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WordPress Themes

The abundance of site themes is another reason for the continued popularity of WordPress. If you are design impaired, there are freely downloadable themes available that you can easily manage through the WordPress admin. (In English, for the not so technically inclined: You can change the entire look and feel of your blog with a single click.)

Good places full of free themes:

Alex King’s Site – This is the mother of all theme sites. Alex runs a contest for themes and posts them on his site. He also has equipped it with the theme switcher plugin (see plugins) so you can browse through the themes easily.
Blogging Pro Themes
How To Blog Comprehensive List

Also, Urban Girhaffe has a good set of tutorials for working on your own theme. He begins by dissecting “Kubrick”, a popular WordPress theme that ships with the default WordPress installation, stripping it of its style and using that as a framework to build your own theme.

Google Search for WordPress Themes

WordPress Plugins

By Chad Butler Leave a Comment

One of the great things about WordPress is the plethora of plugins available. This is a benefit of working with open source software that has a big following.

Here are some good places to get started looking for plugins.

Google Search for WordPress Plugins

There are some prettey cool plugins out there. Good luck and happy blogging.

The Weather in Space

By Chad Butler Leave a Comment

Didn’t know there was a weather forecast for space, did you? Check out spaceweather.com for the latest and most complete weather report for… you guessed it! Space.

Why would this matter, you ask? Sun spots, solar winds, solar flares, and other occurances in space have a profound effect on the earth and its own weather. Sun spot and flare activity have been known to knock satellites and other electronic devices out of commission. Also, in case you are a “chicken little”, there are reports for PHAs (or Potentially Hazardous Asteroids). If you or your friends are planning a trip to planet or celestial object in our solar system, it would probably be a good idea to be aware of solar winds and solar flares. The resulting radiation could be fatal to you without the protection of the Earth’s atmosphere. For skywatchers, we see solar activity in the form of Aurora Borealis (Northern Lights). Spaceweather.com conveniently has an Aurora Report so you’ll know whether you should bother staying up past bedtime or not. There is a plethora of links to related news, space weather, and information that will teach you all you needed to know about the weather outside our atmosphere.

All in all, a very interesting site with useful information. A must have in your bookmarks (or favorites).

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