xMark hasn’t been updated in a long, long time. My excuse is just like everyone else’s out there - - time is not my friend I didn’t expect how crazy my schedule would become after the release of the 1st edition of WordPress For Dummies in 2007 - - then earlier this year in February 2009, the 2nd edition of WordPress For Dummies was released and my time became even more of a precious commodity.

There are a lot of xMark users out there, however - and I have not forgotten about you. xMark needs quite a few updates to bring it up to date with the latest version of WordPress and I am in the midst of doing just that. I’ve been working a bit today in cleaning up this site and the theme files and will be working over the next week on getting it cleaned up, updated and ready for re-release for 2.7/2.8.

I will be updating the theme files in the WordPress Theme Directory only, rather than providing the files for download here - seems easier to do it that way and makes for less back-end work on my side by only having to update theme file versions in one place, rather than two.

Thanks for your patience and look for the update announcement here sometime early to mid June.

Last fall was the last time I released an update to xMark - I figured it was due for a clean up.

The latest version of xMark is 2.5 released today, July 19, 2008. Please update your themes, as versions prior to 2.5 will not be supported. xMark 2.5 is compatible with WordPress 2.6 and the latest version of WordPress MU.

Changes in this update:

• Plugins no longer supported in this theme: SRG Clean Archives and Wasabi’s Related Posts
• Plugins that ARE supported in this theme: FlickrRSS, ShareThis (version 2.x), WP Related Posts, WP Post Views, WP Print
• When I say plugins are supported.. it means the theme comes with built-in support for those plugins. The plugins listed ARE NOT REQUIRED in order to use xMark - - but if you do use them, the styling and functionality are build into this theme.
• Bug fix: Cleaned up CSS issue that was causing the far right sidebar to drop down underneath the posts when comments were closed in Internet Explorer
• Style fix: Some folks reported difficulty with styling forms in the sidebar. I made some CSS adjustments to prevent this
• Image styling and handling for image galleries and photos, including captions and alignment classes (i.e. .alignright, .alignleft, .aligncenter for images)
• Cleaned up the comments display with some CSS and coding adjustments, including adding support for the display of Gravatars
• Archives pages reformatted and restyled for categories, date-based and tag archives, as well as the search results page

A quick review of the original functions of xMark:

Welcome to xMark, a fully fluid, three column WordPress theme designed with the end user in mind. You know who you are - you bloggers who just want to get on with the business of blogging and don’t want to tinker with all the technical mumbo jumbo… Yea, you! I have done my utmost at making this theme as easy as possible. Straight out of the box, xMark will be a perfectly functional theme for you - however, xMark has numerous options and highlights available to you - check this stuff out:

• 3-column, fluid CSS layout
• A print.css files to maximize print output
• 2 sidebars, both fully widget compatible
• Admin options menu that gives you the option(s) to:
  • Display the authors name in the post byline.. or not
  • Custom date displays for the posts
  • Display the authors name in the byline on static pages…or not
  • Allow comments on static pages…or not
  • Set up ‘Asides’ for your blog
• Successful cross-browser rendering
• Currently supports the following plugins:
  • FlickrRSS
  • ShareThis (version 2.x)
  • WP Related Posts
  • WP Post Views
  • WP Print
• Includes optional coding for displaying an ad beneath the first post on the page. This site displays a 336×280 Google Adsense ad block - however, you can choose to display any type of banner ad you’d like. If you don’t want to display any ads beneath the first post - don’t worry, if you don’t add in the advertising code, nothing displays at all
• Category, Monthly Archive and Tag pages that display post excerpts with date, comment count and ‘read more’ link. Each archive page displays the name of the category you are browsing!
• Custom search results page gives a display of post titles, excerpts, date, post comment count and ‘read more’ link
• Custom 404 “Page Cannot Be Found” page
• An optional Archives page - - you can see my archives here
• An optional SiteMap page - you can see my sitemap here

A quick look at the documentation should answer any burning questions you have on installing and using this theme. xMark comes as is - free for you to use and released under a GPL license.

The Credits page give an idea of some folks who indirectly helped make this happen. The Plugins page shows the plugins this theme currently supports.

Looking for a demo of the theme? You’re looking at it. Currently the xMark Blog Theme Site is using the current version of xMark on WordPress version 2.6.

Download the xMark WordPress Theme v2.5

I’ve done my best with testing this puppy out - however, that being said, if you find a bug or somewhere within the code that I tripped up, be sure to let me know and I’ll get a fix right quick!

I hope you enjoy xMark as much as I enjoyed creating it. Please do leave a comment if you end up using it on your site!

I guess it’s been awhile since I updated this site! Things have been just a little in the ‘nuts’ side for several months - and I hate to say this because I don’t want to jinx myself.. but it seems as though things are calming down just a little bit!

In November of 2007, my book, WordPress For Dummies, was released into the wild and it’s been doing really well! I’m very excited about how well it’s been recieved, including the fact that it has consistently been the NUMBER ONE book on Amazon.Com’s Blogging Guides! I’m very happy with that - it’s good to know that people are finding it to be a great help, and that all my hard work in 2007 has produced a nice reference and resource that helps get more people onto the WordPress platform! I did write a lengthy post on my personal blog called “WordPress For Dummies: The Never Ending Story” which talks about the future of the book and what readers can expect as WordPress moves forward with new updates and releases. It’s all good stuff.

On the design front, we have been so busy at E.Webscapes that I’ve hired on two new designers to help with the flow of new orders. I’m thrilled to be able to work in a job that I love, with people that are so much fun to work with. I’m behind in updating my portfolio there - and will be working on getting that up to date over this weekend. I also did a post on my personal blog called “How I hired some great talent in 48 hours through social networking” that is interesting and shows how using networking tools like Twitter and LinkedIN can really help you when you are networking on line.

In regards to xMark - I am planning an update here very soon. I have received some feedback from folks who have upgraded to the new WordPress 2.3+ version and stated that the xMark theme did not work for them. I just upgraded this site this evening to WordPress 2.3.3 and everything works fine.. no problems at all. I don’t know the exact nature of the problems - but I would recommend starting with making sure you’re using the most recent version of this theme (found in the far right sidebar to download).

Look for the next xMark update over the next week!

Interviewed for Monday’s (10/29) broadcast of Talk Tech Radio - Australia. Archived podcast of the interview will be made available after the radio broadcast has aired. Segment discusses WordPress, WordCamp Melbourne and WordPress For Dummies. James Farmer, of EduBlogs fame, is also on Mondays show.