As I write this, my Checkmate Theme has 800 downloads and so far the feedback I’ve gotten on it has been great. The theme is and has been used on large sites and been successful and for the most part error free.
I think Checkmate is a great theme and I want to build on its frame and use what I’ve learned to improve it. I want to update the look of Checkmate and add some more functionality to the theme. This is where all you users come in.
I want to know what the people that are interested in Checkmate want out of the theme’s next version. What do you want to be able to customize? More custom widgets? More theme options? Let me know what features you would like to see Checkmate have!
News of Google Ajax Libraries API is spreading fast, and I for one welcome it. Anything I can do to speed up websites and offload files is something I’ll likely take advantage of.
They’ve recently added jQuery, and I’ve started using it with this new design. So far it is working great, but will it last? Anyone who uses Google Analytics knows that at times it can slow your page down. Although Google says this is a faster alternative to using your own server, I think the chance for slow response time is still there.
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It’s alive! And almost error free. I was never happy with the previous designs of this site, they seemed pasted together like a bad 80’s collage. So I set on the adventure to re-design my own site, something I hate doing because I always want to go in a thousand different directions.
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Designing a website is sort of like planning a large event, after a trip down the California coast to two large events I picked up on a few things. Mostly I wanted to complain, but these same complaints can be made of websites, and a few of my designs are guilty of them too.
Plan It Out
Bimmerfest, ah how I love thee. Tons of nice BMWs and even more traffic, a lot more traffic. Bimmerfest has been going on a few years now, and there is always a traffic jam. I can excuse the traffic outside the event but it is inside the event that gets my panties in a bunch. Whats this got to do with web design? Continue Reading
Design Has No Name has done some pure genius work and I could not pass up posting this. It is a packaging concept for a Beck album and I have never seen anything like it, or anything as cool. Check out all the photos.
A few days ago I posted about a new premium theme, today I show you screen shots of that theme. It’s name is Checkmate and it is a departure from all the magazine and news type themes. The theme will be in two parts a business theme and a blog theme, more details on that later.
The shots below are of the blog theme, which has entered the testing and polishing phase. Checkmate will come in several color themes, has many of theme options, is easily customized, and comes with built in widgets and ad management! The design is simple and professional but is very modern.
I also will have another wordpress related surprise coming very soon.
I’m developing yet another premium Wordpress theme(Check out Chocolate if you haven’t seen it). The theme is still in it’s infancy so I don’t want to show too much, but I will tell you it has already entered the coding phase.
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Looking around the site you may notice graphics that look like stickers or old worn paper and cloth. These are getting more and more popular as grunge starts taking over the shiny web2.0 look, and they are really easy to make. Now turn on some good music and lets get started. Continue Reading
It was a long weekend for me, to make a long story short I’ve got a fresh new install of OS X and a lot more cars in Forza 2. Not that anything went wrong, just needed to update my desktop machine to the 21rst century and relax a bit from all my coding and designing. About the time I was installing MySQL I thought I should share my development environment. While it isn’t perfect for everyone, it is a solid environment that will work for most people. Continue Reading
Update: I have decided to remove Chocolate from the market for the time being. Chocolate was designed for developers, and developers don’t need themes(that totally went over my head while creating the theme). I will re-release Chocolate in the future with an updated interface and back-end but for now I will be concentrating on other types of themes like Checkmate and free themes.
I am proud to announce that Chocolate has finally arrived! This is very exciting for me as this is my first premium wordpress theme. Chocolate is a magazine or news style theme with an advanced layout. It has a simple professional design that can be used with any type of website and several theme options to help you customize it.
Features
I’ll list a few of the many features you get with Chocolate here, but please check the extensive features list on the demo site.
- Email Support
- Four Color Themes
- 8 widget ready areas!
- Feature story carousel
- Ad management
- And much more
Who is it for?
Chocolate is developed for people with some knowledge of wordpress and web development. While anyone can use Chocolate, I believe the real beauty is in customizing it. The simple design lends itself to many possibilities for the savvy web master.
The main focus of Chocolate is content, and Chocolate can hold a lot of content. The layout is designed to hold a few main categories with several sub-categories. This is a very efficient way to organize a site and the user will be able to single out what they are interested in quickly.
Ad Management
Ad management is also a key to Chocolate. There are several ad templates included in Chocolate and more information can be found on the demo site. Placement of the the ads are handled by widgets. A bit of basic coding will be needed to get the most out of Chocolates ad management system, but nothing someone couldn’t learn in a few hours.
And the Best Part
It is only $50 for a single license and $100 for a developer license! So go check it out. And if you want to learn a bit more visit the premium themes page or contact me.
