20 Combat Photography Examples which will Blow your Mind

The word combat stands for fight against or Oppose in battle, Combat photography carries the real mood, its not a real planned Photography. Its nothing but capturing the stunning live moments of soldiers during live action. Here I have collected 20 Combat photography examples, Enjoy…..

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80 Reasons To Join Elegant Themes

According to Leonardo Da Vinci “Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.” True. If you observe a lot of the high end designer brands, there is a common thread among all of them – simple sophistication. Elegant, timeless, classic designs that stand the test of time always wins over outlandish, over the top fads that shine bright like a falling star only to fade later on. Perhaps this is why Elegant Themes continues to remain strong. Their commitment to elegant, classic design gives their themes that timeless appeal. That doesn’t mean that their designs are dated and irrelevant but instead, their consistency, as far as delivering beautiful and highly functional themes, is constant.

Their recently released WordPress Theme, Fusion, is a good example of the quality of design work they put out. Fusion Premium WordPress Theme is just one of 80 high quality themes Elegant Themes members enjoy. That’s 80 good reasons to join Elegant Themes today. Imagine owning 80 beautiful themes for the price of mere pennies for each theme. That’s cheaper than buying an upsized or Big Soda – and hey, no calories too! For WordPress professionals who create websites for clients, that’s a great investment indeed. It’s better to upsize your business rather than your waistline.

There are many other reasons why you should seriously consider joining Elegant Themes. A good sign that a company is healthy and thriving is its growth rate. Elegant Themes membership has grown more or less 30% in a span of 6 months. From 120,000+ members last year they jumped to 160,000+ at the start of this year. The numbers tell the story and that is really worth noting.

If you haven’t heard of Elegant Themes yet or if you are a WordPress beginner still trying to find your way around the WordPress community, check out our recently updated article – “Nick Roach’s Elegant Themes Review”. It’s a great resource with lots of information and samples  for anyone who wants to find out more about Elegant Themes. Click on the title “ Nick Roach’s Elegant Themes Review” to read.

Get 80 Premium Themes for $39

Fusion Theme from Elegant Themes is HERE!

Elegant Themes’ recently released Fusion Premium WordPress Theme is a theme designed to bring pizzazz into business websites by fusing fun and professionalism together in one awesome theme. Who says business themes have to boring and sterile when you can jazz it up and make it more interesting? This theme is intended for startups, tech companies, and design firms but it can easily be tweaked and adapted to whatever website you have in mind.

What’s hot? Fusion’s generous homepage slider dominates the theme’s layout even beyond the fold giving you maximum room to showcase your very best products or services with a bang. You have a choice of 5 gorgeous backgrounds to wow your audience with and the animated slideshow is smooth and sleek. The font choices used add that overall subtle elegance to the whole theme while still maintaining readability.

This premium WordPress theme also includes several page templates like: a contact form with built in Captcha, a portfolio section with 5 layout options, a sitemap, an image gallery, an advanced search page, and a not your usual WordPress login page. You can also assign content like quotes, article excerpts, client logos or icons to specific widgetized sections for that professional feel.

Overall, Fusion’s theme layout, color styling, font choices, and built-in features and functionalities are great as is but if you want to customize certain features to make it more custom you can do so via its powerful Theme Options Panel. You can also enhance other functionalities with the use of the theme’s shortcodes. This premium WordPress theme is responsive so you can be assured that you the same pizazz is there no matter what screen size you view it in.

Features:

  • Perpetual Updates
  • Secure and Valid Code
  • Browser Compatibility
  • Complete Localization
  • Unlimited Colors
  • Unparalleled Support

Fusion Premium WordPress Theme includes top-notch tech support provided by Elegant themes’ support staff to help you setup your site and get it running in no time.

Get Fusion from Elegant Themes Now!

Header.php and The WordPress Header


In a previous article, we ‘deconstructed’ and brokedown a basic WordPress theme into 5 sections namely: the header, the menu, the sidebar, the content, and the footer. This time we are going to dive a little deeper into one of the sections and try to dissect it a little bit more.

Here’s how we defined The WordPress Header in that article:

The header is the structure that traditionally sits at the top of a web page. It contains the title of the website. It may also be referred to as the masthead, head, title, and banner. In all WordPress Themes, the header is found within the header.php template file.

Most themes have a header image that displays at the top of the page. This image is generated by a graphic defined either in the CSS value for the property that represents the header area or through the use of a custom header feature in WordPress. In themes that don’t have the custom header image feature, you can easily define a background image for the header image using CSS. (source: CSS for Dummies)

Not to be confused with headings (more on this in the future), the WordPress header is an important and strategic element of any WordPress theme because it is the first thing the visitor sees on your site. A good header communicates and reflects the content, purpose and intention of the site. It establishes your personal brand. Much like the cover of a top selling book or magazine, the header serves as a teaser of what can be expected from the rest of the website. It should be interesting enough to encourage visitors to explore the site even further. Not all headers require pictures or images. Some websites use beautiful typography as headers and they work just as well. Cluttered headers crammed with outdated blinking gifs and ads should be avoided as they are surefire ways for visitors to hit the back button in a jiffy.

The header.php file

header.php should contain everything from the DOCTYPE tag to the end of the page’s navigation. This means that all <head> tag information, meta tags, <title> tag variables, and other information must be included in the site’s header. This template file also must contain the <?php wp_head(); ?> tag, which places valuable WordPress version-sharing information, and other website information, within the head of the document. It must be placed before the closing </head> tag. (source: speckyboy.com)

The coding experiment

The header is set in an h1 HTML tag and features one template tag used with two different options or parameters. Basically, the first one displays the URL of the website in a link, and the second one displays the name of the blog or website as set in the Administration > Settings > General panel. When the user moves the mouse over the header title, the header can be clicked to return back to the main or front page of the site as set in the Administration > Settings > General panel.

Let’s experiment a bit with this basic header code. The code below contains two sections (the head and the body)

<HTML>

<HEAD>
<TITLE>My Home Page</TITLE>
</HEAD>

<BODY>
<H1>Blogging Experiment</H1>
This is an experiment.
</BODY>

</HTML>

and it will produce something like this:

Blogging Experiment

This is an experiment.

Of course, this is just plain simple html without any CSS styling applied yet. Sample CSS code that can be applied:

#header {
background: #90a090;
border-bottom: double 3px #aba;
border-left: solid 1px #9a9;
border-right: solid 1px #565;
border-top: solid 1px #9a9;
font: italic normal 230% ‘Times New Roman’, Times, serif;
letter-spacing: 0.2em;
margin: 0;
padding: 15px 10px 15px 60px;
}

If you want to experiment a little further and test your html coding skills you can check out this nifty tool on the W3Schools website. Simply submit your code and see what happens. You can make it as simple or as complicated as you want. Check it out here: W3Schools.com Try it yourself.


Elegant Themes Has Over 160,000 Customers! Time To Join.


In a span of 6 months, Elegant Themes’ customer base grew from 120,000+ to over 160,000. That’s more or less a 30% jump and quite an achievement really. Something right must be happening and this is great news for the WordPress community. On a macro scale, this means that more websites are being powered by WordPress and are enjoying the variety of designs available in the WordPress marketplace as well as the robust functionalities of this ever improving content management system. On the micro level, more WordPress consumers, particularly Elegant Themes customers, are enjoying more quality WordPress themes at incredible bargain prices. If you are member of Elegant Themes this means that you are enjoying 80 (latest count) high quality WordPress themes for pennies!

If you are a WordPress professional and you’ve been scouting around the WordPress marketplace for quality themes, check out Elegant Themes and the great value you can get at a price for less than a cup of Caffe Americano. If you are simply a WordPress user, think of the many ways you can dress up your site (80 themes and counting) to fit your every mood.

What’s so great about Elegant Themes? Consistency. Through all the years that they have been in business, in the middle of ups and downs, redesigns, and all the normal and abnormal challenges all businesses face, Elegant Themes has been consistent. As far as quality of design, commitment to improve, and sensitivity to their customer base are concerned, Elegant Themes has been consistent. This communicates longevity and stability which are important to consumers, especially loyal ones.

When is the best time to join Elegant Themes? Now is the best time to take advantage of Elegant Themes’ current pricing scheme. The current price has remained the same since 2010 when it rose to the present $39 rate. As far as design quality is concerned, it is still one of the best WordPress deals on the web. For those of you who are on the fence or still contemplating whether to join or not, now is the best time to join. Why? A little birdy told us that this pricing scheme may change pretty soon. Maybe you can skip the Caffe Americano for now while this price scheme is still hot. Head on out and check Elegant Themes today.

Get 77 Premium Themes for $39

30 Realistic and Inspirational 3D Artworks 2013

Some people believe that genius is something intrinsic, something inherent within a man and genius cannot be taught. You cannot be trained to become a genius. For e.g. you cannot be trained to paint like Da Vinci. Although this notion is true but some people take it far too seriously. Some students skip classes because they think that traditional education will tamper with their natural instincts. Others try to start a business without reading a single business book. Of course these people are flawed in their thinking. Albert Einstein once said – “You have to learn the rules of the game. And then you have to play better than anyone else.” So you see success has two parts. One is learning the rules of the game and the other one is playing better than others. This former aspect, learning the rules of your trade, can be trained and taught.

Below I have collected 30 artworks for those artists who want to learn the rules of art. These artworks are not genre specific. They vary from the children’s comic character The Incredible Hulk to the portrait of a simple innocent girl, from the picture of a super hero to Ibn Tulun Mosque. So scroll down and enjoy.

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WordPress 3.5 – New Features to be excited about in 2013

Drumroll please, Elvin Jones is in the house! WordPress house, that is. In keeping with WordPress code naming tradition, the latest WordPress update released – WordPress 3.5 has been named “Elvin” in honor of drummer Elvin Jones, and there is a lot to drum about.

Here are some of the new features that have been updated in WordPress 3.5:

New Media Manager

The Drag and Drop feature is streamlined, fast and easy to use. Creating galleries is faster with inline caption editing capabilities and simplified controls. Insert multiple images at once with Shift/Ctrl+click or insert multiple galleries per post and independently order images as you like.

New Default Theme

Twenty Twelve (2012) theme for WordPress is a simple, flexible and elegant theme with a gorgeous open sans typeface. It is currently the default theme for WordPress 3.5. It is mobile friendly, fully responsive and looks great on any device. This theme includes all the latest theme features including a front-page template with its own widgets which you can customize and also set up as a single page.

Favorite Plugin Support

Mark all your favorite or often used plugins in the WordPress Plugin Direcotry and access all of them directly in the Admin Panel>Plugins> Install Plugins page using your WordPress.org user name. This pulls out all your favorite go to plugins and saves a lot of time especially when you are setting up multiple sites.

Admin Enhancements

WordPress 3.5 sports a new Welcome Screen, simpler and easier to use even by WordPress beginners. All the basic tasks are accessible in this new interface – from Getting Started to Writing your First Blog Post to Managing Widgets – user-friendly indeed.

Retina display support

WordPress 3.5 is also Retina-Ready (HiDPI) where many visual elements have been updated and converted to CSS3 elements to support the new displays so that they look good on these higher resolution screens.

Support for Instagram, oEmbed support for SoundCloud and Slideshare

oEmbed is a format for allowing an embedded representation of a URL on third party sites. The simple API allows a website to display embedded content (such as photos or videos) when a user posts a link to that resource, without having to parse the resource directly. Great news for Instagram, Soundcloud and Slideshare users as WordPress 3.5 supports these services and it is now easier to integrate them to your site without touching any code.

Link Manager Gone

And its absence will hardly be felt probably. WordPress 3.5 hides the Link Manager by default for new installs but if you truly miss it, this feature can still be enabled via the Link Manager plugin. All sites with existing links are left as is.

XML-RPC is enabled by default

This means better accessibility for screen readers, touch devices, and keyboard users. This feature is also for remote publishing/mobile and easier connection with mobile apps like the Official WordPress iOS app. Those who are using Atom will need to use a 3rd party plugin.

New Tumblr importer

If you’ve been wanting to import your Tumblr content into WordPress for years now is the time to do so. WordPress 3.5 has now made this possible.

Multisites can now be installed and used in the subdirectory

Another improvement in WordPress 3.5 which multisite developers will appreciate is the ability to install WordPress Multisite in the subdirectory and not in the document root.

There’s more under the hood goodness that can be further explored if you want to. Some people wait a while before they install the latest WordPress update to give plugin developers time to update their own plugins. Make sure to backup your files before you do any updates.


25 Basic Adobe Lightroom Tutorials for Learners

The phrase “photo editing” has become synonymous with “Adobe Photoshop”. Photoshop is the industry leader when it comes to editing images. But one drawback of Photoshop is that a designer needs a good amount of coaching before he can use Photoshop properly. A coaching center near my house promises to teach Photoshop in 2 months to the layman. Not everybody will be willing to invest two months to learn a photo editing software, especially when one does not intend to choose photo designing as a career.

Understanding this problem, Adobe has designed another software named Adobe Lightroom to help even the general public to easily edit images. To quote Adobe’s website – “Lightroom includes all the tools you need for most digital photography tasks in one intuitive solution. Lightroom helps photographers work faster and more efficiently with one image, a set of images, or a large image library.”

When I stated that Lightroom can be used for the general public I don’t mean that one can begin using it merely after installing it. Obviously you need to have some guidance to use the software properly. Therefore, in this blog post, I have collected a list of 25 excellent tutorials on how to use Lightroom properly and get desired results.

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WordPress Theme Deconstructed

Last week we touched on the basic components of a typical WordPress theme. Below is a visual example of how the layout looks like.

The components are as follows:

The Header (header.php)

The header is the structure that traditionally sits at the top of a web page. It contains the title of the website. It may also be referred to as the masthead, head, title, and banner. In all WordPress Themes, the header is found within the header.php template file.

Most themes have a header image that displays at the top of the page. This image is generated by a graphic defined either in the CSS value for the property that represents the header area or through the use of a custom header feature in WordPress. In themes that don’t have the custom header image feature, you can easily define a background image for the header image using CSS. (source: CSS for Dummies)

Menu (navigation) – usually found within or above the header

There are two ways to display a nav menu. One is by calling wp_nav_menu() within a theme template file. The other is by using the Navigation Menu widget. Most themes will call a menu from their header.php template, but menus can be placed anywhere. (source: Justin Tadlock)

The Sidebar (sidebar.php)

In general, the WordPress sidebar features titles of the various sections within a list, with the section items in a nested list below the title.
According to the WordPress Codex and in terms of design,
a sidebar is:
“… a narrow vertical column often jam-packed with lots of information about a website. Found on most WordPress sites, the sidebar is usually placed on the right or left-hand side of the web page, though in some cases, a site will feature two sidebars, one on each side of the main content where your posts are found.”

(You can also check out our previous article “Adding Sidebars to WordPress” to read more about sidebars.)

The Content Column (index.php)

The content container in WordPress plays the most important role. It holds the WordPress Loop which dictates the generation of content on the page depending upon the request by the user.

Content consists of text, images, or other information shared in posts. This is separate from the structural design of a web site, which provides a framework into which the content is inserted, and the presentation of a site, which involves graphic design.

The Footer (footer.php)

The footer is found within the footer.php template file. Footers are more than just a place to put copyright information. The footer in a web design is the bottom of the page. It indicates the end of the page. The footer includes navigational links to move the reader into your blog’s content, but it does so much more. It’s the last thing some visitors see after they finish reading your blog post and comments and should encourage people to stay a little longer on your site. (Source: lorelle.wordpress.com).

More next week!