In your the root of your theme directory (ex: wp-content/themes/default), you’ll find a file called “functions.php”, if you do not, create it.

Inside add:

if ( function_exists('register_sidebar') ) {
   register_sidebar(array("id" => "facts_and_stats",
			"name" =>"Facts and Stats"
   ));
}

(all attributes can be found here: http://codex.wordpress.org/Function_Reference/register_sidebar)

In the backend, under “appearance > widgets”, you’ll find all available widgets and all available sidebars. You can drag a widget into the sidebar and customize it.

Then in a template file in your theme, say your “index.php” file, you can call the content of this widget with the following block of code:

< ?php if ( function_exists('dynamic_sidebar') && dynamic_sidebar("facts_and_stats") ) { } ?>

Widgets are wrapped in <li></li> by default, you can custom a group of them with a trick such as the following, where I remove all wrappers for multiple widgets by creating an array setting the before_ and afters_’s to nothing and merge it with the id and name info in another array I create inline.

$widget_args=array(
	'before_widget' => '',
	'after_widget' => '',
	'before_title' => '',
	'after_title' => '',
);

if ( function_exists('register_sidebar') ) {
   register_sidebar(array_merge($widget_args,array("id" => "facts_and_stats", "name" =>"Facts and Stats")));
   register_sidebar(array_merge($widget_args,array("id" => "report_card", "name" =>"Report Card")));
}

Another trick I I like to do is add a quick link on the frontend for to the edit page if the user is logged in an has rights to edit widgets:

<?php if (current_user_can('manage_options')) { echo '<a href="'.get_bloginfo('url').'/wp-admin/widgets.php" title="edit this widget">edit this widget</a>'; } ?>

To fix this, go into CompizConfig Settings Manager >> Workarounds >> uncheck “Legacy Fullscreen Support” as the red circle in the screenshot below indicates.

# fortune and cowsay are needed for the snippet to work, I had to install these first
sudo apt-get install fortune cowsay

COWDIR=/usr/share/cowsay/cows/; COWNUM=$(($RANDOM%$(ls $COWDIR | wc -l))); COWFILE=$(ls $COWDIR | sed -n ''$COWNUM'p'); fortune | cowsay -f $COWFILE

UPDATE:

Suggested by MrBougo, a shorter but perhaps more process intensive method:

fortune | cowsay -f $(ls /usr/share/cowsay/cows/ | shuf | head -n1)

random cowsay fortune

Breaking down the script, the first 3 parts create variables and the last command executes the cowsay and quote.

# defines the directory of the cow files
COWDIR=/usr/share/cowsay/cows/;

# Get a random number limited to the number of files in the directory, making clever use of % (mod) and adding 1 to make sure it doesn't return 0
COWNUM=$(($RANDOM%$(ls $COWDIR | wc -l))+1);

# list the contents of the cow dir again, pipe to sed and use the number as a random line to get the name of a file
COWFILE=$(ls $COWDIR | sed -n ''$COWNUM'p');

# use fortune to get a quote, pipe to cowsay and use the file as defined above
fortune | cowsay -f $COWFILE;

Like this new scoreboard

developed by blub, roughly based on a mockup I created

whose later HUD is being attempted by victim

I also began to theorize object relationships to be future projects I’d like to develop

I started working on my mapping skills (made this baby for my Technical Theatre class)

later releasing a classic Halo favorite remade and remixed collaborating with Michael “Tenshihan” Quinn and Florian “tapas” Schmidt

started building some tools to run Nexuiz game servers

which are being provided by

whom have been very kind in helping us setup, upgrade and change locations. Big thanks to mkzelda who’s helped keep us on our feet in this respect.

gave a little love to the Nexuiz Tournament website, further extending that theme back into the game:

and now the ninjaz at our 1 year anniversary

that we are celebrating with a mapping contest.

I’m still using and loving

with a text editor I’m loving more each day, geany

I hope to have more tips and tricks for you all soon. I’ve been learning a lot on linux recently. I’ve been pretty focused as you can see but I’d be more than happy to answer any questions you may have. Feel free to contact me.