So far, today has started out great. In addition to the first round of the NCAA tournament starting off today, I just noticed that WordPress Hacks has reached its second milestone. Today is the first time we jumped the 1000 subscriber mark! Here is a quick screen shot I took to remember it by:
As for WordPress Hacks news, I am pleased to announce that we have added WordPress forums and a new theme to WordPress Hacks. I hope to have the forums stocked with information sometime this weekend. As for the theme change, this is only the first phase. I have a few more features to add, a comment section redesign to work on, and I am going to be adding more color to it in the coming weeks to try to make the theme a little brighter.
If the theme changes look a little familiar, that is because it was based upon Brian Gardner’s Revolution Pro theme. One thing many people don’t realize is that many of these premium WordPress themes are not designed specifically to be installed and activated (although most can be and will work well). They are designed to be used as templates for someone to create their own design. If you dig through Brian’s showcase, you can see tons of examples of people that have taken one of the Revolution designs and adjusted it to fit their needs.
Some things you’ll find now here at WordPress Hacks:
- A bigger emphasis on Gravatars – I’ve talked in the past about how I felt it was important to support Gravatars. In addition to finding them with the comments you leave, you’ll now also find them in the recent comments section of the sidebar.
- Recent trackbacks are now displayed – Whenever you send a trackback or pingback to WordPress Hacks, it will now be displayed in the sidebar with a link back to your website.
- Better emphasis on categories – In a recent review of WP Hacks, Ben Cook pointed out a couple things that he felt would improve our site. The first tip was that our archives need more emphasis. Our categories are now at the top and have drop-down’s for any children categories. His other tip will be addressed in phase two of the redesign.
The next phase will include more color and an improved comment section, among other things. In the meantime, if you run into any browser incompatibilities, please let us know. You can also let us know if there are any other improvements you would like to see.
Thanks again for supporting WordPress Hacks! The great readership support, comments, and community around this blog makes it so much fun to write for.
Kyle Eslick
Kyle Eslick is WordPress enthusiast who took his passion for WordPress to the next level back in 2007 by launching WPHacks.com as a place to share hacks and review WordPress-related products.
I would love to switch up my theme. I really need to start updating my site more as well. ...
This is one great package and great designs for WordPress. Would really like to use these! 
This is a great collection of wordpress themes. I really love it, the premium themes are looking stunning. I will ...
i want... i want to be a winner ... I have never had a premium membership .. maybe you can ...
I am working with a few friends to advance their online presence to help them in their careers, and this ...
My several sites need an overhaul and Elegant Themes have a number of lovely designs that I could readily implement!
JHS
Colloquium 
Looking good Kyle! And congrats on passing the 1k mark!
Great News! 1000 subscribers looks really impressive! Congratulations!
Best Regards from Bulgaria!
P.S. By the way, two days ago our blog also obtained 1000+ subscribers! I know how you feel.
Congrats! The revolution theme fits perfect for this blog. It feels more like you made enhancements rather then a complete make-over which is great.
Looks great, I’ll feature it on my gallery shortly. I’m using Safari for Mac, and the WordPress Category header item is slightly lower than the other heading, which you may want to fix.
@ Ben – Thanks for the suggestions!
@ Todor – Thanks! Congrats are due for you as well!
@ Ptah – Thanks! That is kind of how I felt as well. I went after the same look as before, but I am taking better advantage of screen real estate now.
@ PJ – Thanks for the heads up on this. This will probably sound crazy, but I never thought to check it in Safari. I just did and see what you mean. Its on the list of adjustments to make.
I love the improvements here. The new theme does give it an “updated” feeling rather then a complete makeover. It still “FEELS” like hackwordpress, but now it looks a lot better. Keep up the great writing, I love it here
^ # 1004 Actually I joined yesterday but who’s keeping track? You, me, and google reader have become best of friends (on my side of the screen).
Congratulations Kyle. I discovered Hack WordPress a few months ago and you were at 600 subscribers and now you are at 1,000. You definitely have a good thing going with this blog, keep up the great work and the great content.
In the meantime, have you already explained how your RECENT COMMENTS are in the sidebar was created? I really like that and would like to implement that on my own site.