Just recently I’ve updated my blog theme to the WPUnlimted theme, which I really like. It’s a powerful, professional, modern type of theme that is in the new wave of wordpress themes that “do it all for you” without having to know how to code.

The people who created that theme have given me 10 free copies to give away to you, my loyal readers. So for next week, I’m going to give 5 of those away ($60 value each!). Here’s how to enter to win.

RULES TO ENTER

First, you must become an affiliate for the theme by visiting here and signing up (it’s free). The good news is once you do you can promote the theme and earn 40% for all sales you make of it.

Second, you need to send out a Tweet that sends them to this post. Something like (include hashtag #wpunlimited so I can track entries):

@jimkukral is giving away 5 brand new WPUnlimited professional Wordpress themes. Enter yourself at http://www.jimkukral.com/win-a-wpunlimited-wordpress-professional-theme #wpunlimited

That’s it. I’ll pick the winners at the end of next week and announce it here on my blog.

“What are your favorite Wordpress themes Jim?” or “Do you know where I can get Wordpress help?” I must get asked these questions every single day. And I keep building a list from my bookmarks over and over again with the answers. So… I finally wised up and have decided to make it a blog post.

Here are my favorite free, and paid Wordpress themes and resources. Note: Some of these are affiliate links, some are not. Enjoy! If I missed any really good ones, leave a comment.

• NEW!!! – Headway Drag & Drop Theme. I beta tested it and it’s pretty easy to use and customize.
• I love Revolution themes, who doesn’t? You see these used all over the place. They are great for busy looking sites.
• I love the new Thesis theme. Check out the Thesis live demo here. Copyblogger is a huge proponent of this theme.
  

• Also check out the nice themes over at iThemes Premium WordPress Themes website!.
• This is a really nice free theme that I believe Chris Brogan used for a long time.
• This is a photo blog theme that I considered using for my friend Hal the photographer.
• Rockinthemes rocks out some great paid and free themes. Worth a look.
• The gang at Woo Themes does a GREAT job.
• Of course, if you’re looking for more free themes, this is always a great resource. Part 1, Part 2, Part 3.
• The JimKukral.com theme you see now as of Dec 2008 is a Brian Gardner customized theme.

Need A Unique or Custom Theme?
Of course, if you wanted a custom Wordpress theme, head on over to the gang at Unique Blog Designs. They did my Blend This Book! theme and I LOVE it. Tell them I sent you and hope for a discount!

Need Wordpress Coding or Fixing?
Also, if you need any Wordpress coding done, I can’t recommend Content Robot enough. Hands-down, the best Wordpress tech team on the planet. Again, drop my name.

Finally, an actual reason to use MT again?

Six Apart today announced new solutions that will enable businesses to build powerful social media and blogging communities on top of Movable Type 4.

The Movable Type Enterprise Solution enables companies to integrate their blogging and social media efforts into their existing IT systems. Expanding on Movable Type 4’s built-in capability to create and manage thousands of blogs and users, the Enterprise Solution’s LDAP directory server integration and support for enterprise-class databases– including Oracle 10g and Microsoft SQL Server – make it easier than ever to deploy and manage employee and departmental blogs.

The Movable Type Community Solution makes it possible to create a custom social media platform that can attract larger audiences, increase audience engagement, and improve loyalty. Where Movable Type 4 on its own allows for registering and managing site members, the Community Solution incorporates rich member profiles, member blogs, “Digg-style” recommendation tools and other features that help new and returning visitors engage with the site and one another.

I’ll tell you what. I used MT for years before switching to Wordpress, and I wish I could have all of those years back. ReveNews was on MT when I took it over, and I can tell you it was a complete and utter pain to work in across the scale we had with the layouts/templates we had and I wanted. Honestly, I can say that if it was in Wordpress I would have spent thousands of hours less working on it. Thousands and thousands.

But now MT might make a social network on top of the MT install, and that intrigues me enough to have another look.

Here’s some links I found interesting and/or insightful and/or helpful.

1. Your Guide to Micro-Blogging and Twitter

2. A free programming tool that allows anyone to create their own animated stories, video games and interactive artworks has been developed.

3. What do you get when you cross the Mac vs PC commercials and Rails Envy? Ruby on Rails ads to get everyone hyped for Railsconf, that’s what!

4. Wordpress 2.2 is out.

5. Guy Kawasaki’s new company Truemors, has launched, and it is a sort of Twitter for rumors. Problem is, it’s loaded with spam.

I hate my theme now (dated May 11, 2007). It’s my own custom work based on Akon. So i don’t blame Akon really… I blame me for my customization. It was meant to be temporary.

Being a former website designer, I often go through this dilemma. I like something at first, then hate it two months later. And I’m picky too. I look around at all the free wordpress themes out there and they suck. Only a select few are really unique and highly customizable. And those few are VERY hard to find.

I should just drop the $3-5k to have my own custom design done, but I’m not ready to. So yeah, it’s my fault for being cheap when I could just be like Yaro and go custom and be bad-ass.

Anyone have any themes that you care to share that you love? White space is a huge factor.

I think I might just go super minimal and work up slowly.

When you use Wordpress every day like I do, across multiple blogs, you start looking for the coolest and most useful plugins and tools to make your experience for yourself, and your readers better. Over the last few days, I’ve found two things I have to share with you.

#1 Cool Wordpress Thing
Did you know that you can make your admin look different? Yep, thanks to Sam on Twitter, I found out about a Wordpress admin design called Tiger. Wow, what a difference! It’s much cleaner.

But you know what the best part is? It makes your “write a post” text box much, much bigger. So you don’t have that really annoying scroll bar in the text box. The whole thing just feels like I’m using a Mac, which is a good thing.

#2 Cool Wordpress Thing
This one is a plug-in called ‘What would Seth Godin Do‘. Found it over at Quick Online Tips blog (great blog by the way).

“What Would Seth Godin Do” is the unusual name for a wordpress plugin, but the plugin author has credited Seth Godin for the idea. I spotted this plugin at work on several blogs, so checked it out. Its based on Seth Godin idea of using cookies to distinguish between new and returning visitors to your site and offer two experiences to two different sorts of people.

I’ve been trying to think of reasons why I would use anything other than Wordpress, and I can’t think of anything. Can you?