While the supply of quality free themes seems to be never ending, have you ever considered using a commercial (paid) theme? I have purchased themes from some of the biggest players in the market including StudioPress, iThemes and WooThemes and have yet to be disappointed. For the most part the price is quite reasonable and the support top-notch. Well hold on to your hats because I'm going to tell you how to get an armful of quality paid themes for FREE.

RichWP.com currently has a dozen premium themes in its stable. They offer 2 versions of each theme: a regular version which retails at $69.90 and a pro version that goes for $127.00. They also offer an All Themes PRO Package valued at $467.00. RichWP.com is listed in the Commercial section of the WordPress Extend site just so you know they aren't some fly by nighter.

Anyway, the gang at RichWP is getting set to launch its next generation of commercial themes, tentatively scheduled for somewhere around mid-June and is offering its current stock of commercial themes for free. Yes, you heard me correctly, FREE. Why? I'll let them explain it,

This is the BOLDEST Marketing Move in the history of the Premium WordPress Theme Market. I am really proud of my work and I want YOU to use it. This one is for you. Save Work, Time and Money.

In a nutshell, the next generation of themes will take advantage of the new functionality introduced by WordPress 3.0. As a way to stir interest RichWP is offering its current products at no charge. That's a $467.00 value for free, more if you purchase the themes individually. While the current themes do not take advantage of the new functionality introduced by WordPress 3.0 they won't break your site either - they are fully compatible.

I should mention that you will need to provide an email when you go to RichWP. They will then send you the download link. I say this up front because I know some people are uncomfortable with this practice. But don't worry, as I said these guys are not some fly by nighters, they are legit. They also use GetResponse, one of the leaders in the field of email marketing campaigns. You can unsubscribe from the email list at any time.

If you've ever considered using a paid theme the time couldn't be more right. You'll have to hurry though. This offer will expire soon.

What we will do is that we’re going to make a special sales run for 30 days, where you can purchase our themes (both packages and theme club) at 50% discounted price.

And for every purchase that you made, 10% out of it will be donated to UNICEF. In Haiti UNICEF will be focusing on deploying clean water and sanitation supplies, therapeutic foods, medical supplies and temporary shelter to Jacmel and Port-au-Prince. They also be focusing on children who have become separated from their families to protect them from harm or exploitation.

Very very cool guys. If you've been thinking about getting a new look for your blog why not check out KreativeThemes? You'll be helping out others in need at the same time. Details here.

I've never used any of these plugins but after doing some research they do add some usefulness to your site. The problem with these plugins is that once they are installed they require the user to provide an email address to MaxBlogPress in order to activate them. This is not disclosed during the download/install process and only becomes apparent once the plugin is actually installed. To make matters worse, users complained about receiving large-scale spam after providing their email addresses.

The people behind the plugin state users can opt-out of the lists they become subscribed to at any time but that is not the point. The point is the forced opt-in.

I have no problem whatsoever with plugin or theme authors trying to make money but this is not the way to do it. Either sell the plugin as premium (paid for) software or offer it for free with a paid support model behind it or something similar. Failing to inform users beforehand they need to provide an email address in order to activate and use the plugin seems like a shady practice.

It too bad. As I said earlier they do seem to add good functionality.

You can read more on this story at WordPress Tavern and WarriorForum.

That being said only one contestant got it right. The rules were quite simple or at least I thought they were. Quoting from the contest announcement,

Now that I've got you hooked, what do you have to do for a shot to win this mega-theme? That's easy. Simply write a blog post about this contest explaining why you should be the winner. Post the link to your entry here in the comments section. How hard is that?

While some of the entries were amusing all but one were sent via email. That's not what was asked guys and gals.

I'd like to congratulate James M. Fisher on being the proud owner of a brand new Flexx Professional WordPress theme! By the way, James is a Microsoft MVP and runs an awesome blog called WindowsTalk covering all things Windows. Being a huge Windows fan (I've tried 'em all - Apple, Linux etc) I'm thrilled to have discovered such a valuable resource.

Once again, congratulation James and thanks to all who entered. And of course thanks to Cory and the gang at iThemes.

2.8.6 fixes two security problems that can be exploited by registered, logged in users who have posting privileges. If you have untrusted authors on your blog, upgrading to 2.8.6 is recommended.

The first problem is an XSS vulnerability in Press This discovered by Benjamin Flesch. The second problem, discovered by Dawid Golunski, is an issue with sanitizing uploaded file names that can be exploited in certain Apache configurations. Thanks to Benjamin and Dawid for finding and reporting these.

• Trash
• oEmbed
• Image Editing
• Database Optimize/Repair

Trash
It's happened to all of us at least once - we deleted something we never meant to delete. Luckily on Windows we have the handy Recycle Bin. WordPress 2.9 introduces a similar feature called Trash. When you delete any type of content, be it post, page, comment etc it is moved to Trash where you have the option to recover it or permanently delete it.

oEmbed
This is one I really like. To embed media in your posts you need only to include the URL to the page containing the media you wish to embed. For instance, you have a video hosted on Vimeo you wish to include in your post. The URL will look something like http://www.vimeo.com/SomeRandomNumber. First, navigate to Settings > Media where you will see the following... (click image to enlarge)

After you have saved your settings, go to your post and simply include the URL http://www.vimeo.com/SomeRandomNumber. Here's how it works: WordPress connects to the Vimeo servers, locates the discovery tag in the head section of the document and uses it to retrieve the needed HTML to display the media. To avoid lagging load times it is also cached to post-meta.

This only works if the media provider supports the oEmbed API. Currently there are several that do including,

• YouTube (via oEmbed)
• Blip.tv (via oEmbed)
• Flickr images and videos (via oEmbed)
• Hulu (via oEmbed)
• Vimeo (via oEmbed)
• Viddler (via oEmbed)
• Revision3 (via oEmbed)
• Google Video (via an internal handler)
• PollDaddy (via an internal handler)
• DailyMotion (via an internal handler)

Image Editing
At this point the feature is fairly basic but is sure to be enhanced in future versions. For the time being you will have the ability to scale, crop and rotate images from within WordPress. Navigate to the Media Library and select the image you wish to edit. You will see the screen below... (click image to enlarge)

Database Optimize/Repair
This is one I think many will find useful. In the past, the only way to repair or optimize your database tables was to interact directly with the database using a program like phpMyAdmin - a scary thought for the less technically inclined. No more. You will now be able to do it from within WordPress. Version 2.9 includes a new script called repair.php located in the /wp-admin/maint/ folder. To enable it add define('WP_ALLOW_REPAIR',true); to your wp-config.php file. When running the file you will see the screen below... (click image to enlarge)

After running the 'Repair and Optimize Database' option I was presented with the screen below... (click image to enlarge)

One important item to note: there is a change to the minimum requirements needed to run version 2.9. You will need to be running at least MySQL 4.1.2. (up from MySQL 4.0) There is no change in the PHP minimum requirements. (that is coming in WordPress 3.0 where you will need at least PHP 5)

Dan was a web developer/consultant based in Aurora, Illinois. In addition to creating kickass web sites, Dan was also active in many online communities including SitePoint, DigitalPoint, SEO.com and more recently WordPress Tavern. From what I've read about him he was only too eager to lend to anyone who needed it.

The WordPress community is like a huge extended family. It's a sad day when the family loses one of its own.

As many as one in every 500 web addresses posted on Twitter lead to sites hosting malware, according to researchers at Kaspersky Labs who have deployed a tool that examines URLs circulating in tweets.

According to the good folks at Kaspersky Labs, the situation is exasperated by Twitter's imposed character limit which has led to the widespread use of URL shortening services such as TinyURL making it difficult for users to determine the destination of links contained within tweets.

Kaspersky examines millions of tweets a day through the use of a tool they created called Krab Krawler. Krab Krawler works by expanding shortened URLs and comparing them to a database of known malicious sites. For unknown URLs, Kaspersky visits the webpage to determine if it is malicious or not.

About 26 percent of Twitter messages contain a URL, according to Costin Raiu, chief security expert at Kaspersky. About half of those appear to be generated by spammers or by people with malicious intent, he said. These URLs get spread quickly in re-tweets.

While this is a frightening statistic, common sense is still your best defence. Twitter is most fun when shared between people who know each other. In other words, don't click on URLs contained within tweets from people you don't know.

What is so special about this theme? Stand back and be amazed...

Theme Features:

• Billboard Ad Management Feature – Our new ad management feature lets you easily manage display ads on your site
• 1,056 possible layout combinations - Pick and choose your layout with a mouse click
• Rotating header images - Easily upload your new header images and set the Flash-like transition effects
• Contact Form Page Template - The custom image uploader feature allows you to personalize your site with your own logo
• Plug and Play Graphic Changes - Easily change the look of your site by uploading new background images (setting every different combo with it) and setting the color through a Photoshop-like color picker
• Menu Builder - Pick and choose what Pages you want in the menu navigation, including subpages
• Search Engine Optimization - As with all our themes, we've built it to get you the best exposure in the search engines, and include a SEO panel to tweak some basic settings

If that's not enough for you how about this...?

Newest Features:

• Page Templates - by popular customer demand, we've added 7 new Page Templates to FlexxTheme, so you can use Flexx to power websites too!
• Multi-Level Dropdown Menus – with Page Templates, plus our menu dropdowns you can show off all your Page and Subpage content
• Text header option – keep our rotating images script but include a text overlay of your blog title and tagline
• Feedburner widget – we've styled and coded a cool Feedburner widget that you can easily put into your sidebars for getting feed and email subscriptions

Check the official FlexxTheme release page for complete details including informative screencasts as well as a working demo.

Now that I've got you hooked, what do you have to do for a shot to win this mega-theme? That's easy. Simply write a blog post about this contest explaining why you should be the winner. Post the link to your entry here in the comments section. How hard is that? The closing date for submissions is Monday 07 Dec 2009. The winner will be selected via email by yours truly no later than Monday 21 Dec 2009. How's that for an early Christmas present?

The package includes the Flexx Professional theme along with free updates and support for one year as per the Terms and Conditions set forth by iThemes.

Good luck and happy blogging!

Contest is closed.

I first heard of TalkPress about a year ago but information since has been a little scarce except for the odd tidbit here and there. So imagine my surprise when I read it was actually live. I wonder why there was no official announcement? No fanfare? I haven't seen it mentioned in any of the official WordPress blogs. I only found out about it while going through my WordPress related Google news alerts and noticed a post by resident bbPress guru _ck_. Evidently _ck_ was equally surprised... which surprised me even more.

There's not much to see on the TalkPress home page. It actually looks more like a holding or landing page. Perhaps it is still in beta and hasn't been officially released yet? Maybe they are catering only to certain clientele during the testing phase? I don't know.

Has anyone else heard about this?

Update O9 April 09 - More information has been released in this post from the bbPress blog.