Wow, been a little while since my last post. Here are a couple of updates for you.
Last week, I sent in my letter to relinquish myself from my duties at BloggerTalks, Problogger, BloggingTips, and other duties to give myself more time for WPTavern.
I thought I came across an awesome theme to use for WPTavern. It’s called Arthemia Premium.. Now, the theme still looks great but it was a pain in the ass for me to mess around with. I thought about using the featured post section from that theme and transferring it to a new theme but it’s deeply integrated within Arthemia and so, I wasted $70.00. However, perhaps at some point down the road, I’ll redesign WPTavern.com again and that will be the design I go with.
So what does WPTavern look like right now? Have a look.
Yes, the WPTavern theme should look familiar as it’s a hacked version of the theme I use on this site. As it stands, I really like a lot of the things as well as the layout of this theme on Jeffro2pt0. I don’t want to hack up another theme to add these features so I decided to just hack up a version I could use for WPTavern. I did add two more widget spots near the footer that I plan on using and I also added the 5 featured posts block along with post thumbnails to give it just a little bit of a magazine look.
Right now, this should hold me over until I gain some momentum and get things going. I’ll worry about a proper/unique identity once the time presents itself.
With the majority of the design out of the way, my focus is now on plugins and the forum. I’m still on track to open the site up for public beta on February 1st. Until then, the site will open with very little content.
Because of this, if anyone is open to writing a guest post to be part of the launch of the site, please send the HTML version of the post to my email address or through the contact form on this site. If you have images that go with the post, label them accordingly in the HTML file and I’ll add them in on my end. Don’t forget to email me the images as well.
I’ve been working like mad between the two podcasts I produce and getting things set for WPTavern. However, It’s been exciting and my head is continuously overflowing with ideas for the site once it launches. Stay tuned for more info as I get time to publish it.
Thoughts and Insanity From Jeff 
Site’s looking good Jeff. I’m interested in seeing how the launch does. Are you still blogging at WBTC as well? Oh, and what type of guest posts are you looking for?
John Kolbert’s last blog post..Admin Favicon WP Plugin Updated
Hey Jeff, site looks great so far. What else is there left to do? Just the forum? Content?
Conorp
Conorp’s last blog post..Improved Plugin Installation
@John Kolbert – Right now, I am still writing/working for WeblogToolsCollection.com. For how much longer I’m unsure. With regards to guest posts, practically anything WordPress related.
@Conorp – I still have to do touch ups to the design until I feel it’s right. I then have to install and configure all the plugins, setup the appropriate pages, set up the widgets, and do the forum.
Congrats Jeff!
Christina Warren’s last blog post..Macworld 2009 Info
Looks good! I’m getting excited for launch.
Looking forward to the launch Jeff!
It seems to be online at the moment. There’s no content but you can see the layout.
http://wptavern.com/
Conorp’s last blog post..Does WordPress need an inbuilt theme installer?
Looking good so far! Hopefully this will be a success. I’ve been wanting a good WordPress related site to pop up for a while and no one seems to have made a decent crack at it yet. There’s lots of blogs, but as yet no real community driven sites.
Hopefully this is a success :)
Ryan’s last blog post..Web host failure
I still think Arthemia is a very nice team to go with. I based my site on the free version and did manage to modify it quite a bit. What were the problems you ran in to?
In my case i didnt want it to just show the latest post per category, ’cause we have some more regular posted categories then others. I also threw away the thumbnail solution cause that wasnt working for me at al. But Arthemia still is very colorful and clean. In my opinion WPTavern is a bit dark, keeping in mind the light colors surrounding WordPress. Nevertheless, great idea and keep going!
Ed’s last blog post..De Maandag Quiz – Win Bier!
I agree Ed – Arthemia is good. Although I think for WPTavern’s purpose – it wasn’t enough.
Theme Reviewer’s last blog post..Foreword Thinking