The people who are following these accounts can then see your tweets which could mean some much more targeted traffic, here are the ones that i found.

Finding news about #design and #webdesign and RT them

hashwp #wp
Finding news about #wp and #wordpress and RT them

Retweeting the people who talk about #wordpress

Finding news about #win and #windows and RT them

Retweeting #html #css #htm #xml

Finding news about #social and RT them

Finding news about #php and RT them

Finding news about #photoshop and RT them

Finding news about #photo and RT them

Finding news about #linux and RT them

Finding news about #joomla and RT them

Finding news about #java and RT them

Finding news about #iphone and RT them

Finding news about #fail and RT them

Example of Hash Tags In Use

Here you can see the #wordpress tag in action this can then be re-tweeted by the hashwordpress account, but obviously you can tag any of your tweets with any thing you want making it easy to use twitter search to find relevant content.

Comments

Do you know of any twitter accounts that re-tweet your specific tweets? Please leave a link in the comments

About The Site

Texture lovers is a site that only collects free to use textures that can be used for commercial and personal use without permission, but you’ll also find texture related inspiration and tutorials.

1) If you have free to use textures you can submit a link to me and ill add them to the site. (You can also see the nice leather texture in the close up.)

2) Its really easy to share Texture Lovers with your twitter friends just click the twitter bird and it will take you to twitter and make a message for you to update you status, why not even follow Texture Lovers on Twitter.

3) That symbol means “external link” you’ll see it on the archive pages and main page, this takes you directly to the website so you don’t have to bother clicking in to the post if you don’t want.

If you do click on the image that will take you to the post and you can see related posts and other information about the post.

4) You can easily see which category a post has be filed under hopefully this will make it easy to go straight to the category your most interested in.

5) You can browse by tags if you want to find something more specific, in the future I shall be adding a archive of all the tags on the site but at the minute you can see the 10 most popular tags.

Close Ups

Updates

I’ve still got plenty of textures that i have to add and the site will be continually updated until we’ve got every last one added!

Feedback

Take a look around the site and let me know what you think in the comments on here, do you think that this site might be helpful for you?, let me know you feedback id be happy to hear from you.

Credit to Wefunction for the screenshot presentation idea.

The New Project

The new project is actually almost finished and ready to be released its sort of like a directory for textures from around the web but only for free textures that can be used for commercial and personal use without giving attribution (this means you can optionally give credit back to the person who made the textures)

Steven Snell from designm.ag made this post 12 blogs with freebies for commercial design use which demonstrates some great blogs offering these types of textures and freebies.

Do you have Free Textures?

Have you created any textures that you have released under the creative commons license (same as Flickr) and you waiver the attribution (meaning its optional for someone to give credit back to you when used in a piece of work) or you would like to.

Waivering the attribution is important!

Please leave a comment with a link to where your textures can be found and ill do my best to add them to the new site.

Note: The textures will not be hosted on the site and will be directly linked to, I understand that in most cases it is strictly forbidden to sell and redistribute the textures.

Your Details

If possible leave you full name or a name that people know you best as, along with your link to the textures, because ill be making a list of people who give permission to use their textures on the about page of the site.

Alternatively you can use the contact form, to let me know that you have free to use textures, if you prefer not to leave a public comment.

Does this make sense to you?

I hope this made some sense and isn’t confusing you, let me know if you don’t fully understand in the comments and ill try to clarify.
]]> http://www.designshard.com/general/textures-for-commercial-personal-use-with-no-attribution/feed/ 8 http://www.designshard.com/general/6-wordpress-themes-giveaway-worth-249-comment-to-win/ http://www.designshard.com/general/6-wordpress-themes-giveaway-worth-249-comment-to-win/#comments Thu, 23 Apr 2009 13:10:50 +0000 Max Stanworth http://www.designshard.com/?p=2311

Competition Closed: Brought to you by: Rich Wp

THE WINNER IS:

Name: sedFEIS – Area 1

Thank you all for entering and your great comments about the themes, congrats to sedFEIS too.

You shall be emailed shortly by Felix from RichWp

SPECIAL 50% DISCOUNT

Plus you can now get 50% off any of the themes if you didnt win by using dicount code: designshard until 29th April 2009

The Themes

The themes are really elegant and clean, there are a few different varieties such as blog themes and photo themes.

OTHER DETAILS

• It seems ever body is a winner with the 50% discount code (designshard)
• Competition ends Tuesday 28th 2009
• The winner shall be chosen at random using a database query.

THE WINNER IS!

Congratulations to Hip Hop Makers – www.hiphopmakers.com

He shall be contacted and the theme delivered!

To choose the winner i used this MySql query on design shards database, it saves on paper and time and is totally random.

MORE TO COME

Don’t worry if you didn’t win because they have more ideas for themes up their sleeves, that will be given away just like this one, they will also be available to be buy on their web site so stay tuned for that! why not follow Obox on twitter and check out this post on there blog for more info.

Im glad that Design Shard has got its hands on one of the great theme releases by the guys at from-the-couch who are also the same people at obox design , its pack with cool admin extras and a vibrant design. read below to see what its all about and how to win a copy.

WHAT MAKES THIS THEME SPECIAL

‘Hash One’ is the first theme to come out of the Obox Signature Series. This theme is aimed at those who want their personal blog to stand out well above the rest with a unique design which has a subtle, stylish impact on your visitors.

Sticking with the Obox Design style we have implemented all the elements which we have mentioned in our blog and video show. This includes the ‘Gina Effect’, The Ten Pixel Method, and correct margins & padding.

Along with an awesome design for your Wordpress blog, Hash One also includes video features. The home page will incorporate your five latest videos which uses slick jQuery effects to switch between each show.

CUSTOM SITE FEATURES INCLUDE

• Customizable homepage
• Customizable Menu Structure
• Custom and/or 3rd Party Advert Management
• Threaded Comments
• Featured Video Capabilities
• Social links (Flickr and Twitter)
• Social bookmarking and post promotion (digg, tweetmeme etc.)
• Insert your Google analytics code
• Widgetized Sidebar

COMPETITON DETAILS:

By entering this competition you will stand a chance to win 1 copy of the Hash One wordpress theme which is only limited to only 40 copies ( 35 given away on from-the-couch and 5 copies to be given away on selected blogs inc design shard ). Simply follow the steps below in order to participate:

1. Leave a comment, ( express what you like about the theme , any thing you want )
2. Remember to put a valid email address in the comment field so you can be contacted if you win
3. Feel free to tweet and retweet about this great theme.

And there you have it, you have officially entered the competition! Good Luck! Winners will be selected through a random draw!!

Please note closing date of this competition is Friday, April the 3rd 2009

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SCREENSHOTS

If you want to see more of this theme then go over to from-the-couch blog and check out the screen shots.

DISCLAIMER

While this theme is free, we will not support any issues which arise due to code/design/css customization. The intention of this series is that it is a limited edition, premium Wordpress theme which is exclusive to the winners of this competition, please do not replicate or redistribute this themes design. This theme does not support Internet Explorer 6 and does not come with the original PSD files.

The Wing Vectors

You can take one look at this set and say “Awesome” because Go media have really out done themselves with this one, I can only imagine how many hours it has taken to perfect each and every feather ( there’s also some bat wings in there i notice! ). The pack costs only $9 / £6 and for the time it will save you and the quality that they are compared to many other vector products. These really are for professional looks, its crazy

I was looking at their other vector wing sets and these simply blow them away in the detail and craftsman ship, I’m guessing these will be mainly used by the avid tee-shirt and apparel designer, and rightly so because they will definitely take a design to a new level.

Go Media

In my eyes Go media is one of the friendliest companies on the web that I know of (or at least in the design sector), they serve up free vectors from time to time to give you a taste of what they’ve been working hard on, They more often than not reply to your comments on their blog Go mediazine, they even tweet, these are all the signs of a great company doing everything right. Getting a response from a company can go along way especially when your treated like an individual. With blogs and social media platforms available to day this means companies can be one on one with its customers and like minded people.

They share their passion for design with tutorials, that are well received by the design community, they also blog about their experiences within business, now this can be very insightful for some one starting out in their own ventures and many will be able to relate to and learn from that, making Go media a great asset.

What I did with my Go media wings

I got my set of wings and was immediately excited to see 14 different types of wings, Angel, bat, eagle etc one for every occasion. I’m not an apparel designer so my brain got thinking because I knew I wanted to do a post about them but also wanted to create something with them as well (it had been snowing all day so there wasn’t much else to do!) so I came up with this…

Guardian of Design Shard

Using one of the angel type wings from Go media I also grabbed a picture of a knight, an ancient door and a little bit of creativity.

What do you think about it, it was quite rushed and completed in about 2 hours, the light source might be a little off but I think it turned out quite well,

The styling of the wings was already really slick so I wanted to carry this type of vector styling through the image so I made some swirls with the same thick border to act as appendages coming from the wings and wrapping around the knight, as if it is alive!

Source Files

The ancient door was found on Flickr by using the Creative Commons search and the knight was found on sxc free stock site, the wings are from Go medias hand drawn collection

• Go media Hand Drawn Wings
• Ancient Door
• Knight in shining Armour

Your Thoughts

So what do you think of Go Media? Have you used any of their vectors in you designs? If you have feel free to post links and share your comments below… what do you think of my creation, be nice!

Are you thinking about changing your hosting company, I have, the value and support is mind blowing. I’ve recently changed my hosting from Godaddy to WP WebHost, and its going great. You can find out more below in this review.

About Wp WebHost

WP WebHost is a hosting company that is dedicated to Wordpress powered sites, they are a team of web masters that are enthusiastic about Wordpress, Wp WebHost began when they were annoyed about other hosting companies not taking Wordpress in to consideration on there servers and there fore not having the correct settings to run there blogs properly, so they created there own hosting service specifically for this cause, Wp WebHost, If you want to know more you can visit there about page that has plenty of information.

Pricing & Cost

They have one hosting plan that you can choose but they can also tailor a hosting plan specially for you needs, i think this makes it allot simpler to get started.

Freedom Plan

So the freedom plan which is what Design Shard is hosted on is great you get large amounts of bandwidth per month and can host up to 50 web sites on the same host. Ill outline the pricing and what you get below

• 50GBs of web space
• 500GBs of monthly bandwidth
• Host up to 50 domain names
• Wordpress-compatible server
• Wordpress-savvy support team
• $5/month / $80/Year / $120/2 years

Im always creating sites so I jumped at the chance to host with Wp WebHost because of the amount of websites you can have on the same host , I was hosting with Godaddy and I could only have sub domains, with this you can have up to 50 actual domains so that’s 50 website depending on your 50Gbs of storage and 500Gbs of bandwidth per month. There support team is great and would almost defiantly recommend you a hosting plan to suit your needs

I know Godaddy offers an ultimate hosting plan with multiple domains but the pricing is what put me off, if you can calculate how much bandwidth you will use per month you can clearly see how this hosting plan would benefit you.

Money Back Guarantee

Ive noticed on there site they have a guarantee of 100 days that if your not happy you get your money back you cant be fairer than that, they aren’t the sort of company to take you for a ride or at least I haven’t got that impression, I cant see why you would be unsatisfied.

Customer Support

when ever i had to contact support via email their response was within the day sometimes with in the hour which was great to fit round a busy schedule. Their team is well experienced with Wordpress and can help you with your Wordpress related problems with ease. I can only say good things about there support which you may not get with bigger hosting companies.

WpWebHost Features

So apart from the features I out lined above in pricing & cost you get more, ill outline some that stand out for me and I find excellent. But you can see the full list over on there specification page

• 99.5% Uptime
• Unlimited Subdomains
• Compatible for PHP, MySQL Database, and Perl scripts.
• Unlimited MySQL Database
• POP3, IMAP & Web-based E-mail Access
• Perfect Hosting Envinronment for WordPress 2.0 – 2.7

As you can see you can create as many databases as you want as well as sub domains, its perfect for hosting Wordpress but you can host you PHP and database driven web sites as well.

A few Extra Details

You maybe interested to know a few things that I noted when using this hosting service.

Control Panel

The control panel is cPanel, you may have experience with this already or not, I had not used it but had known about it, its really simple to navigate and isn’t complex.

They have Fantastico installed in the control panel which makes installing Wordpress really easy.

Mail Accounts

You can create unlimited mail accounts, I managed to import all my mail from my Godaddy online account to my new one on Wp WebHost as well as downloading them to my computer with outlook.

Domain Names

All my domain names are on Godaddy so I can cancel my hosting and keep my domains, you could also transfer them to Wp WebHost but I chose not to make life easier, you have to change the name servers in Godaddy to the Wp Webhost servers and you’ll be set to go, they provide all the information in a welcome email.

Test URL

So before you change your nameservers you can set up your site on a test URL that they provide, this ensures that everything works just fine and all you files are uploaded properly before you swap over. There is basically no downtime when swapping servers as long as your current hosting is active as well.

Guides To Moving Wordpress

I did a bit of Googling to see what I could find to help me change hosts without bothering support and I found an extremely useful article that I followed to move Wordpress to my new server.

I followed this guide and every thing was fine: how to transfer your wordpress blog from one host to another host

Conclusion

Design Shard is now Hosted with WP Web Host and its been a really great experience so far, support is fast at responding to questions about their hosting and about Wordpress, the features of there servers are better than what I was on at Godaddy! I would recommend them with confidence if your thinking of changing hosts.

They really do care, if you know of Naldzgraphics design blog, he was having alot of problems with his hosting and they were trying there best to help him out.

Comments

Do you have any recommended hosting providers, what works well for you? are you hosted with Wp WebHost? How is it going? Thinking about changing hosts? Got any questions? Please leave a comment.

Congrats to the winners and hopefully youll beable to make good use of your prize, i hope to have a few more similar competions in the future so stay tuned everyone.

The Winners

The winners are listed below with the prize that they have won, along with there comment on how they would use their prize.

Canvas Print Winner

Name: Jason Lengstorf

“Coincidentally, I just started a personal project that involves canvas prints; I thought it would be cool to do caricatures of each of my family members, print them on canvas, and stretch them like paintings. It was supposed to be a Christmas gift, but I ran out of time…”

250 Postpost card Winners

Name: H Q Brannon

“I’d choose the POSTCARDS to advertise my illustration and design business – sent to current clients and new prospects!”

Name: Bill

“I would use the postcards to get the word out about my web design business”

Claiming Your Prize

All winners will be contact by me to let you know that you have won, i will also send you details to uprinting where they will then contact you about receiving your prize.

How To Enter

Leave a comment at the end of this blog post, saying which you would like the most the pack of 250 postcards or the 18″ x 24″ canvas print and describe what you would use them for.

Please make sure you leave your name and a valid email address in the appropriate fields when commenting, so that you can be contacted if you are a winner.

Winners will be randomly selected using a random number generator you must only comment once.

The Prizes

• 250 free postcards for 2 lucky readers
• 1 free 18×24 canvas print for one lucky reader

3 Winners Total

You can choose from any of the stocks for these items.

Rules

Winners in the United States and Canada qualify for free shipping. Shipping fees will apply to winners outside these areas.

Closing Date

This competition is now closed and winners will be annouced and notified on friday 8th jan 2009 , thanks to all who entered.