Wordpress 2.7 is here with a new design for the admin side. I’ll try to start work on an update for Mike Lothar’s Nosebleed, Ad Infinitum and Conundrum templates for Wordpress soon.

Here’s some info about the new Wordpress version:

The autoupdate feature – which was already available for plugins – is now available for the whole software. If only phpbb could take a cue!

As a follow-up to my previous post on the subject, the WordPress app for iPhone Available Now.

A few new resources have become available since my previous post on the subject. Here’s an updated list of iPhone website templates and of iphone themes and skins for mobile phones.

iPhone compatible website themes

Once installed, your website will look good on the iPhone or iPod Touch. Most websites already good look on the mobile Safari browser, but these themes are optimized with the iphone/ipod touch in mind (low bandwidth, no flash, etc.).

1. Countries in Colors RapidWeaver iPhone theme [source - download]
2. Real Mac Software RapidWeaver iPhone theme [source - download]
3. iWPhone WordPress Plugin and Theme [source - download]
4. all4wordpress WordPress Theme [preview - download]
5. Not exactly a theme, but MoFuse is a web-based service that allows the easy creation of mobile websites [go to Mofuse]
6. Again not a single theme, but a tool allowing for the easy creation of iPhone and iPod Touch compatible photo sites [go to Foliolink]
7. WPtouch is a theme installed as a plugin on your WordPress blog or website that will format your content with this Apple-inspired, full-featured theme when your visitors are using an iPhone or iPod touch. [source - download]
8. Wordpress iPhone / iPod Touch app. This application will allow you to post directly to your Wordpress blog. It is going to be made available very soon on the App store. Below is a screencast demoing the app.

iPhone centered website themes

1. Hello 1.0 / iPhone Wordpress theme [source - download]
2. Jinsona’s Hello iPhone Wordpress theme [source - download]
3. iFoney Wordpress theme [source - download]
4. Hello by 2bitoperation theme for RapidWeaver [source - download]

iPhone skins and styles for popular phones

• iPhone theme for Nokia N80 [source - download]
• iPhone theme for Nokia N6300 and Nokia 40 Series [source - download]
• iPhone theme for Sony Ericsson w810i [source - download]
• iPhone themes for BlackBerries [source - download]
• bPhone, another iPhone theme for BlackBerries [source - download]
• iPhone theme for Sony Ericsson w900i [source - download]
• iPhone theme for Sony Ericsson k750, w700, w800, w810 [source - download]
• iPhone theme for Sony Ericsson k610i [source - download]
• iPhone theme for pocket pc [source - download]
• Gigabit Software’s iPhone theme for pocket pc [source - download]
• Leo S60 iPhone theme for Symbian OS S60. Works with Nokia N70, N72, 6630, 6620, 6680, 6681, 6682, 6670, 7610, 6260, 3230, 6600 Samsung SGH-D720, SGH-D730 Panasonic X700, X800 [source - download]
• iPhone Black theme for Sony Ericsson k750, d750, k600, w800, w700 [source - download]
• iPhone theme for Sony Ericsson K800, K790 [source - download]
• iBored theme for Sidekick [source - download]
• iPhone theme for Sony Ericsson w850 [source - download]
• iPhone theme for Sony Ericsson k800, w850 [source - download]
• iPhone theme for Sony Ericsson k750, w800 [source - download]
• k800 iphone theme for Sony Ericsson k800 [source - download]
• iPhone style for BenqSiemens E71 [source - download]
• iPhone theme for Sony Ericsson k800 [source - download]
• iPhone theme for Sony Ericsson w900 [source - download]
• Java iPhone theme for most java-compatible phones [source - download]

This is beginning to look very sweet. I am impressed.

This new 2.6 version is available here.

Since I am upgrading my sites to the wonderful Conundrum/Ad Infinitum/Nosebleed themes, which are not yet compatible with Wordpress 2.3, I had to manually add the (only) feature which I find worth upgrading for: tags. In addition to categories, posts may now be tagged with certain keywords.

Adding to Conundrum/Ad Infinitum/Nosebleed. It is easy to upgrade the Conundrum/Ad Infinitum/Nosebleed themes: currently those themes show the categories in which the posts are put below each post. This is a line that starts with “Posted in”. The corresponding code in the Wordpress theme file is “Posted in < ? php the_category(', ') ? >“. To add tags, simply add the code “< ? php the_tags(); ? >” after the category code, and the tags you have entered for each post will appear like magic!

The files to edit in the Conundrum/Ad Infinitum/Nosebleed themes are index.php, archive.php, search.php and single.php.

Adding a tag cloud in the sidebar. A simple tag cloud can be added by editing sidebar.php and adding the following lines of code:

< ? php if ( function_exists('wp_tag_cloud') ) : ? >
< li >
< h2 >Popular Tags< /h2 >
< ul >
< ? php wp_tag_cloud('smallest=8&largest=22'); ? >
< /ul >
< /li >
< ? php endif; ? >

In the above codes make sure to delete the spaces after “<" and before ">“.

One of the main reasons for switching part of my Bluebulgaria site to Wordpress was the need to have a cross-platform, cross-browser theme that would work with not too many adjustments. The hard lesson I learned as a newbie webmaster is that the more changes you make to your RapidWeaver or Wordpress style, the higher the risks that something will not work with one browser or another.

That’s why I chose one of the most robust yet eye pleasing Wordpress theme: Mike Lothar’s Nosebleed (also available in different colors as Conundrum or as Ad Infinitum). I limited my changes to changing the image at the top (the file to edit or replace is called “top_image.jpg” and is found in the “images” folder of the theme) and the text colors in the cascading style sheet: simply edit the “style.css” file which is in the theme folder. Every time you see “color” followed by an hexadecimal number preceded with the “#” character, simply change the value to what you need.

In Nosebleed/Conundrum/Ad Infinitum, I also wanted to change the background color on both sides of this fixed-width theme. That was more complicated as this is not defined by a css. Instead the theme puts a “background-color” value in the first and last columns of the table. To achieve a color change there, you need to edit the value in the “header.php” file for the left column, and again in the “footer.php” file for the right column.

I’ve finally taken the decision to move part of the Bluebulgaria.com site to Wordpress. Up until now I was republishing Bulgarian content from Countries in Colors through a rss feed in a Rapidweaver template, but that led to too much formatting trouble across different browsers and platforms.

Moving posts. Once my new Wordpress database was set up, I had to think of ways to move the relevant posts from one database to the other. Now Wordpress gives you a few options to do so, and the most relevant seemed to be importing the RSS feed or using the Wordpress export/import functions, which create an xml file for you to import in the new blog. Problem is that you can only select posts based by author, and not by category. Once the import is done, you will have to manually select those posts that are relevant to your new blog. Another problem for me was the size of the file: the import function only works with files of up to 2 megabytes, and mine was strangely larger… until I found out that the export/import method actually also saves comments, including those comments that have been caught and hidden by the great Akismet plugin. I simply had to delete a month worth of spam comments which were hidden (669 in total), and my database was down to a much more reasonable size…

Dealing with categories. With the latest version of Wordpress come tags in addition to categories. The import created a very long list of categories based on keywords. Instead of one of two categories, I ended up having close to a hundred! I could not find any other way but to delete them by hand. Luckily I do not move posts every day!

With the advent of tens of popular social websites, there is an increasing urge to integrate your site with your social virtual network. Let’s see how to do it on sites designed with RapidWeaver and Wordpress. For a change we will try to show how to achieve this with pictures and only a few words.

First, create your Flickr badge

Starting point: Flickr tools.

Insert your badge on RapidWeaver

The most obvious place to insert your badge is in the sidebar, but you can put it anywhere using different pages styles. It works in html, styled text and any other pages compatible with styled text, such as RapidFlickr or Carousel.

Insert your badge on your Wordpress site

The easy way to insert a badge on your sidebar is to use the Flickr badge widget. However, if you do not use widgets or prefer to put your badge in a post or in a page, simply paste the code you got from the Flickr website in your post or page.

That’s it!

If you are interested in more Flickr tricks and tips, you may want to check out Integrating Flickr pictures on your Wordpress or RapidWeaver site and Integrating a Flickr photo map on your website.