New design

After upgrading to the latest WordPress release I felt for change in my blog’s layout. The upgrade itself was painless as ever following these instructions. During previous updates I chose to overwrite existing WordPress files only but this time I decided to follow the detailed instructions by deleting everything with the exception of wp-config.php and the wp-content folder. Then I uploaded the new WP files - et voilà!

After upgrading I looked around for a new design. I liked the dark.cash theme by Jeff Malek a lot (great work!) but I wanted a three column theme now. So I stumbled across the “nonzero” theme by headsetoptions. I had a few difficulties at the beginning because all posts in category number “2” (which is “Linux” here) were not showing up. I had to change a line in index.php and everything was OK then. I don’t have much experience with css but I’m beginning to like it as I managed to modify the “nonzero-black” theme a bit and now it has a “slight” orange touch. ;-)
The cool thing about the “nonzero” theme is it’s ability to use widgets. Installing the widget-plugin is easy: copy the widgets folder (which is included in the theme archive or you may download it here) to your .../wp-contents/plugins folder and activate the plugin. If you have a “widget ready” theme you’ll see a new option in the WP admin panel under “Presentation”. You may now drag and drop widgets to the sidebar(s). Take for example the heise.de rss feeds located on this blogs’ sidebar. Some other plugins may show up as widgets too (i.e. the FireStats plugin), so it’s easier then ever to add them to the sidebar(s)!