In addition to learning about privacy settings, filling out your profile – how and why you want to do this, how to access advanced options when creating posts and pages, how to insert custom characters and remove formatting, you’ll also learn a cool trick for creating an image gallery in a post or page easily and quickly – including adding captions and descriptions to each image.

Plus Benjamin will show you how to work with one of the best plugins every WordPress site should have – the Easy Theme and Plugin Upgrades Plugin.

WordPress 101 is a free video training series to help you learn – or review – the fundamentals of working with WordPress. Each week we cover a different topic. Check the WebDesign.com Events page to see the latest schedule of WordPress 101 webinars.

This theme is perfect for creatives of all types and gives you a unique way to showcase your work to the world. Whether you’re a photographer, designer, or simply looking to make your site look amazing, Kepler is definitely worth a look!

Below is a video where I walk you through some of my favorite aspects of Kepler.

Also don’t forget to check out our FREE Kepler Webinar this Friday at 3PM CDT where I’ll be going through a deep-dive of all of the great features of our newest child theme. You can register for this free webinar by clicking here.

Kepler Webinar Registration: https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/491706394

Kepler Demo Site: http://demos.ithemes.com/kepler/

Learn more about iThemes Builder.

IN THIS VIDEO: iThemes storyteller Ryan shows you widget basics using PluginBuddy’s Video Showcase plugin and WordPress 3.0′s Custom Menu widget.

Widgets are an integral part of your WordPress site.

With widgets, you can quickly and easily change the content and layout of your site without knowing code.

As the end of the year approaches, I wanted to remind you that the end of the Builder Birthday Blowout Sale is also approaching. Just until midnight central time on December 31, 2010, you can save almost 40% when you add the unlimited site license for Builder – which includes all the child themes as well – to your iThemes membership.

Not a member? Not a problem. As soon as you purchase Builder, your membership account will be set up and you will receive access to all the downloads, including any and all updates and support needs for the next year.

If you are an entrepreneur, this is the PERFECT TIME to get some last minute expenses covered in the 2010 tax year.

Not sure how Builder works or how it can make setting up your site easier, faster, and more flexible?

Sign up for the Free LIVE Builder Basics Workshop offered by WebDesign.com with Benjamin Bradley, the Prof.
The class is Wed., December 29th at 11am Central Time.

Reserve your seat today here ==> https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/454684083

In the meantime, here’s a past recording of the iThemes Builder Basics course.

Ready to take advantage of all the features Builder has to offer?
The Builder Birthday Blowout Sale continues only until midnight central time on December 31, 2010.
Get your unlimited license for only $79!

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

iThemes Updates:

• WordCamp Boulder – The crew returned from their first iThemes roadtrip to WordCamp Boulder. They have several stories to share about their experience!

• The RV Trip – For WordCamp Boulder, some of the gang hit the road in an RV, including friend and author Lisa Sabin-Wilson. Visit their official roadtrips site to see all the videos and pics.

• Interview with Lisa Sabin-Wilson - She stuck around one more day before heading home to join them on iThemes.tv! She was also a sport to do a “live interview” on the show about her books, the publishing process, and keeping up with WordPress development.

Short show today and everyone was pretty tired…but next week will be back in full swing with some big announcements!

Join us every Tuesday at 11am CST on http://ithemes.tv

What’s New at iThemes?

• Farewell James: Bittersweet news as our VP and friend, James Dalman, will be leaving the company. His official last day in the office was the day of the show! So you, ladies and gentlemen, get to see him live one last time.   “This parting is very amicable and you should expect him to be involved in the community as much as he can in his new endeavors.” – Cory Miller.   We wish James the best and will definitely miss him around the office! Good luck, James!

• WD News: In light of James’ departure, we will be welcoming Benjamin Bradley, “The Professor”, full-time to the WD brand. Also, all of his James’ previously scheduled webinars WILL be completed as they are listed on the calendar.

• Theme Updates: As you have likely heard….WP 3.0 has been released and it has some pretty cool new features. Builder and Flexx are the first to have the new Menus integration and we are adding support on our other 80+ themes asap. Also, you Essence fans will be seeing some love on this classic theme. Chris is excited to get working on some updates to Essence as it is not only our oldest theme, but remains a customer favorite.

• Flexx-Shopp Integration: If you’ve tuned in lately, you know we’ve been working with the boys at Shopplugin.net on some theme-plugin goodness.   “All you have to do to use Shopp with Flexx is activate both the plugin and the theme. All of the Shopp template files are now built in to Flexx.” -Matt.   These are NOT included with one another. You will still need to purchase a license of Flexx and a license of Shopp. Not using Shopp? You will see no difference in your theme. Flexx will still be the same ole Flexx. You can also read Shopp’s post on the integration here

• Mobile Plugin 3.0: Our Mobile Plugin now supports 3.0 menus. Download the latest version in your Member Panel.

• Site of the Week: BabyProductsNewZealand.com – Using Builder Child Theme-”Dark”.  Awesome example of how much customization you can do with the Builder Style Manager! Take a look at all the Builder Child Themes. Great site!

• Road Trip: The iThemes geeks are taking an RV trip up to WordCamp Boulder, July 9th-12th. Expect live blogging, twit pics, and *hopefully* some live video from the road. If you live en route to Boulder, let us know! Willing to stop for coffee. Keep up with the trip from the official Road Trip website.

• New Plugin: COMING SOON! “Email Buddy” – not a whole lot of details yet because Dustin was unavailable for the show…but basically it’s going to be awesome. Read some of Cory’s past posts on the power of Email: “Using Email Newsletters…” and “Enduring Value of a Good Email List“

Join us every Tuesday at 11:00am CST on http://ithemes.tv for the live show and chat

What’s New at iThemes This Week?

• WordPress 3.0 Updates – “Release is imminent!” – meaning, literally, it could drop any second. What can you do to get ready for one of the most anticipated WP releases? “Back everything up”, says Chris Jean. Another good piece of advice: if you don’t have to update immediately, wait a week. Allow major bugs/fixes to be worked out and then update. *Update* WP 3.0 has officially been released http://wordpress.org/

• Flexx Theme Updates – New WP 3.0 Menus integration. For those that want it, the option for multiple menus will be available. Check out the Flexx Blog Theme

• WebDesign.com - Free Webinar Bonanza! For the rest of June and July, there will be 9 Free webinars. First one kicked off today with Chris Jean’s “Fine-tuning Your Backup Strategy” to share expert knowledge on the different ways to safely backup your WP site. Other free webinars will be: “How to Create a Mobile Site”, “Building a Corporate Site”, “BuddyPress Workshop”, “How to Create a Church Website”, “Setting Up a Local Host” and many more! Check out the WebDesign.com Events page for times, dates and sign up links.

• James T-Shirt - James very much wanted to share this on the show today. When James and his wife left for vacation they were unfortunately in a car wreck in Miami headed to their anniversary cruise. Thankfully they were both okay! But one of our iThemes community members heard what happened and made James this awesome t-shirt to commemorate the eventful trip! See James surprise shirt in the video! Thank to Mike at Buffalo Graphix for the shirt!

• Site of the Week - SimplePress, the WordPress Forum Plugin, recently switched their site to Builder. Check out the cool new design at the link.

• Tip of the Week - Set up a local host so you can always work without being dependent on an internet connection. For more instruction and how-to on this topic, sign up for Benjamin’s FREE webinar “Setting Up a Local Host”.

• Book of the Week – “The Referral Engine” by John Jantsch. Check out his website - which side note – is built on Builder!

• WordCamp Boulder - Surprise Announcement! The iThemes gang is road-trippin’ to Boulder in an RV! Nothing like a bunch of geeks trekkin across the Great Plains… Check out the official Road Trip website and the funny video explains the whole idea.

As always, you can join us live each Tuesday at 11:00am CST on www.ithemes.tv

What’s New at iThemes?

• WordPress 3.0 – Our themes and plugins have been tested and will be ready for the official release. However, we do ask that if you find a bug or problem please report it to our Support Forum! We try to foresee and plan for issues, but it’s probable we missed one. Let our support moderators know and they will work on a fix asap.

• Plugin Buddy – Upgrade today! With the 3.0 release coming up, automatic upgrades had to be changed on our side. You may have to manually upgrade to the latest version, but then after that automatic upgrades will work fine. Go ahead and upgrade all of your plugins in preparation for 3.0

• Builder Updates – “Not to sound like a broken record…” – Chris Jean. Still working on improvements to the Style Manager and hopes to release “very soon”! Something new brewing…Chris is interested is pursuing an “Easy Version” of Builder for those who aren’t used to or ready to tackle all of the advanced options in the backend of Builder. And when said person is ready to use those options…can then switch and use the “Advanced” Builder. This is still in the brain-storming stage, but if you have any ideas or feedback for this project please share either in the Support Forum for Builder or email Chris directly.

• Shopplugin.net – Cory and the iThemes gang got to meet the developers of Shopplugin at WC Raleigh, and then again at WC Chicago. Good conversations results in good production! Matt has been working on getting the Shopplugin to integrate nicely with our Flexx Themes. Some future ecommerce projects are also in talks…

• WebDesign.com - Many a webinars on the horizon! Join James this Saturday for Part II of the Consultant’s Course. Today was a preview for that course called “Getting Great Clients” - which will be available soon for WD members in the membership area for re-watch. Check out the WD Calendar for more upcoming courses and webinars.

• Mobile Plugin Webinar - Join Matt for this FREE webinar on how to create a mobile version of your site using PluginBuddy’s Mobile Plugin. Friday June 18th at 11:00 am CST. This is a live webinar so sign up now to ensure a spot!

• BuddyPress with Lisa Sabin-Wilson - Sign up for this FREE webinar workshop with author of “BuddyPress for Dummies”, Lisa Sabin-Wilson. Date: June 23rd Time: 1-2:00 pm CST

• WordCamp Chicago Recap - Cory, Chris, and first-timer Brad all attended WC Chicago. Each shares some stories and awesome moments from the weekend, including Cory’s post-speech assault with GoDaddy stress balls. Click for video!
  

As always, thanks for watching and join us every Tuesday for the live show at 11:00 am CST at http://ithemes.tv

*This week’s video will start rather abruptly, but I promise you didn’t miss much!

What’s New at iThemes?

• iThemes Builder - Style Manager and SEO Options are still in the works. Chris is doing some “final testing” and hopes to have them out of BETA soon! If you want to stay up to date with Builder and feature development, follow the specific Builder Twitter account @ithemesbuilder - Chris updates it as he works!

• Builder Bootcamp - This is an Advanced Builder Bootcamp – not for the faint of WordPress. It will be held THIS Saturday, June 5th, from 8:00am- Noon (CST). Topics covered will include: Advanced Layouts, Styling Techniques, SEO optimization and more. Sign up here!  Cost for individual class is $97

• WordCamp Chicago – This weekend Cory, Chris and Brad will be traveling to the Windy City for WC Chicago. Chris and Cory will both be speaking. Chris will be covering Backups (in a 40 min time frame…something worth seeing) and Cory will be talking about Entrepreneurship. If you’re in the Chicago area or going to be at WordCamp, let them know!

• BuddyPress Webinar – Our good friend, and author of “BuddyPress for Dummies”, Lisa Sabin-Wilson will be doing a FREE BuddyPress webinar workshop on June 23, 1:00-2:00pm CST. Sign up here!

• Interview with Shopplugin.net – Cory got a change to talk to Jonathan Davis of the ecommerce plugin, Shopplugin.net, at WordCamp Raleigh. Watch the video for some news and teasers about some future collaborations…

• Featured Site of the Week: We actually have 2 sites this week to share! First up is http://www.phatpixels.co.uk/ – Using the Builder Theme, Chris had to double-check the source code to make sure! Second site of the week is also using our Builder Theme and it is http://blog.robynpromo.com/

• Tip of the Week: From official full-timer, Brad: Google Fonts. The new fonts hosted by Google for use on your website. You need to use the API code and it can be sort of a hassle to do it yourself. So Benjamin Bradley is working on a plugin that will make it easier to integrate Google Fonts with your website. It will be released through PluginBuddy.com

Matt and James were not on the show as they are both on vacation (not together – with their wives) and we wish both of them safe and fun travels!

Join us next week as always on http://ithemes.tv at 11:00am CST Tuesdays.

Chat, hear news, and make fun of Cory all in one show…