Photo by aheram.

"Dude are you freakin' deaf? I said Wordpress ... not shoulder press!"

This makes 2008 another epic year for Wordpress users who have more free themes, plug-ins, hacks and fellow users to draw upon than ever before.  Why are these 413 themes the best? Simple … because they were hand picked by some of the top web design and development blogs on the planet then tagged, bookmarked and shared by tens of thousands of people across the major social networks.

16 Free Premium Wordpress Themes That Don’t Suck
- at HongKiat

Sixteen free premium themes Wordpress rounded up by Hongkiat.

100 Excellent Free WordPress Themes
- at Smashing Magazine

An impressive list of 100 themes compiled by the guys at Smashing Magazine.

45+ Must See WordPress themes
- at Noupe

Noupe comes to the party with 45 themes they dig (single “g”).

Top 50 free Wordpress themes
- Crazy Leaf Design

Crazy leaf hits us with 50 themes to choose from.

83 Beautiful Wordpress Themes You (Probably) Haven’t Seen
- at SmashingMagazine

Smashing Magazine is at it again. 83 themes in one sweet stash.

45+ Free Premium WordPress Themes with Magazine or Grid Layouts
- at WP Zoom

Interesting selection of 45 odd themes at WP Zoom.

30 Free High Quality Wordpress Themes
- at Smashing Magazine

Do the guys at Smashing Magazine love Wordpress or what?

21 Mindblowing Premium-Like Free Wordpress Themes
- Smashing Apps

Smashing Apps rounds up 21 themes for review.

20 More Free First-Class Wordpress Themes
- Smashing Magazine

Only 20 this time from Smashing Magazine. They must of been tired that day.

Photo by pearbiter.

"Umm God ... so aah ... which logo do you want to go with?"

To me, that’s very interesting. I mean think about it; unlike prolific brand marks of our times like the Nike swoosh or the Apple apple, some of these religious symbols have been in circulation for centuries if not thousands of years.  Lets take a look at some of these brand marks … those belonging to religions big and small, old and new.

Bahai Faith

• Founded: 19th century
• Favored branding: 9 pointed star

Relative new comer to the business of religion is the Bahai Faith.  The Bahai seem to use a few symbols when branding their organization — yet supposedly favor above all — a 9-pointed star.  Word has it the itself star isn’t part of the Bahai teachings but used simply to represent the number “9″ due to the Bahai associating the number 9 with perfection, unity and Baha (an Arabic word for “glory” or “splendor.”)

Buddhism

• Founded: Approx. 544 BC
• Favored branding: Bhudda himself

Bhuddism is one of the world’s oldest major religons and has a reported 376 million practicing followers. Like most religions, Bhuddist also have many symbols, however the preferred one  Bhudda himself, a man which Buddhists believe was an “awakened teacher”.  Depiction of the Bhudda ranges from a serious yet serene looking figure to a jolly, chubby fellow sitting comfortably in simple robes with his big belly showing. Since their are no best practices for depicting Bhudda, I’ve opted to show him as a silhouette to reflect because he comes in so many shapes!

Christianity

• Founded: 1st century
• Favored branding: Cross

This one needs no introdcution.  Early on in Christianity, the cross superseded the Ichthus (commonly known as the “Jesus Fish”) as the predominant device used for branding Christianity.  The cross represents the crude, wooden structure upon which Jesus was killed.  The Christian cross is arguably one of the most recognized symbols on the planet. With the Nike swoosh hot on it’s heels!

Judaism

• Founded: Approx. 1300 BC
• Favored branding: Magain David

The oldest of the Jewish symbols is the Menorah, a seven-branched candelabrum (candle stick) used in Jewish temples.  In recent times, the Magain David (commonly known as the Star of David) is the symbol most commonly associated with Judaism.  Jewish teachings link this star to the “Seal of Solomon”, a magical ring used to control demons and spirits; as well as linking it to a magic shield owned by King David. In modern times, the star has been used as the favored branding device by Jewish Communities and by Israel itself, which features is on the national flag.

Hinduism

• Founded: Unknown
• Favored branding: Aum

There are ten important symbols in the Hindu faith but Aum, (also written and pronounced “Om” and also known as pranava) is the most dominant of all the Hindu symbols. Hindus believe that the prolonged intonation of the Om sound is associated with the primeval sound from which the universe was created.  It is also believed that the sound contains “all things”. The Om symbol is the favored device used for branding all things Hindu … and loads of products found in smoke shops.

Islam

Featured on the flags of many Islamic nations, the most well know symbol of Islam is the star and crescent. Although the most widely recognized Islamic symbol, its origins apparently aren’t so much Muslim as they are Ottoman.  The Ottoman turks ruled a massive area which encompassed many Muslim nations so they pretty much had the final say.

Rastafarianism

• Founded: 1930s
• Favored branding: Lion

Rastafarians are also comparative new comers.  This religion believes in both Jesus Christ and Haile Sellaise I (former Emperor of Ethiopia) as incarnations of God, which they call Jah.  Rastas use the lion as their preffered brand mark because Jesus was described as “the lion of Judah” in the Bible and it was also the symbol of Haile Sellaise I.

Scientology

• Founded: 1950s
• Favored branding:

Newest of all the religions on our list is Scientology which was founded in the 1950s by American science fiction author L. Ron Hubbard. The main device used by Scientologists is an “S” with two triangles called the “ARC triangle” and the “KRC triangle”.  The points on the lower triangle are said to represent “Affinity, Reality and Communication” while the points on the upper triangle are meant to represent “Knowledge, Responsibility and Control”.

Taoism

• Founded: 722 BC
• Favored branding: Taijitu

Almost everyone is familiar with the Taijitu, or “yin and yang” symbol of Taoism. This is the preferred symbol Taoist organizations use for branding. The symbol makes a backwards “S” shape and has even been used by the famous Town & Country surf company. Taoists use the symbol to represent how opposing forces are bound to each other, intertwined and interdependent; each giving rise to each other in turn.

Authors note: The bulk of the information, dates and statistics gathered for this article was attained from Wikipedia.

The Wordpress Magazine - www.thewpmag.com

My friend (and fellow Wordpress nut) Steve recently launched his new site which reports on all things Wordpress.  Highly active in #wordpress irc channel, and it’s because of people like Steve that the Wordpress project is so vibrant.  He and many others like him can be found assisting people with their questions about Wordpress.  Stuck on some PHP?  Wondering what that plugin is you saw on a site? You’ll find your answers floating around in the #wordpress channel.

To go along with the launch of his new site, Steve is running a competition that you Wordpress fans will be interested in.  The contest is this: submit a static design, and if your design wins, Steve will slice and dice it into a fully working Wordpress theme.  Like all contests, there are a few conditions so boogie on over to thewpmag.com and check it out.  Special thanks to Steve for featuring yours truly for his first interview.

Angel

For those you you fond of neutrals, Angel is offers you a low contrast look that can be used for many different purposes.

Angel - Free Wordpress Theme

Demo Angel | Download Angel

DailyPress

DailyPress will impress you with it’s well organized layout and visual hierarchy. The sizing and weight of the elements all work well together and give this theme a well balanced aesthetic.

DailyPress - Free Wordpress Theme

Demo DailyPress | Download DailyPress

Statement

Statement is true to it’s name.   This theme looks like a  serious  — and simpler — incarnation of DailyPress.  It has an easy yet somewhat utilitarian look about it.  A good fit for sites wanting to lean their aesthetic on the serious side.

Statement - Free Wordpress Theme

Demo Statement | Download Statement

All of these themes are designed and developed by Jai over at BlogOhBlog who’s obviously worked hard to release these and many more to the Wordpress community.  If you glance back at this blog, you can really see his workmanship maturing over time.  This is one theme author to keep an eye one. If you like the look of his stuff here on EliteFreelancing.com, swing by his site and and say hello!

Bright! A free icon set with vectors included. Yum.

Today, it’s 338 free icons contained in three different sets. One set in particular stands out for it’s workmanship, the sheer number of icons and the fact that the designers provide the vectors as well.  Oh man, we love when the vectors are provided.

It all starts with Bright!, 148 free icons which packs in quantity and quality into one solid set.  Bright! comes with bitmaps and vectors which makes it a must get for any web developer. Download it and to your stash.

More free high quality icons from Icon Eden.

Next up are two other icon sets which aren’t quite on par with Bright! yet still easily deserve a mention.  These are the Fresh Addon and Milky sets which are also available for free download.

kudos to the guys at Icon Eden for making these icons available.

Photo by Krikit.

Special places, both real and digital, will get you charged up again.

Whether it’s website design, Wordpress powered sites, logos or icons you should have some default go-to resources you can put into play when your own creativity runs dry. Here are some great resources to kick start your creativity…

WeLoveWP.com

Crazy about Wordpress?  You’re in good company at this site.  A gallery of site designs dedicated to people just as nuts about Wordpress as you are. WeLoveWP.com picked up Editor’s Choice for best web gallery on the strength of it’s design, the quality of the sites featured and for showing the world how people are pushing an open source platform like Wordpress to the limits.

Logopond.com

Logopond is one killer site when it come to identity inspiration. The amount of talent flowing through this site is astounding. If you ever need to brush up against any kind of brand development, head on over to Logopond and hang out for a little while. LogoPond.com picked up Editor’s Choice for pixel perfect execution (the site is beautiful), an active community and for high caliber content.

CSSRemix.com

A wicked grid of cropped homepages that you can quickly screen and view. CSSRemix makes it nice and easy to get a fix modern web design.

Gallerific.com

Clean and easy to access, Gallerific showcases Wordpress powered sites, logo design concepts, CSS based websites and icon illustrations.

Faveup.com

Fully cool.  Faveup features easy to browse creativity in the following categories: web design, logos, business cards, flash websites.

Fontfeed.com

For you typeface addicts who are also into logo design, Fontfeed.com has a list of web 2.0 logos along with the fonts used in each one.

Go2web20.net

A directory first, Go2Web20.net displays by it’s entries by logo and proves to be a visually impressive grid of brands all in one space.

Flickr: Business Card Photo Set

Need a business card?  Need to design one for a client? The designs in this set of photos over at Flickr will spark some ideas.

Intersmash.com

A series called “300 Images from 1800 Sites” comprises a compilation of the smaller icons in our lives. This is a great collection of which features icons for arrows, comments, shopping cart, bullets and all the utlititarian icons which generally get no love but that we’d all dearly miss if they weren’t around.

Brandsoftheworld.com

Not the prettiest site around, Brandsoftheworld.com is a worthy resource when you’ve just got to have that Nike logo in vector format. A worthy addition to the quiver of any developers bookmarks.

Flickr: Vintage Logos Set

Need to get some retro juices flowing daddy-o? This photo set on Flickr is a gallery of logos from the mid 70s and features loads of great marks to help you get groovy.

CSS-Website.com

Like many of it’s competitors, CSS-website.com showcases a good variety of modern websites in an easy to access gallery.  Worth a visit and a bookmark.

LogoLounge.com

Some excellent inspiration and commentary to be found at LogoLounge.com. Of particular interest is their Current Logo Trends article by Bill Gardner.

BestWebGallery.com

Another excellent gallery of modern websites with a rollover view that makes it easier to view larger versions of their thumbnail matrix.

The Big Blue Room

Photo by lisas_photos.

Take some time for yourself outside.

No, it’s not a dot com.  The big blue room is right outside your door.  Take a break and head for a green space like a local park or trail. Spend some time amongst nature and get let the digital buzz of life melt away for a little while. You’ll either start to feel relaxed, inspired and think more clearly - or - you’ll get bored.

Either way you’ll look forward to getting back to your work even after a short break away from it all.

“Installation Failed” or “Cannot download update from http://downloads.wordpress.org/”

You might try going to your host and making sure CGI support is enabled.  I’m not sure if this is a must for the automatic upgrade plugin feature in Wordpress to actually work, however, enabling CGI worked for me when recently encountering these errors.

Naturally double check your FTP username and password are correct and relax the CHMOD permissions on /wp-content/upgrade folder.

Photo by darkpatator.

You can still find a decent domain name ... without going crazy.

Then get red in the face as you repeat this search process a hundred times attempting to find a name that isn’t complete gibberish and/or 5 words long. Next time you’re in the market for a domain name, check out this crop of domain name generators and search tools that that will make your life way easier.

BustAName.com

BustAName.com - Domain name generator

Whoever is behind BustAName.com deserves a small shiny statue made of precious metals. BustAName makes you feel like you are always making progress towards an available name, which almost makes the process fun.  Web usability guru Steve Krug once observed that we humans tend to “muddle through” the web — and we actually don’t mind doing so — so long as we feel we are making progress towards our intended goal.  BustAName will quickly give you that sense of moving forward towards a decent and available domain name as you creatively muddle through all the ones that are already taken.

Visit BustAName.com

MakeWords.com

MakeWords.com - Powerful domain name generator

MakeWords.com is almost as impressive and powerful as BustAName and it only took second by a hair due to a lack of any realtime searching features.  MakeWords took a slightly different approach is a very powerful tool for quickly generating and screening domain names.  This tool can save you hours of your time and help you get into a domain name sooner rather than later.

Visit MakeWords.com

InstantDomainSearch.com

InstantDomainSearch.com - Real time domain searching

This site isn’t a generator but it made the list because it makes old school domain name searching look about as useful as a pair of flip-flops at the running of the bulls.  Trust me, go on and try InstantDomainSearch.com for a couple of searches and you’ll see what I mean; this thing freakin’ rocks.  From a technical point of view, it’s brilliantly executed and an impressive display of modern searching techniques in action. You can even switch modes to a secure search if yer feelin’ a little p’noid.

Visit InstandDomainSearch.com

Web 2.0 Name Generator

Web 2.0 Name Generator

The people behind this generator obviously have a sense of humor.  Not so much a domain search engine as it is a word gen, Web 2.0 Name Generator can help get your mind exploring different avenues you might not otehrwise consider on your own steam. Tambuu anyone?  What about Gabcube?  They don’t promise any of the names will be available, but the stuff this tool comes up with is fun and definitely valuable for sparking new ideas.

Visit Web 2.0 Name Generator

Got a favorite tool when it comes to cookin’ up or searching for domain names? Leave us a note in the comments.

• Log into your Wordpress admin
• Go to Design > Themes
• Switch / activate any other theme than your current one (I just use the Default)
• Go to Write > Post (as if you are about to write a new post)
• You should see the GUI for the editor restored and be able to switch between Visual and HTML modes once more
• Go back to Design > Themes and reactivate your desired theme

If that doesn’t work … I have NFI.

What I initially was going after was a main menu that utilizes the ever popular Sliding Doors technique. In the end I opted for something simpler due to the way it looks. However, since I finally found a great article on how to incorporate tags into wp_list_categories, I wanted to give it a mention here for others to find.

The article is by Jean-Baptiste Jung called CSS Techniques: Using Sliding Doors with Wordpress Navigation.

Nice one Jean.