Nur Ahmad Furlong

Category: Wordpress

R. Bhaveshs’ WPRemix Theme. Know what ur buying!
Final update from new WP-Remix owner
Please see the updated comment below for the latest on the WP-Remix issue. – 28 July 2009
Another update to this Post
This post was updated about a year ago since posting the original in May 2008. I’ve written another post about the issue discussed below and seeing this particular post has shed alot of negative light on the WP-Remix theme I wanted to provide some updated info. See the following post which mentions how the WP-Remix theme has been updated. Hope it solves the problems. – July 2009
Post update – 25 May – R Bhavesh has finally contacted me and sent me a refund notification. He says the plugin to easily edit the static content was never part of the cost of the theme.
If anyone is able to assist in adding functionality to wpremix theme, making certain content fields in the html templates editable through the post editor, contact R Bhavesh to discuss. He said he’s looking for someone.
There are many fantastic premium wordpress themes available online, and many trustworthy wordpress theme developers who will go the extra mile to make sure you’re happy with their products.
I’ve been eyeing the WPRemix theme for a while and finally worked up the motivation to purchase it. It’s a theme which I promises to deliver a framework for developing wordpress based cms sites.
“One Master Theme,Unlimited Possibilities” it says
the site also has a nice catchy line –
“Unleash The Power of WordPress blog CMS!” Yeah right.
Imagine my surprise when I realised the endless possibilities of the various templates depends on you having to edit the html manually to insert content. I mean, really, what’s the point then. The many homepage layouts contain static code which cannot be edited through wordpress’ post or paging system and no sidebars.
I was furious, conned. I did a few searches and quickly found many disgruntled buyers who apparently have been trying to contact R. Bhavesh (the genius behind this sneaky scheme) and not managed to get hold of him or a refund.
Remix Editor Plugin
It turns out the vision was to have a remix edit plugin(page does not exist any longer), which never worked so well and was removed from the package, leaving behind a set of static templates. I contacted the developer with no response to date. He’s still selling the theme as if all is well.
You’ve Been Warned!
May 23, 2008
WordPress Meetup T-Shirt Design, what do you think?
I’ve become so bogged down with client work lately that doing this little T-shirt Design for the upcoming WordPress meetup was a nice little break from the norm.
I’d like to know what you guys think of the design. Those attending will be receiving a free T compliments of the Sponsors (FormFunction, Radiiate & World Wide Creative), thanks to our generous sponsors. We’ve catered for 30 people attending.
To register for the WordPress Cape Town Meetup which will be happening on 28th May, 4 – 7pm at the Bandwidth Barn, click here and add a comment saying you’ll be there.
May 13, 2008
Recent Project – Praxia Technologies Branding & WP website
A nice little Branding & Web design project I recently completed was for Praxia Technologies.
Praxia Positions itself in the following manner.
“Our mission is to help our clients realise the full potential of their network, communications and computer hardware and software.”
Saeed of Praxia Technologies approached me, firstly to refresh his web presence and put something up there he could manage himself. This has become pretty much a standard request for web design projects as no-one wants to have to call up an html coder each time they want to update a page on their site.
As usual I recommended WordPress, due to it’s quick and simple framework and user friendliness, especially for Praxia’s simple CMS(Content Management System) needs. I found a template which suited their requirements and went about giving it a complete facelift. Praxia’s logo also needed a change and I was happy to oblige as logo design is one of my favourite areas of focus.
First Things first – Establish a new Brand
We started off with the logo design so we could base the site’s look & feel on the Brand and create a nice consistent looking online presence.

After exploring various directions as I usually do with logo design projects the client was split between 2 logo options and we had some back & forth discussion on the pros and cons of each direction.
We settled on the more practical option, the other being the 3 dimensional X element. The focus on the X stems from their original logo and was maintained to keep some kind of consistency going in the re-brand.
Next comes the site in WordPress
We decided to re-use the 3D X element with each component of the X representing a specific business unit as the client still liked the element and wanted to maintain it somehow.
Because Praxia is an IT Tech company focusing every element of a clients IT Tech needs they wanted to go with something which links well with the technology they use. A few stages of design drafts and the client was pretty happy with the look though felt something was missing, and with the inclusion of the brushed metal background we’d settled on a design which the client was very excited about.

To see the final coded result visit www.praxia.co.za. Let me know what you think.
May 8, 2008
The benefits of a free wordpress.com website for startups
Whether you are a small business just starting out, or an organisation which does not currently have the funds to develop or host your own website, you’re probably still investigating ways of getting online in some way or another. It’s a fact of life for most businesses in this modern age, that being online is no longer a luxury but a necessity for anyone wanting to get a message out to a large audience.
A free customizable website just a few clicks away
Don’t fret, there are many ways you can get your hands on a free website which you can customize to suite your needs. WordPress.com is one of the easiest ways, in my experience, and provides you with a platform from where you can eventually launch your own, fully customized website on your own domain, when you are ready to do so.
All you need to do is go to wordpress.com, sign up for a free wordpress.com account and follow the quick, step by step process. In a matter of seconds you can be online for free and speaking to an international audience. Your new web address will however have wordpress.com attached to it at the end. Once you have some cash in your pocket, registering your own domain(web address) and installing WordPress is not too much of a mission. You can then export all the content from your freely hosted website and upload it to you new site very easily. Not many other solutions provide this feature.
VeloCITI Cape Town startups using WordPress
On the VeloCITI business development program I have introduced a few of my collegues starting their businesses to WordPress. They’re now online and communicating with their markets quicker than they thought they would. Visit them online:
http://rainbowitgen.wordpress.com
http://digitaldocuments.wordpress.com
http://bluerayoutdoor.wordpress.com
Sometimes it’s just a matter of working with what is available as many companies unnecessarily hold themselves back due to lack of budget.
I personally started out blogging in the same way and eventually migrated to my own domain using a freely available theme. I then started modifying the theme to suite my needs and eventually ended up where I am now a few months down the line with some regular daily traffic and over 100 posts to date.
The other nice thing about WordPress is it’s constantly being improved and upgrading is quite easy. Changing your theme is even easier and adding functionality through freely available plugins makes it a user friendly yet powerful option for many companies big and small.
A few simple benefits of using wordpress:
- WordPress sites are known to rank high on google searches
- RSS feeds come built in
- Tons of freely available themes with which to change your site’s look & feel
- Free functional widgets available to plugin to your site
- Site contents can be exported and imported easily
- Adding and changing content is just about as simple as writing a word document and saving
- WordPress sites are more sociable and helps develop important conversations with you target audience
- WordPress is constantly being updated and upgrades are published for free
- There is a huge community which publishes tutorials, tips, tools and advice and can provide free support on just about any issue related to your WordPress site
- WordPress is one of the most user friendly web publishing platforms available today.
So what’s holding you back, if you’re ready to get online quickly and start publishing or promoting yourself, your ideas, your business or your organisation check out wordpress.com right now.
If you have any questions I’ll be happy to answer them or point you in the right direction. If you’re excited about what wordpress has to offer we’re having a wordpress meetup on 28 May 2008 at the Bandwidth Barn in Cape Town which you are welcome to attend. We’ll even help you set up a quick & easy free site if you want to test it out. Visit www.wordpress.org.za for more details on the meetup.
Have a look at a recent client project I just completed where I helped my Praxia Technologies design a self manageable wordpress website. View it at www.praxia.co.za.
I offer wordpress customization, as well as custom wordpress design and development and am a wordpress enthusiast. For more information or a quote contact me on [email protected].
April 27, 2008
How can we make WPCPT meetup #3 rock?
All you wordpress superstars, Planning for wordpress meetup 3 is under way. We can’t do a thing without wordpressy peeps though. Check out the latest post on how we can make the next meetup Rock Big Time.
We got some ideas to start you off, first off we’d like some feedback if you were at the last one and please send your photos to post on the site as well.
Head on over to http://wpcapetown.wordpress.com/ and get involved.
April 2, 2008
WordPress 2.5 has hit the shelves – I’ve just upgraded
So finally, and with a day to spare before the end of the month the much hyped and long awaited wordpress 2.5 is officially available for download as a “stable” release and it’s looking like it’s packed with alot more value than expected. I’m going through the motions right now of backing up, and getting ready to take that brave upgrade step.
If you visit the wordpress.org website you’ll notice a slight brand refresh and you can feel the distinct touch the Happy Cog guys have added to the interface as well as in the admin panel where the user interface has seen a significant upgrade.
The development team have been hard at work putting all their efforts into creating a much more user friendly and feature packed product which I’m sure will make lots of wordpress enthusiasts and newbies alike very happy. Something I’m looking forward to testing out, especially with some recent problems experienced on a client site is the a WYSIWYG that doesnâ€™t mess with your code. Here’s what the release page has to say:
WordPress 2.5, the culmination of six months of work by the WordPress community, people just like you. The improvements in 2.5 are numerous, and almost entirely a result of your feedback: multi-file uploading, one-click plugin upgrades, built-in galleries, customizable dashboard, salted passwords and cookie encryption, media library, a WYSIWYG that doesnâ€™t mess with your code, concurrent post editing protection, full-screen writing, and search that covers posts and pages.
I’ve just upgraded and am already impressed by some of the features, especially so the automatic upgrade of plugins which I’ve taken full advantage of. Make sure you follow every step of the upgrade process in order and you do full backups of your db and site files. Good luck to all upgraders.
March 30, 2008