Finger on the Web Vol. 5

So yeah I missed last week’s issue. What of it? Nothing interesting happened. Okay so nothing interesting happened in my life but there was lots of interesting stuff on the internet.

Virginia Tech

Both the online and offline communities were rocked by the tragedy at Virginia Tech. If you’ve been living under a rock for the past week then the short, short version is that on Monday, April 16 a young man opened fire on his classmates killing 32 people (Here’s the long, long version).

I searched the internet and pulled up a few golden nuggets about the incident.

Virginia Tech 2007

NTCoolFool

Ache by Ms. Karen

Planet Moron

Technorati is your best friend if you want to read more about it.

Virginia Tech Search Results

Finger on the Web, Vol. 4

Welcome to the fourth edition of FOTW, your weekly digest of what’s going on on the internet.

More thoughts on sponsored themes

Earlier this week, I wrote about the growing practice of WordPress designers offering advertising space on the free themes they distribute. Matt Mullenweg stopped by for a short minute to offer his opinion on it and when I visited his blog, I found that he had written a post further detailing his view on the subject. Even though I don’t agree, I, at least, have a better understanding of where he’s coming from.

They are calling all in the community to vote on whether or not to allow sponsored themes on the official WP websites such as the theme viewer and the Codex. I’m a little disturbed by this. On the one hand this is Matt’s baby and he can fully dictate what is and is not acceptable in regards to what people can do with it. On the other hand, it feels a little bit like throwing the baby out with the bathwater. As I said before, anyone can create a WordPress theme, even spammers, and unless WP starts vetting all of the links on the templates there banning sponsored templates is probably not going to prevent them from showing up.

Tempest in a Teacup or Baby Momma Drama over Sponsored Templates

There is a storm brewing in the WordPress community over the practice of selling ad space on WordPress themes. More specifically, theme designers are selling text links to advertisers in the footers of the themes that they distribute for free to the community. Now to hear some people tell it this “new” development is akin to running naked down the center aisle of your church wearing only a thin layer of whipped cream to keep you warm.

Finger on the Web, Vol. 3

OMG, I got caught up working on a design for a side project. It wasn’t until I went to the store and wrote a check that realized… today is Wednesday! I tell ya, these weeks are moving along faster and faster.

Anyway, here what’s on the net…

Introducing Google Themes

So logging into my Google personalized homepage, I noticed a new link on the upper right hand side next to my “Add Stuff” button labeled “Select Theme”. Upon clicking it, I found my heart expand to the breaking point with a little more love for Google. Google is now providing skins for your homepage so you have something interesting to look at when perusing the hundreds of widgets you have loaded on your homepage (you know who you are).

And these aren’t just ordinary themes. If you enter in your zip code or location, they will dynamically change according to the time of day. All I can say is… Awesome!

I love this theme. It’s called Tea House and the little fox goes back and forth from having some tea to taking a dip in the pond. To get your very own personalized home page with a dynamic theme, all you have to do is sign up for a Google Account. More information can be found at the Official Google Blog.

digg story

[tags]Google, Themes[/tags]