The Transfer Tavern

Date: 9th June 2009 at 2:37 pm | Filed under: portfolio | Author: Sam Burdge

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The Transfer Tavern is a pub themed blog / site about football transfer rumours. It features two different voting systems by which readers can vote on the pluasability of each rumour, deciding whether the rumour should 'Fly or Die' and also a beer rating to decide how drunk you would have to be to believe the more outlandish rumours.

The most interesting and challenging aspect of building the site was designing and implimenting the custom voting systems. I also designed the pub style logo for the site which I am quite pleased with! If you like to keep up to date with all the latest footy rumours, or want to find out what purchases your team might be making over the summer transfer window then be sure to check it out: www.footballtransfertavern.com

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The Football Journalist - Blog Customisations

Date: 4th May 2009 at 1:00 pm | Filed under: portfolio | Author: Sam Burdge | Tags: , , ,

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The Football Journalist is a blog site aimed at people who want to become professional sports and football journalists. It features listings of sports journalism courses and jobs within the football industry.

I applied a few basic customisations to the theme, changing the background image and adding in the adsense blocks and job listings widgets. I also used a few of my favourite plugins to apply SEO to the site.

As the site is linked with FootballFanCast (one of the leading football blog and podcasting sites in the UK) I would highly recommend it for anyone who is working towards a carreer in football journalism.

Check it out: www.thefootballjournalist.com

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Zakeeya.com - Art & Photography blog sketchbook

Date: 2nd April 2009 at 9:20 pm | Filed under: portfolio | Author: Sam Burdge | Tags: , , , ,

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This simple, elegant blog was designed and built by 76 Creative (coded by me:¬)  for London based artist Zakeeya. It is powered by the Gallery Mangement feature of Admin 76, 76 Creative's custom Content Management System.

The Gallery Management system was originally intended for creating a series of galleries, rather than one huge one, so although being simple in appearance on the front end, the back end of this site still posed one or two challenges for me and allowed for improvements to be made to the CMS in the process.

Another thing I enjoyed about this site is doing a layout with a fluid width in CSS, most sites I have done are fixed width so it was interesting to change things up a bit.

I'm a big fan of simplistic / minimal websites where the content is the main focus.  Check it out:

www.zakeeya.com

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Privacy Policy

Date: 14th March 2009 at 11:30 am | Filed under: blog | Author: Sam Burdge

Privacy Policy for www.samburdge.co.uk

If you require any more information or have any questions about our privacy policy, please feel free to contact us by email at

At www.samburdge.co.uk, the privacy of our visitors is of extreme importance to us. This privacy policy document outlines the types of personal information is received and collected by www.samburdge.co.uk and how it is used.

Log Files
Like many other Web sites, www.samburdge.co.uk makes use of log files. The information inside the log files includes internet protocol ( IP ) addresses, type of browser, Internet Service Provider ( ISP ), date/time stamp, referring/exit pages, and number of clicks to analyze trends, administer the site, track user’s movement around the site, and gather demographic information. IP addresses, and other such information are not linked to any information that is personally identifiable.

Cookies and Web Beacons
www.samburdge.co.uk does use cookies to store information about visitors preferences, record user-specific information on which pages the user access or visit, customize Web page content based on visitors browser type or other information that the visitor sends via their browser.

Some of our advertising partners may use cookies and web beacons on our site. Our advertising partners include Google Adsense, .

These third-party ad servers or ad networks use technology to the advertisements and links that appear on www.samburdge.co.uk send directly to your browsers. They automatically receive your IP address when this occurs. Other technologies ( such as cookies, JavaScript, or Web Beacons ) may also be used by the third-party ad networks to measure the effectiveness of their advertisements and / or to personalize the advertising content that you see.

www.samburdge.co.uk has no access to or control over these cookies that are used by third-party advertisers.

You should consult the respective privacy policies of these third-party ad servers for more detailed information on their practices as well as for instructions about how to opt-out of certain practices. www.samburdge.co.uk's privacy policy does not apply to, and we cannot control the activities of, such other advertisers or web sites.

If you wish to disable cookies, you may do so through your individual browser options. More detailed information about cookie management with specific web browsers can be found at the browsers' respective websites.

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Bespoke theming for WordPress Arcade sites

Date: 12th March 2009 at 7:00 pm | Filed under: blog, portfolio, themes | Author: Sam Burdge | Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

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Screenshots from the new Loopy Pursuits Arcade Site.

I have recently entered the world of Arade Website webmastering and, being the WordPress geek I clearly am, have chosen WP as the management sytem to drive my arcade sites. I have developed two new plugins WP Games Embed (released) and WP Mochi (so far unreleased) and launched my first arcade site Zap Gamez.

In the past I have had a fair few jobs designing custom / bespoke themes for WordPress blogs and for sites that use WP more as a CMS. These jobs are where most of my plugins originate from, adding custom features to sites when no existing plugin is available to achieve the same functionality.

My most recent custom theme is for the arcade site Loopy Pursuits, for which the games content is also driven by my two plugins WP Games Embed & WP Mochi. The theme is incredibly simple - no sidebar or nav bar as such, 3 basic layouts - Home page, Category/Tag/Search results page & single page view where the game itself is displayed. Apart from the formatting of the comments there is nothing about the theme which suggests it is wordpress. No 'recent posts','blogroll' or 'tag cloud' or any other content that could be associated with standard WP blog design.

The theme incorporates google advertising interspersed with the content. My approach to google advertising with arcade sites is to use predominantly image ads as gaming is very visual, and image ads seem to sit better within a very image based site layout. I also use the standard approach of identifying key placements for ads, sometimes referred to as 'Hot Spots', which are normally adjacent to key areas of the page, such as navigation, main content (i.e. the game), etc.

During the development of Loopy Pursuits the WP Mochi Plugin has come a lot closer to releaseability. It still lacks an options page which it would definitely need, but it now incorporates the Mochi Leaderboard (score board) using the Mochi Publisher Bridge, it also now has the ability to add entire directories of games automatically too!

If you are interested in getting a custom design for your WordPress blog, or if you want an arcade website set up, or if you are trying to do something different / unusual with WordPress please feel free to get in touch. I would be happy to provide a quote for any such jobs. I have been working with WordPress since version 1.2 and have set up many WP blogs in that time, I have never used a theme by someone else, custom built is the only way for me!

4 Responses to “Bespoke theming for WordPress Arcade sites”

  • Comment by العاب
    Date: April 4th, 2009 at 11:16 am

    look at my site
    its an arcade power by wordpress

  • Comment by GameGag
    Date: June 8th, 2009 at 11:18 pm

    Wow what a great looking theams, please keep up your innovative touch.

  • Comment by EnjoySilk
    Date: September 18th, 2009 at 1:22 pm

    It’s so beautiful theme!

  • Comment by Frank
    Date: January 9th, 2010 at 2:13 am

    Great theme. My site looks great with this. Thanks

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