I’ve recently been on a search for fresh WordPress themes again. With fifteen WordPress blogs and two WordPress powered websites, you can bet that my search for new free wordpress themes is never ending but I am enjoying every minute of it because of the creative works that have been shared with us by talented WordPress theme designers.

I spent Christmas Day looking for WordPress themes. I have a website that badly needs a revamp but have procrastinated till now. I’m still half way browsing through the vast selection of free premium quality WordPress themes and layouts that are offered by Free Theme Layouts. Luckily, browsing through the themes here is easy and I could have a quick preview of how my website or blog will look like with the new theme by clicking on the DEMO link.

Right now, there is one full page of free WordPress themes but I believe that soon enough, there will be many more new themes added. If you are wondering why it is taking me so long to go through these themes, it is because I try to see how best I could customize these themes to suit my niche and requirements. That’s why!

If you have a WordPress blog, go check out Free Theme Layouts and bookmark it. If you haven’t got a WordPress blog, may I suggest that you switch to it? Trust me, it’s not as difficult as it seems.

Wow, my worst nightmare came true!!!

I just updated all my WordPress blogs a couple of weeks ago, including my plug-ins and everything and I was telling, myself that I am sure WordPress would be coming out with a new version and sure enough, they did! Urghhh!!!

Now that version 2.7 is out, I am not in a hurry to update it in case there are security holes to patch up AGAIN. Yes, again!!! I just don’t have the time to keep playing catch up with WordPress. Blogging is hard enough, let alone blogging on so many blogs!

Moreover, I will be so busy these next few days, if there’s any reason to update, then it will have to be after the New Year. Christmas is coming soon and I have extra work to do unless there is an urgent security concern.

Something happened to a couple of my WordPress blogs. I didn’t know about it because I do not access my blogs daily, and only found out about it when I received an error message from EntreCard that the EntreCard widget was not detected on these two blogs.

To my horror, I could not even open my blog. I don’t know what happened and shot an email to my webhost, who once again, kindly helped me to solve the problem. The blogs are not accessible once again but my webhost told me that I should upgrade my WordPress to the latest version because of security vulnerabilities.

Urghhh that’s what I hate to do. It’s OK with one or two blogs but with more than ten, it could be a tad psychotic. Anyway, I spent the past couple of days doing it as I went along updating my blogs and they are almost done now. I am just keeping my fingers crossed that there would not be another upgrade so soon! Scared, really scared!

If you haven’t upgraded your WordPress to 2.6.3, like me, then it’s better to forget it because WordPress 2.7 will be here in the blink of an eye. Seriously, I could never keep u with the many upgrades and updates, the many changes and patches. Well, if I only have one blog, it is not a problem and I could take time in upgrading and fixing whatever that may break but with over ten WordPress powered self-hosted blogs, I don’t think I have the time nor do I have the patience.

It’s not as if I am an expert in WordPress, you see. If something goes wrong that I do not know how to fix, I need to spend a tremendous amount of time hunting the web for answers and if that fails, seek the help of friends. Only one of two would help.

So my policy is not to fix something that is not broken. I would hate to experience one again the effects of an incompatible plug-in. I may not even know about it if there’s any!

Do you know what pisses me off? It’s the regularity of a WordPress upgrade! You know, it was just a couple of days ago when I installed WordPress 2.6.2 on my new WordPress driven website and even before I have finished adding all the content to my new website, I see a notice about a new version of WordPress.

I know, I know. I know you’d probably tell me that a new version will come with better features and security but I tell you, since the day I started hosting my own WordPress powered blogs, I have been upgrading and upgrading. I think I have done so for ten times already. If you think that ten times is nothing, don’t forget that I host multiple blogs and I have to repeat the same process over and over again. It just drives me crazy, man! And to think that if I had just set up my website today, I would have the latest version of WordPress already!

In any case, I will not be upgrading so soon because new versions almost always come with bugs and security holes and then you would have to spend more time doing the technical stuff of your blog to patch those security holes; time that I think should be better spent blogging!

As expected, even before I found time to upgrade my WordPress to 2.6.1, a newer patch is released. As usual, there are bugs to take care and this makes me wonder all over again why a program is released before extensive testing among a trusted software test group.

From what I read, most of the vulnerabilities are from the member registration feature, yet again. So if you have a WordPress powered blog that allows readers to register, you have no choice but to install this latest patch to close the security holes.

When I first started my self-hosted blogs, I kept this option of registering open. I did not know better. However, once I found out that there’s a security issue with it, I decided to disable it once and for all. I certain cannot afford the time nor the expertise to keep checking it people with bad intentions came and registered with my blogs!

I remember the time when I was “stuck” blogging on Blogger and I had a tremendous fear of hosting my own blogs. I was afraid that I would be too dumb to understand the technicalities of WordPress. However, one year since hosting my first WordPress blog, I now have fifteen. When friends ask me which blog platform they should use, without hesitation, I recommend WordPress. Why? Because no matter what you want to do with your WordPress blog, there is always just the perfect plug-in for it! Of course, you must remember to use the plug-in that is compatible with your version f plug-in!

Lately, I have been dabbling in affiliate programs. Yes, I still do monetize my blogs, but in some other way now. I was actually looking for a good affiliate management plug-in when I was told of the WordPress Affiliate Elite.

From what I understand, what this plug-in does is to convert any of your selected keyword and turn it into a link with just one click. On top of that, it hides your real affiliate link so that you would not lose commission.

I had the chance to preview this plug-in and it is a pretty simple installation just like how we install all our other WordPress plug-ins. However, WordPress Affiliate Elite is way more powerful and has the potential to turn almost all our keywords in our blog into potential moneymakers.