Facebook Timeline Vector Template

Facebook’s new timeline feature will be mandatory for all users on March 30th. If you are anything like me, you will have to redesign the branding for more than a few pages and will need to get approval for these designs before they go live. I often like to do my designing in Illustrator, and I though it would be nice to have a template to drop the illustrations into when I was done.

With that in mind, I created a template in Illustrator to mock up my designs. Since I went to the trouble of creating it, I decided to share it with you. There isn’t much else to say about it, so feel free to download it below. Check out this article if you are looking for a Photoshop template or some inspiration.

Download the free facebook vector template
download the free Facebook Timeline Vector Template

blankSlate3! The Stripped Down Starter Theme for WordPress 3.0

Update 3-15-2011:
The blankSlate Theme has been updated to better support WordPress 3.1. Clicking the download link below will get you the newest version of the blankSlate theme. A couple of things to note with this version. First, I left many of the div tags in the loop files. I did this because quite honestly I was tired of adding them back in. Second, my daughter is teething and I have 4 themes to build that required the use of this theme. That being said, I was more rushed than I would normally like, so if you find anything wrong with the theme, please let me know and I will correct it immediately for everyone else!

WordPress 3.0 has been out for a couple of weeks now. With that in mind, I decided it would be a good idea to redo the blankSlate theme and make it compatible with the new functionality that WordPress 3.0 has to offer

For those of you who aren’t already familiar with the previous version of the blankSlate theme, it is a theme that has been stripped of all style and structural elements. For me, a blank canvas is the perfect way to start any new design! I created this and share it with everyone because it saves time. I always took the time to strip out what I didn’t need from the default theme to use as a starting place for creating themes. Having the blankSlate theme in my toolbox eliminates this first step and saves me valuable time.

Previous versions of the blankSlate theme have been based on the Kubrick theme that was WordPress’s default theme. WP 3.0′s release however added new functionality, and the new default theme, twentyten, to go with it. While the previous version of blankSlate is actually still compatible with WP 3.0, it lacks some of the new functionality such as custom post types and navigation menu management. So if you use the previous version and want to continue, feel free to do so. If you want to take advantage of some of the new features however, you will need to add the supporting code to that theme, or just download blankSlate 3.0

Changes to the default theme:

  • All styling removed
  • Most structural markup has been removed
  • Eric Meyer’s Reset stylesheet added
  • Class and id names that are not dynamically created have been removed

Things remained the same

  • Divs surrounding posts were not removed
  • Divs surrounding the widget areas in the side bar and footer were not removed
  • Most of the functions in the functions.php file were left alone
  • Style sheets for the WYSIWYG editor in the back end were left in tact

This theme is completely free to do with as you please. It is released under the GNU General Public License with no strings attached except for one: If you find this useful, and know someone else that might find it useful as well, tell them about it!

I must admit that I was a little rushed when I created the new version. I think that I got everything, but if you happen to notice anything that I missed, please let me know so I can make the proper updates.

Disclaimer: This theme is offered for free, and “as is”. I will try to help out where I can though, so if you run into any issues, please comment on this post and I will do what I can to help. That being said, there is no warranty, or guarantee that I will be able to offer support.

Download the blankSlate Theme here

How to Build a Better Light Tent

Do you shoot product photography on a budget? Have you ever looked at the light tents that some companies sell and thought “well that is great, but it cost’s so much”? Do you sell things on ebay, but feel your photography is lacking?

If you answered yes to any of these questions, this video is for you. In this video, I go over what you will need and how to build a bargain basement light tent that will produce great results, and be around for the long haul. You should be able to build this light tent for around fifteen dollars and it shouldn’t take more than 20 minutes of your time.

Without a Job

To be quite honest, that title stings a little bit. My ten year career with my previous employer has ended through no fault of my own. The company that I previously worked for decided to close the building we worked in, leaving myself and many others without a job to go to.

Unfortunate for sure, but I intend to raise a glass to new beginnings! So while this situation might be bad for my personal finances, it should be good for you, or the few of you who are regular readers of this site. With all of my new found spare time I intend to add a bunch of new articles to this site. The majority will probably be tutorials in web design and photography, but I will probably throw in some free WordPress templates and miscellaneous articles as well.

The first item to come up will be a video on how to build a better light tent. I should have this complete in the next few days. Don’t want to give away any spoilers, but I have one more part to shoot that involves a cat high on the catnip. Should be quite entertaining.

After the light tent video, I will be concentrating on the soon to be re-branded beer review site. With the re-branding it will be getting a real design for the site and many many more reviews on the hand crafted beers that you love. If there are any beers you would like to see reviewed in the near future, send me a message. Assuming that I can score these at any of my local beer distributors I will get the team of tasters together to throw back a few and put our thoughts into words.

Aside from that, I have a ton of new content planned for here, as well as a few sites I am also involved with. So with that, stay tuned, new content is coming.

Pardon My Dust

Well the new site design is up. The problem with this is that it isn’t actually complete yet. I wouldn’t have normally released something that isn’t complete yet, however, I am expecting some important traffic, and leaving the coming soon page up just wasn’t going to do.

So, while the site is currently live, please be aware that it isn’t really done yet. If you run into any issues, errors or oddities, please forgive me. If you like, you could even let me know in the comments of this post, I would really appreciate it! Also, if the site does indeed go dark again, please rest assured that it will return as soon as possible.

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