For this week’s installment of “Theme Thursday,” we present five simple and clean WordPress themes for your downloading pleasure. Enjoy!

Clean Corporate Green

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Mad Scientist

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Pamphleteer

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Blogger’s Gazette

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Blank Canvas

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Ah, the Web – where the design mistakes of the decade live on eternally (or at least until someone stops renewing the hosting account). We used to think that if it looked cool, it was worth having on our site. Now we know that with so many pages vying for our attention, simple, usable, and straightforward is the way to go, and anything that doesn’t adhere to those tenets needs to go. In honor of the dawn of the 2010s, here are the top ten design techniques that we should leave in the 2000s.

1. Frames

This design hasn’t been popular since the late 1990s, and yet we still see them from time to time. Now that GeoCities is has died a dignified death, let’s let this one go, too.

2. Animated GIFs

Dancing hamsters are cute and all, but they distract users from your important content. In this day and age, anything that doesn’t serve a purpose needs to go.

3. Image Maps

It might look cool, but why are you hiding your clickable links from me? If I don’t know what they are are and where they go, how will I know to click on them?

4. Music on Autoplay

This might be the single biggest factor that turned me off of Myspace. If I can’t turn it off in 5 seconds or less, I’m not coming back.

5. Uncentered Layouts

Let’s just say, “layout problems in general.” If your site hasn’t gotten a redesign in five years or so, you’ll want to check out how it sits on today’s browsers and monitors. It’s likely pressed up against one side or the other, difficult to read, and therefore easy to avoid. Fix it.

6. Scrolling or Blinking Text

Your customers want to read the text on your site, since it’s what helps them decide to do business with you and not your competitors. So tell me why it’s a good idea to make it at best annoying and at worst nearly impossible to read?

7. Reflected Text

This isn’t so much annoying as it is overused. A little is OK, but the trend seems to be going towards clean, easy-to-read designs. Use it sparingly.

8. Apple-Inspired “Aqua”

Another design trend that was cool when it debuted, but was overused and is now passe. Heck, Apple doesn’t even use it anymore – why should you?

9. Content That Looks Like It Might Be An Ad

Or, conversely, any ad that looks like it might be content. Never a good idea to trick your site visitors. You might clever yourself right out of a return reader or even a sale.

10. Using Tables For Layout

Using tables on your site was great before Semantic HTML and CSS came to the fore; in fact, it was pretty much the only way to make anything more than the most simple layout. Now it just looks like 2002.

11. Site Counters

This is a bad design element in the sense that it unnecessarily clutters up a page. Again, clean and simple is the wave of the new decade, and anything that isn’t functional for your users should be left out.

12. Internet Explorer 6

The one true enemy of designers and web users alike. We could go into pages of detail as to why you shouldn’t be using IE6 still, but for starters, it was released in 2001, so it’s hopelessly out of date. It’s not web-standards compliant, and it’s only partially compatible with CSS1, not to mention the widely-used CSS2. Designers don’t use it, so download Firefox instead and see the the web the way it was meant it to be seen.

What are some design elements you’d like to see left in this decade?

Luckily for you, we’ve gathered together our brightest Linux minds and command line ninjas and asked them to help us out by providing their most useful tricks, shortcuts, and secrets to share with the world. They’re listed below, along with a helpful description as to what they accomplish and when to use them. Enjoy!

Moving a MySQL Database To Another Server:

mysqldump <DATABASE_NAME> [mysqldump_options] | gzip -c | ssh user@remotehost "gunzip -c > mysql <DATABASE_NAME> [mysql_options]"

Not only does this command dump the database, but it creates the dump, compresses it, and securely transfers it to the remote host via SSH. Then, it decompresses the dump and imports it to the new location.

File Location/Management Commands:

find / -type f -size +20000K -exec ls -lh {} \; | awk '{ print $9 ": " $5 }'

This command locates all files on your server that are over 20MB (or a size of your designation) and reports both the size and the location of each file that qualifies. This command is generally restricted to those with root access.

$ du -sch *

The above command will list the size of every file in the current folder in Human readable format AND print the size of the current folder.

Simliarly, the first command below will print the size of all files in a given folder, while the one below that will find any file you specify, beginning the search in the root directory.

$ du -scm * | sort -n
find / -name filename

Usage commands:

ps -e -o pcpu,cpu,user,args --sort pcpu | sed '/^ 0.0 /d'

ps -e -orss=,args= | sort -b -k1,1n | pr- TW$COLUMNS

The first command lists processes by their percentage of CPU usage, while the second command lists them by memory usage. A great quick trick to see where your server resources are going.

Permissions:

find -perm 777 -exec chmod 755 {} \; -print
find -perm 666 -exec chmod 644 {} \; -print

The above commands find potentially harmful file permissions and change them to more secure and acceptable levels. Remember, though, sometimes file permissions need to be set at 777, and the above command will change all 777 permissions to the more restrictive 755.

Calendars

cal -y
cal month year (ex: cal 9 1984)

The first command will display a calendar for the current year, while the second shows a calendar for any given year, which is perfect if for some reason you want to see what day you started second grade on in 1984.

Create a Mirror Site

rsync -az -e ssh --delete ~/public_html/ remote.com:'~/public_html'

This command is particularly useful if you have to move your entire website to another server – it compresses, encrypts it, and creates a mirror of it, allowing you to transport that exact copy to another server.

Compressing Many Files Into One For Export

tar zcf localfolder.tgz localfolder/
tar zcf localfolder.tgz localfolder/ then scp localfolder.tgz user@remotehost

It’s a load on your servers if it has to connect, disconnect, and reconnect every time you want to transfer data from one place to another, such as in an FTP export. The first command above compresses data from many folders into one file for easier export by making a .tgz archive. Similarly, the second command copies a file to another server of your choice.

Disabling Line Wrap In The Command Line

pico -w filename

When coding a lengthy sequence, it can sometimes be difficult to see where the line breaks are, since in default mode the line of code will wrap it below. Turn it off with the above command for easier copying and pasting long lines of code.

What are some of your favorite command line tricks?

So get out there, see new places, and tell everyone about it — we’ll look forward to every new post on your travel blog. Enjoy!

Island Vacation

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Great Plains Great Times

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Route 66 Road Trip

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Desert Traveler

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Night Climber

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Social media. Just hearing the term can bring about confused stares and heated arguments throughout your organization. What is it? How can you use it? Is it possible to know if it’s even working?

These are the questions that businesses, marketers, and advertisers are trying to work out. Luckily, one thing that everyone seems to agree on is that focusing on listening to and engaging customers, as well as using social media platforms to increase service opportunities, is the most effective way to start.

Listen Up!

Perhaps the most important strategy to employ when using social media is getting into the habit of using it not just to promote yourself (or your organization or brand), but to listen to what people are saying. Social media is a great opportunity to find out what users (or potential users) are saying about your company. And, when you find mentions, address them. If it’s a compliment, thank the person who gave it to you. If it’s a criticism, apologize and offer to fix whatever went wrong. Sites like Twitter and Facebook, if used properly, allow you a great opportunity not only to hear what people are really saying, but to address even the smallest concerns in a personal way.

Get In On The Conversation

Similarly, your goal in using social media should be to create a community, and that’s best done by using it not to tell your side of the story, but to ask questions and respond to the responses. You can find out so many useful things – why do people use your product over other similar products? What does your company do well? What could it do better? What could your company do in addition to what it already does? And, if these questions aren’t being asked, lead your customers into asking them. Essentially, social media is a great way to manage your firm’s public relations conversations.

Where The Boys (And Girls) Are

Another important thing to think about when it comes to deciding how to integrate social media into your overall strategy is figure out where your target audience exists online. Facebook? Build a fan page and reach out. Twitter? Start by tweeting and re-tweeting links of interest to the community before working in your own content. Are you a small business? Start a blog to give your business a human face. Then check Yelp for reviews. A simple act like that can help you figure out what customers think of your business, especially since people are much more likely to write a negative review than a positive one. And, not only can you address negative reviews and vow to fix them, you can also take the opportunity to direct the conversation in a more positive way.

Seven Tips To Remember About Social Media

• Don’t Just Talk – Listen First
• Don’t Defend The System – Solve The Problem
• Don’t Tell How It Is – Ask How It Is
• Don’t Solicit – Service
• Don’t Preach – Converse
• Keep Up With The Crowd

One Size Doesn’t Fit All

Lastly, remember this – there is no “one size fits all” solution to using social media. Social media is about creating, joining, directing, and managing conversations, and what works for a Fortune 500 company might not necessarily be the solution for your business. The conversations that you should strive to create via social media are different for every industry, every locality, and every size of business. Do some research as to what your particular conversation is (or should be) and engage. And keep with the ongoing and ever-evolving conversations about social media itself. There are some great resources out there, so don’t be afraid to learn from others and to contribute your successes or learning experiences to the conversation.

Find Out More:

10 Small Business Social Media Marketing Tips
The 5 Essential Pillars Of A Social Media Marketing Campaign

This is our second edition of “Theme Thursday” — each week, we’ll put out a bunch of WordPress themes on — you guessed it — Thursday, just for your downloading pleasure. Let us know which ones are your favorites, and enjoy!

Doodles and Swirls

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Girl In Pink

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Blue Jean Theme

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Starry Purple Girl

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Fashion of Gold

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Everyone knows there are tasks to administer to our computers and servers that we don’t do as often as we should. It takes time to back up or or clean up files or perform other repetitive, administrative-type tasks, so we avoid them doing them regularly; meanwhile, we’re one system crash away from losing everything. Luckily, your Linux system has a built-in tool to help you take care of such time-intensive tasks. It’s called a “cron job,” and, if used properly, it can to do the things that keep your systems flowing and your site running smoothly.

What Is A Cron Job, Anyway?

A cron job is a program that allows you to execute commands or scripts on a Linux-based system (usually a server) at a specified time and date. So exactly what kind of tasks can a cron job accomplish for you, then?

• Backing up not only your MySQL databases, but also your website’s content. It’s recommended that you do these jobs once a day, at some off-peak hour like 2 A.M.
• Generating sitemaps on a monthly basis, thereby increasing your site’s SEO and chances of being found and highly-ranked by search engine’s spiders. Again, we recommend doing this regularly (monthly) and at off-peak hours.
• Deleting unnecessary files, such as old backups. This is a job best reserved for advanced users, though, since you don’t want to delete needed files. Tread with care on jobs like these.

OK, so now that we know the theory – what a cron job is and what you can use it for – let’s look at how it works. If a cron job is a script that runs at a given time and performs a certain task, then the script you use to execute the task needs to contain these elements. Each script must contain six components: the minute, the hour, the day (date), the month, the day of the week, and the command line to execute.Use the asterisks for wildcards (that is, the places you don’t have values for), and everything else tells your system when, where, and what. Remember, though – you have to write the script yourself. The cron job just pushes the button that tells the job when to start.

cPanel’s Cron Job Interface

Having a web host that offers cPanel on your sites makes this process quite a bit easier. Go to the cron jobs tab on cPanel, use the tables to select the time, day, and frequency, insert the code for the task, and you’re done. By offering this option, cPanel removes a lot of the guess work about scheduling cron jobs, making it a simple visual interface – yet another reason to love cPanel. Moreover, you can use the interface to simultaneously schedule multiple cron jobs – just get your scripts in order and let it do its job.

A Word Of Caution

One tip – make sure to schedule cron jobs during off-peak hours; for example, during the middle of the night when your server isn’t doing its daily work. Cron jobs can end up being a drag on a server if not properly scheduled. Also, make sure your scripts work properly, or else a cron job can run unnecessarily, too often, or get caught in a loop where it runs nonstop. That’s a drag on your server’s resources as well.

That said, a cron job is a great tool if you know what to use it for and how to get it done. So study up, set the job, and relax while a cron job takes some of the repetitiveness out of your computing life.

There are many online resources to help you figure out how to write executable scripts for cron jobs, including examples of the cron jobs mentioned above. Two good resources can be found at APLawrence.com and NixCraft.

Rest easy, though – there are some simple practices you can employ to lessen your chances of becoming a victim. And, luckily for users, it’s not just the bigger companies and organizations that are developing protections against vulnerabilities like these – users are developing fixes as well. With that in mind, here are some steps you can take and plugins you can download to keep your WordPress site safe and secure.

Practices

1) Keep Your Version of WordPress and Plugins Updated

This is the first and most basic step to security. Developers at WordPress AND the private developers who create the plugins are always addressing vulnerabilities and making more secure versions of their product. Check for these updates regularly and, after backing up your site, download and install them.

2) Setting (and Re-setting) File Permissions

Some plugins may require you to change the file permissions on certain files or folders to 777 before installing them. Be sure to set your permissions back to the original setting (usually 755 for directories and 644 for files) once you’ve completed the installation. For more on this, see WordPress’s page on this.

3) Password Security

When around 60,000 Hotmail usernames and passwords were posted online, it was found that the most popular passwords were “12345” and “123456789.” Bad idea – make your passwords stronger. Test the strength of yours at Password Meter and, if it’s weak, try creating a stronger one at Password Bird or Strong Password Generator.

Plugins

1) WP Security Scan

This plugin is the workhorse of the bunch. It scans your entire WordPress-based site, checking for vulnerabilities and alerting you when it finds them. It comes highly recommended by WordPress pros and casual users alike.

2) Secure WordPress

When you install WordPress, you’ll inevitably leave a trail behind you, with vulnerabilities that the savvy hacker might be able to exploit. This plugin sweeps your trail clean by removing any unwanted, exploitable and telling information left over from the installation process.

3) WordPress Database Backup

This handy plugin does just what its title promises – it backs up your core WordPress tables as well as other tables of your own choosing. It’s easy to install, use, and customize. WordPress also offers its own backup functionality through the Admin page of your site.

4) Admin SSL

By securing virtually any part of your WordPress site – the login page, the admin area, posts, and pages – this plugin uses the standard cryptography protocol SSL to keep your information safe.

5) WordPress Antivirus

Since so many sites run on WordPress, you can bet there are hackers working around the clock writing malicious code designed to exploit it. This powerful and effective plugin not only does daily scans to protect against viruses, worms, and malware, but also emails you reports on suspicious files.

Every day, it seems, there’s another story in technology news about a new way your data can be compromised online. Whether it’s personal data being lost in the "cloud," thousands of email passwords being published online, or various malware taking down entire networks of computers, online security is becoming something that concerns not only system administrators and tech folks, but the normal everyday user as well. And that’s a good thing – the more aware we are about online security issues, the more vigilant we can be about protecting our data and personal information.

Blue Flowers

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Sleek Dark Blue

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Light Green Theme

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Blue Stripes

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Floating Shadow Boxes

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We hope you enjoy using these themes as much as we did making them. Happy blogging!

For our first effort, we present a sleek, modern design in blue with a dark background and Web 2.0-inspired wraparound headings. It’s widget-ready, gravatar-enabled, and set to download. Enjoy!

Download Theme Here

View Demo Here

And just so you don’t think we don’t appreciate the efforts of others, here are some links to some more themes from some of our favorite sites. We think these are functional, interesting, and just downright cool:

20 Free Wordpress Themes With Premium Like Functionalities
Free Wordpress Themes
100 Amazing Free Wordpress Themes For 2009