Well as we draw near to another Thanksgiving, I wanted to take time to write a post about 5 reasons why I’m thankful for the internet. Many of you know that I have a sappy side, so reading this type of post by me shouldn’t be a surprise.

• The internet, in general. It allowed me to take the greatest leap of faith and quit my day job. Previous to being a web designer and internet consultant, I was a project manager for an architectural company. It was a great job, and the people I worked with were wonderful - I can honestly say that the 10 years I was there were well spent. But, as I realized that I had a passion for the internet and design, I am so thankful that I finally had the chance to make the jump to self employment.
• WordPress. Not only was I able to graduate from Blogger after someone had recommended that I take a look into WordPress, but I was ultimately able to go full time as a freelancer because of it. I fully believe that WordPress can do just about anything you want it to, and over the past year I’ve built my entire business upon it.
• Revolution. A little over a year I ago asked you guys how much you’d pay for a premium theme. Truth be told, Revolution is the real reason I was able to leave my dayjob - in fact, it was also the reason my wife Shelly was able to leave hers as well. And even though I’ve made a few changes in the business model, the community that has developed because of Revolution is priceless.
• The Revolution community. This is something that I never expected to develop in a way that it has. A few months after I launched Revolution, I created a support forum that I figured would help answer a few questions here and there. I realized that people might have some questions on how to use the themes so I anticipated the forums to become just a factual place. What happened astonished me, and I’m so eternally grateful to the dedicated people who became a part of something so much more than a casual place to get answers. The Revolution community is led by a number of people that are more than worth their weight in gold. Craig, Paul, Jeff, John, Rebecca and many others lead a community that has in my opinion, become one of a kind.
• Friendships. This by far is the number one reason why I’m thankful for the internet. You’d think that meeting people online would limit the amount of depth that a friendship can develop, and I strongly disagree. Towards the early days of my internet existence, I’m very thankful to have met David Adams, who walked the same path as I did going from day job to full time webpreneur. Most recently, I have been able to get to know and partner up with Jason Schuller, who’s work I highly respect. It’s been so enjoyable to launch Revolution Two with him, and I look forward to continue building the Revolution legacy. But the person I’m most thankful to have crossed paths with is Cory Miller, who over the course of the past two years I have developed a deep friendship with. Cory and I also walked a similar path from full time day job to an internet company, and I’m so proud of what Cory has done with iThemes. Not only have we been able to experience and encourage each other while building our business, we’ve also been able to walk our Christian lives together. We’ve also taken a cruise together recently with our families, and have a ski trip to Taos, New Mexico planned for January 2009.

So to sum things up… all in all, the internet has been such a great thing in my life - true, at times I find myself spending way too much time on it. Whether it be fantasy football, Twitter, YouTube, or the hundreds of other resources out there that consumes my time, I’d still say that overall, it’s been a huge blessing.

Thanks to all of you who read my blog, and I want to wish you all a very Happy Thanksgiving!

Last week I redesigned (temporarily) my website here with the new Revolution wireframe theme. Thanks for the feedback on that, as I really appreciated the comments that you all left regarding the new theme design.

Well, it’s still in the process of development, and I haven’t coded the homepage for the theme. Truth is, there’s a good chance what I’ll do is offer a few homepage templates to choose from - magazine style, CSM/small business style, blogger style just to name a few.

In the meantime, you can now see a demo of the Revolution Two Streamline theme in action. This is currently what I have so far, and still have some things yet to do. For now, I’d love it if you can test the theme out in various browsers, and comment below on any bugs or how things look.

For those of you who want to know the timeframe of the theme release, ask WordPress. I will say the theme will not be released any sooner than the official release of WordPress 2.7. As anxious as some of you are, I’m equally (if not more) anxious to release it. But for obvious reasons I want to make sure that the theme is compatible and is prepared for all enhancements of 2.7.

So hit me with it, and tell me what you think of the Revolution Streamline theme…

First of all I want thank everyone who read my latest post about doing it again - yes, that dreaded “every other month” redesign that I do. You all were very graceful, and I appreciate the lack of bashing that took place!

Actually I could have taken it, but that’s another story… anyway, as you can see that I’ve dressed up the new Revolution wireframe theme that I’ll soon be releasing with a little holiday blue. Yes, I know it’s nothing special in terms of design, but I’ve been trying to keep things simple in my life these days, so the design you see here is yet another example of simplicity.

You’ll notice that this design isn’t much different than the original screenshots I posted - just a little blue, a narrower content area and a few other little things here and there. At some point I plan to add a custom homepage to this theme as well, so watch out for that.

In the meantime, here’s a sneak peak of another page template that will be included in the new Revolution theme. It will pull in posts that are designated in a “video” category.

Here’s the screenshot… (click to enlarge)

Yes, I’ve done it again - and trust me, for good reason. I won’t try to dismiss my obsession with frequent redesigns as the primary reason for this one, so I’ll tell you the two main reasons why you are seeing another theme here on my site.

As I wrote a few days ago, I am in the process of developing a new wireframe for my Revolution themes. Even though I have a test site up for it, I figured that applying the theme to my personal blog here would make for a fun way to make or break the theme. Not to mention, I just love that WordPress has included the ability to have threaded comments now, and couldn’t wait to have that here.

Another reason was that I have been asked, and will soon oblige, to release the theme that I previously had on my site to the public. So yes, that theme will soon be making it’s way over to the Revolution Two.

More than anything, going back to the WordPress 2.7 thing, I wanted to use it on my personal site, and knew that a great way to test a new wireframe would be to turn it loose live somewhere, and figured this was the best place to do it. So please, if you find any bugs or weird things going in here, please leave me a comment and let me know!

So for the time being, don’t bash me since I did it again - help me test out this theme - in the meantime, there might be some spots where I haven’t added content, that will soon come.

I’ll actually be restyling the theme for my site here, but for now - come on, hit me with it…

I have been very busy this week developing what I am going to use as the new Revolution Two theme wireframe. I have been wanting to do this for quite some time, and finally have begun.

You might be wondering what this means - well, it means I am in the process of developing a new theme that will be released on the Revolution Two site. But more than that, this is going to be fully coded for WordPress 2.7, and include a number of different code/style changes than previous Revolution themes have had.

I’m taking this time to explore new and better ways of doing things, to make customizing the theme(s) a lot easier on the user. I am also developing a number of page templates that have been requested over the past year.

Here is the current list of page templates that will be included:

• Archive Page
• Author Page
• Blog Page
• Featured Page
• Full Width Page
• Product Page
• Video Page

That list might change, so don’t hold me to it - but I’m hoping to include all of them, if not more with the next theme release.

I will also be using this theme I am working on as the foundation of all future themes that I develop. I’ve spent the better part of the past two weeks doing a lot of research on WP 2.7, new code, and better ways to get things accomplished. (Special thanks goes out to Nathan for a few 911 chats!)

So hopefully this means a much better experience with Revolution moving forward. And before I forget, you can see a screenshot of the theme I’m working on below. This is only a sample single page, but you can see the general style that the theme will have.

Here’s the screenshot… (click to enlarge)