Chris Brandrick

As some of you may have noticed I have started advertising WooThemes in my sidebar. WooThemes is a relatively new wordpress themes site which has really nice customized designs for you to use for your blog. These range from portfolio style themes to those suitable for a more magazine based blog. Be sure to check them out if your looking for something a bit special (oh and they all work in 2.6).

Yesterday saw the release of their newest theme, Papercut. The theme has a grunge style mixed with natural colours which although may sound a little different, really works. Liam McKay designed the theme on behalf of WooThemes, and his site can found here. The theme is available to WooTheme club members and via license purchases. Be sure to take a look.

Wordpress today announced that version 2.6 of the popular blogging platform is now available to download, for free of course. This version comes more than a month earlier than expected and is packed with a fair few new features, including a post word count, new media functions, and the ability to view your blog with a different theme before making it live. Check out the below video for the full details:

Pretty cool additions I’m sure you will agree, and I will be upgrading to the new version as soon as I get back from my holiday.  In other news the holiday is going well, and the weather is lovely, I will be sure to update my Flickr with a lot of pictures upon my return, but in the mean time here is a shot of me enjoying the sun:

It may have taken longer than it should, but ChrisBrandrick.com is finally running on the stable release of Wordpress 2.5. I mentioned in a previous post that the latest version of the popular blogging platform was on the way, and now, as you may have read on other blogs, it finally has arrived.

After having the new version installed for over a day now, I have familiarised myself with the new layout and although it is a very different it has several neat new features which overall make the back end experience all the more a pleasure to use. If you haven’t upgraded, be sure to do so now.

Version 2.5 of Wordpress has been anticipated for some time now, and the new version will bring with it several impressive changes, such as Gravatar support as standard, multiple uploads, and tagging management. All this in a fresh new interface.

Recently the guys over at Wordpress put up this article which gives a sneak peek at the final 2.5 interface and a general idea as to what you can expect. It has to be said at first I was weary of any changes being made to the Wordpress backend, but the latest interface has an overall impressive style and seems to flow very well, and if you prefer the classic blue colours, you can even switch back to them.

Wordpress 2.5 should be hitting very soon, so be on your toes and ready to update.

i am jack’s design is a blog which I have been reading ever since I joined Entrecard back in December, and has since become an almost daily read, he even got some recent link love! Jack’s blog is worth checking out as week in, week out helpful well written content is posted.

Now Jack has launched his very own newsletter which will feature exclusive content which can’t be found on his blog, including tips on web development, wordpress and more. What’s all the more sweeter is that those that sign up now to his new newsletter will be entered into a launch contest to win Adii’s Premium News Theme. This launch contest closes on the 7th of March, so be sure to sign up, I know I will be!

Recently I have been working on a redesign for my blog, mainly because I feel it’s about time I got a personalized look and a unique design to help strengthen my online identity and brand. I have made several designs and mocks in photoshop but haven’t really hit the nail on the head yet with the look I want to go for.

When the time is right I will no doubt show the mock designs, and of course the design I plan to go with here on the blog. In terms of colours I will be using blues, greys and blacks, and for branding I will continue to build upon using my personalized avatar, be it in advertising, emails and around the site. As for coding the design from a psd to a valid Wordpress theme I am still on the look out for somebody to complete this task, and despite me having a few people/companies in mind I am always open to suggestions, so either drop a comment below or contact me.

Getting a custom design for my blog was one of my goals for 2008, and now having made a start on visualizing how I want it to look, I am feeling very confident on reaching this goal.

Whether you just comment on blogs or run one, you should know about gravatar’s.

Gravatars stands for globally recognised avatar, and as you may have guessed it acts as your avatar when commenting on a wordpress blog. Most wordpress themes include gravatar support as standard, although some blog owners do choose to replace the gravatar space with a MyBlogLog (or other similar service) avatar area. Either way, if you actively comment on blogs and want to attach a visual representation of yourself to these comments, gravatar is the way to go.

Getting yourself a gravatar is simple, its free and all you need is an email address, just head on over to the official website and follow the simple instructions. Once you have uploaded an image (80×80) which represents yourself online, you then simply attach the image to any email addresses you may use when leaving comments, once confirmed, your gravatar will appear on the comments section of any blog you have commented on with gravatar support. Simple!

If you want to add Gravatar support to your blog, or if you just want to learn more check out Wordpress’ documentation here. Why not make a gravatar now, and come back here to test it? Just leave a comment.

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Apologies for the downtime last night, I had some issues with my host and all is now resolved!

This is just a quick update informing you guys that I have now installed the Wordpress plugin flickrRSS, as you can see it is now displaying the last four pictures from my photostream on my sidebar. Be sure to click through have a browse and maybe leave a comment or two.

The pictures on my flickr have been taken with my new D40 Digital SLR.

A few days back I reviewed Bloggin-Ads, in the review I recommended possibly getting a custom theme. Now only days later Mike has posted about his new custom theme, and it’s live.

The new Bloggin-Ads.com

The new design, which even carries over the old colour scheme (see above) is now live on Bloggin-Ads, so check it out. Congratulations to Mike & Michelle on there new theme, I hope it brings in new readers!

I recently turned 21, and for those of you who are interested I had a great birthday. But the best thing about my day was receiving a superb Nikon D40 Digital SLR Camera from my parents.

I have always had a distinct interest in photography, from feeble attempts to be arty, to just taking pictures of friends (and annoying them in the progress); but in the past my cameras (in my opinion) have always been lackluster, from very early digital cameras to modern phone cameras it’s all been a bit grim. Now I am very much so the amateur when it comes to taking a good picture, so I am currently attempting to educate myself on photography terminology and reading up on techniques used by others; in addition to this today I have been browsing the photography section on entrecard, with some really great results.

For example, BenSpark has been uploading ‘every-day’ style shots to his blog now for over 1,000 days, some of his pictures are great, so check it out. Another blog I clicked through to via entrecard was ‘My Beginnings In Photography‘, not the most catchiest name admittedly but this blog has some excellent beautiful shots. Finally another interesting blog I found was one which touched upon making money online via taking pictures, the blog has some good advice so check it out if your interested in monetizing your picture taking.

Now no doubt over the coming months I will be getting to grips with my new camera and taking a load of pictures (mostly rubbish I’m sure), so I am considering installing one of the wordpress flickr plugins to my blog to share my photographs with the blogging world. So be on the look out for that.

Finally for those of you interested in just the camera itself, and not my random musings, check out it’s wikipedia page.