Since opening their doors in January UFO Themes have put together a nice little collection of themes. The themes are designed in the classic minimalist tradition combined with soothing colour palettes and are built on the iCore framework. Managing the themes is a snap from the iCore Panel.

Here are a few examples.

Galaxy 3

Features:

• wide homepage slider
• image gallery with lightbox
• shortcodes
• four colour styles

Optimum

Features:

• homepage slider
• gallery page with lightbox/zooming functionality
• five colour styles

TimePortal

Features:

• homepage featured slider
• call to action button
• SmartGallery with multiple layouts
• 4 colour styles

The themes are reasonably priced at $49ea which includes lifetime support and upgrades. All of their themes are licensed under the GNU.

Furvious was originally launched 17 October 2009. For a free theme it comes with many features you would expect to see in a commercial theme. Once activated, Furvious adds a menu item to the left side of the page where you can access its control panel. From the control panel you have 4 submenus:

• General Settings
• Navigation Settings
• Layout Options
• Optimization Settings

Let's take a look at each area.

General Settings

From here you can set a custom site logo, enable Cufon fast text replacement, add your Google Analytics code and select your style sheet. Furvious comes with 5 different colour schemes.

Navigation Settings

From this page you can choose whether or not to display your home page link. If you choose yes, you can further customize that by selecting the exact text and title attribute you want to use for the home page link.

Layout Options

Furvious comes packaged with a Featured Widget. This custom widget is used for displaying posts from a category of your choosing in the sidebar. From the Layout Options page you can decide which category you want to pull the posts from or opt to not display it at all. If you select a certain category you can then choose how many posts to show from 1 to 20. All featured posts will display an excerpt with a featured image, if you have set one.

Optimization Settings

This is a cool feature. From here you can decide if you want to load the JQuery library that comes bundled with WordPress or load it from the Google library.

Below is a screenshot of Furvious using the default style. (click to enlarge)

The main selling point of this theme is its gorgeous home page layout which sports a large jQuery powered slider complete with optional pagination and a mini-features area.

Other features include:

» ability to customize typography with full support for Google Fonts
» custom widgets
» built-in support for custom post types
» a very slick Portfolio Page Template

If that isn't enough for you Biznizz comes shipped with 10 different colour schemes. It also boasts Custom Shortcodes and the Sidebar Manager that I blogged about earlier.

Of course Biznizz is not just another pretty face as it is built on the rock solid WooFramework.

About a week ago ThemeLab released yet another free, GPL licensed theme called SilverBlog. And what a theme it is.

I've always been a huge fan of crisp and clean looking themes and SilverBlog certainly fits the bill. The use of grays and light blues (for links) makes for a pleasing visual experience. Standard features of this theme include:

• WordPress 3.0 Menu Support
• Post Thumbnails
• Several Widget-Ready Areas

Post Thumbnails

The Post Thumbnails feature is quite interesting and very easy to set up. When utilizing this feature it will insert an image directly above the content area on individual posts and pages. The recommended image dimensions are 609px in width while height is left up to the user. It is suggested not to use an image that is too high for it will push the content down the page. There are a couple of sample images included in the /images folder and it is best to go with their dimensions - 609px width and 150px height.

Lets take a look at how to use this feature with a page. For this example I'll be using a test blog in a local environment. I have a page called About. From the Edit Page screen you will see an area called Featured Image - click on it. See image below.

This will load the Upload Image screen. See image below. (click to enlarge)

Upload your image, making sure its dimensions are those mentioned earlier, and select Use as featured image. See image below. I used the image called normalheader.jpg included in the theme's /images folder.

The use of a featured image with a page or post can make it much more visually pleasing. Have a look at the difference below. (click to enlarge)

Widget-Ready Areas

As mentioned, SilverBlog comes packed with several widget-ready areas including Sidebar, Featured and 404. The sidebar widget area is self-explanatory I think so we'll take a look at Featured and 404.

When you first activate the theme you will see a special content block on the front page above your posts as per the image below.

This piece of real estate is perfect for highlighting a certain post or page. To do so go to the Widgets screen and drop the widget called Featured Content over to the widget area called Featured. See image below. (click to enlarge)

After doing this you can now configure the widget.

You can create your own title, add some text of your choosing and select an image. There are several sample images to choose from in the themes /images folder or you can upload your own. If you use your own image be sure to use the same dimensions as the sample images - 204px width and 128px height.

The other widget-ready area of this theme is the 404 page. This is a very cool feature and one I wish more themes would incorporate. You can add anything you like to the theme's 404 page and because this is all done with widgets you don't have to touch a line of code. Add some text, a list of your recent posts or a search form. You're limited only by your imagination.

If you're in the market for a new theme I'd definitely give SilverBlog a look.

Further info: In addition to running ThemeLab, Leland also does some awesome custom work over at CustomTheme.com

We all know what a parked domain is, right? For the newbie blogger let me explain. You have an idea you'd like to implement for a new site. You purchase a domain name and set yourself up with hosting. You may even have done a little pre-launch marketing. So far so good. The problem is most web hosts will display an ugly landing page to anyone visiting your site until you actually do something with that site. Most of these ugly landing pages are covered in ads making your site look like some kind of link farm. Fortunately there is a solution - a parked domain WordPress theme.

Even if you're not quite ready to launch your new site you may as well as download/install WordPress since the entire process only takes a few minutes. Once you have done so you're ready to install your parked domain theme until such time that you're ready to launch your site.

On that note let's take a look at the uber-cool parked domain themes I've been able to find.

1. LaunchPad (click image to enlarge)

LaunchPad, created by fellow Winnipeger Ian Stewart of ThemeShaper fame, is released under the GPL and is free to download and use. It comes with a theme options page where you can set your Feedburner ID. It even comes in three languages: French, Spanish and German. You can get more info on this theme from its official release page.

2. Ice Breaker (click image to enlarge)

Ice Breaker comes to us from design firm Custom Theme. You may know one of the 2 owners of Custom Theme as Leland of ThemeLab fame. The theme is highly configurable with everything being set in the backend via a theme options page. Some of the things you can set are Feedburner ID, feed URL and Twitter ID to name a few. The theme comes in 4 different colour variations - grey, red, blue and green and is released under the GPL. It is free to download and use. You can get more info on this theme from its official release page.

3. Changing Room (click image to enlarge)

Changing Room comes to us from Wordprezzie in the UK. It comes with a theme options page where you can set Feedburner settings and whatever text you want displayed. It comes in 2 colour variations - red and blue and is released under the GPL. The theme is free to download and use. You can get more info on this theme from its official release page.

4. UnderCon (click image to enlarge)

Undercon is the brainchild of Lim Cheng Soon and is available from ShoppingThemes. From the theme's options page you can set title, description, Feedburner ID and even change the logo. It is released under the GPL and is free to download and use. You can get more info on this theme from its official release page. (link no longer active)

5. WP Blueprint (click image to enlarge)

WP Blueprint is a visually interesting idea from Eliseos. From the theme's option page you can set both your Twitter and Feedburner ID. You can also include some text and insert a footer script. The theme comes with a countdown script which is also configurable from the options page. (in case you're wondering that explains the numbers 56 16 05 33 you see in the image above) Unless I'm blind I couldn't find any info on what license WP Blueprint is released under but it is free to download and use. You can get more info on this theme from its official release page.

6. Ready2Launch (click image to enlarge)

Ready2Launch is developed by Jakub Mikulas and comes packed with 6 different variations. From the theme's options page you can configure the message you want displayed, your email and Twitter ID. It comes with a countdown script which can also be configured via the backend. Interestingly, if you choose to go with the countdown script, you can opt to display a special message of your choosing once the script counts down to zero. I'm not sure what license the theme is released under but I'll assume the GPL since it is available in the WordPress theme repository. It is free to download and use. You can get more info on this theme from its official release page.

As an Added Bonus:

There are also a few plugins out there that will accomplish the same thing, two of which I'll feature below. Both of these plugins are actually "maintenance mode" type plugins for use when you want to take your site offline for a short time for whatever reason, such as general maintenance, but can be easily used for displaying a splash page.

1. Maintenance Mode (click image to enlarge)

The plugin, from Software Guide, is very customizable. From its settings page you can configure the exact message to display, any pages/posts you want to still be accessible and even apply a 503 Service Unavailable HTTP header. I think the coolest feature about this plugin though is that it allows you to use a custom theme file to be displayed if you don't like the default one. Simply create a new file called 503.php and upload it to your active theme's directory. From the plugin's settings page select the "Use 503.php from within the theme directory for the splash page" option and you're good to go. If you choose this option you won't be able to use any WordPress functions with it such as get_sidebar() etc but you don't need to - think of this as a static HTML landing page. If you choose this option you can create a new style sheet specifically for 503.php and pretty much do whatever you want with it - the sky is the limit. It is released under the GPL and is free to download and use. You can get more info on this plugin from its official release page.

2. !Wartungsmodus
This plugin, like the previously mentioned one, is highly customizable. It comes with a "count down" script which can be configured from the plugin's settings options. You can choose to display whatever text you wish. The plugin comes with an amazing 11 style variations with the option to use your own if you don't like any of them. Below you can view some screen shots of a few of the available styles. (click images to enlarge)

Style #1: The Truck

Style #2: The Monster

Style #3: Paint

Style #4: Lego

As I said, there are 11 variations in total on top of being able to create your very own. I'm unsure what license this plugin is released under but it is free to download and use. You can get more info on this plugin from its official release page.

Post updated 20 Dec 09

Since that time many more have appeared. While most are interesting, a few really caught my eye. One such example is Urbane by Jai Nischal Verma of Blog Oh Blog fame.

Urbane is a clean and fast loading theme with a pleasing colour palette as you can see in the screen shot below. (click image to enlarge)

I think what really adds to the appearance of Urbane is its use of a light background image for the various content blocks on the home page. Speaking of the home page, it sports a 'featured post' section with 3 other sections directly beneath it all pulling excerpts - complete with thumbnail images - from the category of your choosing. It is all configurable from the theme's Options page. There is no need to use custom fields for thumbnails either. Simply upload an image to your post and Urbane will automagically create and display the thumbnail. Below that can be found 3 more content blocks - one containing the search engine and links to both the archives and categories, the second which is used to display excerpts of the 2 most recent posts and the third holding the blogroll. Directly beneath that you will find 3 fully widgetized content blocks. As if that isn't enough, at the top of the home page to the right of the 'feature post' section there is a content block holding one of those neat javascript tabbers. Out of the box it is used to display the 6 most popular posts, the 6 more recent posts and subscription options.

Further options that can be set from the backend include Feedburner Name and ID, Twitter ID, toggle thumbnails off/on and even the footer text. Have a look at the screen shot below. (click image to enlarge)

Urbane requires no special plugins to run and installs as easily as any other WordPress theme. If you're in the market for a magazine-style theme I suggest taking this one out for a test drive.