Wow, the time has just flown by!!! Sorry for the lack of recent code and wordpress goodness.

Firstly, I am glad to see that my WP Post Columns Plugin is still going strong!!! Although it has not been updated since 2009 it seems that it is still working (for most people at least) and the comments keep flooding in!

Many of my WordPress plugins, themes and code tutorials are now unfortunately un-supported. But they are still free, and many people add solutions and answers as well as questions in the comments. I am still working with WordPress every day, but can no longer spare the time to provide free support for free plugins and tutorials.

I have had quite a few comments from people saying that they find it hard to read white text on a black background. Some of these comments have been so strongly worded that I was unable to publish them on the site! If you really can't stand it then you could always try getting firebug addon for firefox and changing the colours however you want (yellow text on a pink background looks quite good). I probably won't be changing my theme in the near future. Also, it's probably a good idea not to get into server administration like linux / apache stuff if you don't like light text on a dark background...

Some new wordpress tutorials and goodies coming soon I promise!

A simple 5 page site built for music composition, sound design and music searches company 'little bits of mischief'. The site is built in php / XHTML and features Flash audio and video players. It's always a pleasure for me to build simple, classic designed sites. I particularly like the red, white, blue colour scheme in this design.

Check it out: www.littlebitsofmischief.com

After releasing my WordPress theme Simplistix into the wild a few weeks ago I have been very happy, and somewhat surprised by it's popularity. It has received hundreds of downloads from my site and over 700 downloads from wordpress.org in the last 12 days. I knew that there was a niche for simple, text based blog themes as I had seen a few sites such as www.plaintxt.org that are entirely devoted to these type of themes. But, with all the sophisticated and complex wordpress themes on offer, Simplistix feels like quite a humble little theme — perhaps that's part of it's charm.

Anyway, seeing the download stats made me feel curious about who was using the theme. I had already seen it being used on a couple of blogs because, as with most wordpress projects, I had received some suggestions, ideas, support requests and constructive criticisms from members of the wordpress community. I did a bit of further research on google and instantly found loads more bloggers using my theme. The main thing that struck me was the diversity of subject matter that these blogs covered – science, computer programming, economics, movies, music, art, fashion and many more. It was also nice to see instances where people had modified the theme, adding in their own site headers, sidebar widgets, google advertising, etc.

I felt so inspired by seeing all these sites using Simplistix as their theme that I decided to write this post featuring some of my favourites. So here they are:

TOP PICKS

www.flyhypersonic.com – The seatbelt sign is illuminated
www.thewherewithal.org – Blogging about credit, debt, money, economy, theory
nicolasulloa.com/blog – Music, Animation, Graphic Arts and Illustration
www.ianthewebsite.com – If you could be any blog, what blog would you be?
2chicksblogging.com – Blogging for Change Training since 2008
feedingme.com
blog.nakedsteve.com – Oh hey is that a monome?

THE BEST OF THE REST

phoward.com/blog
ponasniekas.nespalvotas.lt
www.bigtechcenter.info
www.bletherskite.com
blog.xieer.com
www.bestmusiccenter.info
www.businesstechnologytimes.com/wordpress
likeitreallymatters.com
hasibul.info/blog

I am planning an update to the theme in the near future where I will add an options menu which will allow you to control colours, fonts etc.

GETTING STARTED

1. Open a new flash document
2. Go to 'File ->Import -> Import to Stage...' (or CTRL+R) and import your logo image.
3. Move your logo to the top left corner of the stage (position 0,0)
4. Go to 'Modify -> Document' (CTRL+J) and set your document's height and width to the height and width of your logo image. Set the framerate to 12fps.

CREATING THE SHINE

1. Create a new layer above the logo layer for your shine
2. In your new layer draw a white rectangle with no outlines (about 25ph high and the width of your logo)
3. Select your rectangle and go to 'Modify -> Convert to Symbol' (F8) and choose 'Movie clip' as the symbol type, name it 'shine'.
4. Double click on your new movieclip to open it, select the rectangle again and repeat step 4, converting it into another new Movie clip, but this time name it 'rectangle'.

I have updated Lazer's site, the main change was reversing the background and text colours from white text on black to black text on white. I would say the effect is more positive than negative though

Check it out: www.lazersonic.com