New plugins Block Bad Queries protects your website against malicious URL requests. Simple Blog Stats provides a wealth of shortcodes and tags to display a variety of unique statistics about your site. Sliding Widgets will allow you to create a dynamic sliding widget area. Updated plugins CloudFlare ensures your WordPress blog is running optimally on the CloudFlare platform. Post via Dropbox allows you to post or edit your blog with text files uploaded via Dropbox.

The talented folks behind the main WordPress.org site have rolled out a new review system for plugins and themes. The new review system came from much discussion and an overall need to contextualize the star rating system. Now, if you wish to rate a plugin or a theme, you must also describe your rating decision in a brief review. The goal is that developers will hopefully be left with usable feedback to turn around 1-star ratings or feedback to carry over to their next project from the 5-star ratings, and potential users will be able to clearly see whether the reasons for a plugin or theme’s particular 1-star rating really has any impact on what they plan to use it for. You can take a look at some sample ratings now by visiting the Hotfix plugin and the Twenty Twelve theme. So, what you waiting for? Get out there and […]

Twenty Twelve Dark is a simple Twenty Twelve child theme based off of the dark color scheme of Twenty Eleven. Weave is a responsive theme and it uses google fonts to ensure a consistent look regardless which browser the viewer is using.

Whether you celebrate Halloween or not, here are three themes to get your blog in the right mood. Haunted House is a Halloween theme for your blog. Monster is a Halloween theme with your choice of monster. Wicked Halloween is a Halloween theme with orange, gold, and black, and despite being dark, appears bright.

New plugins Detectify analyzes the the level of security on your site via a simulated hacker attack. Po.st offers publishers the ability to monetize the social activity on their site. Updated plugins Ad Code Manager allows you to manage your ad codes through the WordPress admin in a safe and easy way. Jetpack allows you to supercharge your WordPress site with powerful features previously only available to WordPress.com users. Store Locator allows you to efficiently display and manage your important stores, locations, or other points of interest on your website in a manner that’s easily searchable by visitors. Ultimate CMS is an easy to use plugin to create, customize, and manage custom post/page types, custom archives, and custom taxonomies. Ultimate Taxonomy Manager is an easy to use taxonomy manager with a great UI.

ThemeShaper is working on bringing their popular WordPress Theme Tutorial up to modern-day standards and techniques. The tutorial’s second edition, which features updated code samples from the _s starter theme, new lessons, and new tools to build your great WordPress theme, is available free of charge to anyone who has an interest to learn. So far, the tutorial has six out of seventeen lessons up, with new lessons being posted every day. There has never been a better time to learn how to build your own WordPress theme, so why not get started today?

Caramel Retro is a simple, graphic, responsive theme that is highly readable with a retro inspired script for headings and accents. The Night Watch is a responsive, elegant, single column theme. Semper Fi Lite has a high quality newspaper feel to it.

New plugins Features by WooThemes is a clean and easy-to-use features showcase management system. Nav Menu Images enables uploading of images for nav menu items on the menu edit screen. Post via Dropbox allows you to post or edit your blog with text files uploaded via Dropbox. Testimonials by WooThemes is a clean and easy-to-use testimonials management system. Updated plugins Exploit Scanner searches the files on your website, and the posts and comments tables of your database for anything suspicious. It also examines your list of active plugins for unusual filenames. Jetpack allows you to supercharge your WordPress site with powerful features previously only available to WordPress.com users. Yet Another Related Posts Plugin displays a list of related entries on your site and feeds based on a unique algorithm.