Releasing a free WP template is something I’ve been talking about for six months, and I’m excited to finally set my Thrilling Heroics design loose as a free, open-source theme to help you build your own awesome blog! This is my personal SEO- and social media-optimized design (that I used to use right here on ThrillingHeroics.com) which I’ve experimented with, tweaked, and perfected for a year and a half!

You can also see custom installations I’ve built at Business Backpacker and In Search of Sanuk. And of course, check out the live demo site here.

I’m proud to make this available publicly as free software licensed under the GNU GPL 3.0 license. That means you’re free to use it anyway you like for your commercial or personal blog, modify, alter, improve upon and share.

Just Give It To Me Already!

See Live Demo
Download and see the full details & installation instructions here

ThrillingTheme is largely based on FreshNews 1.0 from WooThemes and WP Framework, to which I added my own design elements, incorporated support for several prominent plugins, and added tremendous amounts of custom code to help you customize your blog and easily integrate it with your social media presence. I spoke to Adii from WooThemes yesterday to get his blessing (I have built designs on top of their awesome premium themes for many of my sites and highly recommend the whole WooThemes portfolio), and I owe thanks to Magnus Jepson, Jai Nischal Verma, and Vladimir Prevolac for a lot of design and code inspiration.

Fully-Customizable

The powerful admin options page allows you to make changes without editing code: you can upload your own custom logo image; automatically resize, crop & frame your own photo snapshot in the header, use mine, or leave it blank; change color schemes; easily integrate your Twitter, Flickr & Facebook profiles; add your Google Analytics tracking code, and manage your ad slots. Everything is plug-and-play!

Social Media Integration

I know how valuable a fully-integrated web presence can be when you’re building your personal brand and connecting with new people online. ThrillingTheme makes it easy to integrate your latest Twitter updates, recent Flickr photos, and even insert a link to your Facebook group or fan page with beautiful, pre-designed widgets.

Increasing Your Readership

I’ve also optimized ThrillingTheme (painstakingly over 3 years of experimentation) to keep visitors on your website longer and increase your subscribers. You’ll notice an attractive RSS & email subscription box in the sidebar, and a tabbed content box (set your own featured category, automatic popular posts, recent comments & tags). Single post pages are specially-designed to encourage visitors to share on social bookmarking sites with quick submission buttons for Facebook, Twitter, Digg, StumbleUpon & more, and I’ve built in support for the WordPress Related Posts plugin to encourage readers to dig deeper into your site.

Other theme features:

• 4 Color Schemes – Shades of Grey, Thrilling Orange, Black & White, Icy Blue
• Search Engine Optimized
• Auto-sized featured images & thumbnails
• Integration with FeedBurner email subscriptions
• 125×125 and 300×250 ad management
• Blog category dropdowns
• 3 widget-ready sidebar areas
• Built-in support for WordPress Related Posts
• WP 2.7+ nested comments support (new in ver 1.1)
• Gravatar support in comments
• Compressed CSS & minified JavaScript for faster load time
• Cross-browser compatible with all major browsers
• Tested with WordPress 2.5 and up
• Custom page templates for archives, sitemap & photo galleries
• Easy customization with the integrated theme options page
• Totally FREE for commercial & individual use

See Live Demo

See full theme details & installation instructions here

Get it free ($25 value) for commercial & personal use by sharing:

Please help support the continued development & improvement of this theme.

Thanks so much for your continued support and encouragement!

Click here for further Installation Instructions, Help Topics, License Info & Changelog

For more on how to install and how to use the special functions of this theme, please see the full download page.

I cannot provide free support for this theme, but if you have bug reports, please leave your comments below and I will do my best to keep it updated and fix any major errors that you guys report here. If you urgently need help customizing ThrillingTheme for your site, I am for hire.

Read the original article on Thrilling Heroics here: Steal My Blog Design! Announcing the Free ThrillingTheme for WordPress

UPDATE May 10: This contest is now closed. The winner will be announced via Twitter & the blog soon. Thanks to all for your participation.

I’ve been back in the States for a few weeks this month—my only brief trip home this year—and it’s been a lot of fun catching up with friends and going to the Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival in the Southern California desert. But I had very mixed feelings about coming back to the U.S. right now, and my visit has been a little bittersweet.

The U.S. has been hit hard by a down economy, and California is showing visible signs of the recession. Restaurants are empty. Small businesses are closing their doors. A lot of folks are looking for work, a lot are depressed, a lot of people are stagnating.

In this economic downturn, it’s time to take your reputation, and your career, into your own hands. There is no such thing as job security anymore. Pensions and benefits can be taken away at a moment’s notice. And even your retirement savings can’t be relied upon these days.

I believe that entrepreneurship, as risky as it can be, is truly the best solution. As a freelancer or business owner, you take your destiny into your own hands. And if you prefer the “security” of a full-time job, these days you should at least develop a second, side income stream, and actively manage your “employability”. That means staying sharp on developments in your field, keeping your resume fresh, and regularly adding people to your professional network. You should never quit job searching really, because the unfortunate reality is that everyone’s job is disposable.

It’s funny—in conversation you notice there are fundamental differences in the way employees and entrepreneurs think. I won’t say one is better than the other, but I think at least a little bit of entrepreneurial thinking is good for everyone. It keeps you on your toes and makes you realize that you can create your own prosperity if you try hard enough. My mission here at Thrilling Heroics is to help people break out of conventional thinking and pursue their potential, so I expect you guys to be able to hear me say that, or else you wouldn’t be my audience!

Anyways, I’m working on a few things to help everyone kick ass at life just a little bit more. My mission this year, in everything I do, is to empower as many would-be freelancers, entrepreneurs, and other do-gooders to take back their power, to realize they don’t have to be just a cog in a wheel and take what life gives them. You can build an awesome business, you can live a remarkable life, and you can do anything and go anywhere you want! You just have to work for it.

Here we go:

Discount Social Media Consulting for New Clients

It’s no secret that I provide social media consulting and blog development services for select web entrepreneurs and professionals. Just this month I helped Kare Anderson—a dedicated blogger and author who already kicks ass even without my help—launch her new site HowWePartner.com. And I helped coach Eileen McDargh—a professional speaker and management consultant—on introductory ways to utilize social media more effectively for her business. Eileen was completely ecstatic and said this after our first hour together:

“In just one hour, Cody cut through the chaos and confusion of social networks, showing me what I needed to do and—even more importantly, what I did NOT need to do. It was very valuable and worth the time.”

My fees are typically somewhat substantial, because I try to filter out only the most dedicated and remarkable clients, and dedicated people tend to have money to spend on their remarkable projects. The amount of attention and commitment I give to each client makes the investment worthwhile. My job is to follow industry trends in the social media and blogging space, filtering through the noise to find the most important solutions for my clients. I maintain a wide knowledge base and an active network in the blogosphere so that I can provide my clients with relevant news and resources, software and tutorials, and even introduce them to like-minded professionals and key influencers in their niche, to establish authority on the web and improve their business.

Because we’re all feeling the negative effects of this economy, I’m offering a small discount on my consulting for new clients right now. If you’ve got something important to say, I want to help you get the right web technology and social media strategies in place to increase your online exposure. Add me to your team and leverage my expertise in the following areas:

• WordPress
• Blogging
• Social networks
• User-friendly, accessible web design (XHTML, CSS, PHP)
• Search engine optimization (SEO)
• Personal branding
• Online project management & collaboration tools

I usually bill $95 per hour for my consulting time. But if you book an Introductory Blog & Social Media Consultation with me in the month of May, I’ll give you your first hour of consulting for just $75. I’ll talk with you directly via phone or webcam to understand your specific business situation and your online marketing objectives, and help point you in the right direction.

An Awesome FREE WordPress Theme in the Works

There is a sizable market for my premium web services. But I realize there are also several important demographics out there who can’t afford pricey web consulting and development work, including young professionals like myself who are interested in personal branding and establishing their reputation on the web, micro-business owners and other solopreneurs who are tightening their belts right now.

As a low-cost alternative for these rockstars in training, I’m currently building a killer app—a premium, all-in-one blog design, which I’ll release as a free WordPress theme. “Thrilling Theme” will be my masterpiece. It will serve as the framework for my future web development projects, and it will have everything you could ever dream of! The free theme will include:

• Multiple color schemes and style options to choose from
• An easy way to upload your own custom logo or header image
• Integrated Twitter updates, Flickr photos, and more
• Easy insertion of your Google Analytics tracking code, your FeedBurner RSS feed, etc.
• And tons more. Please share your ideas in the comments!

For do-it-yourselfers, the theme will be available as a free download. For individuals and small businesses that want some basic help getting started with Thrilling Theme as the template design for their site, a basic setup & customization package will be available for a nominal charge. (We’re talking about a complete social media platform—possibly the framework for your online business—for less than 400 bucks!)

What About for Non-Blogging Nerd Types?

Additionally, I’ll be doing as much as I can to provide free, valuable advice on this blog to help as many people break free as well—talking about going solopreneur, building a strong reputation on the web, and taking your business location-independent if you desire. Blogging and leveraging social media has allowed me to make awesome friends in all corners of the globe, and I’ve even attracted clients from five continents! My only desire is that I can help you guys experience similar success.

I have a few projects on my back burners, some things that have been marinating for a while. In the coming months, I look forward to teaming up more with great folks like Jun Loayza, Jonathan Mead, Carmen Isais, Mark Weins and Tom Barrett to deliver some fresh, unique perspectives and experiment with some new ideas.

Locally, I’ll continue to work with Dwight Turner of In Search of Sanuk to host charity events and fundraisers in and around Thailand, and I hope to provide discount services to many more non-profits this year. I’ve just partnered with Fusion International on a new project to help them relaunch and revitalize their website focused on victims of extreme poverty, conflict and internal displacement. When you support this site, do business with me, or tell people about Thrilling Heroics, you’ll help me continue to support good causes, and promote events like our Bangkok Tweetup for Charity.

The Part Where I Ask for Your Help

In order to empower as many people as I can this year, I need your help to reach the biggest audience possible. What can you do? You can subscribe. You can tell people about my mission and about ThrillingHeroics.com. You can check out my company, Thrilling Heroics Consulting. But I’ll go a step further: if you blog about my mission with link to this post by May 10th, you’ll be entered for a chance at a FREE 1-hour Blog Consultation. It’s simple:

1. Write about my mission to help as many people become Rockstars as possible with discount consulting. Write about the upcoming free Thrilling Theme. You can even write about the competition itself.
2. Include a direct link to this post or to ThrillingHeroicsConsulting.com
3. To make sure I get your submission, leave a comment on this post and include the URL for your blog post about this competition.

On May 10th, I’ll choose one commenter at random to receive a free consultation with me by phone or Skype. You’ll get a full hour to ask me any questions you like about blogging, social media, and WordPress.

Thanks for staying with me this long. Forget the crummy economy. Let’s all combine forces to do some good this year. Check back soon for more on living a remarkable life.

Feature photo credit: Elmo Keep

Can’t get enough Thrilling Heroics? Follow @codymckibb on Twitter.

Read the original article on Thrilling Heroics here: I Want to Make You A Rockstar!

I started Thrilling Heroics in 2006 to encourage young professionals and entrepreneurs to pursue an unorthodox, exciting lifestyle and career, strive for excellence, and make a positive difference in the world! If you’re a regular subscriber, I thank you for continuing to visit and support this community. No one can succeed without the friendly cooperation of others, and you have each helped make Thrilling Heroics a success! And whether you’re a regular reader or a new visitor here, I also wanted to share 23 things to help you get to know me a little bit better:

• I’m from California’s capital, Sacramento. But I’ve spent over a year living abroad in Southeast Asia. My homebase is in Bangkok, Thailand, and I occasionally travel around the region to places like Krabi, Cambodia, Laos, Malaysia, Singapore, etc.
• Professionally, I’m a web developer and internet marketing consultant: I help lifestyle designers and social entrepreneurs develop online businesses and web presence, and help teach them to leverage social media networks to build authority and expand their business globally.
• I have been self-employed since 2007, and working remotely as a digital nomad since November 2008. In my travel experience, I’ve been fortunate enough to visit about 20 countries (all of North America, across Europe & the Mediterranean, and now Asia).
• I recently co-founded an awesome lifestyle design community for college students and young professionals who want to learn to build their own businesses, live anywhere, and take their lives into their own hands.
• I used to speak French fairly fluently thanks to my high school language professor who got me passionate about travel and cultures. I am also learning to speak Thai, ever so slowly.
• Music is my biggest passion, and I love love LOVE electronica: house, techno, downtempo, chillout, everything. Some of my favorites are Thievery Corporation, The Crystal Method, Chemical Brothers, Kraftwerk, and Zero 7.
• Two of my very closest friends passed away by age 22: Chris Cravens and Kareem Khan will always be missed. Take life by the horns, because you never know when you might suddenly lose it.
• As a fan of Tony Robbins, Tom Peters, Napoleon Hill, and Dale Carnegie, I naturally was a member of Toastmasters International back in the States, and founded a mastermind group for ambitious college students.
• In 2006, I got to meet multi-billionaire Warren Buffett. Probably the world’s greatest money manager ever, and one of my biggest role models.
  
• I am a serious Apple fanboy and not ashamed of it: I own a dual core Apple iMac desktop machine, a 13-inch aluminum body MacBook (my ideal travel laptop), an iPhone 3G and an iPod nano!
• I code websites by hand in XHTML, CSS, PHP, JavaScript, and jQuery. I’m a huge WordPress evangelist for its ease-of-use and built-in SEO benefits.
• Being a codemonkey and a night owl, I keep a work/sleep schedule that most people would find strange. I frequently work until 5 or 6am and get up between 11am-noon. Don’t call me lazy please, it’s just how I am.
• I despise rainy, cloudy weather. It makes me depressed. I would much rather be soaking up the sun on a beach somewhere (which is a big part of why I came to Thailand!)
• Unlike most dudes my age, I can’t stand watching televised sports. None of ‘em. I like sports bars and pubs, but could care less about the Superbowl game on the bigscreen. I’d rather be reading business news and blog RSS feeds or watching TED Talks.
• I’m a regular attendee at the Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival. Three days of incredible bands and DJs in the southern California desert! I’ve seen Paul McCartney, Portishead’s reunion, Roger Waters (Dark Side of the Moon in the desert!), Kraftwerk, Rage Against the Machine’s reunion, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, M.I.A., Thievery Corporation, The Crystal Method, Tiesto, Fatboy Slim, Justice, Bjork, The Killers, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, and many other incredible shows in Indio, California!
• I’m a huge photography enthusiast, and sell some of my travel and landscape photos I’ve done over the years. I actually studied photography and computer graphics for three years in high school, then worked in a dark room and as a glamour shots photographer!
• In college, I studied a lot of literature, religions, anthropology, philosophy and arts. I graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in Humanities & Religious Studies, and a minor in History.
• I have three phone numbers and just one phone (thanks to international call forwarding and Skype). It’s my least favorite communication form though. I love interacting with people and talking with new people in person, but for some reason I have a strong aversion to being on the phone.
• Two things I miss from home: driving, and my golden retriever! I used to have a thing for customized street cars and fast driving.
  
• I have a strong fear of heights, but I’ve also gone skydiving out of a plane at 13,000 feet. It was one of the most incredible experiences I’ve ever had!
• When I started writing Thrilling Heroics in 2006 I had a strong desire to attend Stanford University for grad school, and I still would like to one day, perhaps after I’ve been successful in business and made a name for myself. I’m drawn to Silicon Valley for its innovative, entrepreneurial atmosphere, and I love following the research and trends that come from Stanford’s professors.
• Since I started blogging, I’ve become friends and interacted with some of the coolest people online: Rajesh Setty, Ramit Sethi, Jun Loayza, Adam Baker, Jonathan Mead, Chris Guillebeau, Kare Anderson, Pamela Slim, Monica O’Brien, Ben Yoskovitz, Penelope Trunk, Clay Collins, Guy Kawasaki, Andrew Warner, Gary Vaynerchuk, Chris Brogan, and many, many more.
• I have an unhealthy addiction to information! But on the bright side I love continually learning, about everything, including online business & startup advice, social entrepreneurship, social media trends, content marketing, travel, outsourcing, productivity, personal finance, personal development & personal growth, “pickup” & social dynamics, reason & philosophy, and much more.

If we don’t know each other personally yet, please feel welcome to introduce yourself. I am always happy to bring readers into my extended network! There are many ways to connect with me online:

You can connect with me on Facebook—please share a short message, and tell me something about yourself. What do you do professionally? Where do you blog? What projects are you working on? How did you find Thrilling Heroics?

Follow me on Twitter—this is probably the best place to engage with me in discussion. Aside from email, sending me an @reply is the quickest way to get my attention and I try to spend a decent amount of time here involved in discussions and answering people’s questions.

Ways You Can Help the Thrilling Heroics Community Grow and Thrive

In our interdependent society, it’s impossible to achieve great success without the help of others. The best way to get friendly cooperation is to give it. When you make it a habit to encourage others and to help them better themselves, most will reciprocate when you need their help. This is especially true in our online social communities. Thrilling Heroics is a part of a larger network where I try to help others as much as possible and receive a ton of support from my peers in exchange.

Help me give generously to the Thrilling Heroics community, and you will benefit in kind. You can help me by leaving your feedback and encouragement in the comments (encouragement is what keeps me going!), correcting my errors and adding in the areas where I’m weak, answering questions and offering support to other commenters and community members, and so on. Get involved and help the Thrilling Heroics empire thrive by subscribing to the RSS feed, joining my exclusive newsletter (and get a free telecall recording!), and sharing with your friends:

• Give Thrilling Heroics a thumbs-up on StumbleUpon
• Join the growing Thrilling Heroics community on Facebook
• Add Thrilling Heroics to your Technorati Favorites
• Save Thrilling Heroics to your del.icio.us bookmarks
• Donate to help pay the hosting bills, ensure more free CC-licensed articles & support the continued development of my free open-source ThrillingTheme

Thank you again for continuing to visit and support this site.

Read the original article on Thrilling Heroics here: 23 Interesting Things You May Not Know About Cody

What is Twitter?

Twitter is a new social network/instant messaging mashup that’s being referred to as a micro-blogging tool. It allows users to send text updates (called “tweets”) to all their friends—from twitter.com, instant message (via AIM or MSN Messenger, for example), or even from a mobile phone. It’s like posting an instant blog post, but you’re forced to craft your message with a 140-character limit.

The site asks members “What are you doing?” Answers range from the mundane (“eating a burrito”) to the interesting, hilarious, and even useful (well, okay, once in a while). While some use the service merely to updates friends on their whereabouts and activities, many people are using it to promote their blogs, share valuable links, and otherwise brand themselves and their businesses online.

Below: The default Twitter profile page.

(Click image for larger view.)

Most web nerds like myself are saying Twitter will be big (like, Facebook big) over the next few years, but right now it’s still at the early adopter stage, which means it’s dominated by bloggers, web designers, and technologists. For many Twitterfolk, it has become a primary channel of communication over the last year (*read: easier to reach them via Twitter than via email). I’ve been able to get the attention of a few power users in the “Twitterverse” over the last few months, including great folks like Robert Scoble, Guy Kawasaki, and Chris Brogan, and I’ve even had some pretty decent exchanges with them! If you’re in the technology or internet industry and you’re not using Twitter yet, it is a MUST. What are you still reading this for? Run! Go! Right now!

What About Twitter for Business?

For the rest of us, the question is how does one effectively leverage Twitter for business or personal branding? If used properly, it can easily bring more readers into your camp. I’ve already built a pretty decent sized following myself (follow me here), using the service mostly to share helpful tips and links I find across the web and to promote my own writing. One cool function is that you can easily plug your “tweets” in to the sidebar on your own blog or into other social networks and share your updates with friends that aren’t already on Twitter. (See Twitter badges and WordPress plugins.)

Below: My Twitter replies from other users. Yes, you can
add your own crazy backgrounds too!

(Click image for larger view.)

The BBC and CNN are using it to broadcast breaking news. Companies like Whole Foods, Zappos, Dell, Cisco, Comcast, and more are using it to send updates to their customers. If you provide value, you’ll make fast friends. Aside from sharing my links and blog posts, I also use Twitter to search for people with questions about blogging and answer my clients’ questions about WordPress. If you use it wisely, Twitter can give you a platform to show off your expertise, cultivate a reputation as an authority in your field, and build a loyal following.

Here are 5 tips to go from Twitter Newbie to Twitter Ninja:

1. There are several third-party Twitter clients that will run on your desktop much like your instant messenger does, so you don’t have to be logged in at twitter.com, and they give you quick navigation and search tools at your fingertips. First of all, I would recommend that you lookup Twitter clients and find one that suits you. I use Twhirl (see image at right), which makes my experience much more like a chat client that I can easily turn on and off when I want to.
2. Learn how to us the @replies to send messages to other users, and learn how to use a URL-shortening service such as TinyURL or SnipUrl to condense long hyperlinks so you can fit them within your 140-character tweets. (Twhirl and most other Twitter clients have URL-shortening services built-in.)
3. If you’re a blogger or a social media freak like me, hook up your blog’s RSS feed and feeds from your bookmarking services (del.icio.us, StumbleUpon, Google Reader…) to auto-publish to your Twitter account with Twitterfeed.com.
4. Subscribe to keywords if you want to monitor the larger discussion about certain topics across the whole Twitter network. This is how I find a lot of users asking about WordPress, and I just try to answer people’s questions when I can. I’ve made a lot of new friends this way and have even scored last-minute freelance gigs by answering strangers’ questions with helpful advice. (Watch Ed Dale’s awesome tutorial video “Become a Twitter Master with Twhirl” for more about @replies and subscribing to keywords within the Twhirl client!)
5. Once you’re used to how the rules work, check out Lee Odden’s list of Five New Twitter Tools You Should Know to help you find more new people to connect with on Twitter and expand your network.

Thanks for reading! Follow me on Twitter and send an @codymckibb to ask your WordPress and blogging-related questions!

Helpful Twitter Articles from Others:

• Why Twitter?
• 17 Ways You Can Use Twitter: A Guide for Beginners, Marketers and Business Owners
• 9 Ways Twitter Made Guy Kawasaki’s Website Better
• Three Ways to Maximize Your Twitter Time for Networking, Marketing and Fun

photo credit: somefool (MatthewM)

Read the original article on Thrilling Heroics here: Tweet and Grow Rich: 5 Tips to Rock Your Business With Twitter

Personally, I’m a big fan of productivity lists, how-to’s, and life hacks, so my custom search engine includes a lot of big name sites like Lifehacker, Zen Habits, Tim Ferriss’ 4HWW blog, and many more. Anytime I’m curious how to do something, like how to install a certain software application, how to improve my resume, or how to get the most out of a particular social networking site for instance, my custom-build search engine returns incredible results! And if you like to hyperlink to other resources and articles as additional support when you write new blog posts, this will serve as a fantastic tool for you just like it has for me.

I highly recommend Google’s Custom Search, and since I’ve already done the work and compiled a master list of over 50 of the web’s most credible and authoritative blogs, I’d also like to introduce my own Thrilling Blog Search engine as an open community tool for the Brazen Careerist network and the blogosphere at large. Try it out. Seriously! It provides some really cool results for all sorts of subjects from personal development to social media to finance. Link to the search engine page here and try a search for “resume,” “savings account,” or “LinkedIn” for example:

If you’d like to utilize this tool for your own blogging workflow, feel free to bookmark my directory/links page, or you can easily add it to your iGoogle homepage or your own website. Be aware that this search engine already crawls several of the most trusted blogs on the internet, but I will be adding to the sites in the future. If you’d like to contribute to the project or suggest a site for addition, you can get in touch with me but be aware there will be a strict review process. In other words, if you email me with a suggestion, you better be ready to pitch your site and why the community will benefit from it!

Here are the top-notch blogs/bloggers that are already a part of this fun customized blog community search tool:

Personal Growth/Productivity

• Lifehacker
• Zen Habits
• Steve Pavlina
• LifeDev
• Life Optimizer
• The Positivity Blog
• Scott H Young
• Duff McDuffee
• Today Is That Day

Career/Personal Branding

• Personal Branding Blog
• Brazen Careerist by Penelope Trunk
• Life Beyond Code
• Water Cooler Wisdom
• Personal PR
• Newly Corporate
• The Urban Muse
• PR Interactive
• Erik Folgate

Lifestyle Design/Travel

• The 4-Hour Workweek
• Anywired
• The Art of Nonconformity
• Real Social Dynamics
• Ronnie Nurss
• Brave New Traveler

Generation-Y Issues

• Employee Evolution
• Twenty Set
• WorkLoveLife

Personal Finance

• I Will Teach You To Be Rich
• Get Rich Slowly

Freelancing/Entrepreneurship

• FreelanceSwitch
• Escape from Cubicle Nation
• Erica Douglass
• How to Change the World by Guy Kawasaki
• The Anti 9-to-5 Guide
• Instigator Blog
• College-Startup
• Jamie Harrop

Social Media/Technology

• Chris Brogan
• Dosh Dosh
• Copyblogger
• Tobias Baeck
• Paul Stamatiou
• Greg Rollett
• Moving From Me to We
• Paul Woods

Blogging/WordPress

• ProBlogger
• Pearsonified
• Theme Playground
• Blog Perfume
• Lorelle on WordPress
• Thrilling Design

Remember, this is a community project, so please feel free to get involved!

» Add a search widget to your Google homepage.

» Add the custom Thrilling Blog Search to your own site.

» Get in touch if you’ve got a suggested site that will benefit other bloggers and readers.

» Blog about this or tell your friends about the Thrilling Blog Search engine!

These are just the first round of additions to the Thrilling Blog Search community search tool. As I come across more great sites, I’ll be updating the list and the search engine tool. You can view several of my favorite blogs and suggested resources, as well as my custom Thrilling Blog Search tool on my Links Page here.

Read the original article on Thrilling Heroics here: Announcing an Awesome New Community Search Tool for the Blogosphere!

Steli and his colleagues are working hard to expand their network with the dream of changing the education system forever, so if you’ve got expertise in programming or a desire for an educational partnership, I highly recommend you get in touch with this guy!

Founded in January 2008, Supercool School is a San Francisco-based startup that continues to build an online platform for request-driven, interactive, social learning. From their job description:

We’re growing fast and are seeking some highly inspired and passionate talent to join the team. For starters, we’re seeking an intern and a full-time Web Developer. The ideal candidate will have a passion for learning and the drive to create reliable and elegant software quickly, using agile methodologies.

If you’re familiar with Windows and Linux development environments, have experience with Ruby on Rails, Ajax, XML, JavaScript, DOM, HTML & CSS, and you’d like to help tackle the challenging problem of improving education on a global scale with an innovative, entrepreneurial team, I’d highly recommend that you consider sending a resume and introduction to Steli at steli *at* supercoolschool *dot* com.

To learn more about the company philosophy, I recommend reading Steli’s 7Lessons You Learned @School That Could Possibly Ruin Your Life, and you can learn more about the summer internship here.

Read the original article on Thrilling Heroics here: Are You a Rebel Programmer Without a Cause? Help Transform Education