The Porkopolis.org blog, “A Trespass of Swine,” is officially opened today. It is powered by WordPress and the theme is my own custom adaptation of the default WordPress theme Kubrick. Some entries from the previous Notebook section of Porkopolis.org have been re-formatted and added here, and more thoughts on cyber swineherding are to follow. I am very proud of my work on the site upgrade as well as the new pigged-out blog.
During the site upgrade last year, I had been stymied in creating the blog by my desire for the blog section to seamlessly blend in with the new design of the rest of the site. I came to realize that I would have to customize an existing WordPress theme in order to give visitors a consistent visual experience throughout Porkopolis.org. I felt I was a pretty good self-taught cowboy with XHTML, CSS and PHP; but I could not wrangle up way to actually perform the customizing of an existing WordPress theme by myself.
Eventually I found the help I needed. I am continually grateful that knowledgeable hard-working people take their personal time to create tutorials, detailed posts, and instructional articles that help total strangers succeed. Two sites were instrumental in empowering and instructing me in how to customize an existing WordPress theme and build not only what I needed, but also just what I wanted.
Jonathan Wold is a WordPress Consultant and a Project manager for Sabramedia. His WordPress tutorial, How to Create a WordPress Theme did an amazing job of clearly and concisely explaining how to customize the default WordPress theme Kubrick. With Jonathan’s guidance, I learned that what I wanted to do was not just possible, but relatively easy.
Joost de Valk is a Dutch geek, WordPress developer and general online marketeer. His personal site and blog, http://yoast.com/ , has an empowering array of tools, advice, plugins and code examples to help optimize both a website and WordPress blog. Joost is also the author of the SEMMY Award winning post, “WordPress SEO – the definitive guide.”
Some other sites, to which added significantly to my understanding of how to customize a WordPress theme:
So you want to create WordPress themes huh?
HOW TO: Customize WordPress Part 1
Installing XAMPP and WordPress
Customize Your Own WordPress Theme
Customizing K2: Part 1
Customizing the Default WordPress Theme
Thank you all for your time and advice. Once again the web is less a Paris and more a Porkopolis.