On Buying Premium WordPress Theme

Posted on: June 3, 2009 by admin No Comments

I have been customizing wordpress themes ever since I started using it. I also made several themes from scratch for my websites. Though making a theme from scratch is fulfilling, customizing a freely available template simply makes the process faster. As they say, why do you have to reinvent the wheel? But the problem with free templates for use as baseline is that they usually look the same. And most are simply garbage. So what’s the alternative? Shell out some money for a premium theme.

And shell out, I did! But it took time for me to find very affordable set of themes that suits my needs and taste. As most of you know, premium themes cost an arm and a leg. We’ve seen wordpress templates that costs above $80 apiece and you can only use that in one domain. That’s the main reason why I shy away from it until I found Elegant Themes. At a price of $19.95 per year, you’ll be able to download all their current themes plus future releases. I got 17 A+ themes when I signed up and more to come in the coming months. That made the price of each theme a little of $1. That’s a fraction of the cost my time if I do the coding myself. And their themes are all XHTML/CSS compliant and compatible with major browsers including Opera, Safari and Netscape.

What’s good with Elegant Themes is that they don’t require you to. However, the themes are not released through GPL. That means you cannot redistribute the themes with your changes. This makes the license of the template incompatible with Wordpress template which is released through GPL. But I don’t really care for now.

Filed Under: Web Design, wordpress

How To Determine SQL Server Version

Posted on: April 20, 2009 by kwatog No Comments

In case you need to know what version of SQL Server you are currently using, you can use the queries below.

Starting at SQL Server 2000, you can use the following query.

SELECT SERVERPROPERTY('productversion'), SERVERPROPERTY ('productlevel'), SERVERPROPERTY ('edition')

The above query is applicable for SQL Server 2000, SQL Server 2005 and SQL Server 2008. For SQL Server 7 and SQL Server 6.5 series. The code below should be used.

SELECT @@VERSION

If you are not sure what version of SQL Server you have, use the second query. It still works as it isn’t deprecated yet. The new version is handy if you need to get the details programmatically.

Filed Under: sql server

Tutorial for WordPress Plugin Writing

Posted on: April 16, 2009 by admin No Comments

I’ve been looking for a good wordpress plugin creation tutorial for some time already and though I found quite a number of them, there’s always something missing. What I found were like piece meals and I have to connect the dots myself.

That’s the case until I found Ronald Huereca’s tutorial posted at DevLounge. His tutorial is concise and direct to the point. It was easy to read and follow and most importantly, it follows the object-oriented approach in wordporess plugin development. Making a plugin in object-oriented way presents a lot of opportunities and lessens the headache in development.

To give you a preview, I’m listing down the table of contents.

Table of Contents: How to Write a Wordpress Plugin

  1. How to Write a WordPress Plugin – Introduction
  2. Seven Reasons to Write a WordPress Plugin
  3. How to Get Ideas for Wordpress Plugins
  4. Structure of a Wordpress Plugin
  5. WordPress Plugin Actions
  6. WordPress Plugin Filters
  7. Constructing a WordPress Plugin Admin Panel
  8. Constructing a WordPress Plugin User’s Panel
  9. WordPress Plugins and Database Interaction
  10. Using JavaScript and CSS with your WordPress Plugin
  11. Using AJAX with your WordPress Plugin
  12. Releasing and Promoting Your WordPress Plugin

To view the tutorial, you can go over to Devlounge’s How to Write a WP Plugin. Alteratively, you can also download the tutorial in pdf form by clicking this link.

Filed Under: Uncategorized

Codes for Web Safe Colors

Posted on: April 9, 2009 by kwatog No Comments

When developing themes or doing anything that requires colors, it’s important that you know the hex codes of the color you want to use. They are the 6-number codes that represent a specific color which you use on your CSS.

The list below shows the codes for web safe colors. I kept this list on my usb drive and always had seach from the net numerous times as I don’t bring my usb drive with me all the time. Take note that most of the monitors and browsers can now display millions of colors and shades. Go somewhere else to get all of them hehe

000000 000033 000066 000099 0000CC 0000FF
003300 003333 003366 003399 0033CC 0033FF
006600 006633 006666 006699 0066CC 0066FF
009900 009933 009966 009999 0099CC 0099FF
00CC00 00CC33 00CC66 00CC99 00CCCC 00CCFF
00FF00 00FF33 00FF66 00FF99 00FFCC 00FFFF
330000 330033 330066 330099 3300CC 3300FF
333300 333333 333366 333399 3333CC 3333FF
336600 336633 336666 336699 3366CC 3366FF
339900 339933 339966 339999 3399CC 3399FF
33CC00 33CC33 33CC66 33CC99 33CCCC 33CCFF
33FF00 33FF33 33FF66 33FF99 33FFCC 33FFFF
660000 660033 660066 660099 6600CC 6600FF
663300 663333 663366 663399 6633CC 6633FF
666600 666633 666666 666699 6666CC 6666FF
669900 669933 669966 669999 6699CC 6699FF
66CC00 66CC33 66CC66 66CC99 66CCCC 66CCFF
66FF00 66FF33 66FF66 66FF99 66FFCC 66FFFF
990000 990033 990066 990099 9900CC 9900FF
993300 993333 993366 993399 9933CC 9933FF
996600 996633 996666 996699 9966CC 9966FF
999900 999933 999966 999999 9999CC 9999FF
99CC00 99CC33 99CC66 99CC99 99CCCC 99CCFF
99FF00 99FF33 99FF66 99FF99 99FFCC 99FFFF
CC0000 CC0033 CC0066 CC0099 CC00CC CC00FF
CC3300 CC3333 CC3366 CC3399 CC33CC CC33FF
CC6600 CC6633 CC6666 CC6699 CC66CC CC66FF
CC9900 CC9933 CC9966 CC9999 CC99CC CC99FF
CCCC00 CCCC33 CCCC66 CCCC99 CCCCCC CCCCFF
CCFF00 CCFF33 CCFF66 CCFF99 CCFFCC CCFFFF
FF0000 FF0033 FF0066 FF0099 FF00CC FF00FF
FF3300 FF3333 FF3366 FF3399 FF33CC FF33FF
FF6600 FF6633 FF6666 FF6699 FF66CC FF66FF
FF9900 FF9933 FF9966 FF9999 FF99CC FF99FF
FFCC00 FFCC33 FFCC66 FFCC99 FFCCCC FFCCFF
FFFF00 FFFF33 FFFF66 FFFF99 FFFFCC FFFFFF

By the way, I only realized now that my little blog site lacks color. Too bad I only realized this after making this post.

Monitor SQL Server DB Processes

Posted on: April 8, 2009 by admin No Comments

If you don’t have DBArtisan or other more advanced SQL Editor, you can use the query below. Take note that you’ll need necessary rights to be able to run it.

select spid, status, blocked, open_tran, waitresource, waittype,
waittime, cmd, lastwaittype, cpu, physical_io,
hostname, hostprocess, loginame, program_name, net_address,
net_library, dbid, ecid, kpid, nt_domain, nt_username, uid, sid,
memusage, last_batch=convert(varchar(26), last_batch,121),
login_time=convert(varchar(26), login_time,121)
from master.dbo.sysprocesses
--where (blocked!=0 or waittype != 0x0000)

If you only want to see those that are blocking or locking, uncomment the last line. One thing that’s lacking here is the list of tables and database objects that each process id is using. That’s important if a user is running stored procedures and you need to know . I’ll provide that later as honestly, I don’t know yet which table holds that information.

I actually contributed this at SQL Reviewer as I don’t see a lot of websites that discusses this. For further reading, you may go to the MSDN website.

Filed Under: Uncategorized

Older Entries