Photography Themes

10 Best WordPress Themes for Photographers

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WordPress is now considered the most popular blogging platform and so it is no wonder web developers have been quick to create accompanying WordPress Photography themes, widgets and plug-ins in ever greater variety. The themes are developed to reflect the feel of different industries including e-commerce, news presentation, and hobbyists, but WordPress templates are not just about content presentation but also about visual appearance. In the last few years, there has been a huge improvement in the visual appearance of WP themes and you now see templates used throughout the photography industry which is obviously heavily focused on image presentation. Below is a list of top 10 WordPress themes for photographers with their own set of merits and demerits compiled from a variety of sources. Please remember “most popular” lists change all the time, so we welcome your feedback on which photography themes you use and love with WordPress.

*Themes are ranked from least to most popular*

Continue reading 10 Best WordPress Themes for Photographers →

ExpressionEngine

Premium ExpressionEngine Themes

Have you looked at ExpressionEngine lately?

Publish Your Universe

ExpressionEngine, in case you haven’t heard, has for over a decade has been the content management system (CMS) of choice for companies like Apple, Sony, Disney, WB, Ford, and Nokia that combines a commercial product with open source code. This creates a “perfect” model in their eyes because the commercial aspect of the system provides dedicated development and support, while the Open Source is open, public, and extensible. ExpressionEngine (EE) has become one the most popular CMS used by developers. Ideally suited for both small and large websites, it provides effective features not found in its competition, such as WordPress, namely its vast flexibility and extensibility. More than just a managing content publishing tool, ExpressionEngine provides freedom from limited coding structures typically found in closed source codes. Continue reading Premium ExpressionEngine Themes →

Squirrel Videos

Snake vs. Squirrel Video – my days as Kung Fu Squirrel

Sure, cats are seemingly all cute, with cat videos getting more views than anything else on the web – at least amongst what is viewable by children.  Well I am here to tell you we squirrels just do not get enough press and it is time to do something about it.  So I am going to start curating the very best in squirrel videos, jokes, and general squirrel greatness.  It is time the world learns about our nuts !!

 

Squirrel Jokes

Longest Squirrel Joke Ever

The squirrel works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter. The grasshopper thinks he’s a fool, and laughs and dances and plays the summer away.

Come winter, the squirrel is warm and well fed.

A social worker finds the shivering grasshopper, calls a press conference and demands to know why the squirrel should be allowed to be warm and well fed while others less fortunate, like the grasshopper, are cold and starving.

The BBC shows up to provide live coverage of the shivering grasshopper; with cuts to a video of the squirrel in his comfortable warm home with a table laden with food.

The British press inform people that they should be ashamed that in a country of such wealth, this poor grasshopper is allowed to suffer so while others have plenty.

The Labour Party, Greenpeace, Animal Rights and The Grasshopper Council of GB demonstrate in front of the squirrel’s house. The BBC, interrupting a cultural festival special from Notting Hill with breaking news, broadcasts a multi cultural choir singing “We Shall Overcome”. Ken Livingstone rants in an interview with Trevor McDonald that the squirrel has gotten rich off the backs of grasshoppers, and calls for an immediate tax hike on the squirrel to make him pay his “fair share” and increases the charge for squirrels to enter inner London .

In response to pressure from the media, the Government drafts the Economic Equity and Grasshopper Anti Discrimination Act, retroactive to the beginning of the summer. The squirrel’s taxes are reassessed. He is taken to court and fined for failing to hire grasshoppers as builders for the work he was doing on his home and an additional fine for contempt when he told the court the grasshopper did not want to work.

The grasshopper is provided with a council house, financial aid to furnish it and an account with a local taxi firm to ensure he can be socially mobile. The squirrels food is seized and re distributed to the more needy members of society, in this case the grasshopper.

Without enough money to buy more food, to pay the fine and his newly imposed retroactive taxes, the squirrel has to downsize and start building a new home. The local authority takes over his old home and utilizes it as a temporary home for asylum seeking cats who had hijacked a plane to get to Britain as they had to share their country of origin with mice. On arrival the tried to blow up the airport because of Britain’s apparent love of dogs. The cats had been arrested for the international offense of hijacking and attempt bombing but were immediately released because the police fed them pilchards instead of salmon whilst in custody. Initial moves to then return them to their own country were abandoned because it was feared they would face death by the mice. The cats devise and start a scam to obtain money from peoples credit cards.

A Panorama special shows the grasshopper finishing up the last of the squirrel’s food, though Spring is still months away, while the council house he is in, crumbles around him because he hasn’t bothered to maintain the house. He is shown to be taking drugs.

Inadequate government funding is blamed for the grasshoppers drug illness’. The cats seek recompense in the British courts for their treatment since arrival in UK .

The grasshopper gets arrested for stabbing an old dog during a burglary to get money for his drugs habit. He is imprisoned but released immediately because he has been in custody for a few weeks. He is placed in the care of the probation service to monitor and supervise him. Within a few weeks he has killed a guinea pig in a botched robbery. A commission of enquiry, that will eventually cost GBP10,000,000 and state the obvious, is set up.

Additional money is put into funding a drug rehabilitation scheme for grasshoppers and legal aid for lawyers representing asylum seekers is increased. The asylum seeking cats are praised by the government for enriching Britain’s multicultural diversity and dogs are criticized by the government for failing to befriend the cats. The grasshopper dies of a drug overdose. The usual sections of the press blame it on the obvious failure of government to address the root causes of despair arising from social inequity and his traumatic experience of prison. They call for the resignation of a minister.

The cats are paid a million pounds each because their rights were infringed when the government failed to inform them there were mice in the United Kingdom .

The squirrel, the dogs and the victims of the hijacking, the bombing, the burglaries and robberies have to pay an additional percentage on their credit cards to cover losses, their taxes are increased to pay for law and order and they are told that they will have to work beyond 65 because of a shortfall in government funds.

Tumblr

Tumblr Backgrounds – How to make a custom tumblr background for free

Tumblr is a popular microblogging site with a great deal of versatility. You can customize your headers, your theme, and even your background. The beauty of Tumblr is, while you can pick a theme which will ultimately cost you some money, you don’t have to. There are free ways to modify and customize every facet of your Tumblr site, including the background. As someone viewing the site, you may consider the background as relatively unimportant; however, the background you choose and customize is reflective of you and what you post as a whole. A different background can set your Tumblog apart from all the rest, so why not take the time to customize your background carefully?

First of all, why change the background at all? Firstly, if you’re running a Tumblog for a business or other such venture, you may find that the theme selected may not offer a background that’s reflective of the business’ values or mission. If it’s a Tumblog for personal use, you may want a background which shows more of what the Tumblog itself is about, rather than the theme you’ve chosen. Just because a background has come as part of a prepacked theme doesn’t mean its the ideal theme for you to use for your Tumblog, after all. In addition, it’s fun to experiment with different backgrounds.

There are some free work-arounds to create the Tumblr background you want. Even the least technologically savvy person can efficiently change the backgrounds on their own Tumblog if he or she follows the simple steps explained here.

Options for changing your Tumblr background include:

A. Inserting a Background Image Into Your Tumblr Theme:

You don’t have to be restricted to the theme background, which, as a default, may be somewhat bland. To change your background image, follow the following process:

1. Once you’re in your Tumblr site, click on “Customize” in the upper right corner.

2. You will see “Theme” in the top navigation bar. Click on “Custom HTML” at the bottom of that menu.

3. Copy the code you see there. If need be, copy and paste it into your Notepad in order to remember it for later.

4. Now, the inline CSS needs to be altered in order to integrate the image you want as your Tumblr background. Find the following code:

5. Find the coding “body {” and inside the body tag there should be the background: line. The url of the image needs to be inserted there.

6. Replace the {image:Background} with your image url. If the image has been saved to your computer, upload it to Tumblr first.

7. Change the top left fixed repeat for top left fixed no-repeat.

8. Click on “Update Preview”. This is to help you verify the image is there as you want it to be seen.

9. Click “Save”.

B. Use Your Tumblr Appearance Panel

This is likely one of the easiest methods of changing the background of your Tumblog. It’s a fairly easy process to undertake, too.

From your Tumblr account:

1. Click “Customize”.

2. Click “Appearance” at the top of the page.

3. When that panel opens, click “Upload” and select the pattern you want.

4. If you have the option for repeating your image, choose “repeat-y” if your image needs to repeat from top to bottom, “repeat-x” if it needs to repeat from left to right, and “repeat-xy” if it needs to repeat both horizontally and vertically.

C. Create Your Own Theme

Surprisingly, this is not as challenging as the title might suggest. You’ve gone through all the Tumblr theme options, don’t find one you like, and are feeling a little frustrated as a result. Why not create your own theme?

The thing that makes Tumblr effective is that it uses only one page of HTML coding. That’s it. The CSS and scripts are all in the file’s head, so there’s nothing too fancy you’ll need to navigate. Tumblr uses blocks and variables. Variables are set off with the curly parentheses – they look like { or } – while blocks display blocks of HTML and variables for different occurrences and purposes. Blocks are set off like variables, but they are identified as blocks, like this:

{block:Posts}

Tumblr gives you several variables to use easily in the head of your HTML coding, such as:

{Title} – The html safe title of your blog

{Meta Description} – An html safe description of your blog for use within the meta tag

{Favicon} – A dynamically generated favicon url from your portrait photo

{RSS} – The url to the RSS feed of your tumbleblog

Your HTML head might look like this:

1 head>

2 title>{Title}title>

3 link rel=”shortcut icon” href=”{Favicon}”>

4 rss+xml” href=”{RSS}”>

5 meta name=”description” content=”{MetaDescription}” />

6 head>

Once you have your head in, you can go about creating some basic variables, such as:

{Title} – The HTML safe title of your blog

{Description} – The description of your blog, which may also include html

{PortraitURL-64} – The url to your portrait picture. The available sizes vary.

1 div id=”header”>

2h1>{Title}h1>

3 p>{Description}p>

4 img alt=”{Title}” src=”{PortraitURL-64}” />

5 div>

You can also tell your Tumblog – via the coding – what sorts of posts you want displayed. You will be using a variety of other blocks in order to make this happen:

{block:Text}{/block:Text} – Displays Text posts

{block:Photo}{/block:Photo} – Displays Photo posts

{block:Photoset}{/block:Photoset} – Displays Photoset posts

{block:Quote}{/block:Quote} – Displays Quote posts

{block:Link}{/block:Link} – Displays Link posts

{block:Chat}{/block:Chat} – Displays Chat posts

{block:Audio}{/block:Audio} – Displays Audio posts

{block:Video}{/block:Video} – Displays Video posts

{block:Answer}{/block:Answer} – Displays answer posts

As can be expected, there are also a variety of variables associated with each type of post, and these are:

{Permalink} – The exact url for a single post

{ShortURL} – The sharing friendly short url for a single post

{PostID} – The unique numeric post ID for a single post

Ultimately, you may end up with a code that looks like this:

1 {block:Posts}

2…

3 {block:Text}

4 div>

5 {block:Title}

6 h2>a href=”{Permalink}”>{Title}a>h2>

7 {/block:Title}

8 div>

9 {Body}

10 iv>

11 iv>

12 {/block:Text}

13…

14 {/block:Posts}

There are also a variety of free Tumblr backgrounds you can obtain from the internet for download. Sites for these include:

http://www.hot-lyts.com/backgrounds/

http://blog.templatemonster.com/2011/01/10/40-free-tumblr-themes/

200 Best Free Tumblr Themes For An Amazing Blogging Experience

However, you can also do a Google search for “free Tumblr backgrounds” and get thousands more hits.

Happy Tumblring!

Resources:

http://tumblring.net/how-to-put-a-background-image-in-your-tumblr-theme/

http://www.brandbuildsell.com/freebies/all-about-tumblr-backgrounds/

http://www.1stwebdesigner.com/tutorials/how-to-create-tumblr-theme/

Squirrel Jokes

Short Squirrel Jokes

Q: Why do squirrels swim on there back?

A: To keep their nuts dry!

 

Q: Why shouldn’t you rape a tree?

A: There might be a squirrel in there looking for nuts.

 

Q: How many squirrels does it take to change a light bulb?

A: Actually, none because squirrels only change bulbs that are NUT broken.

 

Q: Why does it take more than one squirrel to screw in a light bulb?

A: Because they’re so darn stupid!

 

Q: How do you catch a carpenter squirrel (definition: a squirrel that likes power tools)?

A: Go to Home Depot and pretend to be nut-wood.

 

Q: How do you catch a squirrel interested in ornithology?

A: Climb a tree and act like a nuthatch (Sitta carolinensis).

 

Q: How do you catch a Polynesian squirrel?

A: Climb a tree and act like a coconut.

 

Q: How can you catch a gay squirrel?

A: Climb a tree and pretend to be an almond (botanically speaking, almonds are fruits).

 

Q: How do you catch a squirrel with a Pamela Anderson fixation?

A: Climb a tree and act like a chestnut.

 

Q: How do you catch a mechanically inclined squirrel?

A: Climb a tree and act like a 9/16th nut.

 

Q: How do you catch a squirrel for the holidays?

A: Climb a tree and act like nutmeg.

 

Q: How do you catch an Irish squirrel?

A: Climb a tree and act like a green pistachio nut.

 

Q: How do you catch a European Squirrel?

A: Climb a tree and act like a metric nut.

 

Q: How do you catch an English Squirrel?

A: Climb a tree and act like nutty.

 

Q: How do you catch a rich squirrel?

A: Climb a tree and act like a cashew.

Squirrel Videos

Drunk Squirrel tries to Climb Tree

Now some people try claim this is me after a few too many Dark’n’Stormy drinks, but honestly why would a squirrel drink dark rum mixed with ginger beer?  Because it is awesome –

Did you really ask me that? 

Now, people are still asking me to bring out the “Squirrels Gone Wild” videos from South Padre Island in ’98, but I’m trying to keep this site sort of clean – you know?  I mean there’s plenty of sites out there if that’s your thing, not that it isn’t my thing, but if it’s your thing, there’s things out there for your thing.  Now if you are thinking I’m drinking a Dark’n’Stormy right now, well…. let me tell you from experience that a drunk squirrel can climb a tree, but apparently this light weight has one little bit of rotted pumpkin or something and he’s fallen over himself like Justin Bieber fans – damn I dislike that guy…..



Squirrel Videos

Squirrels DO NOT wear Collars

Ha ha, ha….

Everybody loves cats and dogs right? Yeah, not me buddy…

Cats – don’t even get me stared on why they are praised as being so loveable, and the star power you people give them? You wonder why they feel justified in puking in your shoes and just looking at you like:

What – did you not see my video is up to 2,000,000 million views on YouTube? Bow to the kitty, bow to the kitty!!

If you people were smart, you’d slap them with your sharp claws – you don’t have sharp claws? Well, you best find some skippy….

And dogs… well they seem to just want love and attention so they ain’t all bad, well except those that seem to think it would be fun to chase a squirrel up a tree. Didn’t I just get done drinking a bunch of rum? Like I need some canine all raged up on Purina thinking I need to test my drunken agility….



Squirrel Videos

Harry Potter relatives create Squirrel obstacle course

Now who thought this was a good idea?

What sick b*st*rd dreams this stuff up?

I mean if you have the time to create something like this, it is certainly a testament to the decay of today’s society.

Perhaps even worse, I have to wonder what all these crazy Harry Potter people must have done to my poor squirrel relatives over there to get them involved in this crap. I mean they don’t look drunk, drugged, or infected by the Zombie Apocalypse so what is going on? No way in hell you’d get me climbing, swinging, and running around this stuff… not to say I haven’t done most of this stuff under certain influences, but not to the step and fetch of some human. I mean… I love you guys and all, and I’m happy to provide this site for you guys, and really thankful when you click on a link and maybe help out the kid’s nut funds, but come on……



Making the net better – one nut at a time.