Some don’t know about free hosting for WordPress blogs.  I mean, if you are in the business of designing and developing sites or you’re just savvier than the average Joe then yeah, you’ll know you can host a WordPress blog for free. However, many people don’t know about the joys of WordPress, let alone they can get their own WordPress blog with free hosting.  So here’s the perfect solution you can recommend to low budget clients … you know, the one’s you have to turn away due to budget constraints.

Photo by dotbenjamin.

"Free WordPress blog hosting makes me happeh!"

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Came across this clean bbPress theme the other day called Beer Bongs …heh.  For those of you unaware, bbPress is simple forum software by the makers of WordPress. bbPress is perfect for integrating registered WordPress blog users over to forum users with the same username and password.  It alos lead me to the most excellent stash of bbPress themes I’ve come across.

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I love the idea of portfolio management with hosted portfolios. Seriously, as a creative type, you’re busy enough … why bother worrying about all the technical hassles of maintaining your own portfolio (domain name, hosting, site design etc.) when you can just get a 3rd party to deal with it.

If you are any type of creative such as a photographer, designer, model, artist or whatever … managing your portfolio should ideally just be about managing your content.  So, with that out of the way, meet Krop’s entry into the hosted portfolio niche: The Krop Creative Database.

It’s not just their premium icon set that we like about the team over at Function … we dig pretty much everything they put their hands to.  They get what good clean design is all about and to go along with their free icons set they’ve released a sweet set of premium icons which are priced to sell.

Function has their Premium Icon set for sale at a steal for $12 and their free set which is, er free.

Go check ‘em out and tell ‘em you found them on EliteFreelancing.com.  What about you … have you got a favorite icon designer?

Some of you may already know that I’m chronic.  When it comes to projects I’ve got to have  a few on the go at any given time or I get crazy bored.  One of the newest projects I’m involved with is TopTextures.com … a site where you can download free textures for use on commercial and personal projects. Being a photoshop guy at heart, I love having good stock to work with but with sites like iStock (who’ve been jacking their prices over the last couple years) I started feeling like my wallet was getting hammered just to get a small collection of decent textures together.

So I cooked up the TopTextures.com project and put together a small team to make it happen.  The site is looking wicked and we’re almost ready to open it up for private access.  If you want free access to some killer textures you can sign up for our private beta. We’re only taking on 100 beta testers on a first come, first serve basis so if you want to add some premium stock textures to your list of creative assets, then you’ll want to sign up quick before the 100 spots are taken.

[*Results may vary. Contains no traces of peanuts.] No matter what kind of web work you do there is a small quiver of keyboard shortcuts you should memorize. Shortcuts you’ll want to use over and over and over again.  Think about it … in a single day a typical computer worker will run the same commands repeatedly; stuff like “Save” , “Undo” … right? Go with me here for a minute while we run some conservative numbers. OK, let’s assume it takes an average of 3 seconds to go mousing for menu commands that you use an average of 10 times an hour (3 seconds x 10 repetitions an hour = 30 seconds per hour).  Then times that by a 8 hour work day (30 seconds x 8 hours = 240 seconds) and you get 4 minutes for the day.

Photo by nez.

Keyboard shortcuts ... now 66% more profitable than your mouse.

Before you start thinking woopdey freakin’ doo … go ahead and multiply that 4 minutes a day by the 250 odd work days in any given year and you get: 1,000 minutes.    Now replace those mouse actions with much faster keyboard shortcuts — which I estimate are at least two thirds faster — and you’re on your way to an extra 660 extra minutes (11 plus hours)  in your life per year to spend doing something else than mousing for File > Save.

You’re welcome!

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With 2008 coming to a close in a couple of months, we’re showcasing the best free WordPress themes from around the web.  WordPress continues to go from strength to strength and the volume and quality of free WordPress themes released in 2008 is staggering.

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. Continue reading…