A few of the features we included in this theme are:

• WordPress 3.0 Custom menus
• Custom Header Uploader
• Theme Options Page – Like all of our premium themes have
• Widgetized sidebar

This theme is pretty clean and simple. When Brad and I were building this theme, our goal was to make a simple blogging theme with slick design elements.

As a special treat for our All Access Pass customers, we have created 3 more color versions that are available exclusively to you. You can download them in your member area. We did this as a way of showing our appreciation for you guys. Without you, we wouldn’t be able to do the job we love every day.

That’s enough of the sniffly stuff. Download Quick-Vid and give it a spin. If you like it, go to the WordPress Extend page and give it a ranking.

Download Quick-Vid Now!

This free webinar will be Wednesday, Sept. 1 from 11 a.m.-1 p.m. Central Standard Time.

Reserve your webinar spot today: https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/628340651

It’s designed for health and well being businesses like doctors, dentists, spas, chiropractors and more.

Click here to see purchase details and demo sites
OR …. get this plus 85+ other themes for one low price with our iThemes Access Theme Pass!

Here are some of the features included:

• Designed for Health and Well Being Business – Such as Dentists, Chiropractors, Spas, and more
• Home Page Rotating Images – this theme comes with a random image script that allows you to display multiple photos and post snippets on your home page
• 5 Color & Niche Versions
• Multi-Level Dropdown Menus -that allow your guests to navigate all your pages
• Upload Your Logo – Our image uploader feature allows you to personalize your site with your own logo
• 6 Widget Ready Areas – Use WP Widgets to put content in your sidebars and feature areas, including below the single posts for ads or email signups
• 4 Page Templates
• Theme Options that allow you to easily paste tracking code and enable features

Click here to see purchase details and demo sites
OR …. get this plus 85+ other themes for one low price with our iThemes Access Theme Pass!

(This was one of the reasons we started iThemes.tv – to communicate what we’re doing every week in a better, easier and personal way.)

But as you might know … in the last six months we’ve rolled out two more brands and with them new products in markets we didn’t have.

PluginBuddy rolled out in March to offer premium WordPress plugins like our hit plugin BackupBuddy and more.

WebDesign.com launched last December. It’s our WordPress web design training division and with it, we’ve hired Benjamin Bradley aka The Prof to lead it.

It’s important to note why we rolled these two brands out ….. so here’s some thoughts:

1. We had the people in place to do so – We hired Dustin Bolton right out of college and ultimately started PluginBuddy after we saw a need and he had the talent to roll out some rockin’ plugins. We hired Benjamin Bradley after we heard him teach on a part-time basis … and our community is loving him! We have the people in place to offer these products while not taking our focus off themes and support.
2. We want to offer our community more solutions to their problems – We’re wanting to be the all-in-one complete solution for our customers. This might sound like marketing speak, but it’s how we plan and dream … we listen to our customers, and what problems and needs they have. Like our colleagues in the WP development community, we’re most proud of what we do … and what we offer. We’ve heard a number of times that our community — who support us with their hard-earned money — wants OUR theme, plugin or training solution. That’s amazing confirmation about what we’re doing.
3. There was a BIG need – after WordCamp Boston I realized there needed to be a premium plugin market just like there was and continues to be a need for a premium theme market. And there has been an overwhelming need for professional web design training in WordPress since I started with it over 4 years ago. See No. 1 and No. 2…. and when presented with the need … it was obvious we should enter those markets.
4. It’s also about diversity and having a long-term sustainable businesses — I preach this stuff often because I believe in it. I’ve always wanted to have multiple revenue streams coming in so that if one stream takes a hit financially … we have others to take up the slack. Our team is building a long-term business together … and more importantly a life together doing what we are passionate about.

A word about focus …

There’s been rumors or maybe even talk that we’ve lost our focus. That’s laughable at best. If you re-read the above points, and still come to the conclusion that we’ve lacked focus … then you have not seen the one common element in all we are doing: WORDPRESS.

Our cause and our passion is …. WordPress.

Until we have big compelling reasons to think otherwise, we’re firmly invested in pioneering, innovating, extending and using WordPress.

We’ve got the support of our own community … the support and respect of the bigger WP community (including the founder), and love contributing back to a project that has only gotten BETTER!

WordPress rocks.

We want to rock with it.

We’re trying to provide all the things it doesn’t by default …. and that means:

• Themes
• Plugins
• Training

As I’ve said … we see big huge glaring needs in all of this third-party, add-on type market. And we have the resources, and yes, focus, to offer them.

When we fall behind, our community will let us know. And we’ll adjust and get better for them.

So … what about the future of themes at iThemes?

On Monday, I got together with our development team — the four guys ultimately responsible for building and releasing themes (and plugins).

I posed the questions: What do we want to do in the next 6 months? What do we want to accomplish in that time?

Here’s the answer: Some radically cool WordPress theme innovations.

Let’s just restate that again for those wondering … for the next couple of months we’re turning our near-full attention to building some rockin’ themes.

Yeah … and it has to do with our star, standout, blockbuster theme … iThemes Builder.

It has to do with leveraging the power of iThemes Builder and WordPress 3.0 … it has to do with filling needs in the market and in our community … and offering more and more innovative work.

What we believe is an outstanding theme product …. is only getting better. For you!

So in this post … let it be known … that what got us here …. WORDPRESS THEMES … (yes, we started this whole gig with themes when iThemes launched in Jan. 2008) …. is what KEEPS us here. We know that. That’s why we’re putting some special TLC on themes.

We’ll have more to share in the coming weeks … but after our day of dreaming and planning we’re excited, re-energized, re-focused about the next couple of months for us personally (yeah, we freakin’ love what we do) and for our community.

And while these four guys (@chrisjean, @dustinbolton, @adbrad, @mattdanner) focus on themes …. you can bet that we’re still going to be offering the same stellar support (@vanweerd & @srikat) … and even more awesome, professional WordPress web design training (@benjaminbradley).

BOOM!

Despite the popularity of Twitter and Facebook, email is still one of THE most effective ways to market your product or service.

People forget to come back to your site without a reminder or special offer. And they don’t always watch Twitter or Facebook … but they do check their email!

In fact, every product or brand we launch has an email newsletter of some sort attached to it. It’s part of our story because way back in 2008 we launched our entire business with a small email newsletter list.

Because of this, we created EmailBuddy, a premium email newsletter plugin for WordPress. And we’re offering a free online workshop on Friday, Aug. 20 from 3-4 p.m. (Central Time) to provide some email marketing tips and strategies and give you an overview of how to use EmailBuddy.

Register online here: https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/517108418

The Premier WordPress Developer Course

This is the premier developer focused course that teaches attendees how to use WordPress as the backbone and platform of all development projects. This is an advanced, intensive and comprehensive live training event geared to give developers the necessary tools to develop solid websites.

This course will take place over the place over the course of 3 days.  Wednesday, August 25th (6-8pm), Friday, August 27th (6-8pm), and Saturday, August 28th (8am-Noon) (All Central Time). So what is this course and who is it for?

This course is perfect for anyone who wants to create a better WordPress website for themselves or for their clients.  In order to understand how to “think outside the box” and create some creative uses for WordPress, you first need to understand the box.  This WordPress Developer Course will help you understand the box so you can make WordPress work for you and not have to do all the heavily lifting of development yourself.

Prerequisites: Some of you may be concerned that this course will be over your head or you are wondering if this is the right class to take.  It is helpful if you have worked with WordPress before and have used or seen how the iThemes Builder theme is used. It is also helpful if you don’t freak out when you look at CSS.  Most people, regardless of their level are going to find enormous benefits of attending this WordPress Developers Course.

Cost: This course costs $297 for non-WebDesign.com members.  Purchase and reserve your space today.  But all WebDesign.com members can attend this full 3-day course for no extra charge.  To learn more about WebDesign.com membership and benefits, check out our training page.

So what topics are going to be covered in during the 3-day event:

• Installing WordPress from SSH (or command line) to eliminate slow FTP wait
• Multisite installation
• Fully understand the wp-config.php file and all options

• Understanding security through obscurity
• Patch or fix common security issues (holes)
• Communicating security to your client

• Discover which plugins should be part of your Developer Toolbox
• Learn unconventional uses for popular plugins

• We will write our own Admin dashboard plugin, using a simple plugin framework that participants can replicate
• Understand when you should modify a current plugin or write your own

• We will be using the Builder theme
• Building a child theme from scratch
• Learn when to use style.css & when to us Style Manager
• Learn unconventional uses for Builder

• How to create a custom post type with code and also with a plugin
• Choose when you use a custom post type and when you just use categories and tags
• Assigning a layout in Builder based on custom post types

• Use the functions.php file to make your life and the life of your client easier
• Create your own set of shortcodes
• Learn when to use functions.php and when to use plugins

You can learn more about this live training webinar and additional webinars WebDesign.com offers at our events page.  If you want to have a live calendar feed of all WebDesign.com webinars, download the WebDesign.com ICAL file.

One of the exciting things coming from iThemes is the introduction of Builder Blocks. Currently, we have released the first Block, which is focused on restaurants. The Restaurant Block also comes with a new child theme that has some awesome custom design for the restaurant post-types. Find out more about Builder Blocks by reading our release post here.

Also new from iThemes, a news/magazine oriented theme called Syndicate News. This theme introduces a new featured content section that we are soon to release as a standalone plugin. It also takes advantage of some of the cool new WordPress features like Post Featured Images. You can check out the full release post here.

We are very excited about the newest plugin from PluginBuddy: EmailBuddy. EmailBuddy is an email newsletter solution for WordPress. Building email lists around your blog, or your products and services, is a vital function. Despite the popularity of social media like Twitter and Facebook, email marketing is not dead. You can’t rely on people coming back to your site or knowing about your new launches. Simple text-based group emails are extremely effective at getting your message out to the right audiences. With EmailBuddy, you can do that and more! EmailBuddy was released in beta last week, and is currently available to to all PluginBuddy Developer Suite customers. Find out more, and check out a quick video overview here.

Last, but most certainly not least, WebDesign.com has a huge premium WordPress Developer Course coming up.  The WordPress Developer Course is a premium 3-day course that covers many topics necessary for anyone wanting to take full advantage of WordPress as a development platform.  Topics include: advanced installation techniques, security issues, important plugins, how to use the iThemes Builder theme to is fullest, WordPress loop issues, how to build your own plugin, custom functions and many more best practices and examples will be covered in this live training event.  You can reserve your space in this 3-day event for only $297. (Link: http://webdesign.com/developer/summer2010) This advanced premium training is included in the annual WebDesign.com membership.  (Link: http://webdesign.com/training) So this is the perfect time to upgrade your account to a full WebDesign.com membership and take advantage of this WordPress Developer Course.

There are two free preview webinars, so that everyone can get a taste of the type of training that will happen during the full WordPress Developer Course.  The preview dates are:

- Friday, August 13th from 11am-Noon (CDT) – Reserve your spot today

- Wednesday, August 18th from 11am-Noon (CDT) – Reserve your spot today

The full class will take place over three day

- Wednesday, August 25th from 6-8pm (CDT)?Friday, August 27th from 6-8pm (CDT)?Saturday, August 28th from 8am-Noon (CDT)
Reserve your spot

Remember that if you are a WebDesign.com member you can attend this premium class for free and can register for the class after you login to your account.

We hope you guys will be a part of all the great things that are going on with us.

We’ve decided to make EmailBuddy only available for Developer Suite customers as we think our developer community will be able to fully take advantage (while not abusing) what EmailBuddy can do for their clients.

What is EmailBuddy?

EmailBuddy is an email newsletter solution for WordPress. Building email lists around your blog, or your products and services, is a vital marketing function. Despite the popularity of social media like Twitter and Facebook, email marketing is not dead. You can’t rely on people coming back to your site or knowing about your new launches. Simple text-based group emails are extremely effective at getting your message out to the right audience. With EmailBuddy, you can do that and more! Check out all the details of EmailBuddy here …

If you’re currently a Developer Suite customer, you can download the beta now in the member’s only area, and submit bug reports as well as feature requests in the forum here.

What’s New at iThemes:

• WebDesign.Com Events: Another full month of training ended with a premium course on Gravity Forms “Cracking the Gravity Code”. Members can access all of recordings in the university area. August will have another full calender of events. Check it out and sign up here: http://webdesign.com/events/

• Video Spoof Commercial: A take on the Old Spice commercial, iThemes presents “Builder: The Theme Your Theme Could Be Like”

• Builder Blocks: The newest innovation for Builder. Builder Blocks is “a solution that…offers a set of content options that a niche side would need or want” – Chris Jean. First one releasing is Restaurant Block - a Builder Block for restaurants to easily manage menus items, courses, allergies, etc. This block comes with a Builder Child Theme called “Entree”. Watch the video for a live demonstration of this new feature.

• All-Access Pass: Members of All-Access Pass will receive the new Builder Blocks and Child Themes automatically

• EmailBuddy: Dustin is still working very hard and the release is VERY SOON!

Join us every Tuesday at http://ithemes.tv at 11am CST for live news, chat, and an entertainment break from your work day