Mobile themes for WordPress.com

I’ve just seen this on my WordPress.com dashboard:

As technology advances, mobile devices are playing a bigger role in our lives. Thousands of you have been using the iPhone and Blackberry applications to post and edit content for your blog, and over 60 million page views a month of WordPress.com blogs have been on mobile devices. New smartphones do a great job with most web sites, but older phones have many problems and may not display anything at all.

Today we’re launching a couple of mobile themes that will automatically be displayed when your blog is accessed with a compatible mobile phone.

The first theme is a modification of WPtouch and will be displayed to phones with modern web browsers like those on the iPhone and Android phones. The second theme was developed from an older version of the WordPress Mobile Edition and will be displayed to all other mobile devices.

Read more here

So there you go. If you view my blog on your mobile, things should look better or load faster, depending on how modern and funky your phone is!

New theme: Freshy

Yes, you’ve read that right (and spotted it, if you’re a regular visitor to my blog, rather than just a feed reader)… Once again, I’ve changed the look, this time using the Freshy theme.

For some reason, the Ocean Mist theme wasn’t displaying properly, so I thought a change was in order.

The current header image is cropped from this photo, taken at sunset last night:

Sunset over my field - 16 September 2009

I love this time of year, especially when we’re lucky enough to have such good weather.

Ocean Mist theme!

I promise this is the last time, but I’ve changed the theme again… I’ve remembered an extremely good reason why I don’t like the non-customisable wordpress.com version of the MistyLook theme (though I love the theme in general) and so have opted for the Ocean Mist theme, using the same header image that I did for MistyLook.

MistyLook theme!

I’m sure you’ve all got better things to do, but just in case you’re wondering, I’m now using the MistyLook theme instead of this morning’s change to the iNove theme. And, just for Lec, the header image was taken on 30 May of this year and is of the view at the bottom of the field, looking over the tree line:

The farm - 30 May 2009

iNove theme

A few days ago, WordPress.com announced the introduction of a new theme: iNove.

As you know, I like to chop and change the features and look of my blog on a regular basis, so although it’s only got one sidebar, and my usual preference is for two, I thought I’d give it a go.

Thoughts?

No photos!

For reasons I don’t understand, Firefox keeps crashing whenever I try to upload a photo to WordPress. This is particularly annoying as, like most bloggers, I’ve been taking loads of photos so that I can prove to the rest of the world that the sun really did shine! And, of course, posting photos means I don’t have to engage my sun-baked brain in the business of writing a coherent, witty and interesting post. (You at the back, I know what you’re thinking. Ha bloomin ha!!)

But, alas, with no means to upload said photos, I’ll just have to make my excuses until another time. It’s hot, you see, and the sun is shining and I really, really want to get back outside to enjoy it while it lasts. Well, be in it, anyway. The pigs are knocking over their water bowls left, right and centre, as they desperately try to cool themselves down, the dogs seem to need lots of trips down to the river to escape from the heat (even Midge is getting her tootsies wet!), and that garden won’t take care of itself…

Playing with the theme

I got a bit bored with my last theme (mainly the fact that it’s just two columns: I’m a sucker for three-column blog themes) and since everyone else is having a spring clean, I thought I’d join the club.

For what it’s worth, I can’t bear the colour scheme of this current one (Andreas04 by Andreas Viklund) and there’s a lot about it that needs tidying up if only I had access to the style sheet, but of all the three-column themes available (a whopping eight!!!), this is the one I dislike the least, so it’ll do for now. Unless the colour starts to grate on my nerves, in which case, bear with me…!

UPDATE: Ignore all the above. I’m back with the K2-lite theme. I might play again later, right now I’ve got piggies to scritch and a veggie garden to get on with!

A new look!

I’ve never been happy with the theme I was using before as it looked very old and outdated. Inspired by Jennie’s change(s) (though hers is just temporary, or so she tells us) I thought I’d go for a new look around here.

The photo in the banner was of the weaners lined up but, being a free theme on a free blogging platform, there are only so many changes I can make and I wasn’t happy with it. So, since the name of my blog is “Bring me Sunshine”, I thought a photo of the sun would be most appropriate. The one I’ve chosen was taken in February, when B and I lived at Mum’s.

This is what it looks like uncropped:

Sunrise at mum's - 10 February 2008

Theme frustrations

As you know, BmS isn’t my first blog. I ran my previous blog for several years on my own domain name. Sadly, I no longer own the domain or the web space and for the reasons of economics, have decided to run this blog for free, thanks to those kind folks at wordpress.com.

I chose WP over Blogger for no reason other than the fact I prefer it, and I base that on the fact that I’ve used Blogger in my previous blogging existance, before switching to the full-blown version of WordPress (at dot org as opposed to the hosted version at dot com). I then spent many a happy hour tweaking the theme, adapting the layout and the colour scheme and fiddling with the CSS, all so I could get it looking just so. And then someone would release a new theme or plug-in that I really liked and the whole process would start all over again…

And that is something I really, really miss. When we didn’t have internet access, I barely thought about it. But now that I’m back online and blogging again, the restrictions of having a free blog at WP dot com are really starting to grate.

I cannot find a theme that I really like. There are a few that I mostly like and just want to be able to change certain elements to turn them into themes I really love. But I can’t, so I’m having to settle for the theme that irritates me the least. Which is why the look of BmS changes so often!

Of course, you can pay WP an annual fee for the privilege of editing the CSS but I can’t help thinking that if you’re going to spend money, why not invest in a domain name and hosting?

But there are far more important things to spend our cash on, so I’ll just have to put up and shut up. Well, maybe not the latter! Unless anyone fancies collaborating on a brand new WP theme that we can submit for others to use?!