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

Photography WordPress Themes Roundup for April 2013

Here are a few of our current picks for awesome photography themes for 2013:

Modelish

Modelish is a unique modern HTML5+LESS fully responsive WordPress theme for presenting artwork or photography. This full-width photography/portfolio styled theme is also versatile enough to be used for any type of business as well. The stylish, yet clean and professional design is optimized with mobile first techniques and retina display support. Add some style and modern flair to your website with its customizable system that makes it easy to adapt to your favorite colors, fonts and style preferences.

Keres Full Screen Photography Theme

Keres is a cool fullscreen responsive WordPress theme built for a photography or portfolio website. It comes with many cool features like multiple slideshows (fullscreen Slideshow, Ken Burns Slideshow), a unique Image Flow Gallery, Skin manager, fullscreen Contact Map, fullscreen Youtube and Vimeo Video. This theme includes customizable elements (color, font, background image) with 50+ advanced shortcodes and a Shortcode Generator support to create the portfolio style you really want.

Photojax Minimalist Ajax Photography Portfolio

Photojax is a clean and minimal, grid styled WordPress photography theme. This sleek and modern theme features two color skins, beautiful galleries using the premium Royal Slider plugin ($20 value), an audio player, and a minimal blog (all you’ll need for a great photography portfolio). Although designed for photographers it can be a great theme for graphic designers, architects, and anyone else with an image based portfolio.

Sniper Premium Photography

Sniper is a sleek and powerful premium responsive + liquid WordPress theme built for photographers, creative agencies or portfolio website. All elements of this theme are liquid which makes it ideal for smartphone and mobile devices. This modern WordPress theme’s dynamic navigation system makes it fun and interesting to explore your website – from dropdown menus to toggled pages, everything is full of surprises.

Smarald

Smarald is an incredibly unique, highly interactive, retina ready, responsive WordPress Portfolio theme, suitable for all sorts of creatives, agencies and even blogs. Whether you want to showcase your work in a beautiful way, share your articles with your readers, or just to have a great interactive website for your agency, this premium theme is the perfect solution for you.

Interesting WordPress Themes April 2013

Academy (Online Education)

Turn your website into a functioning e-learning solution with Academy Learning Management Theme from ThemeForest. This premium wordpress theme takes the elegant form of an ecommerce site and tweaks it to meet the needs of the e-learning market. Share, sell and promote your knowledge online effectively. This powerful theme includes features and functions to help you manage course offerings, rate their popularity, and publish subscription plans aimed to reach your target market. This theme includes a powerful options panel that allows you to create courses and lessons.This theme provides awesome features for creating online courses, such as extended user profiles, rating system, questions system, file attachments, embedding self-hosted media, tracking course progress, WooCommerce integration and more.

Responsive Knowledge Base & FAQ WordPress Theme

For the business or website that exists to help people make the most of their computing experience, Responsive Knowledge Base is the perfect theme to use. This premium WordPress theme was built for support providers as a first line response solution for clients seeking answers to their problems, technical or otherwise. This theme acts as a knowledge base or depository where visitors can search your site for solutions to their issues. Users can browse through Q and A pages, articles and similar material or do a live search (jQuery TypeAhead powered) to help them identify their problems and find solutions.

Rescue – Animal Shelter Theme with Petfinder Support

Animal lovers unite! Rescue Premium WordPress Theme is a theme built with a specific purpose – to get animals adopted. Outstanding pet-related WordPress themes are few and far between that’s why Rescue is a special theme pet lovers can find a home in. What makes it more unique is the built in Petfinder API support that allows you to easily sync your pets from your Petfinder profile to your WordPress install. Petfinder is an online, searchable database of animals who need homes. It is also a directory of more than 13,000 animal shelters and adoption organizations across the U.S., Canada and Mexico.

GymBoom (Fitness)

If you are in the fitness business or if you own a gym, a health club, or a wellness center, check out GymBoom, a responsive fitness theme with a built in dynamic calendar to manage training schedules for those serious health buffs and fitness addicts. This responsive theme also sports a unique diagonal slider created with the slider creation tool. It’s got useful shortcodes to post lists, highlight text, create multiple columns and more. You also get two homepage option styles: one with a slider and a page styles option. Gymboom includes a google map shortcode integrated in the widgetized footer section.

Pocket WordPress – Is It Truly Ready For The Mobile You?

Handheld devices are here to stay. Technology has dished out several tablet options prior to today’s mobile device centric generation but none of them broke through the desktop/laptop barrier until Apple’s revolutionary iPhone and iPad products gave a new lease on the “handy” handheld device. This set the trend for device manufacturers and software developers to rethink their game plans to face this inevitable direction.

Ever since the Blackberry became the corporate executive’s device of choice being able to do basic business tasks and office requirements while on the go, device manufacturers have taken it several notches higher. The average businessman now has management and administrative apps available for every type of task and need. From time management to finance to managing appointments and even vacations – there is an app for all that. Social networking also has never been easier. Connecting and networking are simply a login away. App authors have taken all the brainwork out so that users can enjoy the benefits of these apps straight away. Even the least tech savvy today is still miles ahead of the web guru a few years ago.

Where does the WordPress blogger fit into all these tech and app upgrades? Is the WordPress app up to the challenge of today’s mobile device dependent consumer? Are the same features and functionalities in the backend of every WordPress website as easy as using an iOs or Android app? Or is it just the frontend that’s responsive and ready? Are there themes available that not only make a WordPress website look and work beautifully both inside and out? Is the WordPress app capable of giving you the same experience you get from the desktop or laptop?

Mobile WordPress users who access and manage their websites on medium sized tablets and Android devices will still find things manageable and workable. The other demographic that needs to be considered is the smartphone and the smaller mobile devices that aren’t that easy to maneuver. Perhaps these queries are not only for the WordPress author or developer but maybe perhaps for those who contribute to the WordPress framework itself? Maybe future versions of WordPress will have more app-like versions today’s modern bloggers are more familiar with. Perhaps this version already exists or is in the works. Today’s young bloggers have no idea what a floppy disk is or the old storage devices of decades ago. This generation’s tech knowledge acceleration will continue and they will outgrow today’s latest smartphone in just a few years. Can WordPress keep up and be ready for the mobile you?

Share your thoughts. We’d love to hear from you.

Is Your WordPress Site Vulnerable to Attack?

WordPress site owners Alert!

From Cloudflare.com (April 11, 2013)

There is currently a significant attack being launched at a large number of WordPress blogs across the Internet. The attacker is brute force attacking the WordPress administrative portals, using the username “admin” and trying thousands of passwords. It appears a botnet is being used to launch the attack and more than tens of thousands of unique IP addresses have been recorded attempting to hack WordPress installs.

One of the concerns of an attack like this is that the attacker is using a relatively weak botnet of home PCs in order to build a much larger botnet of beefy servers in preparation for a future attack. These larger machines can cause much more damage in DDoS attacks because the servers have large network connections and are capable of generating significant amounts of traffic. This is a similar tactic that was used to build the so-called itsoknoproblembro/Brobot botnet which, in the Fall of 2012, was behind the large attacks on US financial institutions.

Matt Mullenweg confirms this on his blog:

Right now there’s a botnet going around all of the WordPresses it can find trying to login with the “admin” username and a bunch of common passwords, and it has turned into a news story (especially from companies that sell “solutions” to the problem).

Preparation is the best thing to do even before disaster strikes. Below are some important reminders to keep your site secure. If you are doing these things religiously and regularly then you should be good. Otherwise, it’s time to beef things up.

  • Backup, backup, backup. Conduct regular backups of your site. It’s always a good thing.
  • Change your user name. Use a strong password. If you are still using “admin” as your login, you need to change it right away.
  • Install WordPress plugins that limit the number of login attempts from the same IP address or network
  • Subscribe to a Security Service like Sucuri (Read our post about Sucuri) or Cloudflare (free).
  • Update your WordPress version.

Web Design Tools for WordPress 2013

Learning is a never-ending journey. There’s always room to grow, things to improve, and ways to make things better, more efficient, and more effective. Here are some (premium and free) web design tools that can help WordPress authors and developers reduce work time, increase productivity and improve work quality:

Sail.js (Free)

Sails.js makes it easy to build custom, enterprise-grade Node.js apps. It is designed to resemble the MVC architecture from frameworks like Ruby on Rails, but with support for the more modern, data-oriented style of web app development. It’s especially good for building real time features like chat, it automatically builds a RESTful JSON API, and it supports HTTP and WebSockets. The Sails framework was developed by Mike McNeil with the support of Balderdash.

Backbone.js (Free)

Backbone.js gives structure to web applications by providing models with key-value binding and custom events, collections with a rich API of enumerable functions,views with declarative event handling, and connects it all to your existing API over a RESTful JSON interface.

Extra Strength Responsive Grids (Free)

Extra Strength Responsive Grids are percentage-based, for smooth, non-snappy width adjustments that enable you to take total control of your layout. ESRG deploys meaningful class names such as grid-half and grid-quarter to make life easier. ESRG is also SASS-enabled.

Easel Design without a Designer (From Free – $99 Subscription)

Easel is an in-browser, high-fidelity web design tool that lets you mockup, share and implement your ideas with ease. This WYSIWYG web design tool aims to make web design and development easier for teams who want to quickly get their ideas online without having to hire a designer. The app is a great resource for people who don’t have any coding experience but know what they want visually.

Responsive Nav (Free)

Responsive Nav is a tiny JavaScript plugin which weighs only 1.7 KB minified and Gzip’ed, and helps you to create a toggled navigation for small screens. It uses touch events and CSS3 transitions for the best possible performance. It also contains a “clever” workaround that makes it possible to transition from height: 0 to height: auto, which isn’t normally possible with CSS3 transitions.

Eye-Catching Retina Display WordPress Themes

The shift towards high-definition in gadgets and devices has been around for a little while. Today, software and digital products are often described as“retina” display read which simply means that these products are graphically ready, in terms of clarity, contrast, and sharpness, to be displayed in high definition devices without diminishing in quality.

Here are some of the newest retina-ready WordPress themes you can try on your HD devices:

Novelty (Portfolio)

This portfolio and blog theme’s clean minimalist look is a perfect complement to outstanding artwork and projects normally displayed in a creative professional’s website. Photographers, design agencies, freelance creatives, and corporate sites will love to show off their pieces in high definition and this theme is ready to do that. It is also 100% responsive replicating that HD experience even on mobile devices.

!LesPaul (Multipurpose)

A multipurpose user friendly theme equipped with Sharp Retina (high DPI) graphics that will look beautiful on modern high resolution displays. The crisp and sharp design elements incorporated in this theme will look great on handheld devices such as smartphones and tablets.

Supreme Magazine (Magazine)

Subscribers will enjoy browsing through your online publication built using this theme. Supreme Premium WordPress Theme is a revolutionary Retina Responsive Magazine/Blog theme integrated with clean, modern, and crystal clear graphics that can be effectively displayed in retina ready modern devices.

Eagle Logistics (Logistics/Forwarding/Shipping)

This premium theme was designed with the logistics industry in mind. It was conceptualized to turn websites into an effective solution for logistic transactions. The retina-ready capability of this theme is most effective in the use of images and text used in promoting products and services related to your logistics business. These crystal clear elements add that attention to detail factor and communicates professionalism necessary in any business especially in this type of industry.

Slurp (Modern Creative Grid Portfolio)

Creative professionals will fall in love with the edgy and modern style of this theme. Images and graphics take center stage on the homepage with the unique organic and asymmetrical manner that they are displayed creating that cool and edgy look. This retina ready and responsive theme will surely wow your users, clients, and potential clients no matter what device they use to view you site.

WordPress Themes 2014? What Does the Future Hold?

Did you know that there are approximately 8 months and 2 weeks till January 2014? What?! 2014 already? You might think that’s still too far away but in reality, big businesses usually have 2-year, 3-year, and 5-year plans already pencilled in place. It’s not unusual for them to think beyond today and they probably already have activities and processes scheduled even beyond that time frame.

So what’s our fearless forecast for 2014? Is it too early to tell? Let’s take a few “wild” but calculated guesses on what we think is to come.

Mobile – The Handheld and Portable Desktop

This forecast is not new and developments in the past 2 years or so have all been pointing to this direction. Smartphones, tablets, androids, iOs devices are more and more in stiff competition with each other as people rely more and more on their devices to get everything done. As this trend continues, WordPress theme authors and developers need to think of ways, as early as now, not just adapt to the move but perhaps innovate something revolutionary that will inspire a fresh way of doing things. The move towards drag, drop, click one button, one size fits all types of themes is great but could always be better – more personalized, easier to customize and brand, and perhaps an easy to maneuver app-like admin panel – especially on a tiny 3.5” inch display using a tiny unwieldy touch keyboard.

Retina Display

Manufacturers of LCD, LED, HD and all the other display devices are probably well into production already filled with orders for the Christmas season and early next year and we bet that retina display is high up in one of their specs somewhere. What to do? WordPress authors and developers need to update, create, and optimize themes in anticipation of that. Apple is already set to require retina display in their iOS apps which means all current apps need to be updated and all future apps need to be designed with this in mind. Android phones are probably not too far behind. Mobile versions of WordPress themes need to anticipate this as well.

User Friendly Analytics

As Google continues to purge the SERPS from “spammy” and over “optimized” websites, perhaps more simple and built-in tools to help provide the average WordPress user the statistics needed to analyze and improve key aspects of his or her website. There are numerous plugins that add functionalities like performance and analytics to determine site speed, word frequencies, user interactivity, analytics and all those wonderful tools but it would be nice to have all these capabilities, in simple user friendly format, already built into the theme to reduce risks of compatibility issues.

Design

Simple and minimalistic designs will continue on till the next year with designs becoming more and more intuitive eliminating a lot of code fear and analysis on the part of the user. Features will still be consumer driven but will eventually be trimmed down to the essentials as more and more WordPress users become more educated and less “awed” by multiple sliders and 1000+ ways to change colors and backgrounds.

More Social

Social networking through Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram and other similar websites have made it so simple for people to connect with each other. WordPress themes need features like these that make it as simple and as easy for the website owner to encourage more user interactivity within his website and his other social media networks. The flow from website to social networks needs to be seamless and streamlined to encourage more interconnectivity, engagement, and exchange. It’s part of the high quality ranking site Google equation.

Of course, nothing is carved in stone and anything can happen between now and then. These are fearless or fearful forecasts, you might say. It does help to understand how businesses move – whether they are aggressive or conservative in their strategies, and to keep abreast of what is going on in the whole web design industry in general. That way, your efforts as a WordPress professional will be more strategic and more deliberate.

WordPress 3.6 Beta 1 Now Available

WordPress enthusiasts can start playing with the latest beta version (3.6. Beta 1) recently released. This new version is recommended to be run only on a test site and not in actual sites just yet. WordPress 3.5 was released a few months back and this new version has been in the development stage for the past 3 months. WordPress plugin or theme developers, authors, and host providers should start testing this new version before the official and stable version is released to make sure existing plugins and themes are compatible.

Here’s a summary of what’s new in WordPress 3.6:

Post Formats: Post Formats now have their own UI, and theme authors have access to templating functions to access the structured data.

Twenty Thirteen: We’re shipping this year’s default theme in our first release of the year. Twenty Thirteen is an opinionated, color-rich, blog-centric theme that makes full use of the new Post Formats support.

Audio/Video: You can embed audio and video files into your posts without relying on a plugin or a third party media hosting service.

Autosave: Posts are now autosaved locally. If your browser crashes, your computer dies, or the server goes offline as you’re saving, you won’t lose the your post.

Post Locking: See when someone is currently editing a post, and kick them out of it if they fall asleep at the keyboard.

Nav Menus: Nav menus have been simplified with an accordion-based UI, and a separate tab for bulk-assigning menus to locations.

Revisions: The all-new revisions UI features avatars, a slider that “scrubs” through history, and two-slider range comparisons.

Here’s a treat for the absolutely curious, the demo version of Twenty Thirteen! If you would like to participate, become a contributor, be a bug hunter, or a theme fixer, you are more than welcome to provide feedback to those awesome WordPress dev guys. Time to play!