Written by Alex Denning, a Twitter fan who has finally got around to launching his own blog, Nometech.com!

Recently WordPress has had a huge popularity surge, with the rise of ‘magazine themes’. At the same time that WordPress’ popularity has soared, people have forgotten about what WP is all about: fundamentally, it is a blogging system. Trying to keep that in mind, I’m releasing my first WordPress theme, NomeBlog.

NomeBlog is as simple or as complicated as you’d like it to be; those of you who don’t have much experience coding or don’t want to edit your theme files, you can just install the theme and leave it at that. However, those of you who are into theme customization, you’re going to love NomeBlog! Why? I’ll run down some of the features:

• XHTML valid code
• Auto-image resizing
• Breadcrumbs
• Awesome jQuery navigation
• Widgetised sidebar
• Author info at the bottom of posts
• Related posts automatically displayed
• iPhone support
• ‘Login’ option displayed on the navbar to those logged in
• Customised default gravatar (+gravatar support)
• Support for WP-Pagenavi
• Sidebar blog
• Built in archive
• 125×125 ad ready
• Feedburner subscribe by email ready
• Homepage thumbnail support

NomeBlog prides itself in ease of use – I originally built the theme, or at least what I based NomeBlog on for one of my other sites, Nometet.com. Why did I build it? It was taking me too long just to post something on Nometet, resizing images, inserting custom fields; I needed something that did the hard work for me. The solution was to build the NomeBlog theme.

As I’ve already said, NomeBlog is as simple or as complicated as you’d like it to be, so I’ll quickly run through some of the more advanced features:

• phpthumb built in – the script that timthumb was built off, phpthumb is the image resizer to end all image resizers; it is great! Check out the getting started guide (link below) for details of how to use it in posts, alternatively, you can create the custom field ‘Image’ and on the homepage will be displayed a thumbnail of the image you’ve input.
• iPhone support – as I wrote here a short while ago, iPhone support is becoming increasingly a necessity. NomeBlog supports the iPhone through the use of the iWPhone plugin, which I’ve customized. You can download the customized version of the plugin (which looks great!) here.
• Customised default gravatar – fed up with random monsters and boring silhouettes being displayed next to Gravatar-less-comments? NomeBlog has built in support for your own customized Gravatar. Just upload your own image file (again, see the getting started guide) and you’re done.

It is hard to show off all the features briefly, so for the full, complete list of features and details on how to get started, check out my new blog, where there is a lengthy getting started guide. To keep updated, make sure you grab the Nometech RSS feed too!

And of course, you can view a live demo here or download the theme. It is free, but please keep the link back. Any comments would be appreciated.

With many of the top theme designers switching their focus to creating and selling premium WordPress themes, it is always good to see some premium quality WordPress themes being released for free.

Today’s theme is called WP Freemium, and it was originally created by Ptah Dunbar for BloggingTips.com. It looks like due to some complications, BloggingTips.com decided to go another route so Ptah has made this theme available for anyone for free.

Here are the advertised features:

• Valid xHTML Strict 1.0 / CSS
• Code is well commented for the non technical savvy
• Sidebar Widgets enabled
• Custom Front Page with 3 featuring articles
• By default – 6 advertisement spots on all pages
• Gravatars highly Supported for Comments, Author Profiles and Author Posts.
• Author Byline + Promotion on single pages
• Author Profiles feature prominent image of the author with bio, contact details and more
• Image Gallery Support
• Print Stylesheet is included.
• Favicon + iPhone Webclip icon Ready
• SEO Optimized title tags and headers
• 404 Error Page notifies admin each time someone stumbles across a broken link so they can fix it.

I was unable to find a demo, so here are some screenshots provided by the author:

Homepage

Single Page

Author Bio

Author Page

I really like how this theme was setup for a blog that has multiple authors, making it a great free option for anyone starting a multi-author WordPress blog.

If you’d like to get a copy for your WordPress blog, click over to get WP Freemium.

Updated: August 6, 2009

Latest Update: Removed all dead links.

I have always been of the opinion that WordPress 2-column themes give your site a much better look than 3-column themes, and I think if you look around the blogosphere at what most full time bloggers use, you will see that these people tend to find the most success with 2-column themes.

There are definitely a lot of brilliant and useful 2-column themes available for WordPress users, so I figured that I would throw together a post compiling screen shots and links to some of the best 2-column themes available:

Left Sidebar 2-Column Themes

Integral Design

Source | Download | Demo

Right Sidebar 2-Column Themes

Typebased Theme

Source/Demo | Download

PassionDuo Theme (3 Colors)

Green: Demo | Download, Red: Demo | Download, Blue: Demo | Download

Green Tech Theme

Source | Download | Demo

Lemon Twist Theme

Source/Demo | Download

WP Freemium Theme

Source | Download

GlossyBlue Theme

Source | Download | Demo

Salmon Theme

Source | Download | Demo

iTheme Theme

Source | Download | Demo

StudioPress Theme

Source | Download | Demo

Crystal 1.0 Theme

Source | Download | Demo

Mag on Wood Theme

Source | Download | Demo

Shades of Blue Theme

Source | Download | Demo

Blue Sensation Theme

Source | Download | Demo

Boxy Mint Theme

Source | Download | Demo

Daily32 Theme

Source | Download | Demo

Vintage Theme

Source | Download | Demo

Blues Theme

Source | Download | Demo

Silicon Theme

Source | Download | Demo

SimpleWP Theme

Source | Download | Demo

YGo Just Simple Theme

Source | Download | Demo

Clean and Mean Theme

Source | Download | Download “Extras”

Evolution Theme

Source | Download | Demos: Blue, Green, Red

Cool Water Theme

Source | Download | Demo

Blue Block Theme

Source | Download | Demo

Feel your 2-column theme belongs on this list? Feel free to comment below with a link and I’ll check it out!

Getting a good design for your blog can be either difficult or expensive if you use most blogging software, but the popular open source software WordPress supports the ability to easily install and use various WordPress themes. As a result, the incredible WordPress community has stepped up and people from all around the world are offering great themes for anyone to use, and most have no cost associated with them.

As this site is dedicated to covering the world surrounding WordPress, I thought it would be a good idea to have a series of theme galleries dedicated to some of the best free and premium WordPress themes available to WordPress users.

In the interest of preserving load times, I have divided our featured themes up and separated them into their own specific posts:

Premium WordPress Theme Galleries:

• Premium WordPress Themes Gallery
• News and Magazine WordPress Themes Gallery
• Small Business WordPress Themes Gallery
• Blogging WordPress Themes Gallery
• Portfolio WordPress Themes Gallery
• Video & Photo WordPress Themes Gallery

Other WordPress Theme Galleries:

• Ultimate WordPress Themes Gallery
• Best Free WordPress Themes Gallery
• Free Magazine WordPress Themes Gallery
• 2-Column WordPress Themes Gallery
• 3-Column WordPress Themes Gallery
• 4-Column WordPress Themes Gallery
• 125×125 Banner WordPress Theme Gallery

Want to see your WordPress theme featured on one or more of these posts? Feel free to contact us and if we like the look, we’ll get it added to the appropriate galleries!