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We’re always on the lookout for the best WordPress themes in the world. On the way to that goal, we’ve set out to choose the best new WordPress themes, every week.

This week’s new themes (or the new themes that we’re aware of) are in the poll below. Take a look at these new works of art, free and paid, and voice your opinion on the best of them. If you don’t see a theme that you know was released this week, enter it in the “other” option (and ping us about it, we’d like to know what we missed).

View Poll

If your theme was released this week and we missed it, shoot us a note using this form. We’ll be sure to add it.

The WordCamp Jerusalem blog has announced that WordPress founding developer Matt Mullenweg has been confirmed as a speaker at the event. Mullenweg will close the day with a Q&A session for attendees. The event will feature 22 speakers in total and will take place on September 5, 2010. This is Jerusalem’s first WordCamp and the third overall in Israel.

Google is taking site’s loading speed into consideration in determining its ranking. Even though this will not land a big impact, it is still something we (webmasters) should really look into. The reason is pretty simple – majority of visitors are usually in rush and no one is fond of waiting half a century before the website finally load its content or failed to load.

In another words, if your site is slow, you are subjected to lose a lot of visitors. Visitors are traffic, traffic affects reputation and they can potentially generate revenue. It can be a domino effect if one ignore the consequences of a slow-loading site.

It is essential to identify what builds up your website before you jump into the codes trying to speed things up because it cannot be done without knowing the culprits that are slowing down your website. This article compile a collection of useful web service and tools that will help you to diagnose and analyze you site, allowing you to understand your site better.

Web Services

Pingdom

Test the load time of all Website objects (html, images, Javascript, css, iframes and others). You can also check how fast every element of your Website load and improve the slow-loading items. At the summary of test results, you see the report of the site loading time, loading time of each element, element sizes and the total number of elements.

GTmetrix

Combines two of the most popular Firefox performance add-ons – Yslow and Google Page Speed. Gtmetrix gives you suggestions what you need to improve your website. Although Yslow and Google page speed are recommended for Firefox, it can also be applicable to other browser.

Light Speed Now

Test your website speed performance, and get the report sent to your inbox.

Load Impact

Loadimpact is a very important tool for large Website visited by tens of thousands visitors each day. A free account allows you to check the loading impact with 50 simulated users, anything more you’ll have to upgrade to a premium account.

Site-Perf

Site-Perf fully emulates natural browser behavior downloading your page with all the images, CSS, JS and other files – just like a regular visitor and on the report you can see Website page loading what files start loading at first and how fast. It as very useful performance report to find elements that you need to improve your Website loading time.

WebWait

Benchmark your website or test the speed of your web connection.

Gomez Networks

Conduct a real-time Instant Test for an individual Web page to test its performance from an external node location.

OctaGate

Allows you to monitor how long it takes for a user to download one or more of your web site pages.

Webslug

Allows you to compare your website’s speed against your competitors.

WebToolHub

Gives you the option to understand how your page is loading with different visitor’s Internet connection speeds. With Webtoolhub you will get information about page size, loading time with different Internet connection speeds and will get information about all Css, Javascript and Images that are used on page. Nothing more nothing less: all that you need for basic page speed test.

IWebTool

Iwebtool gives you the option to compare up to ten pages in same time. You also can check homepage, categories or posts loading time with just one click.

Searchmetrics

Shows the duration of a given website. This value can be used for showing how long a website take to load and if it is better to optimize the website or change a (slow) ISP.

BrowserMob

Get performance data on any website on the fly without having to create a test script.

Applications

Pylot

Open source tool for testing performance and scalability of web services. It runs HTTP load tests, which are useful for capacity planning, benchmarking, analysis, and system tuning.

Google Page Speed

Page Speed is an open-source Firefox/Firebug Add-on. Webmasters and web developers can use Page Speed to evaluate the performance of their web pages and to get suggestions on how to improve them.

YSlow

YSlow analyzes web pages and suggests ways to improve their performance based on a set of rules for high performance web pages.

PageTest

Internet Explorer plugin that visually displays the underlying requests made by the browser for content. It also provides suggestions on how to improve the performance of the measured page.

Multi-Mechanize

Multi-Mechanize is an open source framework for web performance and load testing. It allows you to run simultaneous python scripts to generate load (synthetic transactions) against a web site or web service.

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Here it is, our winners for ShortrunCard custom-printed plastic cards contest. Sorry for the slight delay!

A little recap of what the winners will be getting before we announce the list. 3 winners, each getting a $200 gift card, $100 gift card and $50 gift card, courtesy of ShortRunCard. These gift cards can be used to order customized plastic cards.

Some of you raised the concern whether this includes the shipping fees – the answer is yes/no. Assume you won the $200 gift card, and your total bill plus shipping is $210; after redeeming with your gift card you will only pay $10 extra.

Without further ado, here are our winners!

• Ebta ($200 gift card)
• Swat Chap ($100 gift card)
• Shawn ($50 gift card)

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More giveaways coming up!

We’ve got more contest and giveaway coming right up. Stay tuned – subscribe to the RSS feed, become a fan in Facebook or follow @hongkiat on Twitter to be amongst the first to know.

Complete MP3 Music Search Engine website from YouTube API . No Database Needed. Just Upload. Look at This..
Go to Source

Ozh Richard, Brad Williams and Justin Tadlock have announced on their respective blogs that they will be collaborating on a WordPress plugin development book. The trio will be working with Andrew Nacin, a core developer of WordPress, as their technical editor. Regarding the contents of the book, Williams said:

“This book will be jammed packed with plugin knowledge from beginner topics like creating your first plugin, security, and settings, to more advanced topics like JavaScript and AJAX, Cron, and the mysterious Rewrite API. This book will have something for everyone looking to learn or expand their knowledge on building professional plugins in WordPress.”

The book is expected to be released by Wrox in March 2011 and will continue the Professional WordPress book series.

Brian Gardner, CEO and founder of StudioPress, has announced on the company’s official blog that StudioPress is being merged into Copyblogger Media, LLC. The new company, led by Brian Clark of Copyblogger, will be focused on live events, online education and the development of a suite of software tools specifically for WordPress.

This suite currently consists of Scribe, a plugin which assists with SEO optimization, Premise, a forthcoming plugin which will assist with conversion optimization, and Genesis, StudioPress’ premier theme framework which assists with design optimization. Genesis fills a design gap created when Brian Clark exited DIYthemes, the company behind the Thesis theme framework, earlier this year. A fourth addition to the suite was also hinted at, but no details are available at this time.

Regarding the effect of the merger on StudioPress, Gardner said:

“First, let me assure you… it’s business as usual here at StudioPress. Our team, including me, is not going anywhere. StudioPress and Genesis will still be our primary focus, along with the first of many exciting new projects we have planned.”

Follow StudioPress on Twitter @studiopress. Follow Brian Clark on Twitter @copyblogger.

VaultPress is a new service from Automattic that backs up your WordPress website. It’s currently in private beta, so you need to sign up to receive a “golden ticket” to begin using the service.

WPCandy was one of the lucky few last week to be sent a VaultPress golden ticket. Naturally, we added it to the site quick-like, and recorded the experience.

It’s too early for a proper review of a service like this, since true backup solutions can only be fairly measured after a longer stretch of time (expect our review later this year). But it’s not too early for you to share in some of the experience. Check out the video after the break.

Vicarious VaultPress gallery:

So far, the experience has been great. We’ve been lucky in that we haven’t needed to use it, but then again the whole point of backup is that it’s there when we do need it.

Are you using it? How has your experience been so far?

If there’s one thing we really enjoy around here, it’s giving away awesome WordPress goodies. We love that you get excited about it (which is great!) but we also love being able to promote the great work being done by members of the WordPress community, be it themes, books, or Plugins.

This week we’re giving away a WordPress book. One of the interesting things about WordPress is that it lends itself to being used in a number of different ways. Developers and designers can use it, bloggers can use it, and entrepreneurs can use it. So books about WordPress vary on topic, from for beginners books, to how to build a business with them.

Available to win this week, we have:

• Professional WordPress, by Hal Stern, David Damstra, and Brad Williams
• How to Build a Successful Blog Business, by Collis Ta’eed
• WordPress in Depth, by Bud Smith and Michael McCallister
• WordPress Visual Quickstart Guide, by Jessica Neuman Beck and Matt Beck
• WordPress for Dummies, by Lisa Sabin-Wilson

Whether you are a new WordPress user, a developer looking to grow, or a web professional, I think there’ something in this awesome stack of books that could suit you.

How you can win a book

This week we’re talking WordCamps. How many WordCamps have you attended? Which ones? What did you like most about them? If you haven’t made it to a WordCamp yet, what are you most looking forward to?

For a chance to win one of these books, leave a comment and answer these questions. One random commenter will be selected to receive one book of their choice, from the list above.

Myself, I have been to WordCamp Chicago as an attendee, and WordCamp Atlanta as a presenter. I hope to make it to a few more events this fall and winter, and maybe (who knows) even present again.

Your turn. What has your experience with WordCamps been like? You have until Friday afternoon to comment. Good luck!

Digging into WordPress, by Chris Coyier and Jeff Starr, is available in its third edition today as a PDF download only for $27.

The new edition includes an updated design and new information on WordPress 3.0. Printed versions, according to Starr, may be available in September or October.

Coyier and Starr began publishing Digging into WordPress via their website DigWP.com in 2009. You can follow Coyier on Twitter @chriscoyier and Starr @perishable.