Aside from the features listed below, I would like to point out some of the awesome things you’ll get when you purchase a theme from Colorlabs:

• The two themes below have responsive layout, which means no matter what your screen’s size is it will respond to it and adjust itself accordingly, even the images. Try viewing the demo (link below the images) and adjust your browser’s size, or check it on your smart phone or tablet. Amazing!
• For one website you’ll get a lifetime support on one domain for the standard pack, and unlimited domains for the developer pack.
• Access to documentation and theme updates.
• If you’re new to this kind of thing, Colorlabs will setup the theme for you!

But wait, where’s my Discount Coupon?! It’s at the end of this post!

Adam & Eve

In a relationship there are two sides, so why not have a two-sided blog too? This is actually my first time seeing a double-sided blog theme, which is actually fantastic considering that you and your partner can use each side for your daily ramblings! Imagine how cute that would be. But of course you can also use this theme aside from talking sweetly, or bitterly, with each other. Fantastic theme!

Click here for the demo.

Some Cool Features:

• Double blogging – display two different blog posts side by side
• Customized sidebar
• Featured post sliders
• Social network integration
• Tons of customizable widgets

Invitora

With today’s technology, even invitations should not stop from being a very static piece of paper. Invitora revolutionizes the way people can send out invitation for their wedding. It is a one-paged theme that emulates a real-life wedding invitation, added with spice with the social media button to let the whole world know that someone is getting married!

Getting married soon? Make your wedding invitation fun by using Invitora!

Click here for the demo.

Some Cool Features:

• Six color schemes
• Photo gallery that will show photos from blog posts
• Social network integration
• Tons of customizable widgets
• Page templates (contact page, blog page, gallery page)

Itching to get your hands on these themes?

Then use this coupon code for a 70% plus discount: AEE42

Coupon is valid from February 10, 2012 up to the 17th!

What now? Now you share this to as many friends as you can, across several social networks you are on!

No matter what kind of website or blog you own, you’ll definitely find something that will make your site better. Just like with clothes some plugins are one size fits all, and other are quite specific. Almost every blog will encounter spam, security concerns and will want to expose their content to the largest audience possible. This two article series focuses on the most essential and useful WordPress plugins every blog will find useful. Whether you’re bored with the default comments platform, want to try custom fonts or just add neat social sharing options, continue reading to find the best WordPress plugins out there. The plugins are sorted into categories and only a few of them have the same features so you can find the very right ones for you.

The first part will cover optimization, forms, comments, site backup, posts, security, design & theme customization and media. Stay tuned for part 2 which will contain even more specific and targeted WordPress plugins.

The second part will cover ecommerce, SEO, social media, marketing and lot of great miscellaneous plugins.

Optimization

1. WP Super Cache

WP Super Cache is a very fast caching engine for WordPress that produces static html files. After a html file is generated your webserver will serve that file instead of processing the comparatively heavier and more expensive WordPress PHP scripts.

2. WP-Optimize

WP-Optimize is a WordPress 2.9++ database cleanup and optimization tool. It doesn’t require PhpMyAdmin to optimize your database tables. It allows you to remove post revisions, comments in the spam queue and un-approved comments within few clicks.

3. W3 Total Cache

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

Forms

1. Contact Form 7

Contact Form 7 can manage multiple contact forms, plus you can customize the form and the mail content flexibly with simple markup. The form supports Ajax-powered submitting, CAPTCHA, Akismet spam filtering and so on.

2. Fast Secure Contact Form

A super customizable contact form that lets your visitors send you email. Blocks all automated spammers. No templates to mess with.

3. Gravity Forms (Premium –  $39)

Gravity Forms is hands down the best contact form plugin for WordPress. Build and publish your WordPress forms in just minutes. No drudgery, just quick and easy form-building.

4. AJAX Contact Forms (Premium – $10)

This is a jQuery based AJAX powered HTML / PHP contact form with Twitter Direct Messaging, easily integrated into WordPress via shortcodes and functions.

Comments

1. Disqus Comment System

Disqus, pronounced “discuss”, is a service and tool for web comments and discussions. Disqus makes commenting easier and more interactive, while connecting websites and commenters across a thriving discussion community.

2. GD Star Rating

GD Star Rating plugin allows you to set up an advanced rating and review system for post types and comments in your blog using single, multi and thumbs ratings.

3. Wizzart – Recent Comments

This plugin offers a highly customizable widget to show recent comments of your visitors in your sidebars.

4. Facebook Comments

Full Facebook Comments moderation and management for your WordPress site. Quick and easy to set up. Insert automatically or via a shortcode.

5. Thank Me Later

Automatically send a ‘thank you’ e-mail to those who comment on your blog. This plugin engages visitors by reminding them to check back for new comments and interesting content.

6. Disable Comments

Allows administrators to globally disable comments on their site. Comments can be disabled according to post type.

7. WP Customer Reviews

WP Customer Reviews allows your customers and visitors to leave reviews or testimonials of your services. Reviews are Microformat enabled (hReview).

Site Backup

1. WP-DBManager

Allows you to optimize database, repair database, backup database, restore database, delete backup database , drop/empty tables and run selected queries. Supports automatic scheduling of back ups, optimizing and repairing of database.

2. BackUpWordPress

BackUpWordPress will back up your entire site including your database and all your files once every day.

Posts

1. Editorial Calendar

The Editorial Calendar makes it possible to see all your posts and drag and drop them to manage your blog.

2. Yet Another Related Posts Plugin

Yet Another Related Posts Plugin (YARPP) gives you a list of posts and/or pages related to the current entry, introducing the reader to other relevant content on your site.

3. SimpleReach Slide

The Slide recommends related posts from within your site on a widget that “slides” in at the bottom of the page.

4. WordPress Popular Posts

WordPress Popular Posts is a highly customizable sidebar widget that displays the most popular posts on your blog. You can use it as a template tag, too.

5. Raw HTML

Lets you use raw HTML or any other code in your posts. You can also disable smart quotes and other automatic formatting on a per-post basis.

6. Auto Post Thumbnail

Automatically generate the Post Thumbnail (Featured Thumbnail) from the first image in post or any custom post type only if Post Thumbnail is not set.

Security

1. Akismet

Akismet checks your comments against the Akismet web service to see if they look like spam or not and lets you review the spam it catches under your blog’s “Comments” admin screen.

2. SI CAPTCHA Anti-Spam

Adds CAPTCHA anti-spam methods to WordPress on the forms for comments, registration, lost password, login, or all. For WP, WPMU, and BuddyPress.

3. Secure WordPress

Secure WordPress beefs up the security of your WordPress installation by removing error information on login pages, adds index.html to plugin directories, hides the WordPress version and much more.

4. BulletProof Security

WordPress Website Security Protection. Website security protection against: XSS, RFI, CRLF, CSRF, Base64, Code Injection and SQL Injection hacking att

Design & Theme Customization

1. Widget Context

Widget Context allows you to specify widget visibility settings – you can choose to display them only on certain posts, front page, category or tag pages etc.

2. WP Google Fonts

The WP Google Fonts plugin allows you to easily add fonts from the Google Font Directory to your WordPress theme.

3. WP Maintenance Mode

Adds a splash page to your site that lets visitors know your site is down for maintenance. Full access to the back- & front-end is optional.

4. Genesis Simple Sidebars

This plugin allows you to create multiple, dynamic widget areas, and assign those widget areas to sidebar locations within the Genesis Theme Framework

5. Shortcodes Ultimate

With this plugin you can easily create buttons, boxes, different sliders and much, much more. Turn your free theme to premium in just a few clicks.

6. All In One Favicon

Easily add a Favicon to your site and the WordPress admin pages. Complete with upload functionality. Supports all three Favicon types (ico,png,gif).

7. Font Uploader (Premium – $10)

This plugin lets you upload your own font files and apply them to any element of your website without requiring a knowledge of html or css.

8. WPtouch

WPtouch: A simple, powerful and elegant mobile theme for your website. WPtouch automatically transforms your WordPress website into an application-like theme.

9. Widget Logic

Widget Logic lets you control on which pages widgets appear using WP’s conditional tags. It also adds a ‘widget_content’ filter.

10. WP Content Slideshow

WP Content Slideshow is the perfect Slideshow for WordPress. It displays up to 5 Posts or Pages with Tile, Description and Image for every Post.

Media

1. Easing Slider

The Easing Slider comes with various options that allow you to choose different sources to get the images from and also multiple styling options so that you”ll never have to edit any files directly & with ease. Create your own unique elegant slider.

2. NextGEN Gallery

NextGEN Gallery is a full integrated Image Gallery plugin for WordPress with dozens of options and features.

3. flickrRSS

Allows you to integrate Flickr photos into your site. It supports user, set, favorite, group and community photostreams.

4. WordPress Video Plugin

A filter for WordPress that allows easy video embedding of supported sites. Support for 65 different video sites.

5. oQey Gallery

oQey Gallery is a premium grade plugin for managing images and video, creating photo slideshows with music, photo & video galleries that works fantastic.

6. uBillboard (Premium – $20)

uBillboard is a Premium Slider for WordPress. It is a jQuery based slider with a multitude of transitions and options so you can customize it all you want without being overwhelmed with options you never wanted or needed.

7. WP Lightbox 2

This plugin used to add the lightbox (overlay) effect to the current page images on your WordPress blog.

Commerce

1. WP e-Commerce

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

2. Jigoshop

Jigoshop is an eCommerce plugin for WordPress developed by professionals with years of experience delivering online shops for global brands.

3. WooCommerce

Transform your WordPress website into a thoroughbred online store. Delivering enterprise-level quality & features whilst backed by a name you can trust.

4. uPricing (Premium – $15)

uPricing is the ultimate and unique solution for all your WordPress related pricing page needs. Creating pricing tables has never been easier. uPricing comes with easy to use jQuery powered admin interface that lets you create and edit your pricing tables.

5. PayPal Donations

Easy, simple setup to add a PayPal Donation button as a Widget or with a shortcode.

SEO

1. All in One SEO Pack

All in One SEO Pack is the best SEO plugin out there which will automatically optimize your WordPress blog for search engines.

2. WordPress SEO by Yoast

WordPress SEO is the most complete WordPress SEO plugin that exists today for WordPress.org users. It incorporates everything from a snippet preview and page analysis functionality that helps you optimize your pages content, images titles, meta descriptions and more to XML sitemaps, and loads of optimization options in between.

3. Google XML Sitemaps

This plugin will generate a special XML sitemap which will help search engines like Google, Bing, Yahoo and Ask.com to better index your blog. With such a sitemap, it’s much easier for the crawlers to see the complete structure of your site and retrieve it more efficiently.

Social

1. Add Link to Facebook

Automatically add links to posts or pages that are being published to your Facebook wall, pages or groups. Simple one time setup and forget. The way links appear on Facebook can be customized.

2. WP to Twitter

Posts a Twitter update when you update your WordPress blog or post to your blogroll, using your chosen URL shortening service. Requires PHP 5 and cURL

3. Digg Digg

Digg Digg allows you to integrate popular social buttons into WordPress easily.

4. ShareThis

The ShareThis plugin seamlessly enables users to share your content through Email,Facebook,Twitter, Google +1, Like, Send and many more.

5. BuddyPress

BuddyPress lets users register on your site and start creating profiles, posting messages, making connections, creating and interacting in groups and much more. A social network in a box, BuddyPress lets you build a social network for your company, school, sports team or niche community.

6. bbPress

bbPress is forum software with a twist from the creators of WordPress.

7. The Google+ plugin

The Google + Plugin integrates WordPress with your G+ Profile and Page – now with BuddyPress and Post Format support.

8. Twitter Widget Pro

A widget that properly handles twitter feeds, including parsing @username, #hashtags, and URLs into links.

Marketing

1. Newsletter

This plug-in lets you collect subscribers on your blog with a single or double opt-in subscription process. Double opt-in is law compliant and it means the user has to confirm the subscription following simple standard instructions sent to him via email.

2. WP125

Easy management of 125×125 ads on your blog. Ads can be run for a specified number of days, and will automatically be taken down. Track clicks too.

3. s2Member

s2Member (membership with PayPal) offers powerful membership capabilities. Protect members only content. The s2Member Framework integrates with PayPal very easily and fully supports recurring billing.

4. MailPress

The WordPress mailing platform.

5. Subscribe2

Subscribe2 provides a comprehensive subscription management and email notification system for WordPress blogs that sends email notifications to a list of subscribers when you publish new content to your blog.

6. MailChimp Widget

Adds a widget that allows your users to sign up for your MailChimp mailing list.

7. Simple PopUp

A simple, attractive, extremely fast and non annoying pop up box for your WordPress Blog. It’s power lies in its ease of use.

Miscellaneous

1. WP-PageNavi

Want to replace the old ← Older posts | Newer posts → links with some page links? This plugin provides the wp_pagenavi() template tag which generates fancy pagination links.

2. Jetpack by WordPress.com

 Jetpack is a WordPress plugin that supercharges your self-hosted WordPress site with the awesome cloud power of WordPress.com.

3. Exclude Pages

This plugin adds a checkbox, “include this page in menus”, which is checked by default. If you uncheck it, the page will not appear in any listings of pages (which includes, and is usually limited to, your page navigation menus).

4. Broken Link Checker

This plugin will check your posts, comments and other content for broken links and missing images, and notify you if any are found.

5. ManageWP Worker

ManageWP Worker plugin allows you to remotely manage your blogs from one dashboard. You can read our review here.

6. Redirection

Redirection is a WordPress plugin to manage 301 redirections and keep track of 404 errors without requiring knowledge of Apache .htaccess files.

7. FD Feedburner Plugin

Redirects the main feed and optionally the comments feed seamlessly and transparently to Feedburner.com.

8. Hotfix

Provides unofficial fixes for selected WordPress bugs, so you don’t have to wait for the next WordPress core release.

9. Google Analytics for WordPress

Track your WordPress site easily and with lots of metadata: views per author & category, automatic tracking of outbound clicks and page views.

10. WP-Polls

Adds an AJAX poll system to your WordPress blog. You can also easily add a poll into your WordPress’s blog post/page.

11. Ozh’ Admin Drop Down Menu

The lazy and the productive will love it : all admin links available in a neat horizontal CSS driven drop down menu. No need to click on “Manage” then “Pages” to edit pages. And plenty more space on your screen.

12. Pretty Link Lite

Shrink, beautify, track, manage and share any URL on or off of your WordPress website. Create links that look however you want using your own domain name.

13. 5sec Google Maps (Premium – $8)

Integrate Google Maps into your WordPress blog easily without using API or any code.

14. Advanced Access Manager

Advanced Access Manager is a new way of controlling access to your single blog or multi-site setup. This easy to use interface is a very helpful tool for experienced WordPress users.

Conclusion

Do you know and use any other plugins besides the ones we suggested here? We would really appreciate your feedback here, but we are pretty sure this list will be very comprehensive for you and will satisfy most peoples needs!

There is hardly any niche website that cannot be powered using WordPress. Of late, WordPress is being employed to power different sorts of websites — video galleries, online portfolios, information directories and, more importantly, job boards! Job boards have become one of the most popular info-commerce centric websites. In this article, we take a look at the WP resources that are required to run a job board — plugins and themes.

Plugins for Job Boards

CareerBuilder Jobs

CareerBuilder Jobs plugin lets users search for relevant jobs and browse jobs on the basis of location or category. It can also suggest recommended jobs and power the application mechanism for each job. You will need a Developer Key in order to use the plugin.

Plugin Homepage | Download

CATS JobSite

CATS JobSite can be used to power a full fledged job board. Users can search, browse and apply for jobs as well as update their resume and skill profile. The plugin is supplemented by numerous built-in widgets.

Plugin Homepage

Job Manager

Job Manager is a simple job board and job application management plugin for WordPress.

Plugin Homepage | Download

Job Manager by Smart Recruiters

This plugin enables you to post jobs and manage applicants on your website. It also supports native integration with Smart Recruiters, an open recruiting service.

Plugin Homepage

My Job Application

My Job Application creates a job database and custom job listings for your website.

Download

WP-Simply Hired API

WP-Simply Hired API lets users browse jobs, apply for specific jobs, track pay-per-click jobs and perform many other functions. However, in order to use this plugin, you will need a Job-a-matic account.

Plugin Homepage | Download

wpCareers

wpCareers lets you create an online job/resume website.

Plugin Homepage

Zartis Job Plugin

Zartis Job Plugin can be used to add secure jobs and career pages to your WP website. It also supports excellent integration with social networking websites. Its basic version lets you create only one open job, and if you need more functionality, the cheapest paid license is available at $108 per year ($9/month).

Plugin Homepage

Themes for Job Boards

Jobpress Simple (Regular License: $79)

Theme Homepage | Live Preview

Job Board (Regular License: $65)

Theme Homepage | Live Preview

JobJockey (Regular License: $69)

Theme Homepage | Live Preview

Tapp Jobs (Regular License: $75)

Theme Homepage | Live Preview

9 to 5 (Regular License: $35)

Theme Homepage | Live Preview

Jobpress (FREE)

Theme Homepage | Live Preview

JobRoller (Regular License: $99)

Theme Homepage | Live Preview

ClassiPress (Regular License: $99)

Theme Homepage | Live Preview

What do you think of WP-powered job boards? Do share your thoughts with us in the comments!

Here we’ll see 5 amazing and simple tips that you can use right now and greatly improve your user management and you can use all this additional data to serve your loyal readers better and provide more focused content.

We’ll cover custom user fields to history functionality, and while we’re at it you’ll learn a lot about WordPress user management functions.

So, let’s rock!

What will we see?

We’ll focus on user specific data, so what we’ll see is:

1. How to add extra registration fields
2. How to add and remove profile fields
3. Export the user data
4. Bulk export users data
5. Create a web history of the user

1. How to add extra registration fields

Sometimes we want to know our users better. Where they live, if they want to receive our newsletter, or just store their IP. Well, to get this working the easiest way is to use one of these:

PieRegister

It allows you to customize the user registration screen. Pretty useful and easy to change.

What I like most is its simplicity. If you want to just get started, this one is your best choice.

s2Member

On the other side, you may use a plugin like s2member which gives you full control over user’s capabilities and data. But it requires a little more setup and will change a lot of things in your wp-admin. So you can edit each posts visibility for free or premium users.

Maybe it’s too much if you just want to add more user registration fields, but it gives you much better control over user data and content.

2. How to add and remove profile fields

Truth be told, the default user profile fields are more markup than anything useful. But WordPress has an easy way to edit them.

Let’s say instead of Yahoo IM, you want to add a Twitter field. Or just remove it. Well, this can be done with the filter ‘user_contactmethods’, which can be added as plugin or in your theme’s functions.php file. Do it this way:

<!--?php--><?php
	function wd_edit_fields( $contactmethods ) {
		//new fields
		$contactmethods['twitter'] = 'Twitter';
		$contactmethods['tumblr'] = 'Tumblr';
		$contactmethods['skype'] = 'Skype';

		unset($contactmethods['aim']);
		unset($contactmethods['jabber']);
		unset($contactmethods['yim']);

		return $contactmethods;
	}
	add_filter('user_contactmethods','wd_edit_fields',10,1);
?>

3. Export the user data

Now we have saved user data, but it can’t be seen. What we’ll need is a function to export this when we want (in a custom page, for instance).

Our function will get user data directly from the wp_usermeta table, and remove unnecessary data (used just by WordPress, but keep them if you want to export all user data).

This function will do the trick:

<!--?php--><?php
	function get_all_user_meta( $id ) {
		$to_remove = array("first_name", "last_name", "nickname", "rich_editing", "comment_shortcuts", "admin_color", "show_admin_bar_front", "wp_capabilities", "wp_user_level", "wp_dashboard_quick_press_last_post_id", "wp_user-settings", "wp_user-settings-time", "closedpostboxes_post", "metaboxhidden_post"); //all default and undesired fields
		$remove = "";
		if (! empty($to_remove) && is_array($to_remove) ) {
			foreach ($to_remove as $item) {
				$remove .= "AND  meta_key != '$item' ";
			}
		}
		global $wpdb;
		$qry = "SELECT meta_key, meta_value FROM wp_usermeta WHERE user_id = $id $remove";
		$myrows = $wpdb->get_results( $qry );

		return $myrows;
	}

	$data = get_all_user_meta( 1 );
	foreach( $data as $field ) {
		if( ! empty ($field->meta_value) )
			echo "<strong>".$field->meta_key."</strong>: ".$field->meta_value."<br />";
	}
?>

4. Bulk export user data

Now if you want to move from WordPress to another CMS you may need to hire a programmer just to figure out how to export all user data. Ok, we’ll save you from this crazy work and give you a function to see all users with all their custom data!

What we have to do is get the previous function and run it for every user_id inside the WordPress wp_users table. Then you can import this content or format it according to your new CMS standards.

<!--?php--><?php
	function get_all_user_meta( $id ) {
		$to_remove = array("first_name", "last_name", "nickname", "rich_editing", "comment_shortcuts", "admin_color", "show_admin_bar_front", "wp_capabilities", "wp_user_level", "wp_dashboard_quick_press_last_post_id", "wp_user-settings", "wp_user-settings-time", "closedpostboxes_post", "metaboxhidden_post"); //all default and undesired fields
		$remove = "";
		if (! empty($to_remove) && is_array($to_remove) ) {
			foreach ($to_remove as $item) {
				$remove .= "AND  meta_key != '$item' ";
			}
		}
		global $wpdb;
		$qry = "SELECT meta_key, meta_value FROM wp_usermeta WHERE user_id = $id $remove";
		$myrows = $wpdb->get_results( $qry );

		return $myrows;
	}

	function get_all_user_ids() {
		global $wpdb;
		$qry = "SELECT ID FROM wp_users";
		$myrows = $wpdb->get_results( $qry );

		return $myrows;
	}

	$users = get_all_user_ids();

	foreach( $users as $user ) {
		$data = get_all_user_meta( $user->ID );
		echo "<h2>User #".$user->ID." data</h2>";
		foreach( $data as $field ) {
			if( ! empty ($field->meta_value) )
				echo "<strong>".$field->meta_key."</strong>: ".$field->meta_value."<br />";
		}
	}
?>

5. Create a web history of the user

Sometimes user behavior is completely nonlinear. I know, you publish your posts with a carefully thought out order, but people just click everywhere and sometimes they stop thinking “which one was the cool post I was reading 5 minutes ago?”.

Same thing may happen if you run an e-commerce store over WordPress. Users navigate through products and sometimes the very first one was the best for them.

So for these times, I would recommend you build a user history.

First you should define how many items you want to store, and this will depend on your site’s size. We’ll do this with the last 30 visited pages (easily changed).

Then, you’ll need to add this snippet to your functions.php or plugin file, then you just call show_history and you’ll be fine :)

<?php
add_filter('wp_head', 'wd_history');
function wd_history() {
	$current_user = wp_get_current_user();

	// logged in?
	if ( ! empty ($current_user->ID) ) {
		$i = get_user_meta($current_user->ID, "wd_i", true);
		$i++;

		//update fields
		update_user_meta($current_user->ID, "wd_i", $i);
		update_user_meta($current_user->ID, "wd_page_".$i, "http://$_SERVER[HTTP_HOST]$_SERVER[REQUEST_URI]");
		//delete older
		delete_user_meta( $current_user->ID, "wd_page_".($i-30) );
	}
}

function show_history() {
	$current_user = wp_get_current_user();

	// logged in?
	if ( ! empty ($current_user->ID) ) {
		$i = get_user_meta($current_user->ID, "wd_i", true);

		echo "<ul>";
		$end = $i - 30;
		while( $i > $end ) {
			$url = get_user_meta($current_user->ID, "wd_page_".$i, true);
			$pid = url_to_postid( $url );
			if ( ! empty ($pid) ) {
				$page = get_post($pid);
				$title = $page->post_title;
			} else {
				$title = "Home";
			}

			echo "<li><a href='$url'>$title</a></li>";

			$i--;
		}
		echo "</ul>";
	}
}
show_history();
?>

Other experiments

Did you know that it’s possible to create shopping cart functionality with user meta data? Well, we haven’t covered this because the article would get too big, but we will cover this soon :)

Now it’s your turn!

What do you think? Is there another user management function that you want to share with us? Just comment! :)

In this article, we shall take a look at some of the specialized themes available for video bloggers, both and free and premium. So without further ado, here is the list!

PREMIUM THEMES 

(Free themes after premium)

1. Adventure (Regular License: $40)

Live Preview | Download

2. Black Label (Regular License: $30)

Live Preview | Download

3. Breeze (Regular License: $35)

Live Preview | Download

4. Especial (Regular License: $35)

Live Preview | Download

5. eVid (Club Membership: $39 per annum)

Live Preview | Download

6. Fast Blog (Regular License: $35)

Live Preview | Download

7. FolioFlip (Regular License: $30)

Live Preview | Download

8. Fresh>Trailers (Regular License: $39.99)

Live Preview | Download

9. Garnish (Regular License: $40)

Live Preview | Download

10. Gigawatt (Regular License: $50, Membership: $125)

Live Preview | Download

11. Groovy Video (Regular License: $70)

Live Preview | Download

12. Hash One (Regular License: $50, Membership: $125)

Live Preview | Download

13. Invictus (Regular License: $35)

Live Preview | Download

14. LeetPress (Regular License: $35)

Live Preview | Download

15. Live Theme (Regular License: $49)

Live Preview | Download

16. Magnifizine (Regular License: $35)

Live Preview | Download

17. MG Universal (Regular License: $35)

Live Preview | Download

18. Modularity (Membership starts at $49)

Live Preview | Download

19. MonstrFolio (Regular License: $35)

Live Preview | Download

20. Motion Picture (Regular License: $50, Membership: $125)

Live Preview | Download

21. Multimedia (Regular License: $35)

Live Preview | Download

22. MultiMedia Reloaded (Regular License: $25)

Live Preview | Download

23. MultimediaWP (Regular License: $35)

Live Preview | Download

24. MyStream (Regular License: $70)

Live Preview | Download

25. Nucleus (Regular License: $40)

Live Preview | Download

26. Object (Regular License: $70)

Live Preview | Download

27. On Demand (Regular License: $75)

Live Preview | Download

28. Parachute (Regular License: $35)

Live Preview | Download

29. Periodic (Regular License: $35)

Live Preview | Download

30. Pinotage (Regular License: $50, Membership: $125)

Live Preview | Download

31. Playtime (Regular License: $75)

Live Preview | Download

32. Premiere (Regular License: $70)

Live Preview | Download

33. Reflex (Regular License: $35)

Live Preview | Download

34. ReviewIt (Regular License: $45)

Live Preview | Download

35. Slide (Regular License: $35)

Live Preview | Download

36. Tarnished (Regular License: $35)

Live Preview | Download

37. TV Elements (Regular License: $75)

Live Preview | Download

38. Veddio (Regular License: $32)

Live Preview | Download

39. Video Elements (Regular License: $75)

Live Preview | Download

40. Video Flick (Regular License: $75)

Live Preview | Download

41. Videozoom (Regular License: $69)

Live Preview | Download

42. Vidley (Regular License: $75)

Live Preview | Download

43. Wave (Regular License: $35)

Live Preview | Download

44. WooTube (Regular License: $70)

Live Preview | Download

45. WP Color Video (Regular License: $30)

Live Preview | Download

46. WP-MediaMag (Regular License: $59)

Live Preview | Download

47. wpShow (Regular License: $25)

Live Preview | Download

FREE THEMES

48. Foxinni

Live Preview | Download

49. Selecta

Live Preview | Download

50. Smashing Multimedia

Live Preview | Download

51. Video

Live Preview | Download

52. Videographer

Live Preview | Download

53. WP Mods Video Theme

Live Preview | Download

With this we come to the end of the round-up. If you know any other noteworthy video themes for WordPress, feel free to mention them in the comments!

NOTE: You will require an emulator to run a DOS based game. Read the “Before You Begin” section carefully before you start downloading DOS based games.

Before You Begin

DOS games won’t run with just a double-click even when they are executable (.EXE) files. The best way to run a DOS based game is to download an emulator as they are designed especially for this purpose. DOSBox is by far the best emulator for Windows machines. Once you have downloaded DOSBox and it is running on your machine then you will have to mount your game directory on which you have the executable game files. Follow the below steps:

• Type the following in your DOSBox window: mount C C:\games. This will tell DOSBox that you want to use the games directory as the source to run all your DOS based games.
• Now CD (change directory) to C: drive – cd C:
• Place all the executable DOS game files in the games directory and now hit the DIR command.
• You will notice that from C: drive itself the DIR command gives you the list of executable files that are actually placed in games directory. Just type the name of the file like turbo.exe and hit enter to start your DOS game.
• You can create multiple directories inside this directory to categorize your games.
• Have fun!

Mac users can use Boxer as the emulator to run DOS based game while DOSEMU is the emulator for Linux users. Now that we know how to execute a DOS based game, here is the much awaited showcase of DOS games.

Prince of Persia

The good old prince is back to save his princess. Although we have the latest versions of this game already available, playing the same in a DOS console will always bring back old memories. You get three lives for each game which is actually a tad better than the real world where we get one life to save our girl!

DOOM

Ahhh! Doom is here to bring back your killer instincts. You haven’t yet grown old and this game will help you revive your old self. Also, this time you have many weapons in hand to help increase your comfort level against the enemy.

Genius’s Puzzle Pack

You got an iPad? Now you can play your favorite puzzle games while seated at the back of your classroom. Have fun and make sure to avoid your teacher’s attention. To be precise, this is a bundle of six puzzle games namely Scary Nightmare, Part Time Job, Cubby Hole Trouble, Marbles, Detention Tic Tac Toe, and Blitz Tac Toe.

Pac Man

Does this bring back some memories? Well, it surely will if you have lived in the days of DOS games. Pac-Man is here to revive old experiences and take you back to those good old days of DOS games. This version is your own Pac-Man with an all new female star with the original hero making occasional appearances.

Supaplex

Another DOS based puzzle game with pretty decent graphics and sound. The game is more like the retro Boulder Dash that most of us might have played. It is a freeware with a couple of cheats to make life easier.

Mario

If you don’t know what Mario is then you better stop reading this article. You aren’t a computer kid if you haven’t played Mario on your laptop and I mean it. I have spent months playing Mario and I know the love for this game. Those who always loved Mario and want to bring back those memories must download this game ASAP. Let me know about your experiences with Mario (and his girlfriend) in the comments below.

3DCube

Raise your hand if you have ever been able to arrange this 3DCube puzzle in order without any help whatsoever. I did it once after years of patience and I am proud of that! And, if you haven’t done so yet, then here is the DOS version of 3DCube to keep you busy. Give yourself a chocolate if you can arrange this back in order within a day. Let me know how long it took you in the comments at the end of the article.

CHAMP Kong

Wasn’t Donkey Kong a famous protagonist in most of the DOS games back then? DOS game designers had a thing for monkeys I guess. Anyways, here is your chance to live the Donkey Kong days all over again. Kong wants to save his girlfriend and you can help him do that. Don’t let the Kong down, please!

Bat ‘n Ball

Though Bat ‘n Ball is based on an old concept, hitting a bouncing ball, it has been optimized so as to keep your interest levels high. Here, you get to save a castle against a bouncing ball which will break your castle one after the other if you miss to hit the ball back. The bouncing ball will help your reflexes and probably improve them too.

Alone in the Dark

It is tough to get 3D based games in the DOS games family but somehow there are a few for us to enjoy. Alone in the Dark is a 3D adventure game with plenty of action to keep you busy. In this game you get to play a character that will investigate a suicide in an old Louisiana mansion. Be quick and don’t take years to solve the case like it happens in our real life judicial system.

Presenting sumptuous and refreshing foods and beverages gives eCommerce owners much to work with when it comes to website design. Tantalizing images and a showcase of the associated benefits work well to draw customers in to the purpose behind the website and lead their clicking fingers all the way to checkout.

As you will see from these examples, a great image can go a long way. Warning: Some of these food images are so tantalizing you may find yourself reaching for a snack before the article is through.

1. 4^th Street Cookie Company

The 4th Street Cookie Company sells cookies as a supplementary income source to their physical store. The success of their web design is evident in the eye-catching images of their cookies (makes you want to reach right in to the screen and grab one!) and their easy navigation. Their clever call to action is strategically placed next to the cookie with an arrow. If you click to see the actual site, you will notice a slider that showcases five different varieties of cookies, all with images just as tantalizing as this one.

2. Black Estate Vineyard

Simplicity is the name of the game for this website and simplicity is often very effective if done right. This website nails it with its beautiful, elegant typography against the rich, black background. The design just beckons wine lovers to take a closer look.

3. Sanctuary T Shop

Though this site has a few “faux pas”, overall it organizes information well and draws the visitor in. The color blocks on the navigation offer a creative style to what could be a boring menu. The navigation also shows that square-edge elements can be effective if done creatively. The products are showcased in the slider and right below the main graphic to grab visitors’ attention at every turn.

I also like the “Bestselling teas” which is a great way to keep potential customers on the website. People love to read reviews or look at highly-rated products.

Two things I would adjust in this website are the logo (it’s somewhat lacking) and the main graphic image that mentions the season “autumn”. Using the seasons is a great marketing ploy which I will show you in another example, but it ceases to work if you do not update the graphic. This can actually work against you.

Do you see any other possible improvements?

4. Marie Catrib’s

Again, I love the mouth-watering images that make you want to research the site more. Also, the typography is a nice addition to the overall light and fun attitude behind this website. It’s simple design is effective and the products are showcased well overall.

The product pages are also designed well with ingredients displayed prominently, an important addition for the healthy-conscious customer who visits this store. Also notice the context-sensitive navigation options “More info” and “+ Cart” that appear when users hover over an item on the home page.

The only element I would change is to make the image on the home page “clickable” to direct customers to the order page for that particular item

5. CellarThief

This website is very creative and for that reason it is often showcased on many blogs as an example of the best eCommerce website design. The designer’s use of textures and color is superb and the associated content (tell your friends, choose a wine, feel good) is displayed with right-aligned text to remain secondary but also pop on the page.

The creative background brings the brand to life and the “wine of the day” is an effective call to action expressing urgency for customers to take action before the day is over. If you click to the product pages you will see a well-organized layout that focuses a lot of copy in well-defined areas.

6. Gevalia Coffee

The font on this website may appear a little larger than most, but some newer sites are using these fonts along with grand logos and images to nail their message right from the start. The size of every element works well together. If the logo were smaller or the font any larger, it may have thrown off the whole appeal of the site.

7. Ghirardelli

I am showing this website because I liked the images on the slider and the concepts behind them. They not only showcase Ghirardelli chocolates as ultimately decadent, but they also display images of the benefits of the product and how it can be used. The slider shows images of Valentine’s Day recipes and also urges the customer to buy the chocolate so the recipe turns out exactly as shown.

8. Teasta

The choice of bright color works well for this brand and it captivates the customer. The “Buy Now” button is prominently displayed in the center graphic and the secondary content works well with this clean design.

Social interaction is also important for this brand and the use of the Twitter bird with clever content entices customers to follow the brand to land extra coupons and discounts.

The navigation is well thought out, although I would change it up a little so it stands out more.

9. Nuts in Bulk

Apart from some extra clutter, I chose this site for many reasons:

• Creative, eye-catching logo
• Nice, easy to locate navigation menu
• Content segmented into separate blocks to streamline the design and make it appear clean.
• Green call to action buttons in each block which stand out from the page
• Slider showcasing products with enticing copy and images
• Phone number displayed in orange color to pop out from the background but not overtake the design.

10. Snapple

I am showing this website for creative inspiration. It is not a design I would recommend for all eCommerce stores but it works for the popular brand Snapple. Since Snapple is already a worldwide brand, it was a good idea to take the web design out of the box and create something unique.

The design offers visitors a chance to connect with Snapple on Facebook, Twitter, or via email. The website contains interesting, interactive elements that will keep visitors on the site. The site made me wonder around a little even though I don’t drink Snapple.

11. Purdy’s

I like the simplicity of this site and how all the elements pop against the purple background. I am a strong believer of the “less is more” approach for eCommerce stores and I think this strategy is displayed here nicely. The subtle leaf design in the background is also a nice touch. Also, pay attention to how the website uses the season to stay relevant and interesting. The New Year is showcased to entice visitors to stay and shop.

12. Mom & Pop Corn

This site is a little grunge for eCommerce but I wanted to show off its creativity. This design style would most likely appeal to a younger population with an artistic bent.

I can appreciate the creative logo design and placement as well as the fun font and eye-catching navigation. If you look closely, the design still follows a typical layout with the main image followed by three sub-sections; however, it has been injected with a lot of personality that will appeal to a particular demographic.

13. Chocomize

Though there are some design elements I would change, I liked the color scheme of this site. It is also great for conversions to display any noteworthy clients as this site did below the main slider. I would have showcased them a little differently, but the strategy is a good one nonetheless.

It should also be noted that this site does a good job at passing the 6-second test. Show your website to people for six seconds or less (anywhere from 4-6 is good) and then ask them if they know what the site is selling. This site was successful at making a complex and new concept like customized chocolate easy to understand and grasp within the first few seconds.

Now that you are probably running to the cupboards to fill your mouth with some chocolate, hold on for just a few more minutes…

I chose this website to show how you can change the area around the slider to showcase more products. The orange call to action buttons are also popping out from the design. Additionally, the BBB logo is displayed but not obstructive to the overall design.

15. Cheryl’s

A few reasons why this website design is successful:

• Free shipping prominently displayed
• Side navigation well-defined and catches the eye
• Large banner displays advertising and draws the eye there while separating content nicely.
• Font is easy to read and scan and separated from design elements well

A few negatives:

• Cart symbol small and lost on background
• Contact information not visible
• Search bar is very small

When it comes to website design, sometimes two or three or even four eyes are better than one. Do you like these eCommerce website designs? What improvements or design changes would you make to these sites, if any? We would love to hear your opinions!

Introduction to Background Pattern Designs

Background Patterns are a set of cells, templates or tiles arranged together to form a visible background for a website’s design. Most of the time these backgrounds are designed so that when repeating the image it doesn’t actually look like the image is repeating . Rather, it would look like one large image covering the background of the very website.

The image below is obviously a single image tiled five times to form one large image. You can see the borders because I used a paint brush. You don’t even see those when used wisely.

These days background patterns are being used (over and over) but with a touch of innovation. Instead of flowers, blocks or circles (like in the image above) design patterns have come a long way (and we will see that in the rest of this discussion.)

Why Blabber? Can’t You Just Discuss the Trends?

Okay! Why hurry? We are discussing an important part of a website’s design. Background patterns (as I said before) have come a long way. The trends have changed and the change (in this case) was for the better. Let us analyze the trends (before you close this browser window) that have given design patterns a lot more importance than usual.

The Audience is “Still” Important

That doesn’t change, ever! Designers create websites for visitors. What is the meaning of a religion without followers? Similarly, what is the meaning of a website without any visitors? For example the background pattern of The Boring Machine compliments its audience which will be the ones looking for shirts.

So, next time you opt for a background pattern for your next website design remember to ask yourself the following questions:

• What is the demographic of your audience?
• What will be female to male ratio of your audience?
• Is the website’s niche overly flashy and is the simple design pattern appropriate?
• And most importantly, does the website really require a background pattern or will minimal design be just as good?

Also, Content Holds Equal Importance

It is disappointing to see a background design pattern killing the content’s aesthetics. No matter how much we experiment in our designs, we must keep in mind that content was (and will always be) the king. If our background outshines our content then we might attract visitors in the short term, but the design is bound to fail in the long run. Remember, background design patterns are made to watch the website’s back. They must add to the visuals of the website and not overpower or distract from the content.

The example of Dribble’s Error Page seconds my thoughts.

Minimalist Background Pattern Design

Using a background pattern for a website does not mean that we are planning a colorful website. Design patterns with minimal usage of colors exist and they add to look of the minimal design. Henceforth, if you get to designing a minimal website and if you feel the twitch to use a background pattern then do not hesitate. There are loads of minimal background design patterns and they are very appealing. A quick example is Icon Moon.

The Patterns Do Not Stand Out. They Stick In!

I have been putting emphasis on patterns-not-popping-out as that might kill a visitor’s experience. It is important to design a background pattern keeping in mind the website’s requirements. The background design pattern must gel effortlessly with the rest of the design instead of outshining it. I really don’t think that I will stress this anymore because the message should be clear. They must be fully integrated with the website’s design. The effortlessly designed background pattern of Amazee Labs is a great example of this.

Patterns Need not be Used for the Entire Page in all Cases

An agile notion that comes with background design patterns is that they cover the complete background of a website. If they are small then they are used as tiles and the large image covers the website’s background. Times have changed and so have the trends. Background design patterns can be used for the entire background of the website or just a section of the website. It really depends on the requirements and making a decision against the complete background filled with design patterns must not be that difficult. See WoWo Designs for inspiration.

The Showcase

Enough with words. I think it is time to pump you up with some very exciting background design patterns. Let me know your experiences in the comments below.

Redifine

Cake Sweet Cake

Play Ground Inc.

Loyel’s Toy

Squared Eye

Moos Cup Cakes

Island Creek Oyster Bar

Ad Packs

Tapp 3

wakWAW

Well all those things break the standard, so people will see it as “impossible” to change. Should you put the following scripts on every page? No. That would be a waste of resources, since you’ll load a lot of useful things many times. Should you put them directly in your content (dear lord, please, don’t ever do this)? This would be really hard to maintain, since every simple change would be a big waste of time because you would have to make those changes post by post.

Let’s see a couple of ways to get this easily working.

1. Gallery inside any post

Let’s say you want to put galleria in a couple of posts (with no specific rule, could be any post, in any category).

Boolean custom field

Then your best option is to insert a custom field, and there just put any value, like “1″, so you’ll know that this one is a gallery post.

It’ll be something like this:

Now, little grasshopper, you may ask yourself why don’t we just put our script there, in our custom field, or even inside the content (argh!). We do it this way because if for any reason we change our script (like a plugin update, or change our theme) we can easily change it in a single place. Otherwise it would be way harder to make even small changes (like put a new color in your gallery).

Our single.php

Now we need to get this field, and then en queue our script! Just like that!

Where you have:

<?php
	get_header();
?>

You’ll replace with:

<?
	add_filter('wp_head','galleria_script');

	function galleria_script(){
		//we need to get our post ID outside the loop
		global $wp_query;
		$post_id = $wp_query->post->ID;
		$has_galleria = get_post_meta($post_id, "galleria", true);

		if ( ! empty($has_galleria) ) {
			echo '<script type="text/javascript" src="'.get_bloginfo("template_url").'/js/galleria/galleria-1.2.5.min.js"></script>';
			echo "\n <script type=\"text/javascript\"> \n
				$(\"#gallery\").galleria({ \n
					width: 500, \n
					height: 500 \n
				}); \n
			</script>";
		}
	}

	get_header(); ?>

Our images

Now we just make sure that all our images meet galleria’s specifications. You could even upload all your images via custom fields and use a shortcode to put them in place (so you won’t need to change the HTML at all). But for now we’ll do it with  HTML:

<div id="gallery">
	<img src="photo1.jpg" alt="" />
	<img src="photo2.jpg" alt="" />
	<img src="photo3.jpg" alt="" />
</div>

2. Syntax highlighter inside tutorial category

Let’s say that just like 1WD you publish a few cool coding tutorials every now and then. So it’s good to have a syntax highlight plugin, right?

If you just put it in your header.php every single post will have syntax highlight plugin files, even the non-coding ones. Like this:

<script type="text/javascript" src="http://www.1stwebdesigner.com/wp-content/plugins/wordpress-code-snippet/scripts/shCore.js"></script>
<link href="http://www.1stwebdesigner.com/wp-content/plugins/wordpress-code-snippet/styles/shCore.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" />
<link type="text/css" rel="Stylesheet" href="http://www.1stwebdesigner.com/wp-content/plugins/wordpress-code-snippet/styles/shThemeDefault.css"/>

Category testing technique

Our solution this time is to use a simple category test. Let’s say that your coding category is “WordPress”. Then all you have to do is check if the post uses “word press” category, and then you’ll add syntax highlight scripts.

	add_filter('wp_head','syntax_script');

function syntax_script(){
	global $wp_query;
	$post_id = $wp_query->post->ID;
	$has_cat = in_category( "wordpress", $post_id );

	if ( ! empty($has_cat) ) {
		echo '<script type="text/javascript" src="'.get_bloginfo("url").'/wp-content/plugins/wordpress-code-snippet/scripts/shCore.js"></script>';
		echo '<link href="'.get_bloginfo("url").'/wp-content/plugins/wordpress-code-snippet/styles/shCore.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" />';
		echo '<link type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" href="'.get_bloginfo("url").'/wp-content/plugins/wordpress-code-snippet/styles/shCore.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" />';
	}
}

3. Demo inside tutorial itself

Another cool thing that you can do is to add demos directly inside your page. In order to get them working properly you may want to use iframes, so you ensure that the scripts and styles of your site won’t conflict with the ones from the demo.

URL custom field

What you need to do here is to add a simple meta with your demo URL:

And then you’ll just check in your single if there is anything in your demo-url. If there is anything it’ll show this url in an iframe, if not, it’ll just ignore and go on. Put this in the end of your loop (or any other place you want to display demo):

<?php
//loop stuff here
//still inside loop, otherwise $post->ID won't work
	$demo = get_post_meta($post->ID, "demo-url", true);
	if ( ! empty($demo) ) {
		echo '<iframe src="'.$demo.'" width="100%" height="300"><p>Sorry about that. Your browser does not support iframes.</p></iframe>';
	}
//now you can finish your loop!

4. Custom ads for every post

Well, despite of Google’s algorithm to recognize your post’s main topic and serve ads related to it, sometimes you may want to show different ads for different kinds of posts. For instance, you may serve affiliate links for “reviews”, Technorati ads for “funny” and google ads for “tutorials”.

This can be done with get_template_part function. With this function you can include external files inside your loop. So you just need to create a folder called “ads” in your template, set up your main files with the same name of your category slog.

Then at some point, your code will check which template part will be included, this way:

$cats = wp_get_post_categories( $post->ID );
foreach($post_categories as $c){
	$cat = get_category( $c );
	get_template_part( 'ads/'.$cat->slug );
}

So if you have a post that is “funny” and “review”, you’ll show 2 ad blocks.

Now it’s your turn!

So, what do you think? Could you think of other places, or different ways, to use these scripts? Hope you enjoyed my article!

Yes, some of you might have already figured out what kind of service we’re writing about here. ManageWP is a service that allows you to manage all your WordPress websites from one single dashboard. What does it mean?

Lets quickly run over the main features:

• Firstly, that means that you no longer have to remember all logins and passwords for your sites or keep them in long spreadsheets. With ManageWP dashboard you can access all your websites with one click.
• Performing an upgrade of WordPress, plugins and themes across all of your sites is easy as clicking one ‘Upgrade all’ button. You can also install plugins and themes to multiple sites at once, from a variety of sources (your favorites list, WordPress.org, your computer or any URL).
• You can backup all your sites from ManageWP dashboard at any time or restore a previous backup. ManageWP can backup both your entire website or just the database. You can also set automatic scheduled backups.
• ManageWP allows you to set up a new, fully loaded, WordPress site in minutes. Or use ManageWP’s clone tool to clone any of your existing sites from one domain, subdomain or folder to another.
• With all sites under one roof, doing bulk operations becomes easy. Whether you want to post an article to multiple sites, manage your blogroll links or add users, ManageWP allows you to do it effortlessly across any number of sites at once.

How does it work? Do you have to provide them with all your passwords? The answer is no. Access to your site is governed by the ManageWP Worker plugin that you install directly onto your blog. That means that the only password ManageWP stores is the one needed for their central dashboard. So lets get started and take a deeper look into this service.

Features

Dashboard

Once you’ve installed the plugin and linked your website with ManageWP you can access all the features it offers. The dashboard is clean and easy to use. Plus it looks just like your casual WordPress dashboard so you don’t have to worry about adapting to a new and unfamiliar platform.

In the main view you can see which plugins or themes have an update available, below there are post revisions aka post autosaves and spam comments. You can also view the recent comments and posts. In the top right there is a pageview statistics graph and scheduled backups below it.

Manage Plugins & Themes

ManageWP dashboard allows you to instantly and simultaneously install themes or plugins for all of your websites. You can also opt to Activate plugins after upload. Looking through all the plugins is also made easy. In my opinion, the only drawback is the plugin horizontal layout so you have to scroll the window quite far if you’ve got a lot of plugins installed.

Backup

With ManageWP, you can set up scheduled backups to Amazon S3, Dropbox, your own server, any external FTP or an email address for all of your blogs with just a few clicks. You can choose between daily, weekly or monthly backups. Note – this feature is only available for the professional and business pricing plan.

Migrating/cloning sites.

This feature comes in handy if you need to setup a new network of identically modified websites. The theme and all plugins are installed automatically so you don’t have to spend time setting up every blog manually.

Bulk Actions

ManageWP allows you to bulk add/export websites, create new pages, posts and links for all of your websites.

It’s pretty clear with the pages and posts – although I don’t see a good reason why one would like to publish the same post on several blogs, the function does it’s job. Again you’re given the default WordPress text editor so there’s nothing unfamiliar to master.

The Bulk add users feature is bloody useful if you’re willing to add a writer for a set of blogs. You can find this feature under the Users section.

Note – all the bulk features are only available for professional and business pricing plan.

Self-hosted version

ManageWP also offers self-hosted version which allows you to run the service on your own dashboard. Self hosted allows you to have an unlimited number of blogs, host everything on your server and add your own features. It’s created for companies and organizations managing hundreds or even thousands of websites and is currently available only as Enterprise license.

Pricing

ManageWP will be offering three pricing plans where the price then depends on the number of websites you’ll manage (you can choose from a range between 10 and 500). The pre-order is launching on December 6th. All users that sign up now will receive a 30% life-time discount on any hosted service plan that they pre-order for as long as they maintain their service.

• 30 day free trial so you can test the service before paying for it.
• Free plan which allows you to use the Standard features for up to three (five, if you refer some friends) websites.
• Annual plans, and you will get two months free when you sign up for these.

Below you can see the pricing plans for 10, 100 and 500 websites.

10 websites

• Standard: $7/month
• Professional: $21/month
• Business: $42/month

100 websites

• Standard: $40/month
• Professional: $120/month
• Business: $240/month

500 websites

• Standard: $70/month
• Professional: $210/month
• Business: $420/month

Interview

Since this series focuses on the startups we wanted to ask a couple of questions to the founder of ManageWP Vladimir Prelovac.Vladimir Prelovac is the the CEO of Prelovac Media, an internet company located in Belgrade, Serbia. Besides ManageWP he’s also written a book on WordPress plugin development and created other stunning services and plugins.

1. There aren’t many alternatives who can compete with ManageWP. How did you come up with the idea of ManageWP?

As with most good ideas, it was a stroke of luck and a hint of opportunity. A friend of mine was rambling about how he had trouble managing his blogs, and I suddenly realized there is nothing like that available for WordPress, which is, after all, the world’s biggest internet publishing platform. The world needed something like ManageWP, so I decided it was time to make it.

2. As far as I understand ManageWP began in 2010. Why did it take so long to finish beta testing and establish a fully functional service?

ManageWP is an extremely complex piece of software. What makes it unique is that we really tried to make it run smoothly on literally thousands of different server configurations that WordPress would run on. That was our biggest challenge. Scalability was also an important focus for us — some of our users are managing thousands of blogs. But knowing that ManageWP can load data from 1800 websites in less than two minutes… it makes it all worth it.

There is also a list of spectacular features that we are pushing to integrate into ManageWP. Some startups, for example, are satisfied with only offering backup solutions for WordPress. But that functionality is only a tiny piece of the overall picture. Backup features are critical — and something we pride ourselves in offering — but it is only one piece of the 23 major features currently offered by ManageWP, with many more on the way. And with all the great ideas coming in from our beta users, we know that the value we can provide will continue to grow.

Another thing is that we had to ensure that ManageWP would work with services that WordPress users already deeply value. That’s why ManageWP now integrates with Google Analytics and AdSense. And that’s why we already have plans in place to integrate with SEO and uptime monitoring tools in the near future.

And then there is the fact that WordPress is constantly evolving. Adjusting to all the changes is a challenge unless you are willing to work hard to adjust to those changes. Thankfully, our team put in the effort to adapt. So that’s why it all took almost a year and a half to arrive at this point. (And the ride is not over yet!)

Ultimately, our goal is to create a dashboard so useful, so powerful that people will no longer need to log into their WordPress websites or other services. They will be able to log into ManageWP, and everything that the user needs to effectively manage their WordPress sites will be all right there at the user’s fingertips.

Above you can see a screenshot from Wayback Machine with the ManageWP website in 2010.

3. You’ve established a flexible and nice scheme where instead of following a strict milestone schedule the users themselves suggest the ideas you then consider. How did you come up with this method and has it brought the desired results?

Yes! I believe this is one of our strengths at ManageWP. Many of our features were suggested by our users, and that makes it a much more personalized experience for them and for us. After all, nobody could ever have a perfect vision of a product (except maybe Steve Jobs), so it was very important that we listened to our users early on in the development process. We already have around six or seven different ways for users to send us feedback, and I read all of it. The best ideas are sent off to the team for development.

Above you can see a screenshot from ManageWP Google group where users can suggest ideas which then are sent for consideration.

4. Since our series is about successful and fresh startups could you comment on ManageWP from this perspective? How has it grown as a project?

There are different ways to measure the success of a startup. At ManageWP, and from the feedback we have received, it would seem that we created a truly useful service that solves a problem that many people share. Some of our users were excited to learn when we intended to charge for ManageWP, but for the past 12 months, all we wanted to do was focus on creating a genuinely useful product.

And I think that is the most important thing — in order to keep the team passionate and the users interested, you need to have a great product.

5. Your blog says that the number of websites managed by ManageWP has hit 50 000. How do you feel about these results and what are predictions for the future?

Well, looking at numbers like these is always exciting. We hit 50,000 websites near the end of September, but we now manage over 80,000 WordPress blogs. So, when you put it into that perspective, you get really excited as you can see that your product is making a small but measurable change in how the internet works.

Somebody once said that the best way to predict the future is to invent it.

By having a clear vision of where we want to go and by keeping our customers happy, inventing the future is exactly what we are doing. It also helps when we are working with a strong and thriving publishing platform in WordPress. So, all things considered, I am very positive about our future.

Above you can see a screenshot with the exciting announcement.

6. Could you share some of your tips/business principles for others out there willing to make a successful startup?

There are couple of principles that I believe will make any startup’s journey easier:

First is that you need to have a cool product, one that you strongly believe in and you will want to use on your own. This also makes it so much easier to justify putting most, if not all, of your own time, money, and heart into it. You have to realize that there will be many hurdles along the way, as with all things in life, so you better have an idea of what you are doing and why you are doing it.

Second is to launch the beta as soon as possible. This allows you to start listening to your users and getting feedback. They will give great ideas on how to improve your product… for free!

Third is to not create a startup that relies on external funding to succeed. We are completely bootstrapped, which most likely forced us to create a significantly better product than we might have if we were basking in investment money. It motivates you to perform.

Fourth is the speed — making efforts to optimize your application and interface like crazy. Users have never been as impatient as they are today. Also, intuitiveness: the less the users needs to think, the better. You really need to watch other people use your product. You will be surprised by what you will discover.

Do the above things, and people will be drawn to your efforts and will help you to succeed.

7. Additional information

We are launching the pre-order on December the 6th. All users that sign up now will receive a 30% life-time discount on any hosted service plan that they pre-order for as long as they maintain their service, so come check us out! Finally, ManageWP is set to launch in early January.

Conclusion

ManageWP indeed is an amazing and one of the most useful services for WordPress. It’s also a great example of a fresh startup success story. You should definitely check out the free trial if you are running multiple WordPress websites. We’d be glad to hear your feedback and personal experiences. Stay tuned and wait for the next hot startup story.

Little explanation, what we’re doing here

This is something new we are trying out here at 1WD. We are searching for new startups, services we really enjoy and want to share with our readership! The idea is to give better visibility to some outstanding startups and give you a good understanding of what they do and why we think they deserve your attention. Also – we don’t earn anything from these reviews, we just find what we love and review it honestly in detail. When we can, we will always interview the people behind the startup, so you can learn from them, and they can share their passion and story.

I think this new idea and a little shift in focus here at 1WD will be really beneficial for You and feel free to critique what you didn’t enjoy in this article, what you want us to review next and tell us what we did right and if you want more articles like this!

We are very open and if you know about a cool service we could review – just write us in our contact form!

Dainis Graveris