New Freebie Element Set! (Black-White-Pink)

It’s been awhile since I have released a freebie set, and I have neglected you girlies that use black backgrounds for awhile, so I have released an elements set especially for you. Simple, but sleek, in black, white, and pink, it includes an extensive collection of buttons as well as a header to add a little something to that existing page that maybe needs a new tweak, or help a new flirt with some starter imagery for that new listing. As always, please obey the terms of usage:

1) Do not claim the images as your own work.

2) Do not hotlink any images, you MUST host these images yourself or on a free image hosting site.

3) You say “Lara freakin rocks” 3 times while they are downloading. (If you have a high speed connection you may want to practice saying it very quickly.) Other than that they are yours for the taking, enjoy! =)

For more freebies, check out the freebies page HERE.

Introducing Sparklewhore Elements with Freebies!

My hotlinking post was depressing lol, so I decided to go ahead and toss out a few freebies I had in the works and launch the new section to the site I’ve been tinkering with, Sparklewhore Elements. Not everyone wants a full out design, and I know many of you enjoy working on your listings yourselves, tweaking them and making them your own. For those that don’t want the whole package, but occasionally like to spice thing up, I will be offering both free and premium elements to spice up your pages. Elements are everything from backgrounds, buttons, picture accents, listing “sets”, and even pre-made headers or other imagery. As it grows I’m sure it will expand to things I haven’t even thought of yet, but to announce the launch I’ve done up a little starter flirt freebie elements set. The set contains header and coordinating buttons for a white background listing.

You can click on each element individually, or download the entire set HERE.

Important Notice: Hotlinking

Just a quick notice that unfortunately the time has come for me to implement some hotlinking measures. Over the years I’ve had issues here or there with girl’s not respecting the freebie rules and linking their freebies from the site instead of hosting them somewhere else. Up until now, it’s been a fairly minor issue, and one I’ve adressed personally, but the time has come when I need to implement other measures.

For anyone unaware, hotlinking is when you take a freebie and use the direct URL to it from my site on your wepage or listing, instead of downloading or saving the images and uploading them to host somewhere else. When you do this, your use of the image and page loads cost me bandwidth, which I pay for. I love doing freebies for you guys and will keep doing them, but all I do ask is that you host them somewhere on your own (your own server or a free image host like PSOHosting.com) and not cost me bandwidth to use them.

So if for any reason you are hotlinking freebies from here, please know that as of Sunday night, your images will no longer show. You are still welcome to use them, but you will need to download and host the images somewhere else, because your direct links will no longer work.  I’m posting this and will wait until Sunday give anyone a chance to replace their links without having any broken images on their listings or sites.

Freebie Buttons 1-23-09

2  freebie button sets to celebrate the new year and new look and to thank you all for putting up with the changes around here and crazy posting.

So here they are, some pink and gray simplicity. They are a bit imperfect, but rather than scrap them, I thought they might get some good use as freebies.

Enjoy!

WordPress 2.7 – All fluff or worth the fuss?

WordPress 2.7 was released recently, and the developers seem to have made alot of major improvements. Everything from a sleek redesigned interface, to many new capabilities and features including one-click plugin installation, Sticky Posts, drag and drop Dashboard modules, and tons more.

The full features list from the official WordPress website is as follows:

• XMLRPC Comments API (Ticket 7446)
• Keyboard shortcuts for comment moderation (Ticket 7643)
• Sticky Posts (Ticket 7457)
• Theme update api, like we do for plugins (Ticket 7519)
• Dashboard and write box rearranging (write box in trunk)
• One-click plugin installs (Ticket 6015)
• Reply to comments from admin (Ticket 7435)
• Core updating (Ticket 5560)
• Frame-like method for moderating ping/trackbacks
• Plugin browser embedded (Ticket 6015)
• PHPXref hosted on WordPress.org
• Separate Large and Full image sizes, related improvements (Ticket 7151)
• Comment threading (Ticket 7635)
• Comment paging
• Batch and inline editing (Ticket 6815)
• HTTPOnly cookies
• Column hiding for all management pages
• Post box hiding for all edit pages
• Upgrades and install over SFTP
• Template Tag wp_page_menu wrapper for wp_list_pages and support for Home page (Ticket 7698)

That may not look overly exciting as a list, however from the time you upgrade you will notice quite a few significant changes, starting with the redesigned admin interface and feature packed Dashboard panel.  To best get a feel for the new look and features, check out the video released by the WordPress team below.

While the new interface has taken quite a bit of getting used to for myself – a non-left menu oriented person – after some usage, I have found it to be quite functional, and overall, quite convenient.

The redesign is itself is easy on the eyes, and the Dashboard modules have made quick comment approval and other tasks a breeze. Likewise, the quick edit features for Category and Post sections save time for smaller tasks, such as small text changes or category selections.

I have to say however, my favorite feature has to be the one click plugin installation. You can easily browse the WordPress plugin database from within blog, and install and activate your plugins without ever having to launch an FTP program. No more downloading and uploading, just to leave old verions of plugins sitting on your system to collect cyber dust.

There are many new features to the upgrade, and as always you should keep your installation current – if for no other  reason to keep updated with security patches – but this upgrade is most definitely one to take some time and explore.  In my opinion, if you can adjust to the new side menu layout (which may be optional in a future release), you’ll likely find the other improvements well worth the shift.

One click installs. One click upgrades. One click love.

The official WordPress 2.7 page and documentation can be found HERE.

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