New: Boast Theme

By Tung Do

The fourth theme to be released in last three weeks on DevPress, Boast is a photo blog theme, but designed using a magazine style layout. It features a sleek, dark design with logo uploader, custom menu, custom background, custom post stylesheet, custom post template, and sidebar toggle to display widgets at the bottom. Go to theme’s home page for download link.

p.s. – It’s also the first theme to use David Chandra’s Auto Hosted script for auto notifications/updates. If successful, the update script will eventually get added to all products on DevPress for easier updates.

New: Tourmaline WordPress Theme

By Tung Do

Tourmaline is the third theme to be released within the last two weeks on DevPress (patting myself on the back). Inspired by and very much based on AlistairLane.com.

Tourmaline is a four-column theme made for personal photo-blogging. It features a cool gray-scale home page showing colored photos only when you hover on top of each photo.

It’s also the first theme to be made entirely in the browser by me, skipping Photoshop, Fireworks, or what have you. I’m a visual learner, meaning I work and learn better than I have something to look at. Designing in the browser is a very abstract task so I’m trying to get used to it by tackling a simple layout first and using AlistairLane as my base. I hope you like it and more themes are coming soon!

WordPress is a Copy-Cat Business

By Tung Do

I know what you’re thinking. He doesn’t have the decency to save his rant until the weekends. How rude! On top of that, it’s a rant without images and links. I’m testing your patience. I know. On with the rant…

Now that WordPress copied Tumblr’s way of publishing with the addition of post format UI in the upcoming 3.6 release, we can all breathe a sigh of relief and kick originality out the freakin’ door. I’m not saying this is the beginning of a trend. It’s more like the last straw for innovative thinkers in the WordPress market.

Since the beginning of the WordPress economy back in… 2008-ish, WordPress and its community have been absorbing the best ideas from each other, other CMS, markets, and what have you into their own projects and into WordPress core. If your plugin is any good, it’ll show up in core and you can kiss your business goodbye. If your theme design is any good, a bigger theme company will copy and sell it to their own customers. It’s the nature of GPL. Continue reading →