Frugal Blogger Skin Pack: 12 Skins, 6 Colors and 2 New Widgets
Even though the Frugal WordPress Theme is used for all kinds of website projects from business sites to sales pages to any number of purposes, at its core it’s a rock solid blogging platform. And to reflect this fact (as well as provide an awesome value to those Frugal users who want more Skins to play with) we designed and developed this all new Blogger Skin Pack.
To start it off we created a super clean, professional looking Skin design that would perfectly promote any content that was put on it’s pages. Then we used this fixed design and created a fluid version to offer the user two different layouts to choose from. After this we picked out 6 different colors to work with and created a total of 12 unique Skins for this awesome Skin Pack!
Finally, keeping with this Blogging Theme, we created two new Widgets and placed them in a plugin folder for easy installation (on a Frugal powered site or any other WordPress website).
One of the Widgets is an Author Profile Widget. What this does is provide you with a super easy way to display any author in a Widget area, showing their Gravatar, creating a Bio and even displaying a “Read more” link to take visitors to a more in-depth author page. The other Widget is a Banner Ad Widget that provides a simple, easy to use tool for displaying 125×125 Banner Ads in your sidebar, spacing them out perfectly. It also provides an option to display an “Advertise Here” banner, linked to whichever ad page you like (on or off your site) and even an option to choose whether or not it opens in a new window.
The idea behind including these bonus Widgets was to provide even more value to the blogger looking for that perfect Skin to help take their blog to the next level. And even if you’re not a blogger this Skin pack is perfect for just about any website in need of a clean, professional design.
So be sure to check out the Frugal Blogger Skin Pack Page as well as the Frugal Blogger Skin Demo Page and start mentally placing your blog content in it’s pages to see which color and layout is right for you. 
The Frugal Team
Frugal 3.5.5 – Staying ahead of the game
Since the early releases of WordPress 3.0 Beta, The Frugal Team has been constantly monitoring the WordPress Core Code to ensure that Frugal is fully compatible with all the fantastic new functionality.
We launched Frugal 3.5 while WordPress was still in Beta, with a commitment to launch Frugal 3.5.5 within a week of the official WordPress 3.0 release. Though there was nothing major, the WordPress Team did make some last minute changes to the WordPress 3.0 code. We’ve made adjustments to Frugal accordingly, and are happy to announce that Frugal is now even more totally WordPress 3.0 compatible than ever before with the launch of Frugal version 3.5.5!
If you haven’t already upgraded to the latest versions of WordPress and Frugal, we encourage you to take the plunge now. Both have some incredible new features to play with!
The Frugal Team
Frugal Skins vs. Child Themes In WordPress: Similar but Different
One of the Frugal Theme features that makes it so unique is its Skins. Giving the user the ability to Import a completely custom design with a few mouse clicks, the Frugal Skins provide a quick and easy way to give your WordPress/Frugal powered website a face lift in a matter of seconds. Not only that, you can then continue the customization process after the Skin Import, tweaking it to your liking, all from within the robust Frugal Admin Panel. Read more »
Frugal Theme 3.5 – Raw Power, Simple Elegance – Ready for WordPress 3.0 Release!
The Frugal Team is proud to announce the release of Frugal Theme version 3.5!
Frugal celebrated its first birthday just a couple weeks ago, and we’ve pulled out all the stops to bring you the most advanced Premium WordPress Theme around.
Here’s an overview of what we’ve been up to: Read more »
Cobalt WP Boost: A Free WordPress Plugin Solution For Low Memory Limit Problems
Seth and I are always looking for simple solutions to WordPress problems and one escalating issue with WordPress is the continued memory limit of 32 megabytes and yet growing number and size of WordPress, Themes and Plugins. Whether you’ve received a low memory error or was just unable to install all the plugins necessary to do what you wanted with your WordPress website, this 32mb limit starts to become a hindrance to progress. Read more »
Introducing Frugal 3.3: A New Level Of Design Control
Frugal version 3.3 is now available and takes design control to a whole new level. The following video will go into detail, but here’s a brief run through of what 3.3 brings to the table.
- One Click Skin Creation: Once you’re done designing a Frugal Skin (adjusting the Frugal Options and creating and uploading your custom images for your Skin design) you just type the name of your Skin and click ‘Export Skin’ to create and download your new Skin file and you’re done.
- One Click Skin Installation: Installing a Skin is even easier. You just locate your Frugal Skin zip folder, click ‘Import Skin’ and you’re done!
- Much refined Import/Export feature: Now there’s a One Click Frugal Options Export button and the Import is just a matter of checking the boxes next to the options pages you want to Import and then upload your Export file.
- Bulk Delete Images: No longer do you have to delete images one at a time. You can now select all and then delete.
- Increase Your WordPress Memory by flipping a switch. This new option allows you to raise your WordPress memory limit to 64 megabytes if you need a bit more memory to run WordPress, your theme and all your plugins (be sure to confirm with your web host that it will allow a memory increase to 64 megabytes as a few still do not).
- Frugal Snapshots! This one is super cool! Every time you click ‘Save’ in a Frugal Options page Frugal will take a snapshot of your entire options set. This allows you to restore your settings back to a previous point or even forward if you want to UNDO the restore. With this Snapshot function you’ll be able to see the date of the ‘Save’ down to the second, the actual page where you saved the changes and a list of all the changes you made. Just select the Snapshot and then click ‘Restore’ and Frugal will revert to that exact state. How cool is that!!
- Full Localization: Frugal now includes an .po and .mo file to make it much easier to translate Frugal into any language (currently no translations have been performed, but the localization is done). Read more »
The Frugal Skin Store Is Finally Here, Along With Frugal Version 3.25
Hey guys, it’s finally here! The Frugal Skin Store that I’ve been talking about for the past few weeks is up-and-running and ready to help you make your Frugal powered websites super slick, or clean, or however you’d like them to look. There are only 7 skins available at the moment, but more are coming very soon!
Frugal 3.25 is also here. I’ve added some very useful new options like new location options for the Navbar and Feature Boxes, new Static Homepage Layout Options, Category Navbar Right options (ie. RSS | Email, Twitter, Search, etc..), FULL design control for Captions, independent styling for the WordPress ‘Pages’ widget, and more!
So check out the video to see what I’ve been up to with Frugal and then get your butt over to the Frugal Skin Store and see some of the possibilities that await!! (NOTE: All Skins are 20% off until March 1st!)
If you haven’t yet purchased Frugal you can do so HERE. Otherwise you can just login to the Frugal Forum and you’ll find version 3.25 available in the download section at the bottom of the forum homepage along with instructions for upgrading.
Eric Hamm
Introducing frugal Version 3.2: Making Coding Your WordPress Theme A Thing of The Past
I’m very happy to introduce you to frugal 3.2. Below you will find all the information you need to know about how frugal 3.2 is taking do-it-yourself web design to a whole new level!
Introduction Into A Whole New Level of Website Control:
Here you will see some of the awesome new features in frugal 3.2. Just a few include:
- Full Import/Export control over your many frugal settings. Now, creating a complete backup and restoring that backup to your frugal websites is as easy as a few mouse clicks. Transferring a site is a breeze and implementing custom designs (skins) is now incredibly simple! (For more info into how this option works you can check out THIS VIDEO)
- Built-In Image Uploader. No longer do you need to use an FTP program to upload custom images to your frugal website. Just browse and then upload the images directly to a frugal uploads directory on your server. You then have the ability to rename or delete the image. It’s super simple and amazingly useful when custom designing your frugal site.
- Full Background Control. Before you just had the ability to change the background colors of most any element on your frugal website. But now you have FULL control! Change the type (like horizontal and/or vertical repeating image, static image, color only, transparent, etc..) and, if using an image option, you can specify the image name to be used in that background area. This, with the new Image Upload option, now gives frugal users a whole new level of design control!
- Thumbnails, Thumbnails, Thumbnails! With the latest Image Thumbnail feature in WordPress 2.9 you can now easily add thumbnails to your post excerpts. With frugal 3.2 you now have full control over how these thumbnails display. Change they way they are re-sized and cropped, their alignment, dimensions and even complete border options. And turn them on or off at will.
- SKINS!! Both free and Premium skins are and will be available to make creating awesome designs with frugal super easy!
- Some Option Refinement. I not only re-organized the frugal options pages to make it easier to maneuver around to the different settings, but I completely re-built the way frugal interacts with the WordPress database. It’s much more efficient, but it does require that you use a simple plugin (that I created) to upgrade from a previous version of frugal. No need for new installs, but just a heads up if you are upgrading. (For more information on how to upgrade to frugal 3.2 check out THIS VIDEO)
- Miscellaneous additions and adjustments. I made a few subtle changes like adding independent H1 and H2 font control for your content headings and providing alignment options for logos (both image and text), where before you just had padding to play with.
Preview of The Premium Skins (Coming Soon!!)
Click the image below to check out a demo of a Premium frugal Skin that will be available soon:
If you have any questions or feedback you’d like to give or if you’re a developer or designer who might be interested in creating skins for frugal and making some extra cash (as well as sharing your design skills with the frugal community) you can contact me any time.
Eric Hamm
Your 2010 Toolbox For Building An Online Business, Blog, Community And Presence
NOTE: This is an extension of a post that began here… 2010: A New Economy, A New Marketplace And A Need For A Presence Online
In 2010 we will no doubt see an even stronger push for both a business and personal presence online. In our new economy we have little choice but to stake our claim online or face being left behind by the rest of the business world. As you’ve already read in the linked post from above, our recent economic woes have pushed forward this natural shift to an online marketplace and a thriving Internet community. With ’09 we were faced with the shock of this shift, but in 2010 we are poised for prosperity if we have the right tools in our arsenal.
Starting with the basics and then moving to more advanced advice, I’d like to share with you the tools I have found to be invaluable as I’ve made my move online. Starting from scratch in the summer of ’08 and making a full time living online less than a year later, I used these tools to help turn a dream of greater independence into a reality. So I hope you find this information useful as you too pursue your online endeavors. Read more »
The Ultimate Guide To Finding Answers To WordPress Questions
WordPress is no doubt an amazing website and blogging platform. Not only is it well coded, well supported, very user-friendly, (SEO) Search Engine Optimized and super flexible, it’s totally free! With an ever growing community of users, WordPress is quickly becoming one of the fastest growing Do-It-Yourself website programs out there. Yet, just like any piece of software, there is always going to be a need for good documentation and tutorials to help us, as users, figure out how to make WordPress do what we want and need it to do to achieve our online goals. Read more »
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