New Themes: iTheme 2 and Bold News
If you are doing a great job on your blog and posting regularly, sometimes important posts fade away from the home page. Sound familiar? Today, we’re excited about introducing two new themes that come with a featured section for prominently displaying some of these posts.
The first theme is iTheme 2 designed by Themify, is a free theme inspired by the instantly recognizable Apple style design that is perfect for your Mac related tech blog. By activating it, iTheme 2 immediately revamps your blog to a stylish, Apple themed cool blog.
What’s great about iTheme 2 is not only the look but also its features. It offers three color schemes and a cool featured posts carousel on the home page. Go find more about the theme on its showcase page.
The second entry is Bold News, a premium theme from WooThemes. Same as other fantastic themes from them, Bold News is also packed with customizing features as well as a featured posts carousel on the home page. Get the full details on the theme showcase page. You can upgrade your blog to Bold News directly from the showcase, or from your dashboard under Appearance → Themes.
A Look at the Different Lighting Systems: Which is Most Energy Efficient?
Lights come in all shapes and sizes. If you’re a smart homeowner, you’d want to get to more about these lighting types to find out which one will be the most practical option for you. As you know, an average household spends about 25 percent of the electric bill on the lighting system. If you’re able to reduce the energy consumption of the lights through simple measures like turning off the lights when not in use or making use of sunlight during the day, you will be able to get a lot of savings. Another way is of course to make use of a smart lighting system. So what is the smartest lighting system? Before we get to that, let us first learn more about the different types of lighting systems.
Incandescent Bulbs
The first light bulb invented was the incandescent bulb designed by Thomas Edison. This was the first lighting source used in homes. These bulbs typically cost around $1 a piece so they’re quite attractive in terms of the cheap price. However, these bulbs have shorter working life. That means you’d need to replace it more often. An average incandescent bulb can work only for 1000 hours. Not only that, they are also “power hogs,” meaning they make use of great energy of about 20 to 100 watts per hour or 2 to 12 kilowatts per month. Expect to pay a hefty electric bill if you decide to go for this lighting type.
Compact Fluorescent Lamps
More popularly known as CFLs, these lamps are more expensive at $2 to $5 a piece. But that cost is offset by its energy efficiency. It uses only 25 percent of the energy of what an incandescent bulb uses to produce the same amount of light. This translates to 75 percent savings. Also, CFLs last 6 to 10 times longer than the traditional bulb. If you use it continuously, it can light up your home for 4 to 7 years. This life expectancy can even be prolonged if you avoid switching the CFL on and off frequently. If you’re not going to use a room for more than 10 minutes, turn the lamp off. So although the CFLs are more expensive on the onset, they’re the more practical choice compared to the incandescent bulb.
Light-emitting Diode Bulbs
The first thing that you’ll notice about LED lights is their incredibly high price. A piece would cost anywhere from $20 to $100. But that cost shouldn’t discourage you at all. That’s because while this is the most expensive, it is also the most practical choice both in terms of energy efficiency and life expectancy. A LED light has a lifespan of 100,000 hours. As for energy-saving capabilities, a LED light saves 80 percent on electric costs. That’s equivalent to 11 years. Even CFLs cannot match that. Unlike CFLs, they also don’t contain mercury so they are safe for the environment.
Obviously, the best choice would be the LED lights. Even though they’re quite expensive on the onset, that cost would be offset eventually when you earn the savings in electric bills and repairs and replacements.
New Themes: Modern News and Dusk to Dawn
Today, our ever-growing collection of themes grows by not one, but two with the addition of Modern News and Dusk To Dawn.
If your blog is news-oriented (or if you’re ripe to start a news blog), then Modern News, a new premium theme from StudioPress, is a great choice. Bright and stylish, Modern News offers six layout options, seven color schemes, a tabbed sidebar, and many more features. Get the full scoop on the Theme Showcase and purchase it as an upgrade for your blog.
Before I introduce our second new theme, it is important to mention that we are fond of all of our themes, even those that have been part of our collection since the beginning. However, there comes a time when themes retire after all their years in service. Today marks the arrival of that sunset period for two of our beloved classics: Dusk and Solipsus. Their successor, Dusk To Dawn, is a lovely free theme that captures the best qualities of both while introducing a unique new design that supports the latest WordPress features. We really think you’ll love Dusk To Dawn — so be sure to read about it on the Showcase.
Have fun!
Baseball Fans: Show Your Pride This Postseason with Our MLB Themes
Earlier this year we announced our partnership with Major League Baseball to bring their Fan, Modern, and Retro blog themes to WordPress.com.
Well, it’s playoff time, and we think there’s no better way to show pride in the Milwaukee Brewers, St. Louis Cardinals (go Cards!), Texas Rangers, or Detroit Tigers than by donning their colors and logo on your WordPress.com blog. It’s like a digital rally cap — no true fan should be caught without one!
Head over to the theme showcase to activate an MLB theme on your blog, or start a new blog just for this occasion, and get root, root, rooting for your favorite team!
3 Ways to Make Your Site More Visually Appealing
You guys use WordPress.com in all sorts of creative ways, documenting the adventures you take…
mikeslagter.wordpress.com
…the people you meet…
paolonovelli.wordpress.com
…the characters you create…
legomyphoto.wordpress.com
…the meals you prepare…
whenharrymetsalad.com
…and the places you live.
mcalisterium.wordpress.com
And you share a ton of amazing photographs. So be sure to show them off! Here are three tips on using photos to make your site more visually appealing:
- Upload your very own custom header image to give your site a unique look and feel. Some themes even allow you to use featured images to display different header images on specific posts and pages. For a design that’s 100% unique to you, try out the Custom Design upgrade.
- Don’t make readers squint to view your photos. Generally speaking, bigger photos are better, as long as they’re properly aligned. Check out the Get Flashy tutorial on Learn.WordPress.com for tips on aligning and resizing your images.
- If the majority of your content is image-based, consider using a photography theme that will put your photos in center stage on your site. Visit the Theme Showcase to find one that’s perfect for you.
Want to browse other awesome photo blogs? Check out Freshly Pressed and the photography tag pages.
Retro Mac Theme
It’s impossible to overstate the influence of Steve Jobs on technologists, particularly his passion for beautiful, usable products. We work harder and have higher standards because of the bar set by Apple’s experiences, and I don’t know what WordPress would look like today if not for the inspiration he gave all of us. As the shock at his premature loss has given way to a celebration of his life it’s been amazing to read all of the personal anecdotes of those lucky enough to have known him.
Yesterday one of the tributes I noticed was the website Boing Boing switched their theme to one reminiscent of the original Macintosh interface, one of the several times Jobs would make a ding in the universe through his work. It seemed fitting, and we wanted to make it available to all of you, so our theme team worked through the night and here it is:
Dress up your blog with retro, chunky-grade pixellated graphics and evoke some serious computer nostalgia. This theme is a whimsical homage to the days in black and white, celebrating the magic of Mac OS. It displays your menu items, year archives, and categories as folders and icons on the evoked desktop.
For all the memories it brings — and its throwback design — this theme has modern functionality under the hood. Create your own custom menu to replace the first set of icons in the sidebar, upload a custom header image to display below the blog title, or set a custom background. Also included are two footer widget areas and a full-width page template that drops the sidebar.
Originally created by Stuart Brown, Retro MacOS is now available in your WordPress.com dashboard. You can activate the theme there as usual, from Appearance → Themes, or directly from the Theme Showcase.
I want to leave you with two quotes:
We think the Mac will sell zillions, but we didn’t build the Mac for anybody else. We built it for ourselves. We were the group of people who were going to judge whether it was great or not. We weren’t going to go out and do market research. We just wanted to build the best thing we could build.
When you’re a carpenter making a beautiful chest of drawers, you’re not going to use a piece of plywood on the back, even though it faces the wall and nobody will ever see it. You’ll know it’s there, so you’re going to use a beautiful piece of wood on the back. For you to sleep well at night, the aesthetic, the quality, has to be carried all the way through.
And finally:
Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.
Do something great.
New Theme: Funki
It’s funky time in theme land and we are welcoming our newest addition, available for you today. Funki is a very versatile premium theme, with an artsy flare, offering customization and flexibility. It begins with four different layouts, from one column to three columns, all based on where you drag your widgets so you don’t have to set any special options, it just works.
Funki, designed by Themify, comes with different background patterns and motifs to choose from, and allows you to set a primary color which is used for links and other visual elements. Lastly, it comes with a featured post area which is easy to use: just add big featured images to your sticky posts and you are good to go.
There is still more to find about Funki, so go ahead and explore its showcase entry. You can then preview it for your blog in Appearance → Themes or purchase a lifetime subscription right away from the Theme Showcase itself.
