Around the Web: WordPress and Tech News

The year 2014 started with a bang and with lots of interesting stories posted around the web. Here’s what caught our eye so far:

Enjoy!

WordPress Resource : Free Icons

The Internet is a great resource for anything and everything – for free or for a fee – especially if you are into web design. Don’t break the bank just yet if you are just dabbling into web design and it is not a professional thing for you yet. Check out these high quality design elements and incorporate them into your projects:

Metrize Icons

Metrize Icons is a free collection of 300 metro-style icons for designers and developers. The bundle also includes Metrize Font Icons and the necessary scripts for compatibility with IE7 and the complete character map. This icon set is perfect for your apps or web projects. You may use these icons for both commercial and personal projects and customize them any way you like. All Icons, WebFont and Updates are Free.

Dashicons

Dashicons is a new feature that slipped into the admin side of WordPress with the recently-released 3.8. This feature gives plugin developers a nice set of pre-made and pre-loaded icons to use. Using them in your WordPress custom post types is as simple as adding a parameter to your register_post_type() function.

Genericons

Genericons are a free, GPL, flexible vector icons for blogs embedded in a webfont and are designed to be clean and simple keeping with a generic aesthetic. It can be used for instant HiDPI or to easily change colors on the fly. It includes: Social icons(Skype, Digg, Reddit, Stumbleupon, Pocket), New generic icons (heart, lock and print), New editing icons (code, bold, italic, image), and New interaction icons (subscribe, unsubscribe, subscribed, reply all, reply, flag), among others.

400 Hand Drawn Icons

400 Hand Drawn Icons Set has been provided by Freepik.com exclusively for the readers of Blog Oh! Blog. These are free to use in your personal and commercial projects and are provided in SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics) format and can be easily used on any website.

Free Line Icons from Elegant Themes

This free line-style icon set from Elegant Themes ships with a total of 100 different icons and is a re-mastering and expansion on their previous Divi Icons. The new set has been re-created at a new size and line-weight, and 50 new icons have been added as well! The download package includes the vectored .AI and .SVG files, as well as 32px and 64px .PNGs.

Free eCommerce Icon Set

This set of 33 flat e-commerce icons were exclusively designed and created for Smashing Magazine by the team at Responsive. The icons are ideally suited to e-commerce projects and include many popular payment providers, including Bitcoin. The icons come in different-sized PNGs (32 × 32, 64 × 64, 128 × 128 and 256 × 256 pixels), and the set includes Photoshop and Illustrator files containing all of the icons. Released under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported license, freely available for private and commercial projects.

Enjoy these free graphic design resources and share your projects with us.

Events and Entertainment WordPress Themes – December 2013

Get into the groove with these cool WordPress themes just in time for the most event-filled season of the year. Create a site for you or your clients that will surely stand out with these creative events and entertainment WordPress themes.

POLARIS – Responsive WordPress Theme

Polaris Premium WordPress Theme is an ultra responsive and modern one page WordPress Theme suitable for events or parties. This premium retina ready theme comes in 16 color styles and includes: Magnific popup, Font Awesome iconic font, parallax, easy to extend and much more. It is a great way to present your important events and activities all in one sweep.This premium theme is based on popular Twitter Bootstrap framework. This template uses the latest HTML5 and CSS3 technologies.

Clubix – Nightlife, Music & Events WordPress Theme

Clubix Premium WordPress Theme is a responsive theme designed especially for nightlife, events, and music related websites. Party goers,fans, followers, or nightlife club hoppers are always on the lookout for the latest happenings around town. A cool way to address the needs of this specific market is putting up an online calendar of events, concerts, gigs, tours, launches, and other events or nightlife activities that will keep them up to date. For music enthusiasts, Clubix has two custom post types ‘under the hood’ to help you create and upload new songs organised on albums and events. You can customize your background image and also the color of the main elements from the theme, add music players, sliders, WooCommerce, Google maps, and so much more.

Flycase – Complete Music Solution for WordPress

Flycase Premium WordPress Theme is a professional and easy-to-use Music WordPress Theme that is highly and easily customizable, ready for all devices, simple to set up, and even e-commerce ready. Specifically designed for music enthusiasts, professional or not, this theme includes all the features you need to present, promote and sell for your band or label. This edgy, modern theme has everything a fan wants and everything a music artist needs – from photo/video galleries, discography, tour dates, multiple playlists, etc. – all in one cool theme.

Amplify WordPress Theme

Amplify Premium WordPress Theme is not your typical band theme with its minimalist and clean design but still capable of managing music website requirement such as gigs, discography, and videos with ease using the AudioTheme plugin. The WordPress admin panel is transformed into your band’s ultimate management tool with an easy-to-use user interface. Add your own language and display RTL languages as intended. Upload your tracks and allow users to play clips or full songs on every page of your website with the custom audio player. It ties in directly to your AudioTheme tracks and offers an easy-to-use interface for selecting and updating tracks in the jukebox. This theme is powered by Foundation by Zurb and Sass, a powerful CSS pre-processor where you can either edit the CSS directly or use Sass to regenerate your theme CSS easily and quickly.

Applause – One-Page Responsive Music & DJ WP Theme

Applause Premium WordPress Theme is a responsive one page band & musicians theme, built using Bootstrap framework using HTML5 & CSS3. For all who love music or those who are in the music industry such as music bands, musicians, DJs, producers, labels or organizers of events and festivals, this theme is the perfect solution to organizing necessary information and media such as Events, Audio, Galleries and Videos. Applause can display each event on their own map with its location and venue, the price and availability of the tickets. It can display your latest audio tracks with awesome player and you can even add a remote link or upload your own mp3.

WordPress eCommerce Opportunities for WordPress Professionals for 2014

The Internet has significantly changed and reshaped the workforce profile in the last few years. It has opened up opportunities for work outside of the traditional 9 to 5 setup and the lure of “work from home” or “work anywhere” is irresistible. Because of this, more and more people are opting to liberate themselves from the office cubicle and pursue non traditional work opportunities because of the flexible work hours and the income potential it presents – most of which can be found online.

The global economic landscape is flat in the sense that anyone in the world, regardless of location or educational attainment, can become the next big business online. The challenge for most businesses is how to take their bricks and mortar mentality into the world of bricks and clicks.These people need experts who can help them build their dream business – online. For WordPress professionals, the opportunities to service this sector cannot be ignored.

According to comScore,

The comScore report found that retail e-commerce sales produced over $50 billion dollars last quarter. The study found that e-commerce sales have seen double-digit growth for 10 consecutive quarters. While growth this quarter was strong, comScore found that it was slightly down from the previous two quarters.

“The first quarter of 2013 was fairly strong for online retailers, with total e-commerce sales surpassing $50 billion for only the second time on record,” said comScore Chairman Gian Fulgoni.
“While the year-over-year growth rate of 13 percent remained healthy, it was a point or two below that of the preceding quarters.”

According to the report, sales growth was down one percentage point on a quarter-over-quarter basis. E-commerce sales growth was also reported to be down two percentage points since Q3 2012. Fulgoni surmised that the slowdown was caused by payroll tax increases, which took effect in 2013.

ComScore’s report found that digital content and subscriptions, apparel, sport/fitness, consumer electronics, and consumer-packaged goods saw the greatest amount of e-commerce sales growth this quarter. The report shows that all categories saw over 20 percent growth year-over-year.

Here are a few key strategies WordPress professionals can use on how to take advantage of the booming WordPress eCommerce business opportunities:

Think Local, Sell Global. – think of businesses and services in your local area that have the potential to go global

  • local retail stores in your community that can sell globally – eg. books, accessories, jewelry, hobby stores, food, specialty shops
  • personal and professional services – consultants, freelancers, financial advisers, coaching services, tutorials, accountants, DIY-ers
  • NGOs, events, charitable institutions, fundraisers, non profit organizations
  • niche businesses – realtors, travel agents, auto dealers
  • small to medium scale businesses

Master the eCommerce process and understand how each step functions. WordPress professionals need to be well-versed on how the standard eCommerce process works:

  • shopping cart – should be simple enough for the customer (eg. WooCommerce, easy digital downloads, gravity forms, etc.)
  • payment gateway
  • merchant account
  • merchant’s bank account

Study your client’s needs and specifications and how you can integrate, merge, or streamline their current business practices and processes to their website. Don’t be afraid to ask questions and provide suggestions on how to modify or improve how transactions are processed.

Price yourself right. – Building an eCommerce site is more than just choosing an eCommerce supported WordPress theme, adding a plugin, and hitting the publish button. Consider the scope and the size of the whole project, the after installation support, and any additional web admin and system maintenance support you might be asked to provide before giving a price quote.

One of the highlights of the comScore Q1 2013 report says that,

E-commerce accounted for 10.6 percent of discretionary dollars spent, the highest share on record.

There is no turning back to business as usual. eCommerce is here to stay and it’s momentum is on the rise and WordPress professionals have every opportunity to take advantage of it.

Unplug Those High Risk WordPress Plugins!

WordPress is a free and open source blogging tool based on PHP and MySQL that has evolved into a full content management system (CMS) with a plug-in architecture and a template system that extends its power and functions beyond basic expectations.

Because of its open source nature, one of the greatest benefits WordPress users enjoy is that hundreds of people all over the world are free to use it, work on it, and develop other products based on it that get plowed back into the WordPress marketplace and community. This has resulted in tens of thousands of plugins and themes flooding the market today. However, this freedom has also made WordPress a popular target for attacks, especially 3rd party plugins that fail to go through or pass coding standards and security guidance or requirements, making it vulnerable to hackers and malicious mass infections.

In a recent research conducted by Checkmarx, a security solutions provider using automated code analysis, it identified that more than 20% of the most popular WordPress plugins are vulnerable to web attacks.

According to the Report:

20% of the 50 most popular WordPress plugins are vulnerable to common Web attacks. This amounts to nearly 8 million downloads of vulnerable plugins.

  • these plugins are vulnerable to: SQL Injection (SQLi), Cross Site Scripting (XSS), Cross Site Request Forgery (CSRF), and Path Traversal (PT).

7 out of top 10 most popular e-commerce plugins are vulnerable to common Web attacks. This amounts to more than 1.7 million downloads of vulnerable e-commerce plugins.

There is no correlation between the number of Lines of Code (LOC) and the vulnerability level of the plugins.

  • the smaller the code does not necessarily mean the safer the code. On the contrary – some plugins that included only a few thousand lines of code contained more types of vulnerabilities than plugins containing tens of thousands lines of code.

Vulnerable top 50 general plugin types vary.

  • – e-commerce, feed aggregators, APIs, social network linking

Only six plugins were completely fixed in a 6-month time period – although all plugins updated their versions during this time.

  • A first scan ran in January 2013 showed a higher rate of vulnerable plugins where more than a third (18 out of 50) of the plugins were vulnerable. In total, this meant that nearly 18.5 million vulnerable plugins were downloaded. Vulnerabilities in that first scan also presented the existence of RFI/ LFI vulnerabilities.

Recommendations

WordPress plugin vulnerabilities affect three major parties: the web admins, the plugin developers, and WordPress itself. Below are some of the recommendations stated in the report.

For Web Admins

  • Download plugins only from reputable sources. For WordPress, this means WordPress.org
  • Verify the security posture of the plugin by scanning it for security issues
  • Ensure all your plugins are up to date
  • Remove any unused plugins

For Plugin Developers

  • Integrate security within the plugin development
  • Run the plugin through a code scanner to ensure that it stands up to a security standard

SMBs or simple home-based businesses that do not have a built-in or sophisticated IT department to go through all these checks and balances, run a high risk of vulnerability because of the great deal of trust they place in available 3rd party plugins (especially the free ones). Web administrators need to be more discerning and thorough in their research before installing any plugins on the sites they manage. Plugin developers need to be self-governed and abide by security coding best practices. As each one does his part, this ensures that the whole WordPress community stands to benefit in the end.

Popular WordPress Plugins Updated for Security

In an article on WordPress Plugin vulnerabilities, we mentioned that the top 50 most popular plugins were tested for security and vulnerability by Checkmarx, a leading provider in application security. The first scan was conducted in January 2013 where it was discovered that more than a third of the 50 plugins were vulnerable. The second scan, conducted in early June 2013, was performed on the updated versions of all plugins. However, only six of these updates were free of those previously found vulnerabilities. These were:

BuddyPress

– creates a social network for the organization. # Downloads: 1,319,743.

A BuddyPress Plugin is a program, or a set of one or more functions, written in the PHP scripting language, that adds a specific set of features or services to the BuddyPress site, which can be seamlessly integrated with the site using access points and methods provided by the BuddyPress Plugin API. BuddyPress allows easy modification, customization, and enhancement to a BuddyPress powered WordPress site. Instead of changing the core programming of BuddyPress, you can add functionality with BuddyPress Plugins.

BBPress

– forum software. # Downloads: 483,28. Alerted by Checkmarx to their vulnerabilities.

bbPress is forum software, made the WordPress way – simple to setup, fully integrated, multisite forum, simple interface, customizable templates, highly extensible

E-Commerce

– shopping cart plugin. # Downloads: 2,209,352.

WP e-Commerce is a free WordPress Shopping Cart Plugin that lets customers buy your products, services and digital downloads online.

WooCommerce

– an e-commerce store. # Downloads: 469,503

WooCommerce is a free, powerful WordPress eCommerce plugin. With the extendability of a huge catalog of commercial themes and extensions we have all the tools you might need to get your shop running. Transform your WordPress website into a thoroughbred eCommerce store, delivering enterprise-level quality and features whilst backed by a name (WooThemes) you can trust.

W3 Total Cache

– site optimization by caching. # Downloads: 1,450,980. Most likely fixed as part of a security overhaul following an external full disclosure of some vulnerabilities.

W3 Total Cache improves the user experience of your site by increasing server performance, reducing the download times and providing transparent content delivery network (CDN) integration.

Super Cache

– site optimization by caching. # Downloads: 3,984,976. Most likely fixed as part of a security overhaul as with W3 Total Cache.

A very fast caching engine for WordPress that produces static html files. This plugin generates static html files from your dynamic WordPress blog. After a html file is generated your webserver will serve that file instead of processing the comparatively heavier and more expensive WordPress PHP scripts. Supercache really comes into it’s own if your server is underpowered, or you’re experiencing heavy traffic. Super Cached html files will be served more quickly than PHP generated cached files but in everyday use, the difference isn’t noticeable.

Note: Downloads statistics are as of the time of the tests.

Foxy WordPress Theme from Elegant Themes Is Here

Foxy Premium WordPress Theme is one of the latest releases by Elegant Themes and it is foxy indeed. This theme combines beautiful design with powerful function all in one neat little package. With all the features this premium theme has, it could very well be your one stop shop WordPress theme for business websites.

Whatever you are looking for in a WordPress theme, this one has it with a little bit more. You get all the page templates you need to set up great portfolio pages, a blog, an image gallery, a sitemap, an advanced search page, and a contact form. Not only do you have all these flexible and customizable templates useful for corporate or portfolio websites, you also get built-in e-commerce capabilities that take your website up another notch.

What’s in the box? A look at the homepage and you can tell the well thought out design process that the theme went through. The use of vibrant colors and elegant text layout are enticing and encourage interactivity. The homepage slider beautiful and functional and gives you a platform to throw out your message and get casual visitors to stay a bit longer. Text boxes for summaries are adequately spaced and can be used as tools to develop interest in your business and your products. A strategically located sign-up button is useful in building a loyal customer base. Built in shortcodes also give you flexibility to customize the theme even further with design elements such as tabs, columns, colored boxes, etc.

Foxy Premium WordPress Theme fully integrates ecommerce functionality and is compatible with the WooCommerce plugin, giving you an elegant yet fully functional e-commerce solution right out of the box. This theme runs on HTML5/CSS3, is also localized for easy translation, is responsive and looks beautiful even on handheld devices.

Features:

  • Responsive Design
  • Theme Options
  • Shortcodes
  • Page Templates
  • Unlimited Color Schemes
  • Secure and Valid Code
  • Complete Localization

Foxy Premium WordPress Theme includes perpetual updates, unparalleled support, and access more than 81 high quality WordPress themes included in every Elegant Themes membership.

Get Foxy And 81 More Themes for $39

WordPress Themes 2013: The Must-Have List

WordPress Themes are here to stay. Throughout the years, we’ve seen many different design styles and trends – some good, some not so good. With WordPress powering a colossal 1/5 of the entire Internet, WordPress Themes have become big business with many individual theme shops and developers pulling in millions every year.

Any way you slice it, WordPress is here to stay, and for that reason so are the free and premium themes we’ve all come to know and love. If you have spent any amount of time searching for the top WordPress Themes, you’ll notice that several names continue to appear at or close to the top of the list. Elegant Themes, Themeforest, and StudioPress to name some of the more popular ones.

In this article, we’d like to introduce you to some very creative and compelling WordPress Themes of 2013. Each and every one of these themes was released in 2013 so you can rest assured these are among the latest and greatest that WordPress has to offer.

Stay in the know with our list of the top overall WordPress Themes as well. Updated at least once per month, this article covers the best WordPress Themes in all the different categories including responsive, portfolio, magazine, business, and E-commerce just to name a few.

For the time being, here are a few of our absolute FAVORITE WordPress Themes for 2013.

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Best Shopping Cart Plugins for WordPress in 2013

Online shopping has been steadily growing in the last few years. As more and more people engage in business transactions on the web, it is fitting for WordPress sites to be ready for this flurry of eCommerce activity. Here are some of what we consider the best eCommerce plugins for the upcoming year.

Cart66

The Cart66 WordPress ecommerce plugin makes selling easier than ever before. With Cart66 you can sell electronics, digital downloads, videos, music, web hosting, legal services, collect membership fees, and more. Online selling need not be so complicated. This plugin makes selling anything as simple and as easy as can be. Cart66 integrates major merchant tools such as Amazon S3, for delivering digital products, and popular payment gateways such as Paypal’s payment system for collecting payments from sales. There is also a Lite Version which can be downloaded for free from the WordPress repository.

Jigoshop

This eCommerce plugin is the basis for the popular WooCommerce solution. While the two plugins have diverged development wise, Jigoshop maintains the clean, well written code philosophy both plugins have. Jigoshop provides you with the features necessary to set up an eCommerce website in no time with the option to create a multitude of product types and apply detailed attributes customers can easily refine your catalog, ensuring they find what they’re looking for in just a couple of clicks. It is one of the fastest growing plugins and has an emerging ecosystem of extensions that go with it.

WooCommerce

WooCommerce is a free, open source eCommerce plugin that is easy to install, use and extend. This very popular plugin is built for flexibility. It has great built in functionalities such as reporting, tax and shipping capabilities, products and inventory, supports numerous payment gateways, and so much more. The basic functionality can also be beefed up with available extension upgrades to match your business requirements. WooCommerce is an eCommerce tool kit that you can tailor to your specific needs.

MarketPress

MarketPress is an easy to use and powerful ecommerce / shopping cart plugin available for WordPress. This plugin was developed from the ground up to make it simple to set up a stylish online shop, MarketPress has all the features you need, including: Multiple payment gateways (PayPal, Authorize.net, Google checkout, 2checkout, Moneybookers, eWay, Cubepoints and more), fully internationalized by the WPML crew, and includes provision for shipping, coupons, Google Analytics Ecommerce tracking, sale pricing, unlimited product variations. Not only that, it’s also free.

WP Marketplace

The WP Marketplace plugin is a full-featured WordPress Shopping Cart/e-commerce system that is extremely easy to install and even easier to maintain. It has everything you need to build a complete online shop – from front-end management to shipping to payment gateways to analytics to social marketing and SEO features. WP Marketplace is an eCommerce tool that can turn your website into a money making machine.