make there own themes. You can buy individual themes for $59.95 or get there Pro-Plus that includes all there themes along with all future themes (this is a lifetime subscription!). They also offer you a 25% discount if you purchased either a StudioPress or Revolution theme. And they are GPL Friendly.

ThemeForest

This might be one of the biggest out there, and that's because ThemeForest is a marketplace. It has over 2.000 items available from PSD designs to WordPress and some other CMS'. There's many good things to say about this marketplace, choose to say that they spend money to get buyers for your items. On the buyers side it could be a little bad that they don't force sellers to give support for there themes. But then again not offering support would decrease your sells. You can even find people on there forums that more then happily would customize the themes you buy for a small fee. The prices on the themes can go any where from $10 to $40, there's 2 types of licenses single use and extended. The extended license costs 15 times the single use licenses price.

Obox Designs

Offering 11 WordPress theme with out of the box designs, i have to say there themes are unique not only because of the design but how they use the colors. Maybe at a simple glance you might think there out of there minds with some of there themes but I see them and say "If only i could find a use for them". Not only do there themes support WordPress but some microblogging platforms like Tumblr and Posterous. Obox Designs offers 2 different licenses for there WordPress themes, Single user that costs $50 and Developer that goes for $100, the only difference is that a Developer gets a layered PSD file along with there theme.

Theme Hybrid

This is a theme framework from where you can download all the themes for no cost at all. But they do offer a payed subscription that makes you eligible for there quality tutorials and support forums. The cost for the two previously mentioned services is $25 per year, which is really cheap if you think about it.

AgentPress

I can say that this is the best Real Estate theme I have ever used. Easy to customize and manipulate to fit your needs. Even the default design of this theme is very pretty. The only thing that I dislike of this theme is the price. The theme its self costs $99.95 but if your a really basic user you can pay an extra of up to $200 to get it installed on your server along with some SEO and needed plugins.

Pro Theme Design

With only 5 themes under the belt ProThemeDesign is still well known for the simplicity and efficiency that there themes offer. All there themes have a clean and soft feel, but without leaving a side the usability and simplicity a theme should have.

WP Zoom

They started as a WordPress related blog offering occasional themes mostly premium, after some time the owners decided that they would concentrate in creating premium themes rather then content for the blog. They currently have 15 themes available. There themes are well done, I have tried the theme called "Gallery" and must say that everything looked pretty good. Only thing that i didn't like about it was the documentation. It was minimal and not that helpful. The price for a single license is $69 and for $149 you can get a developers license.

ThemeJam

A brand new company that just lunched yesterday. As of now they are offering 2 premium themes and 1 free theme. I was lucky enough to be chosen beta tester before the launch, the themes are pretty nice but they are kind of hard to customize entirely. ThemeJam offers there themes in various packs. Email templates, html & css template and of course WordPress. The prices start at $19 for email template, $29 for html and $59 for WordPress. You can get all the versions of template you wish for $99. Price isn't that high considering most companies sell there themes for $70-90. This one is really worth trying out.

Final Note

I'm aware there are way more sites to buy themes from then these 10, and I'm pretty sure you have your own different opinion for the companies mentioned in this post. But I must point out that this is how I feel about them. If you wish to express your opinion leave it in the comments so everyone knows what you feel.

Before announcing the rules and how to enter this give away lets have a quick look at there last 3 themes.

OnTheGo

Deviant

Lumin

How to participate

• Follow @Slimmity on Twitter.
• Tweet the message: "Win a 1-year subscription to ElegantThemes.com thanks to @Slimmity http://bit.ly/aj58mI".
• Comment on this post with the URL to your tweet, using a valid email so we can notify the winners.

The deadline is Friday February 5th 11:59pm GMT-4. The winners will be generated randomly by Random.org. We will announce the winners the next day after noon. Remember only one entry per person.

UPDATE: Giveaway over. You can see the winners here, thank you everyone for participating.