Jim Barraud

The boy circa 2004

The girl turns five.

I’m proud to announce my first publicly available Wordpress theme, Manifest. Manifest is based on a previous design of my personal site. It’s a theme I rather liked and didn’t want to see go to waste. So instead of letting it die off in a folder on my hard drive, I decided to clean it off, polish it up and release it into the wild.

My goal with Manifest was to create a clean and streamlined theme that focused on the content and not the distractions. It utilizes a single column, 500 pixel wide layout. No sidebars. No widgets.

Some highlights:

• Valid XHTML Markup. It currently validates as XHTML Transitional. That is until you start embedding all those crazy YouTube videos and Google Ads ;)
• Microformat support. The posts are marked up using the hAtom microformat. Which an increasing number of search engines (like Yahoo!) are beginning to support and index.
• 404 page. I’ve included the standard Wordpress 404 template, which in addition to a nice “not found” message, it provides your readers with a list of recent articles.
• Archives template. An archives template that supports categories, tags and monthly views.
• Links template. A basic links page template. This isn’t a standard Wordpress template so you’ll need to add it as a new page. But it will pull in any links you add to the Links section in the admin.
• Google ad (sorta) support. There a designated spot on the single post pages for Google or any other type of text ads. Commented out by default, but there if you want it.
• IE6 unsupported. This is a feature, not a bug. If a user attempts to view your site in IE6, they’ll be presented with an unstyled (but perfectly functional) site. Along with a friendly message suggesting they upgrade their browser.
• Some webkit visual candy. It’s minor but hovering over the buttons will provide smooth rollover transitions in Safari 4 and Google Chrome thanks to their new CSS based transition properties.

Feel free to use as you please, I just ask that you keep the Manifest link at the bottom. Thanks and enjoy.

Demo and Download Info

Today marks the release of Pronto - All is Golden. Pronto is the side project of Wilco keyboardist Mikael Jorgensen. Don’t let the Wilco association give you preconceived notions of the sound of the record. It’s less of the Wilco alt-country sound and more of a grass roots Americana sound. I’ve heard some refer to it as AM Radio rock. I’m not exactly sure what that is (I hear the older folks used to listen to it), but what I do know is that it sounds damn good and you should pick yourself up a copy at the the Contraphonic web store, iTunes or Amazon.

In addition to the new album, today also marks the launch of the new Pronto site. I assisted in the XHTML/CSS development and Wordpress implementation. Visit today to find out the latest band news, tour dates and sign up for their newsletter. They’re also on that hip new thing called Twitter, so you can follow them there as well.

Full Disclosure: The exceptional drummer of Pronto, Mr. Greg O’Keeffe, is not only a friend of mine, but also my employer. While that may insinuate some bias in my opinion of the album, it doesn’t. I’d just as openly let him know that it sucks if I thought it did… right after my yearly review.