10 Really Cool WordPress Templates

I've always had a craving for beautiful web designs, so much so that I've would spent hours just salivating over other designers artwork, they inspire me.

Over the last few years I haven't spent much time savoring the designs of others but I managed to chisel out some time recently and I came across a few website I like.

All the sites I'm about to list use WordPress; the use of WordPress as a Content Management System (CMS) has been growing over the past few years. I'm fairly new to WordPress (I normally use CuteNews or Joomla), but what I've observed is that a lot of the designs are similar (and tend to be monotonous or boring). Now the websites I've included below have elements that may be similar to a lot of websites you've seen. However, what you will notice is that their layouts - use of colour & graphical elements and content structure are slightly different - which makes them stand out among the rest. Lets take a look!

Time means money for every freelancer

As a freelancer / small business owner time is everything! For a long time, I've been using Kronos to keep track of the jobs I do, the total time and the cost of the job. Kronos is not bad but I've always wanted a way to export my data and change the currency from € to $.

The developers of MAMP have an application the call TimeEdit. Though I've been using MAMP for a while it never occurred to me to try TimeEdit until now.

TimeEdit is great! It helps to streamline my workflow and to be more effective. With TimeEdit I can add clients, and regular tasks and attach my hourly rate to each task. As if that wasn't enough, I can TimeEdit it to my Google Calendar or iCal and once I've completed a task it makes an entry into the calendar.

At the end of each month, I can look at a report showing how many hours I've worked and how much I should have earned. I can also export the data as a Microsoft Excel file.

TimeEdit has tons more features to make job tracking easier. It works on both Windows and Mac OS. I love this application because it doesn't require internet access and the best thing of all is that TimeEdit is FREE.

Which do I prefer, CamTwist or Jing?

I've just finished working on a project and I have to do a series of screencasts for the client, training them how to use the CMS. My wife (business partner) and I have been in discussions about what expenses we can afford this month, a screencast application is not on our priority list. So I started looking for free options. I've used Jing before but didn't like the fact that it only allows me to save the screencasts as flash files (.swf) with the free version. Though US$14 a year is reasonable that's not an option right now. Jing allows me 5mins to record a screencast which you can save to my hard drive or upload to a web server using FTP. I think 5mins is sufficient timing for a screencast but I want to be able to add an intro frame and possible background audio. With this in mind, I went Googling for "free screencast apps for mac" which lead me to CamTwist. The application isn't bad, it just has one hang-up. The video quality is poor. In order to get a better video quality, I have to buy QuickTime Pro for US$29+. The truth is if I had to spend US$29+ for a simple screencast application like iShowU. However, at the end of the day, Jing came out on top. It works best!

I want an iPod Nano...

It's been a long time since I've blogged about any tech stuff. Well my work load has been crazy as of late, I must give God thanks that I have work in this recession time.

'Any-who!' I was finishing up a project and noticed an e-mail in my inbox from Apple. It was about the new iPod nano.

I've wanted an iPod for a while, from the very 1st day I gave away my Sony Walkman, but I just couldn't decide on which one. Primarily because I wanted a portable mp3 player with a radio and iPods didn't have that feature. Well guess what? They do now!

The new iPod nano has a host of kool features including video recording and fm tuner. With the fm tuner you can pause live listening. Yes! Pause live listening...in a developing country like Jamaica a portable radio is a must have. Especially during hurricane season! Not to mention listening to Full House Fridays, with Francois and the gang on FAME FM.

The iPod nano starts at US$149, for the 8GB and goes up to US$179, for the 16GB. That is roughly JM$13,500 and it's worth every penny of it.

I'm definitely gonna get one before the year ends...trus' me!