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  The apple orchard and a savory squash, apple and quinoa crumble
  
  It had been raining all day on our last day in Vermont. I loved the grey skies and how they brought out the intensity of the colors. Before heading home, Nadia had one more stop planned for us. We were to visit her good friend's orchards. It was the pinnacle of our trip. A farm filled with apple and plum trees, grape vines, raspberry bushes, horses and so much more we didn't get to see.
  
  As soon as we arrived, the skies turned bright blue, clouds dissipated, leaving us with a beautiful summer-like afternoon. I knew how excited the kids would be to pick fruit right off the tree.
  
  
  
  The orchard provides much more fruit than the family can consume and Nadia goes often to pick whatever they do not want. "Will they mind if we take some home with us?" I asked feeling a bit shy about taking from someone else's orchard. "Believe me, they are happy we are picking it" she replied.
  
  So we went at it.
  
  There were so many different varieties of apples. The intense dark plum skin on some really drew my attention. I had never seen apples quite that dark. Inside the flesh was white with streaks of pink. Absolutely gorgeous. Do you know which variety that might be?
  
  We loaded a box with apples and plums that we brought back home with us. My mom made vanilla bean, cinnamon and lemon-flavored apple and plum jam as soon as we returned, which she is still enjoying every morning for breakfast.
  
  
  
  Needless to say, I cooked a lot with apples last week. One of my favorites, this savory red kuri squash, apple and quinoa crumble with goat cheese, sage and parsley. We ate it with a green salad. It was lovely.
  
  For dessert, one of my childhood favorites that is included in my upcoming cookbook. Gluten and dairy free vanilla and cardamom flavored natillas with sauteed apples. Natilla is a light custard that we grew up eating. My grandmother made it perfectly every time with raw milk and cinnamon. Always makes me think of her.
  
  
  
  You can see Nadia's post with images from our visit on her blog. So beautiful.
  
  Red kuri squash, apple and quinoa crumble
  
  serves 4 to 6
  
  Crumble topping
  
  1/2 cup (70 g) superfine brown rice flour
  1/2 cup (70 g) quinoa flour
  1/2 cup (70 g) cold cooked quinoa
  1/2 ounce (15 g) finely grated Idiazabal or Manchego cheese
  3 tablespoons finely chopped parsley
  1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
  6 tablespoons (90 ml) olive oil
  
  In a bowl, whisk together the first six ingredients. Add olive oil and stir until a sand-like crumble forms.
  
  Chill the crumble while preparing the filling.
  
  Filling
  
  2 tablespoons olive oil
  1/2 medium leek, thinly sliced
  1 clove garlic, minced
  1/2 medium red kuri or hokkaido squash, peeled and diced (about 3 cups diced)
  1 tablespoons finely chopped parsley
  3 sage leaves, finely chopped
  1/2 teaspoon salt
  1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
  1/2 teaspoon ground coriander
  2 medium Gala apples, peeled and diced
  3/4 cup (185 ml) chicken stock
  1 ounce (30 g) goat cheese, crumbled
  
  Preheat oven to 400F (200C)
  
  In a large saute pan, heat the olive oil over medium heat. Add the leek and garlic. Cook for 5 minutes until tender, but not browned. Add the squash, parsley, sage, salt, pepper, and coriander. Increase heat to medium high and stir. Cook for 5 minutes stirring occasionally.
  
  Add the chicken stock and cook for another 5 minutes. Add the apples and cook another 5 minutes until soft but not mushy.
  
  Transfer the filling to a greased baking dish or individual over-proof bowls. Top with the crumble.
  
  Bake the crumble until topping golden and filing bubbling, about 30 to 40 minutes for a larger dish and 20 minutes for individuals. Serve warm.
  

  

  3 months on
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• 

  Post-It Note Watch

  

  These Post-It Note Watches made me smile.

  (via TheFancy)

  3 months on
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• 

  Linguists Crack Mysterious 300-Year Old Coded Manuscript

  The Copiale Cipher is a 105-page handwritten document that was composed sometime in the late Eighteenth Century. It has 75,000 characters, both symbols and Roman letters. Until recently, it was indecipherable. But now linguists using translation programs have decoded the first sixteen pages. Here’s how they did it:

  Eventually they concluded that the Roman letters were so-called nulls, meant to mislead the code breaker, and that the letters represented spaces between words made up of elaborate symbols. Another crucial discovery was that a colon indicated the doubling of the previous consonant.

  The researchers used language-translation techniques like expected word frequency to guess what a symbol might equal in German.

  “It turned out that we can apply a lot those techniques to code breaking,” Dr. Knight said.

  The translated text reveals details for a ritual by a secret society.

  Link -via Nerdcore | Photo: New York Times

  Previously: The Code the CIA Can’t Crack

  3 months on
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• 

  The Hubble Blew My Mind

  Last night, around 8:30pm, I was sitting in my backyard with my 9 yr. old daughter, Maddie. We were looking at stars, trying to identify constellations, when one of them started moving...

  

  She Was Hit By... Space Junk

  Out here in Hawaii, when there's a New Moon (like right now) - you can readily see satellites lazily scooting across the night sky. Every now and again you see a really bright one - which I think is the International Space Station. My daughters love this - probably more than knowing the names of the stars - they love to see satellites.

  So last night there we are and my daughter asks if we can bring the iPad. Like a typical dad I say "no way! This is raw nature! Technology stays inside!".

  But my daughter preservers: "Dad it will help us find the stars we're looking for..." and I relent. We use a really cool, location aware, augmented-reality app for the iPad called Star Walk. It's an utterly amazing app and I've owned it for years - but mostly we use it as a glorified encyclopedia - I really don't like bringing it outside for some reason. That changed last night...

  It's The Hubble

  My oldest daughter is swinging the iPad around, watching the stars zoom by on its screen. I keep telling her the real stars are actually above her (which is why I don't like the thing out there) and she says "I know... I'm just trying to find some fun constellations".

  And then my youngest perks up: "look daddy! It's a shooting star! I mean a satellite!" I look up, and sure enough, there's a nice bright satellite going west to east across the clear black sky.

  "It's the Hubble" says my 9 yr. old.

  "You're probably right" I say - "I just wish there was a way we could know for -- wait a minute! How did you know that's the HUBBLE?"

  "It's right here - on the iPad" she says, pointing to a little image of the hubble right on the starfield screen.

  I'm completely stunned. I don't know why I should be - we're connected to WiFi so why shouldn't the app know this?

  My daughter is looking up at me as if something's wrong... "No I believe you ... it's just ... wow! Don't you think that's awesome! We're sitting here, watching a thing move up there, and it's moving on the screen down here too!"

  As I say this - I realize that I'm not so amazed at the app, at the syncing, and the "knowing of it" - it's something else entirely. Something my daughter takes for granted.

  "Yeah - it's pretty neat" she says. She's tickled that she figured it out - but it's precisely what she has come to expect from the iPad... apparently - that it just knows.

  Just In Time Magic

  I thought about this later on. All day as a matter of fact: what was it about seeing the Hubble on the iPad, and in the sky, that blew me away?

  And I think I have an answer - and it's two-fold:

  • First - it rarely rarely happens when technology kicks in a bit of information "just in time". Yes if I set the alarm on my iPhone it will ring - but that's not "Just In Time" really. This iPad answered a question that we had right then, right there. At that moment.
  • Secondly - and most importantly - my daughter told me the answer. This might sound weird if you don't have kids - but for your kid to know the answer to something you genuinely don't know - that's really special for them.

  All of this from a little black piece of glass and metal. I know I'll be called a fan-boy for this, but yes, that was magical.

  

  

  3 months on
  Morgaine's shared items in Google Reader
• 

  Photo of the Day

  

  Rovinj, Croatia.

  

  3 months on
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  The World Is Surprisingly Angry About the End of Google Reader

  The demise of Google Reader's share features is affecting everyone from RSS-junkies to Iranian freedom fighters, and many of them are very displeased. Google Reader itself is very much alive and well, and in fact, the RSS reader will soon sport a slick-looking redesign. However, at some point this week, the ability to follow, friend and share links within Reader will cease to exist, as Google pushes people to use Google+ for those kinds of things. Along with it, the myriad communities that depended on Reader for years for everything from meeting new people to organizing protests will just have to figure something else out. It turns out Google wasn't so bad at social networks, after all.

  Displeased is actually not a strong enough word to describe these sentiment. These people are pissed, and they're fighting back. (There are already protests planned outside of Google offices and a petition--using Google Docs, of course--to save Reader's social features.) The dissenters divide into two camps: Iranians and the Sharebros.

  Iran

  You've undoubtedly heard a lot about how the Iranian protests of 2009 were driven by Twitter. They were, and the government responded immediately, imposing firewalls and other censorship measures in an effort to quash the uprising. Ultimately, pretty much every single social network was banned in Iran over the past couple of years, leaving Iranians without a free speech forum--except Google Reader. As an Iranian blogger who goes by Amir explains, "Google Reader is not in a separated domain (like any other Google product) and thanks to https protocol, it is hard to filter by government." Amir and other Iranians are worried that Google+, which lives in a subdomain that could be more easily blocked, will suffer the same fate as the other social networks:

  Popularity map for Google Reader shows that Google Reader is the 1st popular website in Iran, despite the fact that many users which are using VPN or proxies and are not counted! Then it makes sense why Google Reader matters for Iranian and why integrating it with Google+ will makes it like any already available and banned website like facebook!

  Alan Green, the Google programmer saddled with breaking the bad news on the company's official blog, has received nearly 500 comments on his Google+ post announcing the changes, many of them from angry Iranians who believe their freedom of speech is in jeopardy. He hasn't responded to a single one.

  The Sharebros

  Sharebros identify themselves simply as "person(s) whom one is following and followed by on Google Reader (as formally recognized by a Google Reader founder)," but their devotion to Reader is uncanny. Like more well known online communities like Reddit or 4chan, they've developed their own glossary of hashtags and lexicon of pictograms. ( -_-  denotes "dissatisfaction or defeat.") The community doesn't just exist online, either. They have #sharebro parties, and many of them say they've met some of their closest friends via Google Reader. At least one Sharebro met his wife.

  We talked to a number of Sharebros about the changes, and their arguments against axing the social features were about half as compelling as their stories about how Google Reader changed their lives. Richard Berger told The Atlantic Wire about how he ditched email and now primarily communicates with his mother via Google Reader. "Reader is the best way to share and discover content on the internet, period," says Richard.

  Another, Stu Watson formed a band, No Sky God, with his friend James who he met through Google Reader. They just put out a 12" record featuring Nat Baldwin, the bassist from Dirty Projectors. "James and I would likely have never met without Reader," Stu wrote in an email, "but more importantly the social aspects of Reader allowed us to get to know each other in a more intimate and ultimately meaningful way than if we had, say, just been Facebook friends or something." Stu tells us that people in the Sharebro sphere are already working on coding their own Reader replacement--they don't want to use Google+.

  The most compelling Sharebro story comes from Ramey Moore. In a Reader forum post, Ramey tells the story about how he and his wife, who's expecting a child soon, "first met at a #sharebro event, scheduled and organized solely through Reader." The (long) post concludes: 

  I am 100% certain that even if someone at Google cares or commiserates with me that nothing will change. … Basically, this is a panegyric. An elegy. A final funeral oration. A fuck you to those who want to kill something that works and try to build a Frankenstein's Monster that will probably choke to death on its own blood. Reader works as is, this move is just a sad attempt to jump-start an already failed Buzz 2.0.
  
  That's it, I'm done. If anyone cares I'm going to be trying to imagine how to delete G+.

  At least one protest organized by Sharebros is scheduled to gather tomorrow at Google's DC headquarters. Meanwhile, the petition to save Reader's social features has gathered thousands of signatures. And despite all the backlash from their most devoted users, the Google Reader teams has yet to respond. We reached out for a response and haven't heard back.

  

  3 months on
  Morgaine's shared items in Google Reader
• 

  50 of the World’s Best Breakfasts

  

  
  

  

  1. A full English Breakfast – it must have beans, sausages, bacon, eggs, mushrooms, hash browns and toast. Of course, it should all be knocked back with a cup of tea, but black pudding is optional as far as I’m concerned.

  

  2. Breakfast in Iran – it usually features some sort of naan bread with butter and jam. When a light breakfast just isn’t going to hit the spot Iranians eat halim. Halim is a mixture of wheat, cinnamon, butter and sugar cooked with shredded meat in huge pots. You can eat it hot or cold. You can also see the Iranian version of an omelet here too.

  

  3. A Cuban wake up meal – usually consists of sweetened coffee with milk with a pinch of salt thrown in. The unique Cuban bread is toasted and buttered and cut into lengths to dunk in the coffee.

  

  4. Polish Breakfast – known locally as Jajecznica, a traditional Polish breakfast consists of scrambled eggs covered with slices of custom-made kielbasa and joined by two potato pancakes.

  

  5. Quick Spanish breakfast – Pan a la Catalana, or Pan con Tomate, in Spain is simple but really delicious. Just rub some bread with fresh garlic and plenty of ripe tomato, then drizzle with olive oil and salt. Top with cheese, ham or sausage for an extra bit.

  

  6. A yummy Moroccan breakfast – usually consists of different breads with some chutney, jam, cheese or butter. They have a really delicious crumpet-style bread which they make in huge slabs for you to tear a bit off, and a semolina pancake bread called Baghir – both are really tasty.

  

  7. A healthy Hawaiian breakfast – I couldn’t imagine Hawaiians eating anything but fruit to be honest. Of course, there’s the bagel but I’m sure they’d burn the energy from that off in a few minutes on their surf board anyway.

  

  8. Swedish breakfast – often involves a Swedish pancake, known as a Pannkakor. It’s a thin flat cake made from batter and fried on both sides – much like a crepe. It’s usually served with a sweet, fruity filling.

  

  9. Icelandic breakfast cuisine – a hearty and hot breakfast to fight off the dark, icy mornings is what’s needed here. Hafragrautur, or oatmeal, is served with a sprinkle of brown sugar with a few raisins or nuts on top, perfect.

  

  10. Breakfast in Portugal – a delicious and simple affair with stuffed croissants and plenty of coffee served in the sun.

  

  11. Breakfast in Australia – there’s only one crucial ingredient here, Vegemite. Travelling Aussies are often found with a sneaky pot of the sticky, salty brown stuff in their backpack. Just don’t get in the Vegemite vs Marmite war – everybody knows Marmite is better, but let them have their fun.

  

  12. A Brazilian breakfast – mmmm a delicious selection of meats, cheeses and bread is the normal breakfast fare here. Jazzy rosething crafted out of I don’t know what, optional.

  

  13. An Italian breakfast – a nation too fabulous for heavy breakfasts me thinks. Or maybe they’re saving themselves for a big cheesy pizza lunch and a pesto pasta dinner? (Although there’s nothing wrong with having them for breakfast you know) Either way an Italian eats on the run with a ‘cappuccino e cornetto’ aka a cappuccino and croissant.

  

  14. A Welsh breakfast – errrm is it just me or is that cheesy toast flashing me a smile? Welsh Rarebit aka cheese on toast is a truly, truly delicious breakfast. Just the sight of that bubbling cheese makes me want to smother it in Worcestershire Sauce and chow down, mmmmm. Anyway, 36 left, must dash.

  

  15. Breakfast in Denmark – top marks for presentation here. On a Dane’s breakfast plate you’ll often find rye bread, cheeses, salami, ham, pâté, honey, jam and sometimes even thin ‘plates’ of chocolate. It came as a bit of a shock to me but my research has shown that bacon is not actually that popular! Dun dun durrrh. How can this be? Apparently they send in all to the UK.

  

  16. A Philippines breakfast – it’s all about the local fruits here. Mangoes are popular fare to keep you regular. As for keeping your energy up rice is the top choice, or the little sausages, known as longganisa, you can see above. When fried with salt and garlic cloves it’s known as sinangag. The sinangag is then combined with eggs, meats and beans and bob’s your uncle, fanny’s your aunt, a delicious Philippine breakfast is born.

  

  17. An Alaskan breakfast – featuring reindeer meat and an egg nestled on a pancake. Poor old Rudolph, he won’t be able to join in any reindeer games now, will he?

  

  18. A traditional German breakfast – wursts, local cheeses and freshly baked bread is the normal fare for a German breakfast. All washed back with a delicious coffee.

  

  19. The famous American breakfast – home made thick pancakes with syrup and blueberries, topped off with a few rashers of bacon. Anyone not wishing for a coronary usually opts for a bowl of muesli, so I’m told. Pancakes all the way for me!

  

  20. The French breakfast – ah, le croissant, le croissant, how I love le croissant! Pack them with crushed almonds, butter, chocolate or cream, they always taste good.

  

  21. Breakfast in India – here we have rosemary roasted potatoes, Indian tofu scramble, lentils, veggie sausage and banana pepper toast. Breakfast cuisine in India varies hugely depending on the region but if you think of your Indian breakfast somewhere along these lines, you would be correct.

  

  22. A hearty Scottish breakfast – much like a full English and a full Irish, but the country’s USP is the ‘sumptuous’ slab of haggis served alongside every fat-fried egg. Don’t know what haggis is? Scroll down quick if your animal eating habits err on the queasy side. It’s sheep’s heart, liver and lungs minced with onion, oatmeal, suet, spices, salt and stock…

  

  23. Thailand’s breakfast offering – you’ll find this dish at stalls throughout Thailand. It’s a minty spicy fish with a sweet & spicy pork, served with rice. By all accounts it tastes excellent, and it’s cheap at only 30 Bhat. Thai breakfast fare isn’t all that different from what you’d eat for lunch and dinner.

  

  24. An Argentinian breakfast -usually consists of “mate” (an infusion drink made with leaves of “yerba”) or dulce de leche with “facturas,”a croissant-like typical pastry.

  

  25. An Irish breakfast – you’ve had English and Scottish, now it’s time to learn the Irish USP. That would be white pudding and soda bread.

  

  26. A Canadian breakfast – that eggy looking section is actually perogies. Perogies are boiled, baked or fried dumplings made from unleavened dough and traditionally stuffed with potato filling, sauerkraut, ground meat, cheese, or fruit. Then you’ve got some sausages and toast to mop it all up.

  

  27. Breakfast in Mexico – the delightful plate above consists of beef tips, chilequiles and other assorted goodies eaten in Manzanillo. Nachos, cheese and beans always feature heavily and a delicious, spicy breakfast is the norm.

  

  28. A Russian breakfast – oladi is the breakfast of choice in Russia. They’re sort of like pancakes and kind of like Yorkshire puddings, hot, just fried, soft inside and with a crispy edge! They’re best enjoyed with soured cream, honey, jam or fresh berries.

  

  29. Breakfast in Vietnam – usually consists of some meaty treat dropped in a semolina/porridge mixture. What you see above is pork porridge. It features Chinese doughnuts, beansprouts, pork intestine stuffed with peppery pork mince, sliced pork heart, stomach slivers and blood pudding. A bit more interesting than toast and jam anyway.

  

  30. Breakfast in Peru – ceviche is popular whatever time of day, breakfast, lunch or dinner. It’s a seafood dish made from fresh raw fish marinated in citrus juices such as lemon or lime and spiced with chilli peppers. What a feast.

  

  31. Breakfast in Bolivia – saltenas are a bit like empanadas crossed with Cornish pasties. They’re the traditional option for a Bolivian breakfast and usually filled with meat and vegetables, and slightly sweetened with sugar.

  

  32. An Egyptian breakfast – the breakfast of choice here is Foul Madamas. It’s made from fava beans, chickpeas, garlic and lemon. Above you’ll see the dish topped with olive oil, cayenne, tahini sauce, a hard boiled egg, and some diced green veggies.

  

  33. Breakfast in Japan – what do you mean you’ve never had tofu for breakfast? It’s a popular choice in Japan, along with fish and rice. Soak it in soya sauce and you’ve got yourself one delicious, and semi-healthy breakfast.

  

  34. Breakfast in China – a lot like lunch and dinner in China. Expect noodles, rice, sticky coated chicken and fried veggies.

  

  35. Malaysian breakfast – A hot bowl of Mee – noodles mixed with egg, vegetable and tasty spices.

  

  36. Breakfast in Mongolia – it generally consists of boiled mutton with lots of fat and flour and maybe some dairy products or rice. In western Mongolia they add variety to their diets with horsemeat.

  

  37. Breakfast in Belize – fry jacks are a staple in Belize breakfast cuisine. They’re deep-fried pieces of dough that are often accompanied by beans and eggs, or jam and honey.

  

  38. A Hungarian breakfast – always consists of Pogácsa. Well, nearly always anyway. Throughout the year there are festivals dedicated to it and the recipe changes region to region. They have a scone-like consistency and as well as a popular breakfast item, they’re also used to bulk up goulash meals.

  

  39. A Korean breakfast – breakfast is similar to lunch and dinner in Korea. You’ll get a small plate of kimchi, a bowl of rice and a bowl of clear vegetable soup. A good old-fashioned slice of toast is also a popular choice, but that doesn’t make for nearly as good a picture.

  

  40. Breakfast in Pakistan – in Pakistan you’ll get Aloo Paratha for your breakfast. It’ s an Indian unleavened flatbread made by pan frying, wholewheat dough on a tava. The dough contains ghee and the bread is usually stuffed with vegetables. It’s best eaten with butter, chutney or some other spicy sauce. It’s not uncommon to roll it up and dip it in your tea.

  

  41. An Estonian breakfast – curd cheese on a wheat bloomer – known locally as ‘cheese on toast’. The creamy topping can be supplemented with ricotta or fromage fraiche instead, if you prefer.

  

  42. Breakfast in Jordan – the choice varies depending on the are and upbringing you’re from. Labneh, hummous and falafel are all popular choices and are usually served alongside olive oil, lamb sausage, jam and butter, turkey or beef mortadella.

  

  43. Breakfast in Venezuela – empenadas are the order of the day. Fill the little pastries with fresh cheese, minced meat or any combination of veggies and beans.

  

  44. Breakfast in Colombia – there are a variety of regional staples to keep your stomach grumbles at bay throughout the day. In Cundinamarca this changua dish is very popular. It’s made from milk, scallions and cheese.

  

  45. Breakfast in Ghana – the most popular breakfast item in this African country is waakye. It’s basically rice cooked in beans and is found at all the street stalls in Ghana.

  

  46. Breakfast in Uganda – like a lot of large countries the typical breakfasts vary region by region. But a popular dish across the country is katogo – it’s a combination of green cooking bananas mixed in a stew from beef or in a sauce from vegetables. The picture above is banana with cow organs.

  

  47. A Bahamas breakfast – to be a Bahamian breakfast it must contain grits. Grits are dried ground hominy, or corn, for anyone not in the loop. You mix it with boiling water and the grits becomes a porridge. Its popularity came from slavery times when it’s all the slaves had to eat. Nowadays it’s topped with fat prawns and meat to spice it up a bit.

  

  48. Breakfast in Costa Rica – Gallo Pinto is the standard breakfast fare in Costa Rica. It’s made from black beans, rice, optional soured cream, salsa and a corn tortilla. Costa Ricans will often have a bit of avocado, fried ripe plantain or cold meat on the side.

  

  49. Breakfast in the Dominican Republic – you need to try the mangu. Mangu is made from mashing boiled plantains with butter and either salami, cheese or eggs. Top it off with a hot chocolate and you’ve got yourself some traditional Dominican Republic fare.

  

  50. A Turkish breakfast – the full Turkish treatment usually consists of a few varieties of cheese, butter, olives, eggs, tomatoes, cucumbers, jam, honey, and spicy meat.

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  3 months on
  Morgaine's shared items in Google Reader
• 

  Everything

  3 months on
  Morgaine's shared items in Google Reader
• 

  They Just Don't Understand Us (Part II)

  

   

   

  Updated: Again a typo in the title. Fixed. Thanks to all!

   

   

  Tweet

  

  

  3 months on
  Morgaine's shared items in Google Reader
• 

  Free WordPress Themes: 2011 Edition

  
    

  It’s interesting to look back at our previous WordPress themes round-ups. It’s almost like looking at a visual timeline not only of WordPress’ advances in theme design, but of the rapid development in functionality of the CMS itself. The themes from year to year clearly differ in style as Web design trends have evolved. As each year passes and more functionality is added to WordPress’ core, these improvements are strongly reflected in the themes developed for it.

  Once upon a time, all WordPress themes looked like traditional blogs, with basic functionality and not a heck of a lot more. But as you will see from the themes below, that original “blog” design style is clearly gone, perhaps never to be seen again. It makes you feel nostalgic.

  Nowadays, user requirements for WordPress themes are very high. Users expect all themes (including free ones) to have pages for admin options built in, where you can quickly set up your website and personalize it with a minimum of fuss. With the rise of these options pages, niche-specific theme designs (such as for portfolios, blogs or magazines) are no longer required and are, in fact, few and far between.

  Most of the themes below can be tailored via the options panel to be anything you want, whether a portfolio, a content-heavy magazine-style website or a basic blog. Setting one up takes only 10 minutes. This actually gave us a few problems when it came to categorizing the themes below. We spend a lot of time researching, collaborating on and writing these round-ups. In fact, it is a Smashing Magazine tradition to publish the top 100 WordPress themes from the previous 12 months (this is our fifth edition).

  Portfolios, Galleries And Showcases

  Portfolium (Demo)
  Portfolium is a clean and flexible WordPress grid-based portfolio theme, designed in a modern and minimalist style. It is ideal for designers, artists, photographers and other creative specialists who require a professional portfolio theme.

  

  Shaken Grid (Demo)
  Shaken Grid uses the jQuery Masonry plug-in, which “arranges elements vertically then horizontally according to a grid.” The theme is perfect if you need a gallery or portfolio or just want a unique grid layout.

  

  Big Square (Demo)
  Big Square is a stylish photoblog theme with a built-in gallery that is focused entirely on highlighting your creative visuals.

  

  Journal Crunch (Demo)
  Journal Crunch is a gallery and portfolio theme with all of the features you would expect from a premium theme: easy set-up via the options page, plenty of shortcodes, built-in pagination, Twitter widgets, AJAX contact form and much more.

  

  Paragrams (Demo)
  Paragams is a lightweight theme that is built on a grid and that could be used for various types of websites: portfolios, photoblogs even online magazines.

  

  Imbalance 2 (Demo)
  Imbalance 2 turns you WordPress-based website to an attractive blog, portfolio or online magazine. This free template has a strictly modern style with a minimalist touch.

  

  Photoria (Demo)
  Photoria is a clean feature-rich theme that would be perfect as a photoblog or portfolio. It comes packaged with a variety of templates and built-in SEO (via its extensive options page), and the theme is internationalized for easy translation.

  

  Muse (Demo)
  Muse is a simple gallery theme that can be used as either a portfolio or an inspirational showcase. It comes with custom page templates and built-in SEO, and it can be combined with a ratings plug-in to create an all-singing, all-dancing showcase website.

  

  mimiThem (Demo)
  This is far and away the most basic theme in this article. But don”t be fooled: it works effectively as a quick and easy way to get your portfolio online.

  

  Dione (Demo)
  Dione is a video showcase theme that uses the custom post type feature available in WordPress 3+.

  

  Business And Corporate Websites

  Academica (Demo)
  Academica was designed specifically for educational institutions such as universities and schools. It’s a flexible and versatile free theme that can be easily customized and branded for any university, academy or non-profit organization.

  

  Rotary (Demo)
  Rotary is a two-column business theme that was built with all of the fantastic features of WordPress 3.0. It is centered on the idea of running your blog as a CMS.

  

  Vanadiumitic (the link was removed due to the suspicious code of the theme)
  Vanadiumitic comes with a featured content section, a dropdown menu, subscription buttons (Twitter, Facebook and RSS), an automatic thumbnail resizer, and widgets for popular and featured posts and featured videos, all packed in a powerful framework for easy back-end customization.

  

  Aurelius (Demo)

  

  Gameliso (Demo)
  This one’s a lovely clean theme.

  

  Zincious (Demo)
  The Zincious theme comes with a dropdown menu, subscription buttons (Twitter, Facebook and RSS), an automatic thumbnail resizer, a widget for popular posts, a featured content slider and a robust framework for easy back-end customization.

  

  Ikonik (Demo)
  Ikonik was designed as an online design store, although no e-commerce system is integrated. It could be used as a simple portal for selling vectors, icons, logos, buttons, themes and pretty much anything else.

  

  Minimalist Themes

  Expositio (Demo)
  Expositio is a simple portfolio theme for photographers, designers and artists. Its integrated options help you customize the template from font to color.

  

  Sutra (Demo)
  Sutra is a minimal theme focused on simplicity, putting the writing front and center.

  

  Extricate (Demo)
  Extricate is a clean, minimal theme built on HTML5 and CSS3. The options page allows you to resize columns and specify post information.

  

  Renova (Demo)
  Renova comes with two backgrounds (full white or paper), six link colors, jQuery support for hover effects and mobile device support. The minimal style is for writers who need a simple layout without any distraction.

  

  Feijoa (Demo)
  This is a four-column layout with a simple sidebar and was designed using the jQuery Masonry plug-in.

  

  Simply Delicious (Demo)
  This minimalist theme features big images, a clean style and easy browsing: perfect for modern blogs and portfolios.

  

  Wordfinder (Demo)
  Wordfinder is a simple magazine-style theme for users who want to start a blog with a minimal layout. The theme has many layout features, including two home page styles and six colors for links and hover effects that are easily customizable via the options page.

  

  Theophilus (Demo)
  This jQuery-based, Cufon-enabled, lightweight and minimal WordPress theme was developed by Timothy Long.

  

  Blogum (Demo)
  Blogum is a simple grid-based blog theme, designed with a modern and minimalist style. It supports all WordPress 3.0 features, giving you extra flexibility.

  

  Mini Hyper (Demo)
  Mini Hyper comes with a basic options page where you can add your analytics tracking code and change the logo. Other than that, Mini Hyper is widget-ready and works in all browsers.

  

  Min (Demo)
  “No bells and whistles, just simple and to the point.” Min’s main content area is set at 560 pixels, and it has two widget-ized footer areas to handle navigation and anything else you feel like putting there.

  

  Papaver (Demo)
  Papaver is an elegant, minimal theme. You can set the content to one, two or three columns.

  

  Codium Extend (Demo)
  Codium Extend is a minimalist theme that supports all of WordPress 3+’s features and comes with support for smartphones (iPhone, etc.) and tablets (iPad, Galaxy Tab, etc.).

  

  Delicate (Demo)
  Delicate is a clean, minimalist theme with a focus on typography and structure.

  

  Melville (Demo)
  Melville was inspired by classic literature. It has no distractions; just a simple design that focuses the reader on your writing.

  

  Fresh and Clean (Demo)

  

  Yoko (Demo)
  Yoko is a modern and flexible theme, with a responsive layout based on CSS3 media queries. The design is optimized for big desktop screens, tablets and smartphones. You can use new post formats (such as Gallery, Aside and Quote), choose your own logo and header image, and customize the background and link color.

  

  Hybridside (Demo)
  With a minimal design and simple structure, Hybridside allows writers to choose the body background and the color scheme for links. It has full support for thumbnails, WordPress menu navigation, five widget areas and a print-friendly style sheet.

  

  Aqualine (Demo)
  Aqualine is a unique and minimalist theme that has an extensive options page. Pick your own color accent, choose between thumbnails and excerpts or the full content for the main page, and more.

  

  The Scoop (Demo)
  The Scoop is a four-column minimal magazine-style theme, with a focus on elegant typography. It is ideal for content-heavy websites.

  

  David Airey Theme
  David Airey has released his old blog’s design as a free WordPress theme. As you probably know, that minimal design offers the perfect platform for your writing.

  

  The Columnist (Demo)
  The Columnist was inspired by the grid structure and typographic techniques of traditional newspapers. It was designed with a grid-based layout, an elegant typographic hierarchy and some CSS3 and jQuery greatness.

  

  Swiss Dessign (Demo)
  The four themes below, originally featured on Smashing Magazine in January, are simple yet powerful, with a touch of traditional Swiss design and layout. Their distinct style is what separates them from the other themes. They allow you to select the focus of your work, since you are the artist and should be in control of the visitor’s experience. Each theme comes with a full video overview and support for using and managing it.

  

  Studio Dessign (Demo)

  

  Minimal Dessign (Demo)

  

  Style Dessign (Demo)

  

  Simplest Free WP Theme
  This is perhaps the most basic WordPress theme you’ve ever seen. It’s so basic that it’s not even worth showing a screenshot of it. But it is useful. It’s a fully functional theme that would be perfect for anyone looking for a barebones WordPress framework. It has only 83 lines of PHP and 75 lines of CSS.

  Blogs And Personal Websites

  Spectacular (Demo)
  This theme was commissioned by Smashing Magazine and designed by Maleika Esther Attawel. It offers a warm and comfortable environment for personal musings. It comes in two flavors: HTML 4.01 and HTML5. Both German and English versions are included in the download package.

  

  Seven Five (Demo)

  

  Protean (Demo)
  Protean is a WordPress theme from Landau Reece that allows bloggers to customise their website design for individual blog posts.

  

  Skeptical (Demo)
  Skeptical’s layout is flexible: you can display “Related posts” next to your latest posts on the home page or have a completely widget-based sidebar. You can also add your Flickr stream to the footer and showcase three noteworthy blog posts with a tag that you declare in the settings.

  

  Graphite (Demo)
  Graphite, built by Medialoot from the ground up using HTML5 and CSS3, comes with portfolio post types, two alternative home page image sliders and built-in admin settings.

  

  Harimau Malaya (Demo)
  Harimau Malaya was purpose-built as a throwback to when blogs looked like blogs. It is a simple but complete theme, suitable for every blogger out there.

  

  Pongsari (Demo)
  Pongsari, a simple and clean theme, was built using the WordPress 3+ default theme TwentyTen as a framework. It comes with support for WordPress 3+ thumbnails and custom menu functions.

  

  Typominima (Demo)
  Typominima is a free, minimal typography-based theme that was designed to enable writers and publishers to express themselves online in a clean and beautiful environment.

  

  Edgy Ellen (Demo)
  This theme from WP Classic has a stylish design, clean grid patterns and custom typography. It comes with an options panel that will help you set up your website in no time.

  

  Copperific (Demo)
  Copperific has a stylish slider to showcase highlights of your portfolio. It also has a built-in Twitter and Facebook button for easy sharing of posts. For monetization, it has four 125×125 banner ads that are integrated in the system’s back end. It has a custom dropdown menu, an automatic thumbnail resizer, a widget for popular posts and a lot more.

  

  Grey (Demo)
  Grey is generic enough to be used for almost any kind of blog. Whether it’s a blog about design, photography, fashion or some other passion, the Grey theme should suit your needs. It is built on a simple layout, but with a lot of little touches of subtle details and textures.

  

  Neonsential (Demo)
  Neonsential brings a grungy yet elegant look to your blog. The fancy home page slider highlights your featured posts. It is WordPress 3.0-compliant and backed by a robust framework for quickly setting up your website.

  

  Anniversary (Demo)
  As the name suggests, Anniversary was built as a celebration of and thank-you to WordPress. It’s a classic-looking theme, with several layout options and a customizable “Thank you, WordPress” banner in the header.

  

  Shopping/Ecommerce Theme

  Velvet Sky (Demo)
  Velvet Sky is a Prestashop and WordPress shopping theme that was recently released on Smashing Magazine. It features a custom homepage with combo slider, horizontal and submenu menu integration, custom slideshow, it supports one page checkout and guest checkout and is IE7+, Safari, Opera, Firefox, Chrome compatible.

  

  Mobile-Optimized Themes

  iPhonsta (Demo)
  Offering a mobile version of your website is an easy way to strengthen your visitors’ loyalty. iPhonsta has a fluid layout, it fits most mobile screens (despite its name, it will work on most smartphones), and it configures the font size automatically.

  

  jQuery Mobile
  This theme is optimized for mobile devices, such as iPhone, Android and BlackBerry. It is a great starting point for building a mobile website.

  

  Magazine-Layout Themes

  Agency (Demo)
  Agency is a magazine-style theme that puts your content in a beautiful wrapper, complete with subtle, elegant page elements. It features a custom slideshow, a built-in contact form, custom gallery styles with lightbox functionality, and two widget-ized sidebars.

  

  Nublu (Demo)
  This sleek blue theme comes with a configurable slider, drop-down menus and Cufon-enabled headlines. It also comes with automatic thumbnail generation and the WordPress 3+ menu system, and it sports a Twitter bird that sings your latest tweets.

  

  Splendio (Demo)
  Splendio has a unique magazine-style design, based on the TwentyTen theme.

  

  Ophion (Demo)

  

  Sight (Demo)
  Sight, previously featured on Smashing Magazine last November, is a powerful theme that is best suited to magazines-style blogs. It was built on a grid and has a modern minimalist style. Customize the content view using either the standard blog view or the grid view.

  

  Lucky Guess (Demo)
  Plenty of CSS3 techniques are used in this theme. You will notice both loud and subtle text shadows in the headings, text orientation effects and box gradients. The theme also makes use of Google fonts, which render much faster than the popular Cufon fonts.

  

  Yellow Magazine (Demo)
  This theme could be used for a magazine-style website or, just as effectively, for a corporate or business layout. It comes with a basic options page, built-in pagination, a content slider and integrated social bookmarking buttons.

  

  Suburbia (Demo)
  Suburbia is a clean and flexible grid-based magazine theme with a modern and minimalist style. The theme is suitable for most types of websites, including blogs, online magazines and portfolios.

  

  The Morning After (Demo)
  At 100,000 downloads, The Morning After is the grandfather of modern WordPress magazine themes. Originally designed by Arun Kale, it was bought last year by WooThemes, which has restructured and modernized the theme with its own powerful development framework.

  

  Distant Dawn (Demo)

  

  iTheme2 (Demo)
  iTheme2 is the perfect theme for technology- and Apple-related blogs. It uses media queries to target different displays, such as desktops, notebooks, iPhones and iPads, and other mobile devices, without a plug-in. The layout automatically adjusts to the user’s viewing area.

  

  Magazine 1 (Demo)
  With its simple, stylish and dark design, Magazine 1 is a professional solution for any blog or magazine website. It features jQuery content sliders, a “Most popular posts” widget and multiple colors for the background and content. It is easy to customize and use.

  

  Custom Community (Demo)
  Custom Community is a BuddyPress theme that enables you to easily build a website with all of BuddyPress’ built-in features: the easy-to-use jQuery slideshow, post templates with thumbnail integration, and a powerful options page for customizing every part of the theme.

  

  Aluminiumism (Demo)
  The Aluminiumism theme has a grungy watercolor style yet still maintains a classically clean look. It features a prominent content section, a dropdown menu, subscription buttons (Twitter, Facebook and RSS), an automatic thumbnail resizer, widgets for popular and featured posts and featured videos, and a heck of a lot more.

  

  Elegant (Demo)
  Elegant is a simple yet professional theme. It has two color schemes (black and white) and is best suited to corporate magazines but is flexible enough for blogs and portfolios.

  

  Amphion Lite (Demo)
  Amphion Lite comes packaged with two skins, a home page content slider, integrated social sharing buttons, custom page templates and a lightbox plug-in for image galleries.

  

  “Coming Soon” And Landing Pages

  Landis (Demo)
  Landis is a simple one-page landing or “Under construction” WordPress theme. It keeps your users informed while you build your amazing new website. The quick landing page simply tells visitors what is going on and when your website will launch.

  

  Timelaph (Demo)
  Timelaph is a sleek, dark, spaced-out theme for landing pages and email newsletter subscription pages. It integrates easily with Feedburner to redirect RSS feeds and help build your email subscriptions.

  

  Holding Pattern (Demo)

  

  Placeholder (Demo)
  This landing page is perfect if your website is in development and you simply need to let visitors know how to get in touch with you. Also, the built-in countdown timer is a nifty way to tell visitors when the project will launch.

  

  Coming Soon (Demo)

  

  Theme Development Frameworks And Bare-Bone Themes

  Platform
  This is the free version of Platform, a drag-and-drop design framework for WordPress. With this framework, you can design and build your website faster than ever before, entirely in WordPress’ back end.

  

  Roots
  Roots is a starter WordPress theme made for developers and based on HTML5 Boilerplate, Blueprint (or 960.gs) and Starkers. It helps you rapidly create brochure websites and blogs.

  

  HTML5 WordPress Shell
  With this framework, you get custom templates (including 404 and 503 error pages), the mother of all WordPress body tags, support for WordPress’ new menu system, Modernizr (i.e. HTML5 feature detection) and an HTML5 reset style sheet, @font-face examples, support for iPhone detection, and IE conditional style sheets.

  

  Boilerplate: Starkers
  This Boilerplate framework was developed by combining HTML5 Boilerplate and the bare-bones Starkers into a minimally marked-up, HTML5-ready framework. The Boilerplate theme is designed to function as a parent theme to whatever child you would like to add. But you could just as easily use this as a starting point and alter the PHP as your design requires.

  

  TwentyTen Five
  TwentyTen Five was originally launched in the Smashing Magazine article “Using HTML5 to Transform WordPress’ TwentyTen Theme.” It is basically an HTML5 upgrade of the default TwentyTen theme, and yet it is much more than that. With its support for brand new HTML5 elements and its compatibility with all modern browsers (although to use HTML5 with IE versions 6 to 8, you need a pinch of JavaScript, which is included), this theme is perfect as a development framework.

  

  Theme Starter (Demo)
  This is a starter theme for those who are looking for a starting point in WordPress without having to dissect anything more complex. The theme is WordPress 3+ compatible and uses the new menu navigation and thumbnail functionality.

  

  Constellation (Demo)
  This great starting point gives you the flexibility to provide bespoke styles for different devices, totally up-to-date HTML5 code (which is fantastic for SEO) and a flexible grid system, on top of all of the other goodness bundled in the HTML5 Boilerplate.

  

  Bones
  This feature-rich bare-bones theme was built using some of HTML5 Boilerplate”s recommended mark-up. It also has a ton of features, such as page navigation, breadcrumbs, a widget for related posts, HTML5 video with fallback and a heck of a lot more. Bones was designed to make the developer”s life easier; it”s meant to be hacked until it fits what you”re looking for.

  

  Skimpy
  Skimpy has basic WordPress 3.0 functionality, including custom menus, thumbnails and custom sidebars. A couple of other useful tweaks are commented out, but you can comment them in and do what you want with them. The only style included is a container that sets the width to 900 pixels.

  Further Resources

  For nostalgia, or perhaps to visually track the development of WordPress themes, browse back through the top 100 WordPress themes from previous years.

  Please note that some of those themes (especially the ones from 2007 and 2008) may be outdated and incompatible with the latest version of WordPress. Use with caution.

  • 100 Free High-Quality WordPress Themes: 2010 Edition
  • 100 Amazing Free WordPress Themes for 2009
  • 100 Excellent Free WordPress Themes: 2008 Edition
  • Beautiful WordPress Themes You (Probably) Haven’t Seen: 2007 Edition

  (al)

  ---

  © Paul Andrew for Smashing Magazine, 2011.

  4 months on
  Morgaine's shared items in Google Reader
• 

  Moon Light by Nosigner

  

  This past weekend, Nosigner exhibited the Moon Light at Dwell on Design in the Yakitate! exhibit.

  From Nosigner:

  Every one of Japanese who wounded by the earthquake, prayed to the super moon, the biggest full moon in a cycle of 18 years. The moon is the light of our hope. This bright object is the LED lighting which is made from accurate 3D topography data of the moon from the lunar orbiter “Kaguya”. 

  

  

  

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  © 2011 Design Milk | Posted by Jaime in Home Furnishings | Permalink | No comments

  4 months on
  Morgaine's shared items in Google Reader