Now, if you are a designer like me who only occasionally try to dig into hardcore codes like jQuery or php, and have problems trying to figure out what the code is or how to change it, this 30 day lesson couldn’t have come at a better time. Yes, the very popular Jerffrey Way from tutsplus is giving a 30 day jQuery lesson here and for FREE. Oh who doesn’t love free things.

I use jQuery plugins quite extensively in my personal projects or with theme development although I do not normally sit down and code as thats the hard part for a designer. I do tweak things and I am sure this will help me understand code better. I might be making few plugins.

So, if you are interested, just put down your email address on their site and you will start receiving one tutorial every day for 30 days.

2011 was great. Lot of things happened in 2011. I won a guitar competition, got sponsored a guitar from another internet friend whom I have never met, was invited to the US and the WordCamp from my colleague/friend/partner, Thad Allender, whom I had never met despite having worked together for 3 years (it was a blast), met Matt Mullenweg (co-founder of WordPress, with which I am making my living), created some really nice Photographer’s themes at Graph Paper Press, got a working iPhone in my hand after 2 years (yes, I just received an iPhone 4S) and was blessed with a lovely baby girl.

To add to these wonderful events, I got some time to rework on my age old idea of this website (WPshoppe) and in real released a premium blog theme — Sleeek.

It was a wonderful year with so many great things to list. I hope 2012 brings more adventures in life.

I would like to take this opportunity to wish you all a very successful 2012. May this year bring you all the happiness, success and good health. Happy New Year!

You can view the demo of simpleX here.

As this theme has been very popular in WordPress.org, it will be available for free. simpleX is now in the WordPress.org repository. Grab it here.

This theme works best for bloggers.

Once again — Merry Christmas to ya all…

I have seen couple of users wanting older version of simpleX. You can grab the version 1.3.3 here.

While everything is documented on its page, I would like reiterate that Sleeek features responsive design, post formats along with full width Image and Gallery post formats and a smooth gallery slideshow. With Theme Options, you can stylize the theme to add more features.

Its been 3 good years that I first published a WordPress theme — SimpleX. Since then, I have been frequently releasing few other themes for free. I would like to thank everyone who have been using these themes and who have donated to support WPshoppe to survive. Thank you all.

Just as a good gesture, I am bringing you Sleeek at a minimum price. This special introductory price will remain until Jan 15, 2012 just so Christmas is more fun.

Also, I am adding a new Support Forum so you can ask some questions if you are stuck at something with this theme. A new site, a new theme, a new forum, an special price and Christmas! Can it be any better?

Cheers!! Merry Christmas to ya all.

Anyways, after the WordCamp San Francisco in August this year, doors opened up for few things. First and important for a UX designer is definitely Responsive Design. Well, I got busy for these months or so trying to convert some themes over at Graph Paper Press into responsive design. It just feels great that now your themes just work on every device.

Apart from that, the GREAT news is that I am once again getting my gears over here. I will be more active.

To share some inside news, I have a brand new (premium) theme completed. Its called Sleeek — just to represent another minimalist clean blog theme. It caters to bloggers mostly. Supports post formats and the best thing is if you have a image or images to share, just create a image post or gallery post and bang, you have a full width slideshow. On top of that, it gets rid of small boring thumbnails for gallery posts. Every gallery post now has a slideshow, how cool is that? It even replaces your header image with a slideshow if you want. Many things to come but the first version will be coming out for Christmas.

Not just that, you can’t beat the price for a premium theme. Guess the price!!

I will add more when Sleeek gets out! Cheers!!

This trip was actually made to coincide with the Graph Paper Press team meet-up. We have been working together almost 3 years now all from different countries and it will be exciting to meet each other finally. See where the world has come to. It seems like in Matrix sometimes I feel like I am living a virtual online world and a different real world. Anyway, can’t wait to attend the Biggest WordPress Meet ever and team meet-up as well.

If any of you are there, lets meet too. Cheers!!

I have decided to give away minii theme for free as a LITE version. I just submitted to WordPress Trac and until I wait for their official approval, I will post this on here as well.

Grab it NOW and post whatever bug you find out or any feature that you think might be of great help. Look at the minii demo and be convinced!

I will put them on a pro version along with few features I have in mind. That will be a paid version though! Again good thing is its cost. While I haven’t decided on the exact amount, I will be giving the pro version on a bargain, probably one of the cheapest WordPress pro themes out there.

Bad news now is, if you have been following me on Twitter, you probably know. Last Monday, I had a small cut injury on my right thumb and I had to go through a surgery to fix it. While I can type and work, I cannot use it normally. I cannot sign a cheque, damn! Good thing is I work on computers, not papers. I will have to take a rest for 3-6 weeks. Another good thing is, I am learning to do things with my left hand.

My new hand says Hi!

Anyway, things are going good so no worries. I hope to recover soon and start working on the features of minii.

This time its serious though. Thank you all who viewed, posted comments, liked and gave suggestions. They are very valuable. I am not disappointing you for sure.

I have finally worked my a** off this weekend to finalize my minii. Its a pretty sweet experience going back and getting another minimalist theme after a long time. It feels amazing when you know you are done and everything starts coming out as you think. I am sure you agree with me. It happens in whatever work you do.

Anyway, I am posting now because, I wanted to say, minii is nearly done. There might be few css issues missing for this beta version to complete which I will work on this week and probably release the theme next weekend. I just finished setting up its demo. The best thing about this theme, as I realized just before posting this, is that it looks awesome in iPhone. Why? Because, the big bold fonts are clearly readable without having to zoom in and look at the text which you may have done it on other themes. That kinda defines the real meaning of being minimalist!

This theme is going to be available for free as a beta version very soon. After a short time of its release (hopefully I can integrate premium features within next 2 weeks), this will become a paid theme. A number of features such as lightbox, different css themes, google fonts, flexible widgets, logo, google tracking, cross browser compatibility and a few more, including bug fixes from beta will be available at that time.

So, grab as soon as this comes out! Follow me, @maharzan, on Twitter and grab this opportunity!

That set apart, I had a simple clean design that I wanted to work on few months back. I want to produce this more professionally but want to get your feedback on if you guys really want it. I have the code ready for the core functionality and just need to write it down into a WP Theme. I have called it minii, mainly because it just shows titles but then clicking on the title (block) reveals the actual post. At first glance, it looks clean and the title attracts the visitors attention immediately. This has been my strength – minimalism.

Anyway, I want you guys to post out a comment below or ‘like’ this post so I am bound to start working on this. ha! Sorry for the trouble but I think I need some chains now.

Heres a sneakpeak!

If you are a photoblogger and also want to showcase your portfolio, these themes are just perfect for you and they are of course FREE, though you will need to register (for FREE) at Graph Paper Press to download.

I feel so proud. Thanks all for your support.

Mansion

Work-a-holic