just a test, ignore it

This is a test link

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about this mess

yeah, I’ve noticed that: I’ve lost some posts while transitioning back to Dreamhost.

and you’ve also noticed that I’m not using the Agregado Theme no more. 

that’s because I want to experiment with some Wordpress plugins I’ve been looking, and I don’t have the spare time to tweak and fix the theme, so let’s stick to the plain ol’ Kubrick, the default Wordpress theme. 

yes, I don’t like it, too. :)

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Back to Dreamhost

All right, after trying the services of the Brazilian host Locaweb, I’m back at the good ol’ Dreamhost.

Not that Dreamhost is speedier than Locaweb. Locaweb does a great job, and they have some quite nice and cheap plans, but there’s a minor drawback: response time. Every time you try to access the site, it takes a very long few seconds before the server starts to stream content. After that initial delay, everything comes fine. An that happens only while loading the very first page, the subsequent ones come as fast as they can.

It seems to me they are not optimizing their MySQL servers, because I couldn’t experience the same by loading static pages.

Anyway, since I’ll be paying for this Dreamhost account anyway, it doesn’t make any sense to be paying an additional one. But I still wish to find me a better host than Dreamhost.

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The Smashing Agregado Theme

OK, I’ve finally managed to pick up a good template that kinda fit my needs: Agregado, a completely free Wordpress theme offered by the folks at Smashing Magazine. The theme is a creation of Darren Hoyt, and is really, really impressive and clever.

This may be the first time I grab a template that I don’t want to tweak or modify right away, which honestly, is a very good thing.

Hope you enjoy it! :)

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The Revolution’s Revolution

Revolution Two

This year we saw the revolution led by Wordpress Premium Themes, which made lots of blogs go craze about the opportunity of finally have a more ‘professional’ look and feel. For less than a hundred bucks you could buy an stylish magazine template for your Wordpress and make it prettier than lots of respectful sites like traditional newspapers.

But, as it always happen, HTML code can be slurped and modified by anyone with little skills. And so we began to see those templates make their way to the Rapidshare world. Why pay $ 75.00 for a little 50 kb zip file with 8 or so PHP files and some little images?

We all know that piracy is a problem that hurts much more the ones who are working to give free, pleasant options to the others who can’t afford pricy software or content. And we also know that anti-piracy stratagems only hurts the legal consumer whom must face all kinds of crude things to be able to use that thing that he actually bought and financed.

So, it was completely clear, from the beginning, that those wonderful and talented minds that were developing Premium Themes were going to throw a party that wouldn’t be going late night. I myself bought the Revolution Media Theme to experiment and learn from it — I even tried to run this very yours blog using it, but it seems I’m on a very casual mood for web fashion these days.

But it took me completely by surprise when Brian Gardner, the brains behind the Revolution Themes decided to drop all of his Revolution themes and start it all over again by going completely open source — Ha! In your face, script-warez kiddies!

Revolution Two Themes

This was really ingenious: you can now grab any of the wonderful Premium Themes from Revolution, which is now reloaded as Revolution Two, for free. Yes, just go there, download, unzip it and upload it. The cost is that: zero, nada, niente, puerra nenhuma. 

Brian have figured it out sooner than everybody: the problem is that everybody wants those templates, but nobody wants to have the very same looks of other sites, and customize those templates are not for the faint of heart. And to do that customization, you gotta have to make tons of questions about issues and even bugs that may appear while you adventure yourself on coding.

So if you want to access the support forums, you have to pay for a subscription. Once you pay, you get all the support you’ll need to customize your template that you got completely free. 

We are seeing lots of professional, vertical forums going this way: you have access to something for free (like SEOmoz Blog and Tools, or QuadsZilla’s SEO Black Hat Blog), but if you really want to have access to the real brains behind it, pay for it. 

That’s not something very new, as Wired’s Chris Anderson already pointed on February ‘08. But I give credit to Brian to came onto this conclusion before all the others.

Let’s hope that he succeeds. I’ll be taking a close eye on this one because I really hope I can benefit from the same model on a near future.

Go take a look by yourself and pay him a visit: www.revolutiontwo.com.

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And here comes the Revolution

Wordpress premium themes are the love of blogging community I remember some months ago when I first saw the Wordpress Premium Themes collection on Smashing Magazine, a great blog about web design and the latest trends and techniques in web-development.

Back then, it was clear to me that something great was going to surface, caused by the mixture of the already established Wordpress publishing platform and some quality stuff, professional design and visual eye candy.

And that’s happening now. Lots of sites are being seduced by the Revolution Pro and its siblings, and I’m already prepared to face a new standard on most professional blogs nowadays — you should, too.

After facing a couple of months on a personal dillema of adopting what’s about to become a (boring) standard among all professional blogs and sites, I decided to give the Revolution Pro a try. After all, even if I lose the opportunity of doing a personalized layout made all by myself (as I kinda did on Submusica), I would surely benefit of knowing the user experience behind one of these premium paid templates.

But I won’t promise that I won’t touch it! ;)

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That lame first post

Well, every blog should have its own first post. It’s always the same thing: the blogger promises what’s about to come on, the things he will be talking about.

It wouldn’t be different here. However, the main purpose is to finally get all the pieces of my professional life together, so anyone interested to know more about my skills and previous interests can get a quick overview about them. So, for the next few days, expect a huge grown at my portfolio category.

I also plan to write some stuff about me, my personal thougts and views, not only about my professional life, but about other areas and aspects, too.

See you around.

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  • mini bio

    i'm a product owner, biz dev, seo & ppc expert who breathes scrum, search, social media and web apps. i have more than 10 years of experience as a product manager for many kinds of platforms, from CMSes to web apps, and even desktop software.

    currently i work @ yahoo! brazil as the product developer for communities and communications for latin america. my current gig is the product owner of a scrum team focused on the development of social modules for different environments in our region.

    i'm also the tech lead for infilm.org, a company i'm associated with, which aims to provide unique experiences behind hollywood scenes for aspiring professionals and film lovers as well.

    in my few spare hours, i head submusica.com, a collective blog about alternative music. i'm a dj who loves to play all kinds of music, from drum and bass and techno to breakbeats and old skool house music, and i do it by all kinds of equipment, from computers and midi to traditional vinyl records - my favorite kind.

    feel free to drop me a line! ;)