Here’s a screenshot of the theme and you can read more about it here and see the live demo here.

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What’s in the name?

From this point below, I will be going to bore you to death but let me try so I know how bad it would be. If you’re looking to know more about the features of this theme. Please read this post instead. If you’re willing to read a bit about chemistry and science stuff, you may proceed.

Equilibria (or equilibrium) is the condition of a system in which competing influences are balanced. Equilibria comes with several types of landing pages (business, blog and portfolio) to balance all sources of influences a website might have, hence the name. I could have come with any name, you know, but again I always find it exciting to take names from my parallel world and use them for names of WordPress themes.

I believe you studied chemistry some years back? In a chemical reaction, chemical equilibrium is the state in which the concentrations of the reactants and products have not yet changed with time. Usually, this state results when the forward reaction proceeds at the same rate as the reverse reaction. Interesting, huh? In a state of thermodynamic equilibrium, there are no net flows of matter or of energy, no phase changes, and no unbalanced potentials (or driving forces), within the system.

I know you’re all confused, puzzled and bewildered but bear with me. I’m going to give you one simple, real-life example. Have you ever seen water boiling? It’s a perfect example of a system (water) that attempts to reach equilibrium. A certain amount of water (in the liquid phase) are turning into vapour while a certain amount of water vapour are also turning into liquid. The controlling factor is simply the heat that we’re adding to the system. If it could be maintained at a constant level, the phase changes would happen at a same rate and the system would be in a perfect equilibrium. This is called VLE (vapour-liquid equilibrium).

How to purchase the theme?

If you like the feel of it or simply want to cherish the engineering philosophy behind the name and want to have it on your blog, simply go to Equilibria‘s page at ColorLabs or click the buttons below and they’ll take you there. Currently ColorLabs has a 30% off offer for all themes so now is the right time to have this theme. The code is EA628 and will be valid until 24 July 2011.

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Along the road we have been receiving popular response from users of Arthemia Premium, that they love to have more white space in their beloved theme. So, one day we wondered, why don’t we provide an additional skin for Arthemia Premium so our premium users get to choose?

Say hello to Blue Accent – a clean additional skin for Arthemia Premium.

Hours were put into tweaking the details to get a totally clean look, but we knew that has a bucket load of potential so we were more than happy to do it. We hope our users appreciate the effort we put in to maintaining our older themes!

Check out the demo and then we look forward to the social conversation in the comments ;).

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This post was originally published at ColorLabs and written by Anita Pravitasari.

Let’s stand out

Wireline has this shiny, oh-so-2011, modern look and is packed with cool animations like featured posts slideshow, scrollable popular posts and jQuery-powered drop-down navigation menu. There are 5 color schemes available so it’s just so unlikely that your favourite colour isn’t there. And if you’re into the geeky side of web development, it might worth telling that ColorLabs incorporate some HTML5 and CSS3 stuff into it.

Have a look at this top-to-middle screenshot of Wireline, this one is the brown one:

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Wireline comes with 5 alternative color schemes: red, green, blue, brown and black. Read up on the specs of the theme, view the demo and then give us a little feedback love. If you want to get more technical details on the theme itself, please head to ColorLabs‘ website because what you’re about to read below might not interest you at all.

What kind of name is Wireline?

So here’s the thing about being both an engineer and a web developer: you get to pick odd-sounding names taken from your parallel world. I named one of my themes ‘Platformate‘ back in 2008. Platformate stands for platinum reformate. In plain English, platinum reforming is the re-arrangement of some sort of chemical compounds, which in this case are the carbon chains in crude oil, using some sort of accelerator, which in this case is platinum. Reformate is the product of the process. Confused? Okay, try this one: it’s LIKE (note that) turning Premium into Pertamax so Pertamina can get more money. That’s NOT exactly the case (hence the capitalised LIKE) but hopefully you get the idea. It’s one of the cool chemical engineering stuff.

What about Wireline? In case you don’t know, the oil and gas industry is pretty dodgy. If there had to be the most superstitious and prophetic engineering on earth, that’d be petroleum engineering. Let me tell you something: A one-pixel discprepancy on a visual design can actually irritate my eyes and the creative side of my brain could instantaneously combust. In petroleum engineering, I’d have to be satisfied with 30% of uncertainties in my engineering estimation. If we’re talking about a 960-pixel wide web site, that error is equivalent to 288 pixels, about the size of a sidebar.

Wireline is a cabling technology where a current is sent to downhole logging tools in oil well exploration and completions. Petroleum engineers send logging tools into oil wells so they get to understand the characteristic of the sedimentology underneath in order to ‘guesstimate’ everything. This practice, and in fact it’s pretty cool, is called Wireline. In simple terms, engineers send a line of wire into the well, hence Wireline.

How to purchase this theme?

If you like the feel of it or simply want to cherish the engineering philosophy behind the name and want to have it on your blog, simply go to Wireline‘s page at ColorLabs or click the buttons below and they’ll take you there. Currently ColorLabs has a 30% off offer for all themes so now is the right time to have this theme. The code is EA628 and will be valid until 24 July 2011.

Purchase nowLive demo

After having been more than 2 years in business, ColorLabs finally gets its second facelift. The site is now fairly simpler and shows a lot of whitespace which makes reading much more enjoyable. It is also in so many ways more integrated so users will find it easier to explore.

First-Time Installation Service

Okay, this is something that is completely new at ColorLabs and we bet you’re going to love this. Each purchase now includes a free, optional first-time installation and configuration service and we promise to make your web site ready in 24 hours. Not only is this so great and helpful for you all, this also cuts the number of technical issues raised in our support systems, which in turn will let us focus more on designing new products for you. To opt-in, you need to submit a request to the Resolution Center and we’ll get down to business in a snap.

Support Systems

We also have just upgraded our support systems. We now have the Resolution Center, a member-restricted area where you can get one-to-one assistance from our dedicated support agents. This system is very secure and you can safely provide us with your WordPress and FTP accounts details if need be. This simplifies matters significantly and you will get your technical issues resolved more quickly.

Additionally, we will have the Discussion Forum, another member-restricted area where you can interact with other members and share your experience using our products. Here, you can find awesome mods that somebody else has done to our themes and discuss how to get them. We will closely monitor this forum as sometimes users raise technical issues which should have been posted to the Resolution Center. This forum is not yet online and we will tell you more about this after. At the moment you will still get forwarded to the current User Forum.

Theme Licensing

All our products are now licensed under GNU General Public License. We simply want to comply with WordPress, the publishing platform that we love so much, and we hope this change will benefit you in so many ways.

What next?

We are still cooking so many things here at ColorLabs. We are trying to focus more on publishing tutorials for you and providing a better customer service. We also have some cool themes waiting to be released and we bet they simply can’t wait to see you. And last thing, we are now recruiting. If you have a passion for design, do drop us a line. You might be the one we have been looking for.

Follow us on Twitter! (@colorlabs)

WordCamp Indonesia 2009 was held in Erasmus Huis, the office of the embassy of The Netherlands for Indonesia. The conference itself was held inside an auditorium, attended by approximately 150 attendees, including developers, designers, bloggers, sponsors, and media representatives. It’s totally my rough guess, I didn’t check the guest list thoroughly.

It was clear to see that they who attended this event really appreciate the development of WordPress and seemed curious about how it all started, the mastermind behind it, and everything related to it including the codes, the plugins, the themes, the user interface, and everything. Everyone seemed so passionate to be there, them who are newbie users and even them the PHP/CSS freaks. A blogger community (Anging Mamiri) even tried so hard coming all the way from Makassar to attend this event.

The first day was started with an opening speech by Valent Mustamin, the organizer, and Matt Mullenweg. We then continued with a presentation by Nanda Ivens, a representative from IndoPacific Edelman, who told us some interesting facts about the digital influence in the current society. There was also a WordPress Free Forum, a talk show that discussed about WordPress from the user’s point of view. Ryan Koesuma, a friend from Bandung Blog Village is one of the panelist there.

It’s Romi Satria Wahono who started the second day. He gave us some valuable insights about personal branding. In the afternoon, Nukman Luthfie from Virtual Consulting presented us a hilarious presentation about himself, wrapped with an elegant topic: Corporate Blogging. Hahaha. And the funny thing with these two guys is that both of them acted as if they were the “fairest among us all”. No wonder they succeeded well in building personal and corporate brand.

Anyway, I was lucky enough to join a talk show with a topic: WordPress Business Forum, that was held just before the lunch on the second day. The talk show was moderated by Deden Purnamahadi, and Matt Mullenweg was the main panelists, accompanied by Nadiah Alwi and me.

Just before the end of the second day, there was a presentation from the finalists of Paperless Mading Competition (Mading Online Bandung Blog Vaganza 2008): SMUN 20 Bandung, SMKN 4 Bandung, and SMKN Informatika Bandung. One of the team presented a wonderful idea relating WordPress to paperless school magazine: “Using WordPress for school magazines means helping the world to survive from the Global Warming.”

These are some screen shots of their wonderful works. They are using WordPress MU and the Arthemia Premium theme.

Bottomline, it was such a once in a lifetime experience to meet wonderful guys there. I saw famous people like Enda Nasution, Ndoro Kakung, Christian Sugiono, and of course Matt Mullenweg. I met new friends: Simon Lim, Septi Yulia Sari, Cynthia Rahayu, Erick Mainaky, and many others.

I totally look forward to attending WordCamp Indonesia 2010. And I can’t stop thinking: he is only 25-year-old, he didn’t finish his degree at his university, but he was named to be the 16th most important people on the Web by PC World. Amazing, huh?

There are 2 things that made me occupied: first is the final report of my internship to PT PERTAMINA UP II Dumai which thankfully made me eligible to take the final comprehensive test so that I can graduate. Frankly I don’t want to tell you anything about my final report. And second is the heavy, labor-work redesign of ColorLabs Project, both at the outer front-end look and the membership system at its back-end.

Here is my latest work in WordPress and Design. Thanks to WordPress, Adobe Photoshop (my daily design mate), PNG-24 Image Format (that is how real transparency should look like), and Internet Explorer (for being so stupid, inconsistent, incompatible, and worthless – thanks, you’ve taught me that good web designers are them who successfully tell you, who happens to be the worst Internet browser on the planet, what to do).

Bottomline, what I’m trying to say is: “Seriously, there are Firefox, Chrome, Safari, and Opera. It’s already a broad choice so you don’t have to count IE in.” Hahaha.

Talking about WordPress, what do you think an awesome high quality WordPress themes should look like? Should they have vivid colors? Clear typography? Great content readability? Or perhaps something that conventional graphic design theories forget?

Well, we guess this is your time to decide. Express your insights by designing a theme concept for us. Show yourself off, gain some recognition, and not to mention, there is a total prize of US$ 3500 available for you, talented designers.

How to participate in the contest?

To participate in the contest, you must submit a theme concept to ColorLabs Project. It’s not a theme, it’s just a concept. Here are some technical requirements of the concept:

• The theme concept is intended for WordPress. That’s rule number one. But the great news is: there is a broad possibility of amazing stuffs we can create with WordPress.
• We believe that there are numerous ways to present a theme concept, but to participate in the contest, your theme concept must be created in Photoshop format.
• The theme concept must cater the 1024 X 768 user’s screen. Therefore, considering the margin and borders, the maximum width of the design is 980 pixels.
• To participate in the contest, you need to publish a blog post and tell a bit of your story about the contest. You should also give a linkback to this post.
• Designs must be submitted in JPG or PNG format to contest [at] colorlabsproject [dot] com. You also have to tell us the background story of the concept: what inspired you, how you designed, what the design is all about. Designs are not only about shapes, colors, or patterns. They should have insightful story that complete the whole as one. In the story, please also mention your full name and any URL you would like to be linked to if you win.
• If you use any stock/source images in the designs, please submit them as well and mention the URLs in the story above. Please make sure that those images have extended usage licenses that allow the distribution of the design.
• Designs must be submitted before 14th February 2009, midnight (GMT+7).

The competition is divided into two phases:

1. Qualification Round: January 10 – February 14, 2009.
   In this round, participants are only required to submit the front-page of the theme concept in PNG/JPG format. In the end, there will be 12 theme concepts that will be selected to compete in the final round.
2. Final Round: February 14, 2009 – February 21, 2009.
   In this round, finalists are required to submit the inner pages of the theme concept along with the source files (PSD files). Source files will be assessed to determine the core quality of the design.

The contest is divided into 3 (three) categories:

1. Category A: General Blog/Lifestream and Photo/Videoblog
   Theme concepts participating in this category should include general elements for standard personal/lifestream blogs or photo/videoblogs.
2. Category B: Business Blog/Portfolio
   Designs competing in this category should include several basic elements of business/portfolio blogs. They should be able to market products/services or function as a showcase site.
3. Category C: Newspaper/Magazine
   Theme concepts participating in this category should include main elements of an online newspaper/magazine, particularly: headline, featured posts, multiple post listings, and ad spots.

The winner from each category will receive US$ 1000 and additional US$ 500 will be awarded to the best of the three. So it’ll be US$ 1500 for the best of the best and US$ 1000 each for the rest two winners. All winners will be interviewed and featured in ColorLabsProject. One contestant may submit more than one design and he/she may win more than one category as well.

Designs are assessed by a special team from ColorLabs Project. Three main factors that we will put into considerations are (1) the background story of the concept, (2) how well the theme concept presents the site’s content to the viewer, and (3) how far it transforms WordPress into something stunning yet well-functioning as a website.

We will then make the winning theme concepts available as official ColorLabs Project themes and we will credit the contestant for the design.

Terms and Conditions

• One contestant may submit more than one theme concept, he/she is also able to win more than one category.
• Theme concept has to be completely new, never been published anywhere, and never been used to compete in similar contests.
• Theme concept must be originally developed by you and it must be entirely your own work. If it contains any stock images, it must be certified that they have an extended usage.
• You understand that by participating in this contest, your theme concept is possibly used by ColorLabs Project and may be made available for purchase on our site. Winners will be awarded a cash prize for their work. Any other theme concept will only be made available for purchase after a once-off fee agreed by both parties. Sales generated off the theme will be kept by the company.

So, are you in?? Submit your theme concepts now! Go to http://colorlabsproject.com/blog/contest/ for further information.

I used to download the ZIP file from WordPress.org, extract that file in my machine, then upload the whole contents through FTP. Even if you’re using DSL/broadband internet connection, this uploading process, which is about 5MB size, is apparently rather time-wasting. Upgrading one blog is all fine, you can do it while you’re checking your Facebook without even realizing that it’s done already. But how about upgrading 9 WordPress blogs? And not to mention the unreliable internet connection in Indonesia which leads to errors in the uploading process.

The solution is to upgrade WordPress from UNIX shell prompt. It won’t take more than 30 seconds of your valuable time. Please mind that this procedure is only intended for them who are familiar with UNIX/Linux interface and the shell commands. If you are totally new to these stuffs, please follow the FTP-way of upgrading WordPress.

Step 1: Backup existing database!

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$ mkdir /backup/yourblogname
$ mysqldump -u user -p WP-DATABASENAME > /backup/yourblogname/blog.db.sql
$ tar -zcvf /backup/yourblogname.tar.gz /public_html/yourblogname

Step 2: Download the latest version of WordPress

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$ cd /tmp
$ wget http://wordpress.org/latest.zip
$ unzip latest.zip

Step 3: Overwrite all new files

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$ cd /public_html/yourblogname
$ cp -avr /tmp/wordpress/* .
$ rm -rf /tmp/wordpress /tmp/latest.zip

Step 4: Database upgrade

Open a browser and go to http://yourblogname.com/wp-admin/upgrade.php

You’re done and you can repeat this procedure to all WP blogs you have on your server.

PS. You need to replace path names and database name with actual values.
PPS. If something goes crazy, you can restore your old database and files from /backup/wp/yourblogname directory.
PPPS. Yes, 9 WordPress blogs. You obviously need to feel the joy of hosting blogs and websites on an unlimited bandwidth/quota web hosting company.

There are basically 3 colors applied across the theme: the dark tone, the light tone, and the link hover cover. With these 3 user-definable options, you can get any color you want for your blog.

What should I do?

1. Log into your WP Dashboard.
2. Activate the Platformate Theme. (you should have done this already, I guess)
3. Go to Design >> Platfotmate Options
4. In the top-right section of the theme admin panel, you’ll find “Theme Color“.
5. Put the codes below to your admin panel, save the settings.
6. Visit your blog, refresh the page, and you’ll see your blog in a new color.

Note: The category spoilers colors in the right sidebar must be configured in “Category Color Assignment” in the bottom-left of the admin panel.

So, what are you waiting for? Colorize your Platformate now!

Tips on Custom Colors

You can use this references to get more color codes:

• http://www.hypergurl.com/colormatch.php
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_colors
• http://www.webmonkey.com/reference/Color_Charts
• http://www.computerhope.com/htmcolor.htm

To get the best and professional look, you can use some web color palette software like Adobe Kuler.

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Platformate Theme is available at ColorLabs. See the demo here.

Copyright Notice

1. TimThumb is an open source automatic image resizing script developed by Tim McDaniels and is distributed under the MIT License.
2. Feedburner “Feedsmith” plugin was originally developed by Steve Smith and is now available for download to all Feedburner.com users
3. Google Analytics is a web tracking and statistics tool from Google.com. Tracking codes are available to all Google Analytics user and can be downloaded from Google.
4. All sample images are courtesy of its respective authors. Details about sample images can be read here.
5. WordPress template files and CSS stylesheets are originally developed by Michael Jubel Hutagalung.

Thank you.

Purchase nowLive demo

WordPress in Your Language

To get WordPress in your own language, read this post from WordPress.org thoroughly and download any available localized WordPress that you want. There are 58 languages available for you. After that, simply upload all the files and you will find everything in the WordPress Dashboard panel is now in your own language.

If you still see English texts in your WordPress Dashboard, do a double-check and analysis. Open your wp-config.php file in a text editor and search for:

define ('WPLANG', 'xx_YY');.

xx_YY is your language code, for example: de_DE for German, id_ID for Bahasa Indonesia, or fr_FR for French. If you did not find that command there, you probably downloaded the wrong file.

If you did and you don’t want spend your valuable time re-uploading the whole package, read this post regarding manually installation of wordpress language files. For me, uploading a total of 4MB files is somewhat time-consuming. Why? Because there are only 3 files that needed to do the whole translation. (Shouldn’t I tell you this in the first place?) :) Read that post and search for .PO and .MO file for your local language and do manual installation.

Arthemia Premium in Your Language

OK, you got WordPress in you own language, what should you do now? Well, here’s what you need.

1. Arthemia Premium theme (of course). You can purchase the theme here.
2. A .PO and .MO editor, you can try POEdit. You can download POEdit here.

And here is the step-by-step procedure on how to translate Arthemia Premium without editing the template files.

1. Install and run POEdit. Go to the menu File >> Open and select the file id_ID.po, which is included in the purchase package. id_ID.po is a language file for Indonesian version of Arthemia Premium. This tutorial will enable you translate that language file to another language.



2. After that, your POEdit would look similar to this picture below. On the left is the original strings, which are in English, and on the right is the translated string, in this case is still in Bahasa Indonesia.



3. Edit every string and translate it into your own language. Simply type a new word in the edit box that is located at the bottom section. Beware of symbols (%), HTML tags (<p>, </p>, etc), and punctuations (dot, comma, semi-colons). Do not erase any of those.
4. When you’re done, save the file as a new language file. Eg. fr_FR.po for French. A complete list of naming convention can be read here.



5. Upload the file and put it in this folder: /wp-content/themes/arthemia-premium/
6. Refresh your Arthemia-Premium-powered blog and notice the difference. If you feel like something is grammatically incorrect, repeat the step above and re-upload the language file. Some pages you need to check are the front page, the PAGE page, the post page, the archive page, the search result page, and the author page.
7. You’re done.

Note: Texts in the sidebar and footer section of the theme are controlled from sidebar widgets. Go to Dashboard >> Design >> Widgets and edit those texts.

What languages are already available?

These are some language files that are already available for download. This list is updated and is waiting for you voluntary work to add a new language become available. (UPDATE: This post has been moved to http://colorlabsproject.com/knowledgebase-tutorials/arthemia-premium-and-wordpress-localization/).

Well, WordPress and Arthemia Premium are now in your own language. Terima kasih. Thank you. Merci beaucoup. Muchas gracias. Danke. Dankie. Dêkuji. Sas efharisto. Arigato gozaimasu.

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The CHMOD 777

Upload and activate the Arthemia theme. Then, the first step is to make the scripts and cache folder writable. You can either try ’777′ writable or ’755′ writable. Some web hosting company prevent you making any folder ’777′ writable due to some security reasons. But, I suggest you to try with ’777′ writable first. I use FileZilla to do the FTP work because it is free and has a lot of features. To make the folders writable, simply right click the folder name and select ‘File Attributes’ and a dialog box will show up.

You can tick all the attributes there, consider it a finger exercise, or directly type 777 as the folder attribute. Do this to both scripts and cache folder.

You’re done with FTP work and may continue to the image uploading procedure.

Uploading an image

To upload image, you can use the built-in Add Image WP feature. In the post editing page, notice the Add media icons just below your post title and permalink. Click “Add Image” and an image uploading page will show up.

Upload any image that you like, preferably the properly sized one (for example: 300×300 pixel or bigger for Arthemia theme).

After the image is uploaded, you can see the image location from the ‘Link URL’ field. In this tutorial, it is: http://michaelhutagalung.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/1.jpg. Values may vary depending on your blog settings. One may have the time-structured folder while others may not. Copy that value but remember to get rid of your blog home page location. In my case, the final value will be wp-content/uploads/2008/08/1.jpg.

Then, close the image uploading page and you do not need to clik ‘Insert to Post’ button if you do not want to. When you’re back in the post editing page, scroll down until you find “Custom Fields”. Make a new Custom Field with “Image” as the key and the image location as the “Value”.

You’re done. Please note that there is no support provided for Arthemia Free. Support is only provided for Arthemia Premium. If you have any problem with Arthemia Premium, please submit a support ticket to http://colorlabsproject.com/support.

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Copyright Notice

1. TimThumb is an open source automatic image resizing script developed by Tim McDaniels and is distributed under the MIT License.
2. Feedburner “Feedsmith” plugin was originally developed by Steve Smith and is now available for download to all Feedburner.com users
3. Google Analytics is a web tracking and statistics tool from Google.com. Tracking codes are available to all Google Analytics user and can be downloaded from Google.
4. All sample images are courtesy of its respective authors. Details about sample images can be read here.
5. WordPress template files and CSS stylesheets are originally developed by Michael Jubel Hutagalung.

Thank you.

Purchase nowLive Demo

The error codes show up in the right footer of the Arthemia theme, in which are used to show the 5 most viewed posts of your blog.

This error code shows up if you also have WP-Email installed.
Warning: cannot yet handle MBCS in html_entity_decode()! in /wp-content/plugins/wp-email/wp-email.php on line 338

If you deactivate WP-Email, another error code will show up.
Warning: cannot yet handle MBCS in html_entity_decode()! in /wp-content/plugins/wp-postviews/wp-postviews.php on line 260

It’s well known that the latest release of LesterChan’s plugin sports little issues when used within a WordPress 2.51 setup in a PHP 4.x environment, since it’s meant to be used in a PHP 5.x environment. The most evident issue is the notorious behaviour of the sidebar widgets, which declares an impressive string of “MBCS” warnings able to totally spoil the look of your webpages. If your provider cannot upgrade your PHP to the 5.x release, please avoid the plugin upgrade.

The latest working version of the plugin for WP 2.5 is WP-PostView 1.20. If you accidentaly upgraded the plugin to the latest version, please download the file below and delete the new plugin. Only use this version of the plugin if you don’t have plan to upgrade your web hosting to PHP 5.x.

Download: WP-PostView 1.20.

I am so glad that my web hosting company has been using PHP 5.x ever since.

Please note that there is no support provided for Arthemia Free. Support is only provided for Arthemia Premium. If you have any problem with Arthemia Premium, please submit a support ticket to http://colorlabsproject.com/support.

What is Plaftormate?

I designed this theme to fill the spare times while doing an internship in Pertamina UP II Dumai Indonesia. I work as a process engineer intern in a crude oil refinery which is located in Dumai in the Riau Province, Indonesia. Platformate is an abbreviation of platforming reformate, the reformate product of a platforming process. Platforming itself is a part of oil refining process which is designed to increase the gasoline octane number by reforming paraffins and naphtenes into aromatics using platinum as a catalyst. Do you get the keywords? Platinum, reforming, reformate, and there you go: platformate. OK, cut the crap.

The Features

Platformate is a magazine-style theme that keeps your blog personal. Magazine-styled themes, which usually intended for business blogs and online newspapers, are sometimes lack of personality. With Platformate, you can imagine increasing personal interactions in your blog by having the ability to show your Flickr photos and Twitter tweets as comment-able posts.

Automatic Thumbnail Generation and Assignment

The theme uses timthumb.php script to generate resized thumbnails automatically. You only have to upload a properly-sized image and thumbnails will be generated in all pages. Anyway, since this thumbnail image assignment become a very complicated problem to many Arthemia users, I added an optional automatic thumbnail image assignment feature so that you don’t have to even care about post custom fields, like in Arthemia theme. You may blog normally, add pictures to your posts just like usual add-media/add-image WordPress feature, forget the complicated custom-field thing, and the first picture in your post will be automatically assigned as the image for thumbnail generation. This feature is optional, based on request, whichever way you like.

Popularity Contest

The upper part of the theme shows a list of most commented posts, titled here as “Hot Discussions”, and a list of most popular posts that are generated by the Popularity Contest plugin. Why putting these lists on the top? Don’t these lists usually displayed in the sidebar or at the bottom of a blog? Well, why not? Imagine if there is someone who accidentally bumped into your blog and they have no idea what your blog is all about. Isn’t it a good idea to deliver them the most popular post? Isn’t it an effective way to show them the best that your blog has and hope them to become one of your loyal readers?

The Date-Based Post List

This is where you can call your blog personal. Your blog is a playground of yours, a place where you write your thoughts in blog posts, where you mumbles about anything in Twitter tweets, and where you have your memorable moments in Flickr photos. Tweets are automatically pulled from your Twitter account and displayed in a different layout so that the readers will notice your tweets. A follow-me-on-Twitter link is provided and readers can give comments to your tweets. The theme uses the Twitter Tools plugin to pull tweets. And if you are a photoblog guy, you can smile happily because the theme support the Flickr Blog-this function so that you can blog Flickr photos along with a post directly from Flickr. Flickr thumbnails will be shown in the front page and 500 pixel Flickr photo will be shown in the single post view. These feature is configured from your own Flickr account.

Side Notes

This side notes section will show your Gravatar, along with some information about author name, posting name, post category, and any other information you like. This section only displayed in single post views.

The Single Post/Page

The content is positioned at the centre of the theme in a width that will give your visitor a good content readability. It is not too wide nor too narrow; yet giving you enough space to post a medium-sized (500 pixels-wide) pictures. The paragraph spacing is enough and the font typeface is Arial, the every browser’s favorite. Breadcrumbs are located above the post title, giving the readers the information about where they actually are; post meta data is located under the post title. Comment and trackbacks are displayed separately to give the readers more focus on the current discussion and the comment list is Gravatar-ready.

About Me Section

This is where you describe yourself, your blog, and maybe put some inspirational quote of yours. It is fully customizable and can be easily configured in the WordPress administration panel.

Blog Sidebar

This is the left sidebar, a usual sidebar that a blog usually has. This sidebar is widget-ready and configurable through WordPress administration panel. As you can see, this sidebar expands vertically to match the height of the content. No matter how long is your post – or how many comments you have – this light blue sidebar will fill the left side of your blog, balancing the emptiness with a fresh-colored box.

The Archive/Search Page

Archive pages can be displayed based on category, tags, and time. Post excerpts will be displayed along with the post title and 150-pixels squared thumbnails; and needless to say, the thumbnails are also automatically generated.

The Pagination

Platformate uses the WP-Pagenavi plugin to show pagination. A nice blue page navigation bar is located at the bottom of every paged pages, including the front page, the archive page, and the search result page.

The Footer

The footer is located at the bottom of the page with a bit Apple Mac grey color touch. Pages from your blog will be displayed here. There is also a login/site admin/logout link available for you so you can get rid of the WP Meta sidebar widget.

Compatibility Issues

The theme is tested in Firefox 2, IE 7, Safari 3, and Opera 9.5. The theme may not support IE 5.5 forever and I am still working on making this theme fully functioning in IE 6.

The Full Screenshot

Anyway, if you want to trackback this post, you can use these picture below as a reference. Here is the full screenshot of the Platformate theme. Click the image the get the high resolution version of the screenshot.

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