When I was a child we traveled extensively, and I became familiar with other cultures early on – when we finally settled down in Georgia, when I was in my teens, I felt like a stranger in a strange land!

I’m an old broad now, and have settled in the Pacific Northwest – I’ve been in Oregon for 9 years now, and I’ll probably never make the journey to Europe or Asia again. But looking at my stats, I realize that I actually have been traveling in cyber-space, or rather cyber-space has been traveling to me!

So, Hello World! Don’t be strangers – post a comment and say Hello back!

Daisy Gray has been released and can be downloaded at WordPress.org. This was submitted right before the 2.7 release, but will work with 2.7 if you don’t use threaded comments. If you do, wait for the 2.7 version (coming tonight or tomorrow).

I’ll also be releasing a very nice magazine-style theme very soon, with a dramatic black and white theme and plenty of ad real estate in the wide, tabbed sidebar. I’m working out the kinks now, and should be ready to release by the end of the week!

We had our fill of winter these past weeks! Cold, nasty weather makes me cold and unproductive – so I’ve fallen behind in updates. But it’s warming (and drying) up in the next couple of weeks here in Oregon, so keep an eye out, I’ll be catching up very soon!

Last but certainly not least – the long-awaited release of version 4 of SimplePress, an extraordinary forum plugin for WordPress, is here! I’ve not yet upgraded, but will be doing that soon, and whipping out a few base forum templates to match with my existing WordPress themes. Go ahead and download SimplePress, install it and start playing around with it. You will love the way it seamlessly integrates with WordPress, with no hacking required on your part, beyond a few style declarations if you should like.

And how could I forget? I wish all of you a joyous and prosperous New Year!

Pay for one year’s hosting in advance, and get a website customized to your business or specifications, FREE!

Your site will include:

• One year of hosting on a lightning fast Dual Xeon server, with the space and bandwidth you need to run your site.
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• Extra care taken to secure your WordPress install, and keep it secure against spammers and hackers
• Your choice of theme, customized to your specifications
• Your theme, no matter if it’s one of mine or another open source theme, will be optimized for best search engine results.
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Custom themes are also available. I can take any design and convert it to WordPress; the price will vary depending on the complexity of the design.

Contact me via the contact form, or if I’m online, you can use the live chat feature (look in the left sidebar) to speak with me about your online presence.

Why choose me to build and host your website? Because I love coding, and I love design – and will care for your website like it was my very own. I am looking forward to hearing from you!

While it’s very convenient, I would have to go back into the admin control panel anyway – to enter tags, and most importantly – to use All-In-One-SEO for custom titles, meta description, etc.

Those who manage many blogs might find this software indispensable – I’ll stick with the admin panel, thank you!

I am also getting VERY CLOSE on completing the Tickled Pink theme – you should expect an announcement in the next few days. I don’t know if I”ll submit it to the Theme Codex or not – or even whether they will accept it, but I’ll have it available for download soon. I have to finish the accompanying Simple:Press theme, Pinkish, as it will be part of the package.

I’ve also got another theme in the works that uses NextGEN Gallery – right now it’s just a bare outline in Photoshop and I’ll have to flesh it out but it won’t be long before it’s a nice theme for a gallery or portfolio site!

And – nothing to do with WordPress or with the Gardens, but: Congratulations to Senator Barack Obama on winning the Democratic nomination!

These buttons are inspired by and very similar to the “three-en” icons in the SimplePress download. The first download contains the finished buttons and a readme file. The second contains two GDKs – one for the smaller buttons with icons, and one for the regular buttons with text. The GDKs do not include the topic, forum, group or inbox icons.

These downloads are “kissware” – the only payment expected is that you do something nice for someone – kiss your spouse, hug your kids, play with the dog. You can kiss me by bookmarking and sharing this post, or by joining the community. Kiss the community by using the GDKs to make new button sets to share – you get the picture!

UPDATE: The download links for the SimplePress buttons have been deleted. They were way outdated, and I just didn’t have time to keep them up. I’ll be making a new theme soon and releasing a new GDK.

Onward and upward! I used SimplePress from Stuff at Yellow Swordfish. I’ve already installed it at BK2K Web Design and it’s quite nifty!

Soon to come – a new theme release, and tutorial movies! Stay tuned…

Please be patient while I add tweaks and content – lots and lots of content!