The first thing I thought when I heard the news was, “Awesome! Now everyone can put BuddyPress on their site if they want it.” The second thought I had was, “Shoot! Average WordPress users won’t want to try BuddyPress if they have to switch their site themes over to the BuddyPress default theme just to try it out.” The third thought I had was, “That can’t be right. I’ll ask Andy.”

As it turned out, you could keep your current theme with BuddyPress if you added a couple of files and made a few file edits. There was even a link on the BuddyPress site to download the necessary files. That still seemed a little clunky, though, so Andy, super awesome guy that he is, went ahead and made a plugin to get you started. The BuddyPress Template Pack can be installed directly from your WordPress admin (Plugins > Add New), and will walk you through the theme additions step by step.*

Now you can use BuddyPress with your single site installation of WordPress, and you can keep your existing theme. Seriously, could BuddyPress have made it any easier for you to add social networking to your site? I know I can’t wait to try it out this weekend, how about you?

* Don’t forget to install BuddyPress itself, or the template pack plugin won’t do anything!

Menus

There’s been a flurry of blog posts about the integration of the WooThemes Custom Navigation into WordPress core, so I thought it was time we posted the official word. For 3.0, the main user-facing feature we wanted to include was a better site menu management system. Currently, dealing with menus is clunky, using Page IDs or in some cases categories, if a theme uses categories instead of pages for the menu. We wanted a menu system that had the drag and drop ease of the widget management screen, could combine Pages, Categories, and Links, was able to be re-ordered, allowed submenus, and enabled hiding specific Pages or Categories from the menu altogether. We were in the process of building this when WooThemes introduced their Custom Navigation system. Watching their introductory video, it seemed that their system did pretty much everything we wanted to do for core, so we reached out to them about contributing to core.

As you’ve probably heard, it worked out, and the first patch has been submitted. It does require some code modification, which is happening now. The decision to incorporate the Woo menus happened right before our planned feature freeze for the 3.0 development cycle, so we pushed our freeze date back by two weeks to allow the addition. We’re now targeting the 3.0 release for early May, and we think it will be worth the extra two-week wait.

I’m personally really happy that it worked out this way, because I think it will show commercial theme and plugin authors that contributing to core is a win-win proposition. More people can contribute to and improve the basic functional code now, while WooThemes can continue to innovate on top of it for their customers. They get massive bragging rights (which I have no doubt will lead to even more customers), core gets a nice menu system without having to reinvent the wheel, and WordPress users all over the world will benefit. I’m hoping other plugin and theme developers will take a cue from Woo and look at core as a place for collaboration, rather than competition.

The Merge

It was announced at WordCamp San Francisco last year that WordPress and WordPress MU would be merging codebases. This has now happened in 3.0-alpha, and we’re working on smashing bugs and tidying up a few screens. If you’re currently using a single install of WordPress, when you upgrade to 3.0 you won’t see any of the extra screens associated with running a network of sites. If you’re currently running MU, when you upgrade you’ll notice a few labels changing, but upgrading should be as painless as usual. If you’re going to set up a new WordPress installation, you’ll be asked as part of the setup if you want one site or multiple sites, so that’s pretty simple. If you want to turn your single install into one that supports multiple sites, we’ll have a tool for you to use to do that, too. So if you’ve been worried about the merge, have a cup of chamomile tea and relax; it will all be fine.

Patch Sprint!

Okay, so where are we now? The new feature freeze date is on Monday, March 1, 2010. That means that after that date, no more enhancements or features will be added, and we’ll switch gears to focus solely on crushing bugs and fixing up the features that have already made it in. That means we only have a week to try and finish up the many Trac tickets on the 3.0 milestone that either need a patch or have a patch that needs testing. You can help! From now until noon eastern time on March 1 (that’s 17:00 UTC on March 1), head on over to Trac and pitch in. If you hit a wall, hop into the core development channel at #wordpress-dev on irc.freenode.net and hopefully one of the friendly core contributors can give you a push.

The iPhone app is up to version 2.2 (note that iPhone app version numbers do not correlate to WordPress core versions, due to separate dev cycles), while the Android and Blackberry apps are brand new. You can write posts (save drafts or publish right away), moderate comments, blog photos from your phone (and video on Blackberry!**), and more. Check out the glory that is mobile WordPress in the image below:

“But what about my Nokia,” you ask? Raanan Bar-Cohen, who oversees the mobile projects, recently announced:

“We are very excited to share with all of you that in the coming weeks we’ll be opening up a beta test for the official Open Source WordPress for Nokia app. For developers who are interested in getting involved, we just opened up a dev blog with details, links to the source code and trac tickets, and an early alpha build. We’ll be leveraging the Qt framework which means will be able to support both the S60 and Maemo platforms.”

W00t!

Getting Involved

All of these mobile WordPress apps are free and open source. They are developed in the same manner as WordPress core, which means anyone can contribute! If you’ve got some mad mobile development skills and want to get involved, a) you’re awesome, and b) here are a bunch of useful links.

Development Blogs: Android | BlackBerry | iPhone

Development Tracs: Android | Blackberry | iPhone

Feedback Forums: Android | BlackBerry | iPhone

Language Support: WordPress users come from all over the world. The mobile apps here are available in multiple languages but need volunteers to enable even more people to use them. If you’re interested in helping localize these mobile apps, you can get involved by emailing the translation team. They’ll send you instructions on how to translate.

Getting the Apps

So go for it — download the app for your platform of choice and soon you, too, can be live posting about how slow the cashier is while you wait for him to ring you up!

* Okay, yes, I do bring my laptop everywhere, but I leave it in the bag on these occasions.

** Video support should  be coming soon to the iPhone and Android apps.

This series is supported by Rackspace, the better way to do hosting. Learn more about Rackspace’s hosting solutions here.

If you use WordPress for your website or blog, there are lots of ways you can connect it to social media, and connect social media to your site via those nifty plugins. The right plugins can make social content management easier and reduce friction when it comes to reader sharing.

Whether you’re looking to easily share your content on social networks, make it easier for others to share your content, or simply make your own site more engaging, here are 7 great plugins that will make your WordPress site more social.

1. CommentLuv

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Reader comments can be the lifeblood of some blogs, and in many cases they foster an ecosystem of links that can generate a mini social network around a particular topic or community.

With the CommentLuv plugin, you can encourage more comments on your posts by giving a bit of link power back to your readers. The plugin will pull in a link to the latest post from the commenter’s own blog, based on the URL he or she submitted when commenting. It’s a simple and clutter-free way for comment traffic to flow, and provides dynamic, up-to-date links that your readers can automatically share with the rest of your audience.

2. Add To Any

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The classic Add To Any menu incorporates over 100 social networks and bookmarking sites in a compact, drop-down list. You can customize the opening menu to display the most common or preferred sites. There’s even an option for users to easily bookmark your post in their own browser.

Depending on your theme, it may not be the most elegant solution, but it’s a great catch-all that will enable users to spread your links around any corner of the social web. For a similar social bookmarking solution, also check out Bookmarkify.

3. GD Star Rating

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As we’ve noted before, user reviews are a great way for visitors to engage with your posts or products. The GD Star Rating plugin for WordPress can integrate a 10-star rating system into your site for posts and comments, and is highly customizable for advanced users.

With some smart tweaking, this plugin might be a great social element for an e-commerce site, or even a blog that reviews products itself to determine which posts are most helpful to readers.

For a great looking 5-star rating system, check out PollDaddy’s WordPress plugin.

4. Sociable

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Sociable is a nice way to add social sharing options for your readers. With 99 different social networks and bookmarking services to choose from, you can easily integrate your readers’ favorites and provide them with one-click sharing. Styling options also ensure that your new sharing bar is aesthetically agreeable with your theme.

In addition to WordPress, Sociable also comes in Blogger and standard HTML flavors that you can grab here.

5. WP Wall

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The WP Wall plugin harkens back to the days of ye olde guestbook, where visitors could leave public messages on a site or blog that didn’t pertain to specific posts. In the age of the Facebook wall, this widget adds a fun way for readers to leave general feedback and shout outs for all to see in the sidebar.

6. Tweetable Twitter

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If Twitter is your social network of choice, or the place where most of your blog traffic comes from, you may want to consider an integrated Twitter publishing tool.

The Tweetable Twitter plugin is a versatile backend tool that connects WordPress publishing to your Twitter account with a multitude of features. You can set administrator privileges, use a variety of URL shorteners for links, incorporate a Tweetmeme button on posts, utilize auto-tweet functions (if desired), and integrate analytics campaigns.

For another feature-rich Twitter publishing option, check out the Twitter Publisher plugin.

7. Google Buzz Buttons

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If you’re looking to tame the newest network on the block, Google Buzz, there are already a handful of great tools for WordPress integration.

One of the best looking and most straightforward is the “Buzz This” button that we use here at Mashable. This simple Buzz implementation will send your links straight to a visitor’s Google Reader shared items, and thus his or her Buzz profile if connected.

Rackspace is the better way to do hosting. No more worrying about web hosting uptime. No more spending your time, energy and resources trying to stay on top of things like patching, updating, monitoring, backing up data and the like. Learn why.

More WordPress Resources from Mashable:

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- 14 Fantastic Free WordPress Themes
– 10 WordPress Plugins to Help Build Community
– HOW TO: Build a More Beautiful Blog
– Top 10 WordPress Plugins to Promote Your Social Media Profiles
– Top 10 Tips for WordPress Plugin Developers
– Embeddable Waves: The Google Wave WordPress Plugin

Tags: blog, blogging, BLOGS, buzz, google buzz, List, Lists, plugins, twitter, web design, Web Development, web development series, Wordpress, wordpress plugins

We’ve discussed how you can integrate Buzz with your other social networks, but what about integrating Buzz with your blog? If you use a self-hosted WordPress blog (sorry, WordPress.com users), there are already a variety of Google Buzz plugins and add-ons available.

While it’s clear that people are really taking to using Buzz to share content and communicate, the service will undoubtedly reach more users as its sharing tools are integrated into other social sites. From buttons to social stream in your side bar, here’s how you can integrate Buzz with your WordPress blog.

Google Buzz Buttons

Mashable started sporting some nifty Buzz buttons a few days ago and lots of our readers have wanted to know how to add a similar feature to their own blogs. As it stands right now, how our Google Buzz buttons work (and how the buttons other sites are using also work) is that they create a share link from that post to Google Reader. As long as Google Reader is connected with your Google Buzz account, your publicly shared items will also be shared on Buzz.

Already, a number of enterprising WordPress plugin developers have answered the call to add Google Buzz buttons to WordPress posts.

Let’s take a look:

Google Buzz Button

Internet Techies created the Google Buzz Button plugin that allows you to add a “Buzz This” button to each of your WordPress posts. That icon probably looks pretty familiar — that’s because the button was designed here at Mashable (though it isn’t the same plugin).

The plugin options are relatively limited — you can choose what “rel” attribute you include with the link (the default is “nofollow”) and you can choose to display the button before or after your post content. You can also specify the icon’s height and width. Making some changes to your WordPress theme’s CSS options, you could further customize the appearance of the button, but as it stands, it’s a pretty basic (and easy) way to add a Buzz button. If you want to add Buzz manually to only certain posts, there is a template tag that you can add to those posts.

WP Google-buzz

Another button plugin option is WP Google-buzz from Arpit Shah. This button is extremely similar to the Google Buzz Button plugin, but it adds a few more options. You can choose to show the button before or after content or to add it to posts manually, but there are also options for what style button you want to use. Depending on how you have your blog setup, you might want to use a different size or style of button.

WPBuzzer

Hameedulah’s WPBuzzer is the most robust of the Google Buzz button plugins as of right now. The style of the button is almost identical to what Mashable and the Google Buzz Button use (albeit, not quite as clean), but the options are where this plugin really shines.

You can choose where you want your buttons to appear (on posts, on pages, on the home page, in your RSS feed), whether your want the button to appear before or after the post, the target for the button (a new window or a pop-up share option) and even the CSS style. You can also choose to use a small or large button.

The biggest feature is that you can track share counts (just like we do at Mashable) if you have a Bit.ly API key and login.

Light Social

The Light Social plugin takes a slightly different approach to the Google Buzz button. Light Social is a plugin that inserts a set of social share links at the bottom of each of your WordPress posts. This way links to Digg, Reddit, Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter are all automatically at the bottom of the post. The developer of Light Social updated the plugin to include a Google Buzz icon and share link as well. If you want to add lots of social options to your posts — Light Social is a good approach.

Buzz In Your Sidebar

It’s one thing to let other people share your content to their buzz accounts, but a big advantage of Buzz is that you can aggregate your social activities into one place as well. If you want to share your Buzz content on your blog, check out the Google Buzz ER plugin. Google Buzz ER is extremely cool. It’s a widget that will display your public Buzz content. Just enter in your username and define how many Buzz entries you want to display and drag the widget to your designated choice in your blog.

That’s it! Now you have Buzz in your sidebar! Plus, as an added benefit, other users can click on “comment” to immediately respond to what you share. As of right now, the Buzz API doesn’t allow other people’s comments to become viewable, so only your public content is going to appear on your blog.

Buzz Your Comments

There are a number of different all-inclusive comment solutions for WordPress — there’s Echo, Disqus (which we use here at Mashable) and IntenseDebate. IntenseDebate is owned by Automattic, the people behind WordPress.com and some of the main contributors to the WordPress.org project. So it probably shouldn’t be a surprise that it’s the first of the solutions to offer Buzz integration into its service.

If you use IntenseDebate on your blog, you can now easily add a Buzz It button to the top of your comment form. This won’t let people Buzz their own comments (we expect something like that will come in the future), but it adds another “Share on Buzz” option for your post to your visitors. If you use IntenseDebate, you can activate the Google Buzz This plugin by enabling it in the Plugins Directory.

Keep Your Eyes Peeled

As Google Buzz continues to evolve (remember, it isn’t even a week old), more and more integration options are going to sprout up. Let us know what sort of integration options you’d like to see in the future in the comments! If we missed one of your favorite Buzz plugins, let us know!

Tags: buzz, Google, google buzz, how to, List, Lists, Wordpress, wordpress plugins

This series is supported by Rackspace, the better way to do hosting. Learn more about Rackspace’s hosting solutions here.

Whether you’re a web developer whose clients need a great look and feel for their blogs, or just someone eager to bring a fresh new look to your own web site, there are literally hundreds if not thousands of free WordPress themes out there to consider. A number of those themes have been built by professional designers and talented amateurs, and are as easy on the eyes as they are easy on the wallet.

Whether you need a great photoblog layout, personal lifestream, or more business-oriented design, there’s almost surely an existing theme out there worth checking out for your next blog or blog upgrade. And if you’re already a developer or are willing to acquire a small set of template editing skills, you can always modify an existing theme to taste.

Have a look at some of our picks for great themes to either drop in as is or use as a starting point for your own tweaking and twiddling. Keep in mind this is only the tip of the iceberg — be sure to let us know about your other favorite themes in the comments!

1. Irresistible

For a unique personal blog look and feel, check out the free Irresistible theme from the folks at Woo Themes. It features dedicated spots for your photos, videos, and events lifestream along with your typical blog content. Featuring a nice, clean layout, this theme offers something a bit different from your typical 3-column blog design.

2. Demet

For a more magazine-style theme, check out the free premium Demet theme. This 3-column layout is fixed width and banner-ready for 125×125 and 468×60 pixel ad units.

3. P2

The P2 theme was inspired by Twitter, and was designed around allowing a group of bloggers to post short updates. It’s a great option for a cohesive group blog as well as for sites that do frequent liveblogging. Featuring dynamic page updates, threaded comment display, live tag suggestion, real-time notifications, and in-line editing for posts and comments, P2 is a powerhouse for blogs where real-time updates are critical.

4. WPESP Portfolio

WPESP Portfolio is a minimalist theme designed primarily for artists, photographers, designers, and others who need more of a portfolio showcase for their work. It combines the benefits of easy and frequent updates with the layout and user interface conducive to browsing visual works.

5. DarkHive

For an alternative magazine-esque style in two columns, have a look at DarkHive from the folks at MagPress. It sports a featured content slider for up front promotion of hot stories, auto-generated thumbnails for front page display, an Adsense ready loop between posts and on individual post pages, a 125×125-ready block in the sidebar and more.

6. Google Chrome

Here’s an interesting lightweight theme great for a geek-oriented blog, or a site that just wants a nice and clean two column look and feel. Inspired by the browser of the same name, Google Chrome is widget and gravatar ready plus XHTML and CSS validated.

7. Gallery

The showcase-style WordPress theme Gallery is built on the Thematic framework and was designed specifically for Smashing Magazine readers. Another great theme for a portfolio or other visual showcase, Gallery is a highly flexible and customizable theme that supports widescreen video embedding with the installation of a free plug-in.

8. Selecta

Another very visually-oriented theme, Selecta is great for videoblogs or other sites where video needs to be prominent. With a featured post slider carousel up top to promote your best content, threaded comments, and interest jQuery effects on board, Selecta also comes with six different color schemes to choose from.

9. BlackPower

A widget ready theme from the folks at SkinPress, the BlackPower theme features prominent Twitter integration, with your latest tweet appearing in the header. The two column theme also features easy on the eyes typography and a pastel color scheme with black wood effect on a translucent background.

10. Scarlett

The Scarlett theme features another great featured content carousel area up top and a real-time scrolling update area in the right-hand sidebar. It also includes a built-in javascript navigation menu, Adsense ready units, threaded comments display and more.

11. Freemium

The Freemium theme is a slickly-designed “premium” theme being given away for free thanks to the folks at FreebiesDock. Featuring two widget ready sidebars, a jQuery-based menu, 125×125 ad ready area and more, Freemium is a compelling design at a great “price.”

12. iBusiness

A great theme or starting point for a more professional business presence, iBusiness is a modern theme designed to showcase the About section right up front with a prominent image and company blurb or motto. This two column layout is widget ready, SEO optimized and 125×125 banner ready.

13. Meganews

Another great option for a magazine or news site, Meganews features a clean story-lead display in four columns plus a right-hand sidebar. It also supports an animated tag cloud and featured content slideshow.

14. Snapshot

A great theme for shutterbugs and photoblogs, Snapshot from Woo Themes can also be put to use as a portfolio or design gallery. It also comes with three unique color schemes to choose from as well as options for switching between photoblog and portfolio use.

Rackspace is the better way to do hosting. No more worrying about web hosting uptime. No more spending your time, energy and resources trying to stay on top of things like patching, updating, monitoring, backing up data and the like. Learn why.

More WordPress Resources from Mashable:

-10 WordPress Plugins to Help Build Community
– HOW TO: Build a More Beautiful Blog
– Top 10 WordPress Plugins to Promote Your Social Media Profiles
– Top 10 Tips for WordPress Plugin Developers
– Embeddable Waves: The Google Wave WordPress Plugin

Tags: blogging, BLOGS, design, free, Lists, Web Development, web development series, Wordpress, wordpress themes

This series is supported by Webdesigner Depot, a popular web design blog covering tutorials, design trends, blogging and inspirational posts. You can visit WDD at webdesignerdepot.com and follow WDD on Twitter @designerdepot.

Whether you’re blogging for business or pleasure, now is the time to take your little corner of the web to the next level. Social media makes your blog more visible and valuable than ever, and the amount of resources available to beautify and streamline your blog is enormous, and ever growing.

The best part is, you don’t have to be a designer or a programmer to create a great looking blog, but you should know where to find the right resources, and how to align your blog’s design with its purpose.

Learn Some HTML

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We all wish the web was 100% drag and drop, but we’re not quite there yet. You can get away with pushing the knobs and levers on the back-end for a while, but you may never get your blog to look exactly how you envision it without knowing a little bit of HTML.

A basic understanding of the web’s nuts and bolts will allow you to make custom design tweaks, fix template problems, and format your posts more precisely. Rest assured, there’s no need to sign up for classes. Everything you need to know about the web is right here on the web.

A great place to start is W3Schools, a site that provides great free tutorials on web development. The HTML tutorial covers exactly the core basics you should know. While you won’t need to code your new blog design from the ground up, understanding how tags, text formatting, and embedding work will be extremely valuable when you want to start customizing the pre-built boxes and widgets on your site.

Blog customization is an experimental, learn-by-doing process. With a little bit of coding knowledge, a wealth of options will be open to you. If there’s something you’d like to achieve, or something that’s not quite working in your template, a Google Search can be your best friend. Chances are, someone else has had the same problem, and posted an answer or code snippet on the web that you can use.

Find the Right Template

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The world of blog design has come of age, and the web is bursting with beautiful, free design resources that are easy to plug right into your platform of choice. There’s no need to settle for simple color scheme changes or built-in layouts. Brilliant designers are sharing their custom-built templates on the web in droves.

Here are a few resources that you can browse in your search for the perfect design. Not sure which platform to set up your blog on? Hopefully some of the designs cataloged on these sites will inspire you in one direction or another.

Wordpress

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WordPress Theme Directory

Free WordPress Themes

Blogger

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Deluxe Templates

btemplates.com

Tumblr

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Tumblr Theme Garden

Posterous

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Posterous Themes

Note that Tumblr themes are also compatible with Posterous.

Layout

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Shopping for your template can be a lot of fun, but as you start narrowing down your top choices, it’s time to ask yourself: What is the purpose of my blog, and how can the design facilitate it?

Think about utility and user experience when choosing your layout.

Will you be embedding lots of YouTube videos or large graphic elements in your posts? Then perhaps a one or two column template, with lots of horizontal space, is your best bet.

Are you planning to display a lot of content side by side, with links to other posts and advertising? Consider a three column template.

The key to good blog design is to strike a balance between content and clutter. You want to present yourself artfully, without being distracting.

One Column

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Simple and straightforward, a one column blog is all about the posts, with no sidebars or other distractions. If the most important content on your blog is always at the very top, a one column layout might be a great choice.

Blue Basic (WordPress)

Terminal Flashback (Tumblr)

Two Column

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The blogging standard these days, two column layouts leave plenty of real estate for your content, but also a lot for sidebars full of links, contact info, and other information your readers might find useful.

356 Days of Astronomy (WordPress)

Futura (Tumblr)

Three Column

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Use three columns if you plan to spread lots of content, links, and ads out onto your page. But, be wary of clutter. Be sure to choose a three column layout with ample spacing and breathing room for content.

Typography (Blogger)

Majestic (Blogger)

Outside the Box

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For something a little more interesting, break out of the column mold and consider some unique layouts like these.

Art In My Coffee (Tumblr)

Gondaba (Tumblr)

Be a Layout Sleuth

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Have you stumbled upon a blog design that you’ve absolutely fallen in love with? It’s possibly a template that you might be able to use for your own blog. If so, there are a few ways to figure out where it came from, and how to get it.

Many templates are free under a Creative Commons license, and as such, include a link back to the source or designer. Scroll to the very bottom of the blog’s home page and look for a template attribution. There you may find the name of the theme, a link where to find it, and the platform on which the blog is hosted (WordPress, Blogger, etc.).

If there’s no attribution on the page itself, a little detective work can help. On the blog’s home page, use your browser to view the source code. There may be clues, including the blog platform, attribution notes about the template, and possibly a URL where you can find it. Use the “Find” function (Control + F in Windows, Apple + F on a Mac) to search for key words like Theme, Template, Tumblr, or WordPress to find any clues in the code.

Of course not all templates are free. Some are custom built, or purchased from designers, and won’t necessarily have attributions.

Make It Your Own

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Now that you’ve implemented your beautiful new blog template, it looks exactly like the 3,000 other users who have downloaded the same one.

Use your blog’s back-end bells and whistles, in combination with your new HTML knowledge, to add your own brand to the design. The first thing you can do is add a simple logo or moniker in the header of your blog.

Find the box, widget, or code at the top of your blog that contains the template graphic, and replace it with your own. Be sure to keep the size and shape of the image consistent with the template to avoid layout issues. The key to making it ‘fit’ into your new design is to use complimentary colors and fonts.

Sample the color(s) from your new design and input it into Color Scheme Designer 3, a great tool that will generate complimentary and tertiary colors you can use for headers and additional graphic elements.

If you’re not a designer, simple is better. Let your new template do the talking, and keep your header image clean and basic. Looking for a great logo font to express your blog’s content? Check out 1001 Free Fonts and FontSquirrel for some great looking freebies.

For the Non-Designer: Go Minimalist

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If you’re not design-minded, but in the market for a slick looking blog that you can manage aesthetically, think simple. Minimalist themes often use neutral colors, clean layouts, and lots of white space, making them ideal for easy customization.

Don’t fret over color schemes and texture cohesion. Simply pop your logo into a good minimalist theme and let the white space speak for itself. Check out these examples.

Shalom*Typo (WordPress)

Wu Wei (WordPress)

Expi (Blogger)

Need More Inspiration?

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The blogosphere is jam packed with extraordinary designs — clever, functional, and just plain gorgeous. Even if you’re already set with your own new layout, it’s always fun to just kick back and enjoy the creative work of others. Here are some more designs that may get your ideas and creativity churning.

Have any more tips on building a more beautiful blog? Be sure to share them in the comments below.

Webdesigner Depot is one of the most popular web design blogs in the world. It covers tutorials, design trends, blogging as well as inspirational posts. It’s run by Walter Apai, a web designer from Vancouver, Canada. The blog is a great resource for both beginners and advanced designers looking to expand and improve their knowledge. The site is visited by Fortune 500 companies and is used as a reference by many design schools. Visited by almost 2 million readers per month, WDD is a prime resource for both graphic and web designers. Visit WDD at webdesignerdepot.com. Follow on Twitter: twitter.com/designerdepot. Subscribe to RSS feed: webdesignerdepot.com/rss.htm.

More design resources from Mashable:

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- HOW TO: Create Custom Backgrounds for Twitter, YouTube, & MySpace
– Oprah’s Designer Nate Berkus Tackles Twitter Backgrounds
– A Guide to Mobile Web Design Tips and Tricks
– 85+ of the Best Twitterers Designers Should Follow
– 100 Great Resources for Design Inspiration
– 5 Ways Social Media Changed Fashion in 2009
– 20 Creative Apps For Your iPhone

Tags: blog, blogger, blogger templates, blogging, design, layout, posterous, templates, themes, tumblr, tumblr themes, web design, web design tips series, Wordpress, wordpress themes

A list for all seasons. Developers have the wp-hackers mailing list to discuss core and plugin code. Sometimes UI/UX stuff comes up and gets discussed there, but there is a whole universe of discussion around navigation labels, gradients, button styling, layouts, alignment, etc. that would be clutter on wp-hackers. Designers need a list to call their own, and now we have one. You can sign up for the wp-ui list to discuss ways to improve the interface or user experience of WordPress, and to discuss progress on design-related projects for the open source project, like the design challenges we’re going to have.

Design Challenges. We learned a lot from the icon design and header refresh contests, and we want to do these kind of open design challenges on a regular basis to give UI/UX designers who want to contribute to the WordPress open source project more opportunities to do so. If we could do one per month, that would be ideal, keeping the challenges relatively bite-sized to allow potential contributors an easy way to get involved at first. As each challenge is posted, people can use the list to bounce ideas off each other and work toward optimal solutions. I’m hoping the design challenges will evolve to be less contest and more collaboration. We’ll announce the first one before the end of January, so if you’re interested, please sign up for the list! (Hint: one will likely be a touch up to the Right Now dashboard module, to improve the information design, and there will be a couple of screen layout challenges coming up as well.)

Distributed Usability Testing. We started to try this out last year, and several dozen usability professionals volunteered to help get the program going, but a combination of scheduling and infrastructure issues combined to stall the progress. Having the “UI/UX contributor team” infrastructure in place, starting with the mailing list, will make it much easier to get this project going again.

Chit-chat. The weekly developer chats in IRC at #wordpress-dev have been very productive. We’ve created an IRC room at #wordpress-ui on irc.freenode.com so that we can have the same kind of “water cooler” for UI/UX contributors as for core code contributors. In addition to being a place where you can drop in and discuss core UI/UX (note: this room will not be a place to discuss the design of blog themes, it’s to discuss the design of the Wordpress application itself), we’ll set up a weekly chat. Choosing a day and time for the chats will probably be the first discussion on the mailing list.

A blog of our own. Once again, taking a page from the code contributor infrastructure, we’ll set up a blog for UI/UX updates, announcements, progress reports, etc. This will be on WordPress.org in the nearish future, and will be announced to the mailing list when it is live.

So, if you want to become a contributor to core WordPress by using your design skills, join the wp-ui mailing list and get ready for a fun year!