If you are holding your breath while waiting for the final Windows XP Service Pack 3 to drop, you might as well expire and start breathing at a normal pace. Closing in on two months since Windows Vista SP1 and Windows Server 2008 were released to manufacturing, Microsoft is yet to go gold with the bits for the third and final service pack of Windows XP, despite indications that the finish line is on the immediate horizon. But while there is nothing new on the XP SP3 download front, items associated with the service pack, namely documentation, have been updated and re-released.The new published date for the Windows XP Service Pack 3 Overview is March 21, 2008, at the end of the past week. Microsoft has failed to pinpoint the changes to the documentation, if any. “Windows XP Service Pack 3 (SP3) includes all previously released updates for the operating system. This update also includes a small number of new functionalities, which do not significantly change customers’ experience with the operating system. This white paper summarizes what is new in Windows XP SP3,” reads the description for the Windows XP Service Pack 3 Overview.

Available both as .pdf and .xps, the white paper offers a perspective over what XP SP3 contains, with references pointing to previously released functionality, as well as new and enhanced features, and the best way to deploy XP SP3. At a superficial glance, the new overview contains no additions or modification in comparison to the previously released documentation. Still, the alteration of the publishing date does indicate that Microsoft is moving the XP SP3 bits closer and closer to RTM, with no decisive word from the company as to when Service Pack 3 will go gold.

On March 6, 2008, Microsoft made re-released the RC2 build of XP SP3 initially made available in February. XP SP3 RC2 Build 3311 was followed by XP SP3 5503, a private build which was leaked to torrent trackers. Microsoft did confirm that XP SP3 5503 was an official test version of the service pack, but maintained that the final bits would be delivered by summer 2008.

Source: softpedia.com

“Windows Vista service pack 1 [here download for 32bit-(434.5 MB) and 64bit- (726.5 MB) PC] has been released, all eyes have shifted to Microsoft plans for Windows XP service pack 3, the final package of updates for the trusty OS. And according to at least one source, Microsoft will release Windows XP SP3 on Monday, 24.03.2008.”

In February, Microsoft released Windows XP SP3 Release Candidate 2 through its Download Center to users running computers with Windows XP SP2 installed.

Download world of logotypes – 70’s book from logoblink. The book includes 120 pages of A-Z logotype sets in PDF file format and very useful for logo designing.

Here is example from this book.

Download (23.6 MB )

Looking for the excellent free magazine style Wordpress themes? Would you like making your Wordpress a pretty good look as Content Management Systems (CMS)? Of course, there are so many great free magazine style Wordpress themes helping you to do with it.

I present you my over 10 top favorite of excellent free Magazine Style Wordpress themes for professional Blogging. One of them used for my Blog. Here we go!

1.

Overstand Theme by FakeBlog.de

Live Demo | Download

2.

BranfordMagazine by DER PRINZ

Live Demo | Download

3.

Four wonderful themes by Justin Tadlock

Option theme: A too-many-options-to-count quality WordPress theme. It is highly customizable with multiple home page sections, widgets, and much more. This is what WordPress themes should be like.

Live Demo | Download

Structure Theme: A theme for news-magazine sites with a blog-friendly option too. It includes built-in video and image features that easily allow you to customize your site. There are content blocks that you can place virtually anywhere on the page.

Live Demo| Download

Vision Theme: A theme for news/magazine sites. It includes built-in video features that easily allow you to add videos to your site.

Live Demo | Download

Newspaperize – A 910px, fixed-width, widget-ready theme. Its focus is for news blogs and sites. The template makes it easy to get a lot of information to the user as quickly as possible, but in a stylish way.

Live Demo | Download

4.

The Morning After by Themasterplan.in

The Morning After is a magazine-style theme for WordPress created by Arun Kale. The theme was created based on a brief survey on the WordPress forums about what people would want to see in a unique magazine-style theme.

Live Demo | Download

5.

Mimbo by Darrenhoyt.com

Mimbo – is a magazine-style Wordpress theme which makes extensive use of WP’s template tag system to create a non-traditional layout. It contains no images and only minimal CSS styling. Mainly it exists as a clean, grid-based starter layout for designers to install and style to their own liking

Live Demo | Download

6.

The Massive News WordPress by Wpelements.com

Massive News WordPress theme is a premium theme for a not so premium price, FREE. Massive News is a two column Widget enabled theme which is very clean, fully customizable and very simple to use.

Demo | Download

7.

WordPress Grid Focus by 5thirtyone.com

WordPress Grid Focus is a three column WordPress theme created and distributed free of any dependance of WordPress plugins. Convenient navigation bars can be found at the top and bottom of pages in order to provide your visitors with ample opportunity to continue exploring. Category archives are presented via a JavaScript shelf which can be found at the top of the page.

Demo | Download

Internet Explorer 8 (IE8) has been designed to make everyday tasks easier, provide dynamic security protection and improve the development platform and manageability. End user improvements include a streamlined interface, tabbed browsing, printing advances, improved search functionality, instant feeds (RSS), dynamic security protection, and more.

This Beta version of Internet Explorer is for web developers and designers. We invite you to use the resources listed below to learn about the improvements, changes and new features available in this release.

This release contains some great advances in Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) and layout, programming model, performance, reliability, usability and service integration. We are eager to ensure that the transition to Internet Explorer 8 is seamless for you and your audience, and to give you a head start on using many of the new features with your sites and services. We encourage you to test your sites and services, and our platform implementation, and give us feedback!

Developers and designers of all skill levels need great tools to deliver modern websites and write more efficient code without having to switch between the browser and a separate development environment. Internet Explorer 8 includes built-in tools that work well for professionals as well as those trying CSS and scripting for the first time.

- Debug JavaScript
- View and change the document object model (DOM)
- CSS 2.1
- Data URI
- AJAX enhancements including navigation
- Resources

New and exciting features

Windows Internet Explorer 8 Beta 1 Release Notes

Homepage – http://www.microsoft.com

Download Internet Explorer 8 Beta 1 for Windows XP x32 – 14.4 MB

Download Internet Explorer 8 Beta 1 for Windows XP x64 – 28.6 MB

Download Internet Explorer 8 Beta 1 for Windows Vista/2008 x32 – 11.4 MB

Download Internet Explorer 8 Beta 1 for Windows Vista/2008 x64 – 20.4 MB

(source: Microsoft.com)

Another power searching lesson coming right up. [type all the code, don't copy/paste]

Google: -inurl:htm -inurl:html intitle:”index of” +(”/ebooks”|”/book”) +(chm|pdf|zip)

What does all of this mean? The -inurl htm and -inul html is attempting to get rid of regular webpages and show just index pages. Looking for index of in the title is doing the same. Using the pipe ( | ) tells google to look for something OR something else. Here were are telling google to look for book or ebook directories… and we have listed several common ebook formats (zip, pdf, chf).

If you would like to look for a particular author or title just tack it to the end of your search.

Google: -inurl:htm -inurl:html intitle:”index of” +(”/ebooks”|”/book”) +(chm|pdf|zip) +”o’reilly”

This uses the same idea but attempts to focus on directories that contain O’Reilly stuff. It’s not perfect, but it’s better than paying.

If you would like to look for a particular author or title just tack it to the end of your search.

Google: -inurl:htm -inurl:html intitle:”index of” +(”/ebooks”|”/book”) +(chm|pdf|zip) +”o’reilly”

This uses the same idea but attempts to focus on directories that contain O’Reilly stuff. It’s not perfect, but it’s better than paying.

We all need music. If you properly query google, you can find open indexes of music files easily. Here are some hints to get you started.

Google: -inurl:htm -inurl:html intitle:”index of” “Last modified” mp3

Using this string, the “index of” and the inurl commands to attempt to isolate directories only. The mp3 tag on the end tells google to look for mp3s in these open directories. You can change this to wma or ogg if you wish.

You can add additional search criteria to focus your search more.

Google: -inurl:htm -inurl:html intitle:”index of” mp3 “pearl jam”

This command will find open directories with mp3 files with Pearl Jam. Obviously you can change the band name or file type to better define your search.

or just use G2P to find anything good stuff.

have fun!

A counter is an essential part of a site to know how many people are coming to site. This is a basic site hit counter and an very easy way to make a counter. All you need is access to php and be able to chmod a directory. We’re going to save the amount of hits in a .dat file, so you don’t even need a mySQL database.

First off, you need to create a new .php file and copy/paste this code into it, don’t forget to make a file named and save it (mine is counter.php).

<?
if(file_exists("counter.dat"))
{
$exist_file = fopen("counter.dat", "r");
$new_count = fgets($exist_file, 255);
$new_count++;
fclose($exist_file);
print("$new_count people have visited this page");
$exist_count = fopen("counter.dat", "w");
fputs($exist_count, $new_count);
fclose($exist_count);
}
else
{
$new_file = fopen("counter.dat", "w");
fputs($new_file, "1");
print("1 person have visited this page");
fclose($new_file);
}
?>

Next, we have to make a part of counter.php, named counter.dat with text editor. we’re going to save the amount of hits in a counter.dat file, so we don’t even need a mySQL database.

Now you can place two files counter.php and counter.dat in difference directory and make sure, CHMOD counter.dat to 777 so that the counter.php can write the counter.dat file (I put mine in root directory).

To integrate into your WP theme, you can put this code include it anywhere in pages or in sidebar. (Warning: you may have to change the path on that as well, depending on what directory you put your file in)

<? include("/counter.php"); ?>

Here is some useful information about mode and these functions, which may be helpful for you:

Mode:

• ‘r’ – Open for reading only; place the file pointer at the beginning of the file.
• ‘r+’ – Open for reading and writing; place the file pointer at the beginning of the file.
• ‘w’ – Open for writing only; place the file pointer at the beginning of the file and truncate the file to zero length. If the file does not exist, attempt to create it.
• ‘w+’ – Open for reading and writing; place the file pointer at the beginning of the file and truncate the file to zero length. If the file does not exist, attempt to create it
• ‘a’ – Open for writing only; place the file pointer at the end of the file. If the file does not exist, attempt to create it.
• ‘a+’ – Open for reading and writing; place the file pointer at the end of the file. If the file does not exist, attempt to create it.
  use_include_path:
• Set it to “1″, if you want to search for the file in the include_path.

Functions

1. Int fopen (string filename, string mode, int use_include_path])
2. String fgets (int fp, int length) – Gets line from file pointer
   Returns a string of up to length – 1 bytes read from the file pointed to by fp. Reading ends when length – 1 bytes have been read, on a newline (which is included in the return value), or on EOF (whichever comes first).
3. Int fputs (int fp, string str [, int length])
   fwrite() writes the contents of string to the file stream pointed to by fp. If the length argument is given, writing will stop after length bytes have been written or the end of string is reached, whichever comes first.
4. Use the file_exists() function in PHP and see if the counter.dat file exists. If it does, then open the file using the PHP fopen() function.
5. Use the PHP fgets() function to find the number of hits there and save it in a variable.
6. Open the counter.dat file using the fopen() function and save it as a variable.
7. Use the PHP fputs() function to insert the new number of hits.
8. If the counter.dat file doesn’t exist, then use the fopen() function and declare it as a variable.
9. Use the Fputs() function and put a “1″ in there.
10. Print out that 1 person has come to the page and then close the file.

[download#3#image]

eel free to leave comments below so that i know how useful this post for you, thanks for visiting.

Here are some Wordpress themes with three columns that i could find. I decided to post this entry to list them which can be entirely used for your own purposes… So here we go.

Three Columns Themes

01. Fluid Yellow Black: Demo | Download

02. Weblogger Wordpress Theme: Demo | Download

03. Riva Theme: Demo | Download

04. Amazing Grace: Demo | Download

05. ColorblindS: Demo | Download

06. Antropov: Demo | Download

07. Ansi Y: Demo | Download

08. Artic: Demo | Download

09. MackOne: Demo | Download

10. iPhone Theme: Demo | Download

11. Blue Iris: Demo | Download

12. My Starcraft 2 [a theme for game fans]: Demo | Download

Four Columns Themes

13. Techicon: Demo | Download

Two Column Themes – The very best and cool Wordpress themes with 2 columns listed for Jan. 2008. They are widget ready theme with soothing colors and design, integrated banner-ad management and have many options and …and more…… Optimized for Wordpress 2.3 and valid XHTML.

Feel free to leave comments below so that i know how useful this post for you, thanks for visiting.

01. GreenTech: Demo | Download

02. Twister 2.0: Demo | Download

03. Codelog: Demo | Download

04. Forte Magazine Style: Demo | Download

05. Sonette: Demo | Download

06. Gradient Brown Beauty: Demo | Download

07. Hope: Demo | Download

08. Futurosity Eos: Demo | Download

09. Orange and Black: Demo | Download

10. Simpleton: Demo | Download

11. UnGrid: Demo | Download

12. Deadwood Lite: Demo | Download

13. Hardcore: Demo | Download

14. Landris: Demo | Download

15. SparkWP: Demo | Download

16. Webdesign Theme: Demo | Download

17. Why walk alone?: Demo | Download

18. Half-Baked: Demo | Download

19. The Harvest: Demo | Download

20. Redtopia: Demo | Download

21. Cubismo: Demo | Download

22. Willy the Cat: Demo | Download

1. OutOfDate – plugin which shows a message above all the posts older than the specified number of months. Provides and option to customize the message, layout and number of months beyond which posts should carry the message.
2. Blogger to WordPress Redirection – The plugin allows you to redirect individual blogger posts to their respective posts in WordPress. The redirection will help you send search engine users to the right post on your new WordPress blog.
3. RelatedPosts - provides a variety of options for displaying posts that are related through tags.
4. FeedEntryHeader - allows you to add a copyright statement and a link to the original article, to the top of your feed entries.
5. Latest Post Category - allows you to display the latest entries created in each category of your blog.
6. Calendar Cloud - displays yearly calendars containing 12 months weighed by their post counts.
7. Limit Posts Automatically - lets you automatically choose when to cut your post excerpts on the front page.
8. Pipholic Latest Edited Widget - lets you easily display which entries you’ve edited recently.
9. Voice Comments - lets your readers record voice comments on your blog.

Tags

1. Tags Autolink - automatically turns every tag name, when used in posts and pages, into a link the to the same tag archive.

Comment

1. Comment URL Control - will allow you to remove unwanted author-URIs entered by a commenter with one single click of your mouse.
2. Autoinfo – is a plugin which allows you to show information such as users online, registered users, feed subscribers, number of posts, number of ping backs, top 3 commented posts, comments, comments per post, top three commentators and more.

Admin

1. Admin Favicon – The plugin allows you to add a custom favicon for your WordPress Admin panel. Can help you to easily distinguish between admin and non admin tabs for your site.
2. AfLinks – allows you to insert affiliate links into WordPress content. The plugin shows a little popup on mouse hover with a image and description of the product. The plugin is compatible for webmasters having an account with affili.net.
3. Set Email “From” Address - The default emails that get sent out by WordPress is usually wordpress@yourdomain.com. This plugin allows you to change the from address to any email you want to so that all outgoing emails go out with your personalized email address.
4. Berri Technorati Reactions on Dashboard - WordPress 2.3 and above displays incoming links from Google Blog Search, this plugin displays you the Technorati Reactions of your blog in the Admin Dashboard.
5. WP-Crontrol - lets you take control over what’s happening in the WP-Cron system.
6. Language Linker - allows you to link sister pages that are written in multiple languages.
7. Automatic Plugin Update Checker - simply notifies users when plugin updates are available without the plugin needing to be stored in the WP plugin repository.
8. TextMe - sends a carbon-copy of all admin emails sent via SMS to your cell phone.
9. WordPress Admin Reminder Plugin - adds a reminder tip (in large red letters) in the top right corner of your WordPress admin pages.
10. Theme Test Drive - lets you test out a theme while your users view only the default theme.
11. Opt-In - uses a form to collect email addresses from users for the sake of sending mass mailings.
12. WP-Members - restricts WordPress content to be viewable by registered site members.
13. User Level Themes - allows a site administrator to select different themes for users with and without administrative access rights.

Advertisment

1. Adsense Manager has been updated to include the new features added recently by Google.
2. AZ-One locates the Amazon store (com, ca, co.uk, de, fr, jp) closest to your visitor and changes the associate links on your site to direct the visitor to the right store.
3. Banner Admin allows you to manage various banner ads from different affiliate programs.

Social Bookmark

1. Socialize Me – plugin which allows you to show custom messages to users visiting your site from Social Networking sites like StumbleUpon, Facebook, Digg, Delicious, Pownce, Twitter, Bebo and more.
2. Social Dropdown displays several social bookmarking options in a dropdown.

Image and Video

1. fGallery Categories Widget - allows you to show a link to the different galleries you made with the fGallery plugin.
2. wp-richcomments - lets your blog subscribers attach flickr photos and YouTube videos to their comments.
3. Video Embedder - makes it easy to embed videos from various sources, such as YouTube and Google Video.
4. Benjamin Sterling Galleries - uses your current flickr and/or picasa web photo album, the power of WordPress and jQuery, and some jQuery gallery plugins to embed your photos into your site/post.
5. Crossroads - interfaces with Flickr, Lightbox, Greybox and Highslide image galleries, adding thumbnails and Flickr photo comments to your blog entries.
6. Minimalist Gallery - allows you to display an image gallery in posts or pages.

Read more: list all of the best and most useful Wordpress plugins