Here are the contenders for the dasBlog theme contest (in no particular order)…

Entry #1:  Dandelion, by Tim Sherrill

Entry #2:  Tractor Pull, by Tim Sherrill

Entry #3: Expression, by Janakiram MSV

Entry #4:  Funky, by Tony Bouch

Entry #5: JDasBlog, by Justin-Josef Angel

Entry #6: VitaminCSS, by James Green

Entry #7:  Lizard Lounge, by yours truly (this one can’t receive any votes, since I am a sponsor of the contest)

All of these themes are available online at the dasblog sample blog (http://www.dasblog.info/dasblog).

My current work computer has one of those crappy OEM Realtek Sound Manager craplet pieces of software.

I really hate it when hardware companies (especially sound card manufacturers) think that they should abandon the well-known and incredibly standard windows framed interface and invent their own scary window interface.

Anyway, I normally would never open this app, but it forces itself in focus when I plug in my headphones.  (Yes, you read that correctly)

Umm, WTF?  It obviously knows what I plugged in because it is highlighted and checked.  The headphones don’t work until I click OK on this box.

The worst part?  Uninstalling the application renders the sound card useless.  Pfft.

Face it.  The windows command line interface has always sucked.  Maybe that’s why most Windows users don’t use it…

Lately I’ve become enamoured with Console, the open-source replacement for the basic Windows command prompt.

The reasons I like it?

• Tabbed interface
• Alpha Transparency
• Support for lots of colors and fonts (Consolas kicks ass)
• Integration with cygwin

Seriously, now…  which looks better?

This….

or this….

I’ve had a bad case of Mac/Ruby envy lately.  I’ll post more on the Mac thoughts later, this post is about Ruby on Rails.

If you don’t know what RoR is, then maybe you should go to the website and take a look.

I keep seeing these Ruby applications that are so simple, elegant, and useful.  Take tadalist for example.  This is a painfully simple application but it works the way I want it to and it’s always available.

I use tadalist more than I use Outlook’s todo list interface.

It’s just so much cleaner, it’s always available, and it doesn’t get in your way.

Maybe this is due to the “ruby way” of thinking.  I have seen countless applications written in JSP or ASP.NET that just look like someone vomited html all over the page.  Where are all of the interaction designers in the .NET space?

Another Ruby application that I have seen that I think is incredibly useful and elegant is Basecamp.  This is a project management utility that is basically the Anti-Microsoft Project.  They took all of the things that they didn’t like about Project and built Basecamp, stripping down tons of features to boil down into the a simple, useful project collaboration application.  Check out the screenshot to see what I mean.  The interface is slick, and it has everything you need to know, right there.

I used this to collaborate on a small project and found it to be incredibly intuitive.

It isn’t intuitive because it was written in Rails.  It is intuitive because the people behind it are brilliant.  And these particular brilliant people swear by Rails.

Every time I try to use Project to get a hold of the overall picture of my current project I get lost, and I don’t see much value in that beast of an application.

Thoughtworks is jumping in as well into the ruby space.  In a recent interview with Martin Fowler, he claimed that somewhere around 60% of their consulting work is in Ruby now.  60%!  I find that very hard to ignore.  Check out their newest online application for managing agile projects:  it’s called Mingle, and it looks awesome.

I’ve found 2 more ruby examples that I am really keen on:  Warehouse and Lighthouse.

• The typical ruby developer is also a Mac user.
• the typical Mac user appreciates design.
• The mantra of “less is more” radiates from the language (Ruby), the web framework (Rails), and the interface.

I’m really jealous of the work that some of these folks are doing.  This is contributing to my Mac Envy, which I will post on later.

Am I just becoming a fan-boy?  What do you think? 

I’ve gotten a number of requests for this, so I’ve decided to extend the deadline for the dasBlog Theme Contest until July 22^nd, 2007.  That gives 2 full weekends before the themes are due.

As a reminder, there is a $100 shiny Amazon gift card with your name on it if you can submit a slick-looking theme that impresses us more than the rest.  So far the response has been lower than expected, which means your chances of winning are better!

Creating a theme is easy.  It takes about 2 hours to get a fully working theme when you get used to the macros and the page layout, and maybe a few more to make sure that the site looks good in all major browsers.

I’ve also received a number of similar questions, so I’ll answer them here:

The rules for the contest state ‘no licensed material’ — does that mean I can’t use images under GPL, BSD, or Creative Commons?

No.  I wrote that more as a CYA requirement.  Basically as long as there are no restrictions in distributing the artifacts along with dasBlog we’re OK with it.  Just be sure to ask permission where warranted and always give credit.

I love the ________ theme from WordPress|MovableType|blogger|Subtext.  Can I just port that?

Absolutely!  As long as you follow the rule above, we’d love to see some familiar professional themes on dasBlog.

I don’t have a .NET environment to test out dasBlog… can I still participate?

I will help out as much as I can.  If you can provide me with a solid HTML template with all of the required pieces in place, I will try to help out getting it on dasBlog.

Any other questions?

I’ll be at the Oklahoma City Code Camp on July 27^th, 2007.

They’ve got a great speaker line-up and I’m truly excited to meet some people that I have only read or talked to over email.

On the speaker list:

• Jean-Paul Boodhoo
• David Laribee
• Jeremy Miller
• Scott Bellware
• and more!

I don’t know where I’m staying yet, but I think there will be a group discount somewhere.  If you’re going to attend, drop me a line and let me know what your agenda is.  See you there!

 Introducing my submission for the dasBlog Theme Contest.  (Even though I can't win, I thought it would be fun to submit an entry)

The theme is called Lizard Lounge.  This theme was inspired by the lighbox2 home page.

I'd love to hear what you think!  Let me know in the comments!

You can download the theme here:
File Attachment: LizardLounge.zip (43 KB)

Just unzip it into your themes directory and let me know if you have any issues.

In an effort to get some more good quality themes ready for the next release of dasBlog, I’m going to host a little contest.

Introducing...

The dasBlog Theme Contest

The idea is simple.  Submit a new dasBlog theme, created by you, using valid XHTML and CSS.  Entries should be original and should be zipped up and sent to me at subdigital_AT_gmail_DOT_com.

Are you ready for the prize?  How about …

A $100 (US) Amazon Gift Card !

The rules:

• Mockups do not count.  They have to be either running online in dasBlog or submit the relevant files so that I can install them on a test blog.
• Hint:  we respect valid XHTML and CSS.  Don’t abuse tables!
• Multiple entries may be sumitted by the same person
• Entries must be submitted to me no later than Midnight, July 12^th. (That doesn’t leave much time!) The deadline has been extended to July 22^nd, 2007.  Get started!
• Send them to my email address (above) with the subject line dasBlog Theme Contest Submission
• No licensed material on the theme — all images and artifacts must be made by you or publicly available
• By submitting  you agree to allow us to package the theme along with dasBlog, if we so desire
• You are allowed to place a small link at the bottom of the page identifying you or company, but no logos
• The dasBlog team will judge the designs and the winner will be announced July 16^th July 25^th.

 The prize for this contest has been donated by Scott Hanselman and myself.

So how do I create a theme?

Creating a theme is simple!  The best way to learn is to open up one of the existing themes and take a look.  The basic structure of a theme is this:

Inside of your dasBlog directory there is a themes folder:

Each theme that you want to create (or install) goes in its own folder.  dasBlog ships with over 20 themes currently, so there are a lot to choose from as a starting point.  If you open the directory and take a look, you’ll see a folder for each.

Let’s take a look at mono.

Inside of the specific theme’s folder you’ll find all artifacts for the theme.  Any images, css, or template files go in here.

As you can see, there isn’t much to it…

 Notice the theme.manifest file here.  This is just a text file telling dasBlog that this folder is a theme and mono is its name.

You also have the opportunity to add named images, but you don’t have to do that if you don’t want to.

The next thing I want to open up are the 3 template files:

• homeTemplate.blogtemplate – this is the main site layout.  This will be the most complicated template.
  
• dayTemplate.blogtemplate – each day there are zero or more posts, usually with a date header at the top, but possibly other groupings by day.  This template will be rendered once per day (as long as there are posts on that day).
  
• itemTemplate.blogtemplate – this is the post template.  Included is the template for the entire comments structure.

I will show the homeTemplate right here, just to give you an idea of what it’s like to edit the themes.

Most of this is standard XHTML, however you’ll notice the macro tags marked with <% %>.  These will be picked up by the renderer and replaced with whatever the macro calls for.  For example, to tell dasBlog to output your administration bar at a certain location, you’d write <% newtelliigence.adminBar()%>.

For a complete list of dasBlog macros, check John Forsythe’s page on macros:  http://www.jforsythe.com/jforsythe/projects/dasBlogMacros.html

That’s enough of an introduction to get you started, so….

Good Luck!