twigged.net

Great Expectations: The Morning After Wordpress Theme

In the short history of Wordpress (the open source Blog software that powers Twigged.net) there are just a hand full of themes that have left an indelible mark on the Wordpress community and some of those include: Michael Heilemann’s Kubrick and K2 themes, Chris Pearson’s Cutline theme and more recently Scott’s Sandbox theme. Of course there are many others that have gained immense popularity (including the excellent themes of Brian Gardner, one of which Twigged happens to be using) but few can boast the same development potential as these.

Now most Wordpress themes end up falling under some sort of category. Tags, categories and generally taxonomy is the bedrock of blog structures. But it does breed a type of ‘box’ logic that I sometimes find contestable. Be that as it may, the classification of Wordpress themes is usually based on the theme’s column count, so that Kubrick is a two column theme for example, while Cutline and Sandbox open up 2-3 column possibilities. But as the Wordpress blogging platform develops and grows more complex at each new update, in line with user suggestions and demands, so does Wordpress theme functionality. And while Wordpress is usually associatied with ‘conventional’ blogging such as this blog for example, there has been a parallel development in using Worpdress to power far more ambitious projects and this is typically the realm of Ezines or online magazines.

The ezine Wordpress theme category is really in a league of its own, not least because magazines using Wordpress often have to hack the coding core to distribute posts and pages in a way that rises to the layout and distribution demands of a journal but also because there are simple only a few of them around. To date, most Wordpress ezine themes have been difficult to set up and offer little in the way of customization for amateur coders. With the exception of Eston Bond’s Gridlock theme there is really only Brian Gardner’sRevolution theme, but unfortunately that is not part of the open source Wordpress adventure, since it comes with a price tag.

But then came the Morning After! The answer to the holy grail of Ezine themes! Search no more people, it has arrived! And it’s arrived from India thanks to the brilliant work of Arun Kale. Just take a peek at the comment section for the post that announces this theme (it’s being released tomorrow by the way) to get a sense of the excitement and expectation surrounding this imminent theme release, it is actually quite thrilling to watch. If Arun delivers on the semantic coding front and the theme is suitably customizable then I suspect this will easily take top position in the Wordpress hall of themes (ezine category of course!). I for one am looking forward to this. Here’s a sneak preview:

Music Maker of the Future: TENORI-ON

Designed by Toshio Iwai of Japan in collaboration with Yamaha Instruments, the Tenori-On is the latest fad in musical gadgetry to explode on the world market. There has been some talk of this being an embellished and more sophisticated version of the Nintendo DS game known as Elecktroplankton. The Tenori-on is described as “A 16×16 matrix of LED switches [that] allows everyone to play music intuitively, creating a “visible music” interface.” Rather than attempt a lengthy description of this machine, it’s far better to see it in action for yourselves. Check out this YouTube demonstration clip.

Calling America: Stories from people in little known places

Calling America is a brand new UK based site with little content at the moment, but I highlight it here because I love the concept: using stories submitted by real people from real place all across the States, the site aims to form an alternative view of life in North America to the main stream media portrayal, which frankly for most non-Americans tends to usually focus on the negative (which of in some cases is of course justified).

I’ll be watching this site closely to see what sort of contributions it gets, I’d very much like to see entries from everyday people. I think it could be quite popular if it’s kept open minded. Why not contribute a story of your own, they run an open submissions policy, so check it out!

Speaking of open submissions policies, don’t forget that we also run a similar setup here. If you’ve want to draw our attention to a cool site you run or something you’ve found on the web that rocks then don’t hesitate to get in touch via this form. Thanks.