For me the most interesting computer language to learn is PHP but unfortunately, we only had a short period of time to learn it. Anyways, talking about computer languages or programming languages, let us go back down memory lane with an infographic created by the folks of Rackspace about the Evolution of Computer Languages. There are hundreds of computer languages or programming languages but this infographic features the ones that are the most popular and widely.

From the Rackspace blog:

All the cloud applications you use on the Internet today are written in a specific computer language. What you see as a nice icon on the front end looks like a bunch of code on the back end. It’s interesting to see where computer languages started and how they have evolved over time. There are now a series of computer languages to choose from and billions lines of code. Check out the infographic below to see the computer language timeline and read some fun facts about code along the way.

Evolution of Computer Languages Infographic

Any of you here who are Computer Science majors, self-taught computer programmers or like me, just took a few computer language/programming language classes? Which computer language or programming language do you like or hate the most? Please share your thoughts.

[via Rackspace Blog]

Blogging

• 10 Ways to Keep Visitors Coming Back to Your Blog
• Why Bloggers Should Not Check Email in the Morning?
• 5 Steps to Being Totally Boring and Unremarkable
• Why Mom Didn’t Make it as a Blogger

WordPress

• 7 WordPress Plugins that Don’t Exist But Should
• 10 WordPress Spring Cleaning Tips – 2011 Edition
• ThemeSorter: The Latest Premium Theme Directory
• WordPress Summer of Code 2011

SEO

• 5 Ways to Push Through the Proverbial PPC Wall
• Tracking Offline Conversions for Local SEO
• Taking The Spam Fight To User-Generated Content
• How to Promote Existing Content (or Failed Linkbaits)

Social Media

• How to Grow a Blog Community With Social Media
• What’s the Next Big Trend in Social Media Marketing?
• Non-Techie Guide to Social Media
• Social Media Success is About The Customers, Stupid

Technology

• Can You Really Be Traced From an IP Address?
• Enlisting Game Hackers Instead of Fighting Them
• Massive SQL Injection Attack Compromises 380K URLs
• Creepy App Warns of an End to Privacy

Gadgets

• Sony Ericsson Xperia Play review
• Hanwha Japan – USB and HDMI connector for iPad/iPhone4
• Twimal: Super-Cute Twitter Toy Pet Reads Tweets For You
• ASUS Eee Pad Transformer and Eee Slate EP121

Pinoy Blogs

• watermark.js – Image watermarks with HTMLCanvas and Javascript
• Lenovo IdeaPad U260 Review
• Introducing FrugalPanda, a Great Site for Local Deal Addicts
• BlackBerry Torch 9800: You want one. No, really you do! Buy it. Buy it. Buy it.

JaypeeOnline Weekly Recap

• Google April Fools Day Pranks 2011
• WordPress Junkies – Social Network for All Things WordPress
• TwentyTen Extended – Adding Color to the Default WordPress Theme
• Lenovo IdeaPad Y560 $580 Coupon
• Amazon Introduces Cloud Drive and Cloud Player
• Angry Birds – The Movie (Trailer)
• New & Improved Facebook “Like” Button WordPress Plugin
• The 100 Most Popular Blogs in the Philippines

If you have any questions, comments, suggestions or would want to share your article or any interesting story that you found in the Internet and have it featured in the next Weekend Roundup, feel free to leave a comment or send me a message via the contact page.

Just realized while I was browsing through my blog archives that I haven’t published any WordPress theme related posts in a while. Decided feature the latest WordPress themes from Elegant Themes, one of the most reliable and best places to find excellent quality yet affordable premium WordPress themes.

The Glider theme was specifically designed for the personal website/blog/portfolio type of site. It has a contemporary style and a javascript-powered layout. This cool and versatile theme features a fully featured blog and portfolio section. The theme is widget-ready, supports gravatars and threaded comments and compatible with all popular web browsers – IE6, IE7, IE8, Firefox, Safari, and Opera.

Screenshots:
Homepage

Portfolio

About page

Blog

Features:

• WordPress 3.0 compatible
• Five Color Schemes
• Gallery Section
• Threaded Comments
• Optional Blog-style Structure
• Gravatar ready
• Firefox, Safari, IE8 + IE7 + IE6, Opera, Netscape compatible
• Advertisement Ready
• Widget ready sidebars
• Theme Options Page
• Custom thumbnail images
• PSD files
• Valid XHTML + CSS
• Smooth tabless design

Preview or Purchase the Glider WordPress theme from Elegant Themes

TheStyle theme is a stylish WordPress theme that features a crisp and modern design. It also has a fluid width and jQuery-enchanced layout that adjusts to the visitor’s/viewer’s screen resolution, ensuring optimal viewing experience and maximum exposure for the site content. This theme is widget-ready, has gravatar and threaded comments support, five color schemes to choose from and compatible with IE6, IE7, IE8, Firefox, Safari, and Opera web browsers.

Screenshots:
Portfolio/Homepage

Post page

Features:

• WordPress 3.0 compatible
• Five Color Schemes
• Threaded Comments
• Optional Blog-style Structure
• Gravatar ready
• Firefox, Safari, IE8 + IE7 + IE6, Opera, Netscape compatible
• Advertisement Ready
• Widget ready sidebars
• Theme Options Page
• Custom thumbnail images
• PSD files
• Valid XHTML + CSS
• Smooth tabless design

Preview or Purchase TheStyle WordPress theme from Elegant Themes

Personally, I like the second theme – TheStyle better. For me, TheStyle’s design and layout catches my eye more than Glider’s. But that’s just me. I’m sure some of you would disagree with me and prefer the Glider theme. These are just the two latest premium WordPress themes from Elegant Themes. Make sure to visit Elegant Themes to view the entire theme collection and other upcoming themes.

Btw, if you’re not yet a member of Elegant Themes you can get unlimited access to all these themes for only $39/year. If you develop websites for your clients, you can purchase the Developer License for a one time fee of $89 that will allow you to use the theme for an unlimited number of client projects.

In my last blog update post, I listed the new WordPress plugins that I installed here on JaypeeOnline. I also mentioned that I would do a review of those plugins so you guys would have an idea on how they work and how I use them here.

Today, I’ll be sharing with you the Google Syntax Highlighter WordPress plugin created by Peter Ryan. It integrates the Google Syntax Highlighter by Alex Gorbatchev to any WordPress-powered blog. This is the plugin I use to display codes which you might have noticed in my recent articles like HowTo: Allow Google Reader Access To Hotlink-Protected Images and HowTo: Widgetize a WordPress Theme.

Features:

• 100% client side, no server dependency
• Multiple languages support
• Wide browser support
• Very lightweight

Languages Supported:

• C++ (cpp, c, c++)
• C# (c#, c-sharp, csharp)
• CSS (css)
• Delphi (delphi, pascal)
• Java (java)
• Java Script (js, jscript, javascript)
• PHP (php)
• Python (py, python)
• Ruby (rb, ruby, rails, ror)
• Sql (sql)
• VB (vb, vb.net)
• XML/HTML (xml, html, xhtml, xslt)

Screenshots:

.htaccess file

WordPress theme sidebar

Previously, when I wanted to display a piece of code within my post I would have to copy and paste the code into a text editor, take a screenshot, edit it and insert the image into my post. It was a tedious and very time consuming task.

WordPress has a built-in tag called “code” that lets you display and specify a certain line of text as code. So why am I not using it? The problem with this is that it doesn’t recognize HTML tags and in order for it to work you’ll have to use character entities or extended characters. One alternative is to use the “pre” tag which is the one used by the Google Syntax Highlighter plugin. The “pre” tag like the “code” tag displays the tagged text as monospaced type but the difference between the two is that the “pre” tag exactly reproduces everything inside the “pre” tags.

What makes Google Syntax Highlighter cool is that it displays the code the way advanced text editors do. The parameters are color coded and there are line numbers that makes it easy to find a specific line of code. Aside from that, the Google Syntax Highlighter plugin also gives the user an option to see the code in plain text and to copy the code into the computer’s clipboard. This plugin lets you implement the “pre” tag and display the code in style easily without having to worry about messing with the WordPress stylesheet.

So how do you use the Google Syntax Highlighter plugin? All you need to do is download, install and activate the plugin and make sure you read the Usage Directions. Then you can start using it. Just specify the code snippet in your blog post/page and you’re good to go.

Here’s a sample of how I was able to display the code for screenshot #2 or the code for the WordPress theme sidebar.

[php]
<pre name="code" class="php">
<?php
if ( function_exists(‘register_sidebar’) )
register_sidebar(array(
‘before_widget’ => ”,
‘after_widget’ => ”,
‘before_title’ => ‘<h4>’,
‘after_title’ => ‘</h4>’,
));
?>
</pre>
[/php]

Copy the piece of code that you want to display and paste it between the line highlighted in red. Replace the value of “class” to the specific language that the code is written in. In the example, I put php because I needed to display a piece of php code.

The Google Syntax Highlighter WordPress plugin is very easy to install and doesn’t use much resources. Its very useful if you want to display codes within your post.

Check out the Google Syntax Highlighter WordPress plugin.

What do you think of the Google Syntax Highlighter WordPress plugin? Are you already using it or have tried it before on your blog? Do you know of other WordPress plugins that have the same functionality? Please share your thoughts. Thanks for your time!

I can imagine that people use the theme on their personal blogs, but to be honest the theme forces blog-viewers to concentrate on the content instead of personal expression, thus I recommend it for organizations that uses WordPress for exchanging knowledge.The Ext JS library gives web applications really good look&feel and – somehow – it “releases” people from thinking about the look&feel; allows people to read the content in peace. The phrase that describes Ext JS WordPress Theme the best is of course: “proof of concept”. WordPress, for sure, is not a good tool for making it “Ext JS-ified”. Anyway, it have been worth to try. There are two main goals which Ext JS WordPress Theme wants to achieve. First and foremost is to take advantage of all the stuff that gives us Ext JS library: layouts, menus, ajax, animations etc. The second goal is to look really good…

Screenshot:

Basic features:

• Makes use of beautiful ExtJS styles
• Makes use of real application ExtJS layout
• Uses Ajax to load Entries
• Sidebar uses famous Jozef Sakalos Accordion
• Calendar Widget is ajaxified and ExtJS skinned
• Quick Search displays search results during typing
• Comments are posted via Ajax; without refreshing the content of the entry
• One can open full page recent comments preview
• Pages menu make use of ExtJS hierarchical menu
• Theme is widgets and tags aware

My Take:
I agree with one of the visitors comments in ExtJS’s website about it looking like an email application rather than a blog theme. Btw, the ExtJS theme is released under the LGPL which means:

Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies of this license document, but changing it is not allowed.

I’m not really sure about that, because one of the things that made WordPress popular and where it is now is the availability of free themes that can be modified and customized by the user. But again, this theme is not like other regular WordPress themes, this was not designed and created for personal use and heavy customization. As what the theme author mentioned, he recomments this theme for organizations that use WordPress for exchanging knowledge.

It’s cool that ExtJS is widget-ready and tag aware but some plugins and widgets may have issues and may not work with this theme. So make sure you test everything before you use this theme on your blog. The ExtJS theme still has several bugs and issues and that’s expected since it’s still in alpha.

Bloggers might be interested to know that this theme is not SEO or ad friendly. So if you’re a blogger who runs advertisements and do SEO on your blog, this theme is not for you but if you’re not into those stuff then you might to give this theme a try. Some of the things I like about this theme are: the option to change the look of the theme using ExtJS styles which work like skins; the layout can fit into almost any screen resolution and saves space because it uses the frame for the posts and the accordion style sidebar.

Great looking theme but not the type that most WordPress users are looking for. I give the ExtJS WordPress theme a 3.5 out of 5.

Preview or Download the ExtJS WordPress theme.