Typominima WordPress Theme: Typography meets Minimal
So thrilled to announce yet a new quality freebie here on Blogsessive. Meet Typominima, a free typography based, gorgeous, minimal WordPress theme fit for the writer inside you.
If you’re looking for a free theme to help you put the content in spotlight, without worrying about it being suffocated by advertising space and unnecessary design blign, than Typominima is the perfect free WordPress theme for you.
The purpose of this theme is to enable writers and publisher to express themselves online in a clean and beautiful environment. You can check out the theme features and also a series of posts containing sample styling for the most common elements you’ll need on your blog before you download Typominima.
Typominima Preview & Download
Head over to the Typominima DEMO site to view it in action and learn more about its features.
And of course, you can download it for free here: Download Typominima (v1.0)
Note: Please do not link directly to the file if you wish to promote this theme. Link to this post instead. Thank you!
Twitter button WordPress plugin
Since Twitter is yet to offer an alternative to those less savvy with code implementation, I’ve decided to offer you a WordPress plugin to help you include the official Twitter Tweet button in your blog posts. Download the plugin and from this point on, it’s all as easy as 1-2-3.
Current plugin version: 1.1
Supported WordPress versions: Most recent. Pre-3.0 versions not yet tested.
Click here to read the full blog post!
6 new WordPress plugins to take out for a spin
Every once in a while I like to scan the plugins directory on WordPress.org and see what beautiful & useful pieces of code the community comes up with. Here’s a selection of 6 of the latest WordPress plugin releases that caught my attention during the last “scan”.
1. Simple Fields
Plugin description: Simple Fields for WordPress lets you add groups of fields to your edit post page. Simple Fields turns WordPress into an even more powerful Content Management System (CMS).
Required WP version: 3.0+
Compatible up to: 3.0.1
Downlod & more info: Simple Fields
2. Simple Mail Address Encoder
Plugin description: Automatically encodes every e-mail address on posts, pages and sidebar widgets to prevent spam. Simply decodes any previously encoded e-mail address by just clicking the mail link.
Required WP version: 2.7+
Compatible up to: 3.0.1
Downlod & more info: Simple Mail Address Encoder
Click here to read the full blog post!
How to add backward compatibility to a WordPress 3.0 ready theme
The latest major release of our favorite blogging platform – WordPress 3.0 – has brought quite a few new features to the table. Among them, the custom navigation menus and the post thumbnails (featured image), the latter being available since version 2.9 came out. This started a whole new trend between theme developers, most of them rushing to announce WordPress 3.0 ready themes.
In all this rush, some of the themes released suffered from one big problem: backward compatibility. Why is that important and how can we give some backward compatibility to our WordPress 3.0 ready themes?
Click here to read the full blog post!
Xmas Contest: Prize Winners
December 26 is here, which means today I am going to announce the two winners of the Xmas ReTweet Contest.
Each of the winners will have the possibility of choosing one of the Premium WordPress Themes available in the WordPress category at ThemeForest as their prize.
Complete list of participants
Below you’ll find the complete list of participants (39) that had valid contest entries (followed both steps in order to enter the competition):
1. Bloghita - @bloghita 2. Marius. - @Marius__ 3. Radu Panciuc - @panciuc 4. Eugen - @pauneugen 5. Nikolaevi4 - @Nikolaevi14 6. JeremyOLED - @JeremyOLED 7. Aldo - @iFeelanceWeb 8. Kimberly Castleberry - @KimJCastleberry 9. AlexT - @alext_1020 10. Razvan Girmacea - @RazvanGirmacea 11. Cristian VADUVA - @Vaduva 12. Youwei - @Youwei 13. Calítoe.:. - @Calitoe 14. Daniel - @danielpeisar 15. Anand Srinivasan - @knewthis 16. Margaret Ayad - @eracose 17. Nice from Thailand - @SE7ENize 18. Jennifer - @grizzarkhov 19. Dimitry Ekzarkhov - @design_deity 20. Tracy - @mattnem05 21. Dhaunae @Dhaunae 22. Jessica Dooley - @jessicadooley 23. Jason - @jasontromm 24. elmot - @elmot 25. Kat - @simplywp 26. Codrut @ Blog Post Ideas - @CodrutTurcanu 27. Damir - @wisehat79 28. Melvin - @melvinblog 29. Prasanth Chandra - @pcsbox 30. Jacob Yap - @jacobyap 31. Raju - @rajupp 32. naz - @aenaz 33. Suhas - @suhastech 34. Siddanth 35. Slipdisc - @Roadrippersid 36. technbohowl - @technohowl 37. Rich - @fireitup4USA 38. Michael Cannon - @SMARTcutGeek 39. Kushal Chen - @slayershanks
Xmas Contest: ReTweet to Win a Premium WordPress Theme
How long has it been since I’ve held the last contest on Blogsessive? Too long, but since holidays are close, lets have some fun and make two of you folks the owners of a brand new premium WordPress theme from ThemeForest. It is a simple contest and everyone owning a Twitter account is invited to join in!
Xmas Contest Prizes
Two of the contest participants will each win a premium WordPress theme of their choice from ThemeForest. Contest prize selection is restricted to the WordPress category on the previous mentioned website.
The two winners will be randomly picked by me on the day of December 26th. Read the rules below.
Click here to read the full blog post!
Free PDF eBook: Corporate Blogging Guide by Blogsessive
As promised a while back, I’ve finished editing the Corporate Blogging Guide in PDF eBook format. So, today I give you the chapters you’ve had the chance to read online plus a whole new chapter (8. Technical aspects) and some bonus tips to guide you in your corporate blogging adventures!
How to download the eBook?
In order to download the ebook, all you have to do is to subscribe for free to Blogsessive’s RSS feed (if you haven’t done so until now) and you’ll find the download link at the end of each article in the feed.
eBook preview and contents
Here are two screenshots of the book’s cover and the contents page:
Click here to read the full blog post!
10 new WordPress plugins you might want to test
The wonderful community of WordPress developers constantly provides us with interesting new themes and plugins. I have scanned the most recent WordPress plugin releases and came up with a list of 10 plugins definitely worth taking a look at.
Keep in might that these are new releases and so, their stability and status should be considered as BETA. You might want to test them on a backup server before going live. The descriptions listed here are those submitted by the plugins’ authors and do not necessarily express my views.
1. WP Content Slideshow
WP Content Slideshow shows up to 5 Posts in a very nice and powerfull Javascript Slideshow. On the left side of the Slideshow it displays an image for every post. On the right side, there are all the titles (and a small description under the title) of the posts. The Slideshow highlights the active post and repeats automatically after getting to the 5th post. You have a powerfull Administration Area to adjust the category, the number of posts, the width and height, and many colours for the Slideshow!
Download: WP Content Slideshow
Compatibility: 2.6+
2. Sidebar Generator
Now you can create as many sidebars as you need for any page you want. Thats right, page/post specific sidebars. You can easily seperate your site into sections, or make every single page have specific sidebar content on it. Great for CMS sites.
Download: Sidebar Generator
Compatibility: 2.8.0+
3. WordPress Tabs Slides
Tabs and Slides (in post/page) Plugin gives you the ability to easily add content tabs and/or content slides. The tabs emulate a multi-page structure, while the slides emulate an accordion-like structure, inside a single page!
Download: WordPress Tabs Slides
Compatibility: 2.5+
4. Custom Login Page
With the Custom Login Page, you can change the background image of your login page, the background image/color of your login form div, the main logo image of your login page, and add custom CSS. All through a simple interface. Remember to view the Help tab at the top of the settings page of the plugin.
Download: Custom Login Page
Compatibility: 2.0.2+
Click here to read the full blog post!
10 More beautiful websites using WordPress as CMS
Loving WordPress is SO easy! You got thousands of great looking blogs, custom themes, free themes, premium themes and designers go beyond that by using WordPress as CMS for their non-blog projects. A while back I showed you 10 non-blog websites powered by WordPress, and now it’s time to take a look at 10 more!
If you have any additions to the list and wish to suggest a website for a future post, do so by adding a comment.
1. ProBar
2. Krispy Krush
3. The Salon
ClickTale: User tracking and landing page optimization tool
A few days back I was reading this interesting post on BloggingTips.com on how to plug an eBook on your blog and I instantly remembered all those ugly looking eBook sales/landing pages that you STILL find all over the Internet, like we’re still way back in ’98.
Do you have a good product to sell on your blog? Then why not give it a real chance. Why tell your visitors straight from the sales page that they are either stupid (“Please X, let me buy your book for only $29.99!) or that your have no idea how to make a unique presentation for a unique item!
Yes, I’m sure that almost every internet marketer will tell you how those ugly pages are effective, and how their “call to action” phrases and messages are really effective. Allow me to disagree! I hate them. You hate them. We run away the second we land on them!
A sale is not make by the number of colors and fonts you use on your landing page. It’s not made by the number of screen scrolls a user has to make in order to get to the part where the “call to action” makes him feel small and stupid compared to you, the big internet marketing guru!
A sale is made based on the quality of your products and ease of the (guided) buying process!
Click here to read the full blog post!



