I’ve been receiving a lot of emails as regards to how I made those ‘chicklet’ images on my sidebar, is it comes natively from Wordpress or something? Well, I figured it worth a writeup [a five minutes walk-through] to sharing the good things, isn’t it?

Before we’re going to accomplished something like I did, you’ll need to download Asaph and make it work, it’s no hassle to set it up, give it a try.

Please note that Asaph isn’t a plugin for wordpress in anyway, it actually is a micro-blogging system but mainly focus on images like I introduced it before, they’re running separately on your server and never share a single database… which means that we need to figure another way out to cooking them. Originally, I was inspired by this recipe, it allows you to add display any rss feed on your blog by using Wordpress native function - wp_rss. Yeah!

Call It!

I assumed that your asaph is up and running, and you already bookmarked a few images, now you need to edit your wordpress theme template. The tricky part is that we’re going to use wp_rss to call asaph’s feed, here is the complete codes, you can add where you want the rss content to be displayed (your sidebar or any other page template):

<?php // Get RSS Feed
include_once(ABSPATH . WPINC . '/rss.php');
$rss = fetch_rss('your-asaph-feed‘);
$maxitems = 24;
$items = array_slice($rss->items, 0, $maxitems);
?>
<ul>
<?php if (empty($items)) echo ‘<li>No items</li>’;
else
foreach ( $items as $item ) : ?>
<li><a href=’<?php echo $item['link']; ?>’>
<?php echo $item['description']; ?></a></li>
<?php endforeach; ?></ul>

where fetch_rss replace it with your actual feed url and $maxitems means how many items that you wanted to show, you can change the value you like. That’s it. yeah, it’s that simple.

More tweaks

since it works now it’s time for styling it, within CSS tweaks you can give it a nice looking, show your magic. It will be great if use some lightboxed effect, personally I use fancybox to visualized it in a better way. good luck!

I’d like to give a big thank you to my friend benhero who is an amazing ruby code ninja, he helped me on the codes and took me out of the fire

• Web app-like gReader skin
• viki.eggin theme
• Theme eyeball
• The conception of new theme
• Styled button with sliding doors
• SPAN Your First Letter
• Slide showcase
• PNGs Smilies for Wordpress

Asaph is not a full blown blog and it does not aim to be one – it just does this one task, but it’s pretty good at it.

It comes with a bookmarklet, click-to-post function that you can easily drag it up to your brower’s (a real browser, not IE) bookmarks bar, within a few mouse clicking you’ll have your own collection to share with your friends.

Get it up and running will basically require PHP5 enabled on your own server, before to give it a try you can watch a five minutes screencast to see how it actually works, for more information and download, please check Asaph project’s page.

I’m already launched my personal bookmark, you can check it out, perfect!

• Wordpress Image Roll
• Vista extra wallpapers
• viki.eggin theme
• Vector Logos: download for free!
• Try something new!
• The conception of new theme
• Templateworld, web design templates
• Styled button with sliding doors

A few months ago I’ve released 2-3 free themes: Resurrection and Infinity and so – I’m glad you like them. You guys probably complain a lot about the lacking of no widgets, buggy etc. Many people wrote me asking for a little help on such things, I’m terribly sorry that I can’t reply each one of you, but I can promise one thing:

As a vivid Wordpress enthusiast myself, I took a serious consideration on revamp them soon – take them to premium design level, and still free for everyone.

Some new features

• Widget ready
• No plugins required (hopefully)
• Some jQuery stuff

Will be improved

• Wordpress 2.7 natively compatible
• New structure and CSS (grid)
• New design elements (background and icons)
• Original PSDs included
• A easy-to-follow guide

I’ll getting started with revamp work as quick as I can (probably starting this weekend), so stay tuned and happy Chinese New Year to all of domestic readers!

• Wordpress Image Roll
• Wordcamp 2007 Beijing
• What’s wrong with Chinese blogger?
• Web Trend map
• Web Templates: Dreamtemplate
• Vista sucks! I’m re-installing my system now.
• viki.eggin theme
• Unboxing my new Sony laptop

Don’t forget to look around another excellent collection via Flickr. btw, you can also try to engrave something on your lid cover.

• WP Theme: Vikiworks V5 theme
• WP Theme: Resurrection
• WP theme: Infinity
• Wordpress Image Roll
• Web Templates: Dreamtemplate
• viki.eggin theme
• V5 Enhanced.
• Try something new!

Visualscope.com is a web design company based in Seattle, US. The core business is developing custom and fully interactive web sites as well as services range from custom web designs, application development, web hosting, CMS, website maintenance and internet online marketing services. Check out the design portfolio and case studies by the way.

Being environmentally conscious is of paramount importance to us. As a result, we have implemented eco-friendly measures that we hope will make a difference. Some initiatives include allowing all of our core employees to telecommute. By not having a traditional office space, cutting down on transportation reduces greenhouse and emission gases. Paper printing is kept to an absolute minimum and we strive to ensure energy usage is kept at a reasonable level.
Visualscope Work Philosophy

If you’re looking for a local agent to help you on the projects, it’s worth to call them and have a try out, I’m sure that with their expertise and highly skilled designers will make your project stand out.

• WP Theme: Vikiworks V5 theme
• WP Theme: Resurrection
• WP theme: Infinity
• viki.eggin theme
• V5 Enhanced.
• Try something new!
• The conception of new theme
• Styled button with sliding doors

No matter you’re concern about the theme issue or offer me any job opportunity, if you don’t get my reply (normally I reply you all), please post here since my contact form plugin doesn’t work nicely.

If you ever sent me a message after 28 August, your message probably missed. Please do NOT use my contact page! You can also send me direct message by follow up my twitter, I’ll keep you posted.
Sorry for this mess!

• No related posts.

Unfortunately, we’re not cool enough to run on your OS yet. We really wish we had a version of Photosynth that worked cross platform, but for now it only runs on Windows…

So I thought it might be the browser jammed or something so I’ve give it another shot with Safari. Oops! The same. I guess eventually die-hard Mac users have to wait for … arhhh, it’s always hard to estimate things like this, isn’t it?

• Web app-like gReader skin
• Safari: where is your Go button?
• Photorganizr: another flickr style photo service
• Oops! Illustrator CS3 Crashed while Print Spooler service turned off
• Norton Antivirus 2007 for Vista
• Microsoft released Zune theme
• Microsoft Firefox
• Make your vote for webware 100

Here are some features I’d like listed as below for a quick view:

• Turnkey websites templates
• PHP Scripts
• Corporate Indentification (CI) included
• Banner packs

If you are starting up your own home business, built2go.com is the best option for you, because by just downloading and installing one of their packages, you are up and running in just a few minutes, and because built2go turnkey websites let you sell products, sell memberships, sell your own advertising, or show google adsense banners, you can start making a lot of money right away. Some of the instant business types they offer include review websites, rate my photo websites, news portal blogs, classified ads, personal ads, car dealer listings, dating sites, and many more!

Built2go.com also provides various template designs for each type of script, and you can access their entire membership section with hundreds of options for only $69.95. Built2go is great choice for a limited budget and home business project and it’s ready for use instantly, which means the only thing you need to worry about is which template you will download and apply it to your current project.

Besides templates and scripts, member access also includes the benefits of the free coporated Indentification (CI), banners ad packs and more. If you’re struggling with your design and figuring a way out to make it work instantly, now it’s time to visit Built2go as a consideration of your upcoming project.

• WP Theme: Vikiworks V5 theme
• WP Theme: Resurrection
• WP theme: Infinity
• viki.eggin theme
• V5 Enhanced.
• Try something new!
• The conception of new theme
• Styled button with sliding doors

Download Now

Get the Infinity theme (v1.0.1, total 8586 downloads)

Change log

V1.0.1 includes:

• WP Page template included
• Top navigation revamped (now it work with your pages list)
• Blogroll links

Installation and Configuration

It really doesn’t get much easier than this, extract the contents and upload the whole ‘theme’ folder to your wp-content/theme directory, and you can name it whatever you like. Copy all plugin(s) into wp-content/plugins directory and active them via WP admin.

1) Add a page content - Log into WP admin, Write > Page, hit the save and publish and this will reflect on the top navigation menu.

2) Change the del.icio.us Feed - Edit left.php, line #24:
src="http://feeds.delicious.com/v2/js/yichi?count=8&sort=date”
replace yichi with your own delicious id, count=8 where you can change how many items you like to show.

3) Change the number of display posts in home - simply go wp admin, settings > reading > Blog pages show at most: where enter the number (the default value is 10)

====================================

Thanks Smashing Magazine for featuring and publish Infinity theme for wordpress. As you might see that Infinity theme was actually based on my current theme layout, please visit Smashing Magazine for a quick preview and download.

Some guide you might need before using this theme:

Using Custom Field to custmize the post style

As Infinity theme requires to use the feature of Wordpress custom filed, here I will show you how to enable that magazine cover style by simple add key value to custom filed:

1) Once you’re about finishing your post and BEFORE you press ‘publish’ button, scroll down your page to Custom field, where you can enter a new keyword and value

Key: thumbnail
Value: enter your photo path
(you can either upload a image and copy its path directly or link to your flickr album. And for a better result, please sizing your photo to 235*150 pixels), then hit ‘Add Custom Field’ button, wordpress will save this field, and you can edit it at later. It’s that easy!

2) then publish it and go check the update you’ve just made, if everything goes fine, your frontpage will show thumbnail style covers.

I hope you all can enjoy this theme as much as I created, any comments and questions about this theme are always welcome, I’ll try my best to help you out. Since Smashing Magazine publish it yesterday, I already received over 70 emails concerns about this theme, I’ll reply to all of you asap.

Updates

Thanks so much for all encouraging comments, and here I listed a few issues that you might want to modify, meanwhile I’m working on an update to ensure all these can be fixed.

1) How can I remove the favicon?
Open header.php and located to line #6, replace that <link rel=”shortcut icon”… url with your own.

2) Create a page template
Create an individual page please refer http://codex.wordpress.org/Pages, and I will add a page template in the next update.

3) How do I edit the twitter
Edit left.php, line #7
http://twitter.com/statuses/user_timeline/***.json?callback=twitterCallback2&count=1
replace *** with your twitter id - count=1 means how many message, change it to 2,3 and so on.

4) Change the RSS
Open header.php, line #34 simply replace the feedburner url with your own RSS feed.

5) Change the top menu
The top menu items are designed to modify manually, but you still can replace them with wp page navigation, open header.php and locate line #29
<ul class=”topnav”>
<li><a href=”<?php echo get_settings(’home’); ?>/” title=”Return to Frontpage”>01. Home</a></li>
<li><a href=”http://vikiworks.com/” title=”About”>02. About Me</a></li>
<li><a href=”http://vikiworks.com/” title=”Contact”>03. Contact</a></li>
<li><a href=”#main-wrapper” title=”Contact”>04. Skip to content</a></li>
<li class=”rss”><a href=”http://feeds.feedburner.com/vikiworks” title=”Subscribe RSS”>RSS</a></li>
</ul>

repleace blue color highlighted code with
<?php wp_list_pages(’title_li=’); ?>

For details on page navigation, please refer to Wordpress Codex. This theme requires Page navi plugin installed to enable the page navigation, please get one from here.

• Vista extra wallpapers
• Vector Logos: download for free!
• Try something new!
• Theme eyeball
• Styled button with sliding doors
• SPAN Your First Letter
• Slide showcase
• Showcases to being inspired

Templateworld, actually it has told the whole story by the name itself. Within over 40 different web 2.0 styled template categories to choose from, instant access enabled once you’re signed up for membership for just $49.95, it definitely can be your major premium resource basement for web site templates design. Go visit the website and browsing around all the stunning design templates, I’m sure you’ll totally satisfied with the quality and styles. In case you’re interested, lets take a look at few eye candy samples.

Templateworld also features:

• No per product fees
• Easy to use web design templates
• Wordpress, Joomla ready-to-use themes
• Flash and logotype templates
• Maximum compatibility for all modern browsers and platforms
• Affiliate program, 30% commission

and much more await you to exploring

If you’re looking for premium quality design for your upcoming project, or maybe you just want your website or blog revamping, I’m sure that you already spent a lot of time, searching on the web, wrote a ton of emails to looking for some offshore designers… now stop looking around, try templateWorld and bookmark it, get ready to roll out.

• web2.0 logo collections
• Web2.0 collection in Digital World from Taiwan
• Web app-like gReader skin
• Try something new!
• Theme eyeball
• Social Bookmark Iconset: Part II
• Social Bookmark Iconset
• Showcases to being inspired

here are listed some sample templates:

After you join up with BoxedArt, all of your downloads are free, so you do not need to keep paying for designs, so it basically as good as a free template site from the perspective of cost, however all of their templates are designed by professionals only, and they are also validated designs, often enhanced with flash, logos, and more, giving you better choices than going with free templates.  What I like more is that BoxedArt also provides print templates for stuff like brochures, menus, t-shirts, as well as goodies like mascots and vector icons and dozens of other stuff to use in projects.

I chose to share this because I thought BoxedArt’s template offer is the most generous of any template site I found anywhere.  What is also very cool is that BoxedArt has limited edition and exclusive templates too, so from their site you could be the only person to use a design if that is important to you.

• Wordcamp 2007 Beijing
• What’s wrong with Chinese blogger?
• web2.0 logo collections
• Web app-like gReader skin
• Vista sucks! I’m re-installing my system now.
• Vector Logos: download for free!
• Unboxing my new Sony laptop
• Tintin coming to silver screen

• Vista extra wallpapers
• Vector Logos: download for free!
• Try something new!
• Theme eyeball
• Styled button with sliding doors
• SPAN Your First Letter
• Slide showcase
• Showcases to being inspired

After play with it in a while, some games were a bit sluggish and some completely not loaded… since they’re old games and at no charge, we can’t expect more. If you’re a super fan of the mushroom guy ‘mario’, you can’t missed it.

Update: for some reasons Wordpress extensions no longer work, here is official link from author, get it here.

• WP Theme: Vikiworks V5 theme
• WP Theme: Resurrection
• WP theme: Infinity
• Web Templates: Dreamtemplate
• Web app-like gReader skin
• Vista extra wallpapers
• Vector Logos: download for free!
• V5 Enhanced.

At the very first second of Steve Jobs announced iPhone 3G and I was stunned to it’s priced as low as $199 start, I’m sure that many of 1st gen iPhone users [especially in China] started to panic… well, don’t be!

3G coverage in China = Zero.

Firstly lets just talk about the networking service in China, from what I’ve read that a) we don’t have 3G coverage yet, while China Mobile (中国移动) struggling with that proprietary TD-SCDMA or whatever, however it still waiting for approval, and I was wondering b) whether the upcoming iPhone 3G will be compatible in China if it’s unlocked?

This is a significant problem and we can’t solve it by ourselves unless Apple has made a deal with the operators or government, which I’m sorry to say, remains an unattainable dream.

Is it worth?!

Besides the network issue, lets get back to iPhone 3G itself, I was expected to spending money on something some improved features that I could use, once again, it failed me!

• It coated with some plastics instead of Aluminum
• It came with retained 2.0 mega pixels camera (which I hate it)
• Still no video record capability?
• No SIM card eject tool

…

Will I buy it instantly? The anwser is NO! So far I’m happy with my 1st gen iPhone so I’ll probably stick with it. What about you?

• No related posts.

From time to time, we’re searching for a vary kinds of web templates (both free & paid) for personal and business uses, within spend a few bucks and mouse clicks you’ll saving time and money to achieve the very first step of your online goal by presenting people a well-designed, customizable front face.

Dreamtemplate is one of the dedicated templates provider, with over $2,000,000+ worth of website templates available for download, is that pretty cool? They also has a bunch of well-designed teamplates are abusolutely FREE, check these out! Trust me, you don’t want to missed it!

• web2.0 logo collections
• Web2.0 collection in Digital World from Taiwan
• Web app-like gReader skin
• Vista extra wallpapers
• Vector Logos: download for free!
• Try something new!
• Theme eyeball
• Showcases to being inspired

Here listed items (wishlist) are what I want to add or get improved on the next release:

1. More skins (current gray one is great, however I want something different)
2. Searching (a MUST!!!)
3. Buddy list (easily to browsing around)
4. Always run in background (uncless I log off manually)
5. Use iPhone’s photo album
6. LocatedMe with map+dropin enabled (Sounds cool?)

Twinkle is really worth a try if you’re on iPhone, the current version is 0.75 (via twitter), I hope it can suprise me on the next release - sounds like it should be comes out any moment!

• No related posts.

19日至21日为全国哀悼日, 深切哀悼四川汶川地震遇难者!

Three days of national mourning was declared by China, for the earthquake victims. In efforts to rescue the victims from the debris have turned bleak on Sunday. It has been stated that more than 50,000 people might have been killed in the ghastly earthquake and about 2,20,000 people suffered injuries during the incident.

The three-day mourning period will commence from Monday and a three-minute silence will be observed across the country at 2.28 PM (local time) the time at which the earthquake originally stuck.

• No related posts.

V5 theme was actually based on my previous theme, if you’re following my resurrection theme you’ll know that making a theme wasn’t easy for me, after spent sometime and a few rounds fighting with codes, removed any improper stuff now here it comes. Take a look at this snapshot below:

Approx. 900KB (total 21055 downloads)
Bonus PSDs pack Approx. 2MB (total 5463 downloads)

Changed log

- 15 July, 2008 Fixed the Flickr issue (on IE6/7)

Some features included

- An easy to navigate slideshow
- Flickr and delicious enabled
- PSD format source file
- Work with WP 2.5

To avoid getting any errors, please make sure that you have the following plugin(s) installed before activate this theme:

- Flickr RSS
- Del.icio.us JS
- Get recent comments
- Simple tags
- Twitter tools
- WP-Pagenavi
- WP lightbox 2 (Optional)

If you like/hate it, please let me know. I’m actually thinking of something simple and clean that can be suitable for the most bloggers, any comments are welcome.

• Vista extra wallpapers
• Vector Logos: download for free!
• Try something new!
• Theme eyeball
• Styled button with sliding doors
• SPAN Your First Letter
• Slide showcase
• Showcases to being inspired

Here is a tiny sample will show how to decorate the first letter of text, make it bigger and stand out by simply using <span> tag. First lets take a look at the following:

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Quisque sed felis. Aliquam sit amet felis. Mauris semper, velit semper laoreet dictum, quam diam dictum urna, nec placerat elit nisl in quam.Mauris semper, velit semper laoreet dictum.

The first letter has defined with large size and improved readlibility. Lets see how easy to make it work, add the following codes to your CSS style file:

.bigletter {color:#333;display:inline;float:left;font:3.6em Georgia,arial;text-transform:uppercase;margin:0.07em 0.14em 0 0;}

Now use <span> tag to define the text to make it work, the markup as following:

<span class="bigletter">L</span>orem ipsum dolor sit... ...

It’s done, pretty easy. I’ll keep sharing more tricks down the road.

• WP Theme: Vikiworks V5 theme
• WP Theme: Resurrection
• WP theme: Infinity
• Wordpress Image Roll
• Web app-like gReader skin
• viki.eggin theme
• V5 Enhanced.
• Try something new!

Downloaded: 3782 times.

I have spent a couple of hours to imitate it with Photoshop, now here is the final icon, pretty cool uh? If you’re also an amateur or fans, grab it and enjoy…

Imitation tools:
Adobe Photoshop
Diet coke
A pack of cigarettes…

• Vista extra wallpapers
• viki.eggin theme
• Vector Logos: download for free!
• Try something new!
• The conception of new theme
• Templateworld, web design templates
• Styled button with sliding doors
• SPAN Your First Letter