Backlight supports all advanced Shifter configurations and module positions. Backlight is great for both professional and personal sites. You must have Shifter installed to use this WordPress skin.

Read more and download at shiftertheme.com.

First a disclaimer, I’m not a fan of the new WordPress 2.5 admin panel redesign but I am going to give it a chance.

I’ve been keeping up with the updates to the admin panel through SVN and was very excited this week to see the littlest biggest thing so far - the Visual Rich Editor has finally been updated to allow class input!

This is such a small fix but will mean so much more to those who actually use the Visual Rich Editor. I have never like the Visual Rich Editor and in fact, I have recommended to new WordPress users to turn the editor off as soon as they are up and running. One of the reasons I have recommended this in the past is because of the inability to easily assign a class to images.

Part of my hatred of problem with the VRE is the terminology used. Most new WordPress users think the term “Alignment” in the image panel of the VRE means much more than it really does. When you’re talking about image placement, “Alignment” is pretty much worthless. “Vertical space” and “Horizontal space” are even worse!

What most people really need to do is “float” an image left or right so that text wraps around the image nicely. You cannot wrap text around an image with “align”. The misconception about the VRE’s image “Alignment” leads to some of the ugliest, bloggish looking posts you’ve ever seen. And it just doesn’t have to be that way.

Virtually every self respecting theme designer adds image classes to the theme stylesheet that allow an image to be floated left or right with text wrapping around the image properly. We use “alignleft” and “alignright” in all of our designs and it would be fantastic if other developers used the same terminology. If we (designers) could all use the same terminology for image classes this would benefit the end user by keeping them from having to switch all of their image classes when they switch from theme to theme.

But back to the VRE and the new ability to add a class to images. Please take advantage of this new feature if you are using the Visual Rich Editor. It’s very easy to add a class to your image and make your site look tons better.

To add a class to your image, you first need to know what class you should be assigning. This depends on the theme you are using. If you’re not sure and can’t figure it out for yourself, contact the designer who developed your theme and ask them. If they don’t have a class to assign to images to wrap text… you’re probably using a pretty crappy theme. You can add a class yourself, but having proper images is pretty basic stuff and every theme developer should do it.

Once you have determined what class to assign (if you’re using Shifter, the proper classes are “alignleft” or “alignright” although “left” and “right” will work too because we have tried to make things as compatible with existing themes as possible) open the VRE image button dialog and simply type “alignleft” or “alignright” in the class input. That’s it. This one little change will make your blog look infinitely better and more professional and now, thankfully, you can do it with the VRE right out of the box.

It looks like we’ll be talking about WordPress themes and Shifter. Talkshoe now allows phone calls in to a podcast without having to setup a Talkshoe account. Jeffro has the lowdown on calling the show.

The missing mystery stat is the Dead Blog Stat. It would be pretty tough to come up with an actual Dead Blog Stat because you don’t really know when the plug should be pulled on a blog. Prolonged inactivity or lack of posts on a blog doesn’t really mean the blog is dead. The blogger may have lost interest or may be working on another project. But like Monty Python, the blog might be screaming “I’m not dead yet!”

But how many of the million plus blogs on WordPress.com might be dead blogs?

It’s no secret that the Web Hosting industry makes the big cash on the dead site. $9.95 hosting per month or lower makes a killing when you have sites that are active for a week or two at upload and then get lost in Google’s servers and never see any significant traffic.

So if the Web Hosting industry makes tons of cash off of dead sites, how much does WordPress.com make off of dead blogs? I think it’s an honest question when the million plus blog figure helps drum up 29 million in venture capital from the likes of the New York Times and others. Don’t get me wrong, I think 29 million dollars is a spit in the bucket when it comes to the true value of WordPress and WordPress.com and I’m glad they got the cash.

I’m just asking the question. How many dead blogs are there?

WordPress.com provides stats on signups and deletions but you obviously can’t count deleted blogs as a dead blog. If somebody deletes the blog… well, at least they care enough to delete it.

Taking a look at the stats provided for pageviews which are considered to be “raw aggregate traffic on public WordPress.com pages”, they’re basically (currently) hanging around the 18 million pageviews a day mark. Doing some crappy math with round numbers, that’s something like 18 page views a day per blog. Surely a worthless figure but at least I can divide.

WordPress.com has some major players in VIP Hosting. I don’t know whether or not the VIP Hosting is included in the stats provided by WordPress.com, but I don’t know why they wouldn’t be. As far as I can tell, all of those big players like CNN Political Tracker, All Things D and even the Scobelizer himself are all hosted on the VIP Hosting service and they all have some form of the wpstats javascript on their pages. My guess is the big boys are included in the 18 million pageviews a day.

I don’t think it’s inconceivable that the big boys account for millions of pageviews a day among themselves. Where does that leave the traffic for the other joe schmoes? Me thinks far less than 18 million pageviews a day divided amongst about 999,500 blogs. Again, I’m using round numbers.

Look a little closer at the posting stats and things get very interesting. The posts per day (currently) are sub 100,000. There was a huge peak up to 120,000 a while back but calling it a 100,000 posts per day seems fair. Some 50,000 pages are created each day but at least one of those per blog is created with the “About” page at signup. There are about 25,000 signups a day so it looks like the signups account for 25,000 pages created and 25,000 posts (Hello World!). Posts and pages with actual content not attributable to new blog signups might be something like 100,000 (keeping it round).

That looks like 100,000 posts a day on more than a million blogs or far less than 10% of the blogs are active on a daily basis. Still a huge number of posts on a huge number of blogs, but 10% or less is… well… 10% or less. Sure, people don’t post every day so there is a rotational post factor that needs to be considered. I’m not including comments because you can comment on a dead blog. In fact, that’s the plan with most spammers anyway… spam the old posts on the old blogs. It’s like running off tackle, run it until the other team stops it.

At this point, this post is so damn long, I forgot was I wondering… oh yeah… the dead blog stat. Well, how many dead blogs are there? It looks like far less than 10% of the blogs post actively each day and some of the 18 million pageviews a day probably never touch the quietly desperate blog.

What would it take to determine how many dead blogs are on WordPress.com? I’d like to see a “blogs without posts in 1 week - 1 month- 6 months - 1 year - more than a year” stat. It would take about a minute to write the query and it sure would be interesting. Go ahead guys, you got the 29 million. Cash the check and write the query. I want to know!

Read more and download Tech Clean from Shifter’s new home.

Resolution comes in 7 fresh colors for the new year. This skin for the Shifter Theme System for Wordpress supports all Shifter module shapes and positions. Round corners and change colors with the flip of a switch. Nothing makes Wordpress easier than the Shifter Theme System.

Requires Shifter Version 1.7 or higher. Don’t have Shifter yet? Get it now and start your new year off right!

All Shifter body sizes, sidebar positions, layouts and custom widgets are supported. The screenshot below shows the advert module activated and filled with the Shifter Featured Block Widget on a 950px wide body. The two sidebars show two of the nine module shapes available with the flip of a switch from your Shifter settings page.

Download Resolution for the Shifter Theme System for Wordpress.

Worn and Weary was inspired by the photograph Jayne uses as the header image for the skin’s background. Jayne has done a wonderful job with artistic gradients throughout the skin.

Jayne took a different approach to the power of version 1.7’s module shaping ability and decided to substitute stylized corners for the round corner option. What a great idea! Selecting any of the rounding options on either the content column, comments area or individual modules will produce a nicely styled corners. Of course you can still get normal, squared borders if you like with Worn and Weary, just flip the switch on your Shifter settings page and you’re done.

Preview Worn and Weary by Jayne d’Arcy or download this great skin for Shifter now!

• Choose to show second sidebar on a page type basis.
• Choose between three types of “Shifter Plates”. “Shifter Plates” are styles for your home page that are different than the rest of your blog layout. The three home page styles or “Plates” are “Blog”, “Blog-Portal” and “Portal”.
• Custom Shifter Featured Tab Block - a featured tab block can be displayed that will pull featured posts from selected categories and display out of your normal blog sequence above your main post content. A widgetized version of the tab block can be dropped into any of Shifter’ 13 module positions.
• Choose to show excerpts or full posts on category pages from the Shifter Settings page.
• Choose between three border shapes for your main content column and comment sections. Rounding corners has never been easier than flipping a switch.
• Choose from 9 module shapes that can be applied to individual module locations. Round corners, round bottoms, square tops with backgrounds… the list goes on. All styling is done with the flip of a switch from the Shifter Settings page.
• Choose to show module positions on a page type basis. Don’t want to show the User 1 module on the home page but instead would like to appear on single post pages? No problem, flip the switch and your done.
• New skins
• Integrated, extensive, graphical, onboard help files accessible from your Wordpress admin panel unlock the full potential of the most advanced Wordpress Theme System on the planet.

The personal license for Shifter will be priced at $79.95. A support package version will be available for $99.95.

Those upgrading from Shifter v1.6 will receive a free upgrade if v1.6 is purchased before v1.7 is release which is anticipated to be in the next day or so. (hint… save $20.00 by purchasing 1.6 now and getting the free upgrade).

And lastly, by popular demand, the Shifter Theme System Forums are now open. Please check out what has been going on with some of our beta testing and post your sites in the Showcase.

It’s not that the Visual Rich Editor (idiot editor) for Wordpress is a bad thing or defective in some way, it’s just that the Visual Rich Editor is a crutch and you’ve made it this far - it won’t hurt to learn a little html and use the real post edit screen… the way it was meant to be.

As a developer, I’ve seen the Visual Rich Editor cause more problems than it solved. To me, that means one thing - don’t use it.

To turn the Visual Rich Editor for Wordpress off, look under the Users tab and click the Your Profile tab. The editor is disabled by default and you will to uncheck the box for the editor to free yourself from the idiot editor.

There is nothing difficult about using the regular post editor. If you are going to take your blogging seriously, you need to learn to do some of the things the regular post editor will force you to do like place a class in an image to float it left or right.

Do yourself a favor, turn the idiot editor off and learn to post the right way.

Thank you again to all who asked to test the most advanced premium Wordpress Theme System ever released.

Pricing has not been set for Shifter 1.7, however, we do anticipate an increase in price. Those wanting to upgrade from Shifter v1.6 will receive free copies of v1.7. If you haven’t purchased v1.6 yet, now is the time.