Download WordPress 2.6 Beta 1
Finally, the first beta of WordPress 2.6 has been released, with many new features in it and is now available for download. WordPress is one of the world’s favourite blogging platform. This release won’t be as big as WordPress 2.5, but will be worth upgrading to, because of the number of interesting new features it has. WordPress 2.6 is slated for a mid-July release which will have many usability improvements including the features mentioned below.
DashPress: WordPress Theme Under Development
On WordPress’ birthday, I published a screenshot of my upcoming WordPress theme, which will be based on the new Dashboard theme of WordPress. I’m actually a big WordPress fan, and wanted to use a theme like the dashboard. But unfortunately, I didn’t found any and ended up in making one my own. The theme is very simple and clear in design and offers fresh colours that don’t go hard on eyes. Since the past few days, lots of changes have been made in it. I’m still experimenting with better fonts to match it exactly with the default Dashboard theme.
I’ve decided to name it DashPress (Dash for Dashboard, and Press for WordPress) after much brainstorming. I’ll be releasing it in a couple of weeks (or may be earlier) since I’ve got lots of other work to do as well these days. I’d suggest you to subscribe to my RSS feed to know about the latest updates on the theme.
I’ve set up a demo site for everyone to test and see what the theme will be like and let me know what you think about it. This will be my very first theme, and will be my first attempt to come out with something like this using CSS. I used trial and error method to make this theme. I’m still trying to fix as many bugs as I can. Any help, suggestions or feedback would be highly appreciated.
Demo Site: http://www.sizzledcore.com/demo/
How Would You Rate This Theme?
Help me know how much you like DashPress by leaving comments below and by casting your vote in this poll.
Embed RSS Headlines Using Google AJAX Feed API
Now with Google’s code generating tool, it’s very easy to embed RSS headlines into personal sites or at other places where JavaScript is allowed. All you have to do is choose a style, feed expression and generate the code! Can it get anymore easier? The code can be easily customized to suit your web-design, contains no ads and is a great tool for web beginners.
Choosing a style is very easy. You get to choose from three styles vertical, vertical stacked and horizontal. You can see an example of the horizontal style in the image above. In feed expression, you just add the name of the blog, and Google will find the feed for that blog itself and show you its direct feed URL. If you think that’s all what you need, press Preview button to see how it looks. Finally, when you are done with adding blogs, press the Generate Code button. You can copy/paste the code on any page where JavaScript is allowed.
Sunday Highlights – 5
Time sure flies by very quickly. Another busy week went by. I’m hoping to introduce some new stuff on Sizzled Core soon. You must have noticed the come-back of YouTube Video Downloader. Currently, that’s just for standard video. Soon you will be able to download YouTube videos at high quality in MP4 format. Interesting, eh? Subscribe to the RSS feed to keep up with the latest news on Internet, technology and of course, Sizzled Core ;)
Let’s head on to this week’s highlights now.
Windows Live Writer Gets New Features
Windows Live Writer (WLW) is one of the most widely used blog editor, and is my favourite too. In fact, this post is also being written on WLW. Yesterday, Writer Zone announced a new Technical update to Windows Live Writer which includes a number of improvements and new features. A brief listing of the features have been given below.
One of the most notable feature is the crop and screenshot feature which can now be down right from Windows Live Writer without the use of Paint or Photoshop. Another interesting feature is of visual effects i.e reflection, rounded corners etc. that can be added to our images. We can also rotate images by a custom angle in WLW now. Other features that can be found in this update are:
FeedCompare: Compare FeedBurner Subscriber Count
If you thought Alexa is the only tool from where you can compare traffic stats of site, then think again! I’ve found a new tool which lets you compare your FeedBurner subscriber count with up to 4 blogs/sites in a row. Visit the FeedCompare site, and just enter the FeedBurner feed name, or enter the FeedBurner feed URL. Then click the red “Compare” button to view the comaprison.
This tool can be very useful for bloggers who want to compare their feed readers count with other blogs or sites.
May 08 – Blog Roundup
The last time I did a roundup post was somewhere in November 2007, when my stats were dropping. But since then, a lot of things has changed. I took a 4 months break because of my exams, and then returned back at the end of April and having posting regularly since then. The stats have been pretty interesting than what they were back in November.
Now let’s kick off with this year’s first roundup post, and first begin with the best posts of the previous month. Do let me know which one you enjoyed the most.
Sunday Highlights – 4
First, I would like to apologize for my absence from my blog, without any notice, for 2 days. Actually, I recently bought a new PC and was having a few compatibility problems between my new motherboard and my Internet modem. My PC was restarting randomly without any errors. I was worried if there was any fault in the hardware, but 2 days of playing with things myself, I found the actual problem. Everything is now back to normal, and regular posts like before will resume. :)
Let’s head on to this week’s highlights now.
Coming Soon: Google Adsense For RSS Feeds
FeedBurner is finally rolling out the most-awaited feature for Google AdSense: AdSense for RSS Feeds. The rumours were on for quite some time now, and yesterday they finally announced that they will be releasing it next week.
Previously, only a few beta-tester publishers were allowed to use AdSense for RSS Feeds. But from next week onwards, all publishes will be able to enjoy the benefits of this ad-publishing program. Initially, it will be experimented with a few AdSense publishers, and then soon will be expanded for everyone.
Ad Sample
Image Source: Digital Inspiration
