Performancing Themes

Treasure Theme has recently been released, but did you know that we also released several batches of upgrades for previously-released themes?

Check out the list of updated themes, which includes the following:

• Blue Laptop
• College Theme
• Gangway
• Modern Paper
• News Theme
• Nightlife
• Nitrous
• One in a Million

The latest batch includes:

• Photopress
• Redbook
• Simplicity
• ‘Tis the Season
• TDAge
• Rubidious
• Dark Laptop
• Story Theme
• Estranged

While the previous versions of the Perf Themes should work properly with WordPress 2.7 up, you won’t be able to use the advanced features like threaded comments, post classes, built-in image classes and gravatar support (where applicable). So download the latest editions now!

It has already been over a week since we released the Treasure theme on Themes.Performancing.com. If you haven’t taken a look at it yet, you’ll want to.

Treasure is a simple, two column theme that focuses on the content. Each and every blog posts is placed inside their own content box, allowing strong separation between posts. Designed by Randa Clay, Treasure is easy to use, free and beautiful. If you want to add some colour to your blog, but also want to keep things looking clean and simple, check out Treasure.

Treasure Theme is optimized for use with WordPress 2.7 and above. It supports threaded comments, post classes, image captions and gallery classes introduced in this version of WordPress.

If you’d like to download Treasure, head on over to Themes.Performancing.com where it is currently active, and get your copy today.

This brings Themes.Performancing.com to nearly twenty free WordPress themes!

We are pleased to announce the January, 2009 Performancing Themes for WordPress release: Too Newsy. A three-column theme, Too Newsy uses minimal images and earthy colors, and a few touches of elegance, contributing to that old-world feel.

The theme features widget-ready sidebars, which can accommodate several different image dimensions (suitable for button and banner ads). The theme also supports the default CSS alignment and caption classes in WordPress 2.6 and above, and it is the first Performancing Theme to support new WordPress 2.7 features out of the box:

• Threaded and paginated comments
• Post classes
• Image captions and gallery classes

Another highlight of Too Newsy is the use of the sidebar for snippets of the latest posts in a pre-defined category (which is by default the “features” category). This can be useful for bloggers who wish to highlight certain posts, such that they are not pushed down too soon by newer ones. The theme also supports gravatars out of the box.

You can see a live preview of Too Newsy here. Usage notes and download links are here.

Too Newsy is another collaboration with Splashpress Media designer Sophia Lucero, who previosuly brought us the Rubidious Theme, and various other designs in the Splashpress network.

We are now taking bids for the August 2007 Performancing Theme sponsorship. Bids start at $500.

To give you a sense of the value of a sponsorship, take our first sponsor, Fusilly T-Shirts for the Photopress Theme. That theme has only been released for about three weeks, and yet a search on the linked keyphrase “funny t-shirt” brings Fusilly up on the front page of the Google SERPS (as of this writing). That’s a relatively high-competition keyphrase placing on the front page relatively quickly.

While we can’t make any guarantees, this should be evidence that you can achieve quick results with a theme sponsorship. So let the August 2007 bidding begin.

Here’s a preview of the August 2007 theme:
http://themetest.performancing.com/

Interesting links for Wednesday Apr 9, 2008:

1. ScribeFire blog post editor, which is already incredible for streamlining blogging efforts, will have a great new feature: tabbed editing. That means that if you’re like me and tend to work on multiple posts simultaneously, ScribeFire will be an even greater productivity booster. There’s a preview release, before a general release. They’re looking for feedback before making tabbed editing available as an official feature.
2. Jason Schuller at WP Elements has just released two slick WordPress themes, VideoFlick and Video Elements. VideoFlick is a video gallery theme similar to that used on Jason’s TrailerFlick site, where the home page shows movie posters. It has a number layout and color customization options, and is available under “donationware” terms, requiring a minimum US$5.00 donation. The Video Elements theme was once called the WPE Video Gallery Theme. It’s great for when you want to present both video and text. This theme costs $25.00, and future upgrades will be free. There are links to live demos for both themes on Jason’s site.
3. Themelab has released The Transmission, also a WP theme. [via BlogPerfume] This free theme has eight different colors to choose from, and the design integrates the flickrRSS theme. There’s also space for a featured post, including an image.
4. Is this weird or what? Yahoo! is going to present Google AdSense ads beside their search results [via SEOBook]. I wonder how this is going to sync with a takeover of Yahoo! by Microsoft.
5. To have financial success as a freelancer, it’s important to separate want vs need purchases. But sometimes wants are also needs, or can be justified that way. Check out Skellie’s 12 guilt-free purchases for home offices. Gadgets tend to be one of my regular guilt purchases – when I had money – and one way to justify gadget purchases is to make sure they’re good for work tools.
6. With a number of bloggers recently landing book deals, there might be an interest for others to do the same. WEBook is a new website that offers tools for eBook writing. This includes being able to offer sampler pages, embedding the PDF file into your feed, selling to readers, and so on. NorthxEast has a detailed explanation of how the WEBook site works.
7. Zoe Marlowe writes about various online image editing tools over at Devlounge, including Adobe Photoshop Express, Picnik, FlauntR, and Kuler.
8. With bloggers and freelancers sometimes on the go, using publicly available Wi-Fi is sometimes a necessity. Samuel Dean over at Web Worker Daily offers a few tips for keeping public Wi-Fi sessions secure.
9. If you want to make the switch from a full-time salaried job to a self-employed web worker, have a look at Mike Gunderloy’s tips for funding your web work dream. Also keep an eye out at FreelanceSwitch for my article on a short savings guide for freelancers (which will be published sometime this week or early next).
10. Graphic Push gives a scathing assessment of a new “crowdsourcing” site, 99Designs. The site apparently expects that designers will submit their designs for clients to consider, and if they “win”, they’ll get paid. I haven’t visited 99Designs to get a clearer picture, but if what Graphic Push is saying is true, then this is very bad news. Designers, like bloggers, will be working hard and getting nothing in return. Consider: if 10 designers submit their design and only 1 can “win” the job, what hope is there – especially if lots of clients decide they want to pursue this model of non-payment? Blogging hasn’t gone this way – not yet.