We've moved!

Rather than using an old url (http://sk3themes.blogspot.com) I've moved the blog to http://blog.sidekick-themes.com (that's sidekick-themes, with a dash!) I figured that using a blog named "sk3themes" was old and outdated since there are theme sites for all the devices now. Just as a refresher there is:
Sidekick 3 Themes
Sidekick LX Themes
Sidekick Slide Themes
Sidekick 2008 (Gekko) Themes

No Personal Requests on the front page and Themes in your email

Hey gang, I decided to filter out themes uploaded in the Personal Requests category from the general browsing of the sites. These themes are still accessible through the Personal Requests link on the menu, as well as when you are browsing via search or by artist. I've noticed that a large number of these themes are specific to the user with pictures of them, their gf/bf, and their name most of the time. If you've made a theme for someone but you think it's something that someone else might want (i.e. it doesn't have the person's name on it), please put it in a different category so that it wil show up when everyone browses the site.

I also enabled subscribing to skLXthemes.com via email. If you sign up through the box on the menu, you'll get an email with the themes posted each day in your inbox. I want to see how this goes on sklxthemes.com first, and if people like it, I'll enable it for the other sites.

As always, I'm always interested in hearing feedback on the sites and what you think could be made better. Just email me at admin@sklxthemes.com Thanks!

-Ed

Changes to the rating system

We've heard complaints from a number of theme artists about the rating system. Personally I think it's a nice way to give quick and easy feedback to the artists. Unfortunately it's been abused. In an attempt to make the rating system a little better (i.e. so that people aren't artificially inflating or deflating the rankings) we decided to expose who voted what for each theme. Now if you click on the Comments link to view the individual theme you'll see a listing of all the users that have voted. It should be pretty obvious if someone is trying to game the system. We've already noticed some suspicious behavior that's now exposed. So, to allow people to save some face and "do the right thing" we've also added a "Delete my vote" link so you can wipe out any trace of what you voted for on a theme. You can also use this if you accidentally vote the wrong number of stars and need to fix it.

Yes, you'll probably notice that some of the votes aren't matching up to the number of votes it says the theme has. This is a bug that's been lurking for quite some time. The bug is fixed for the future votes, but the numbers are still off. I'll be working on a way of normalizing all the votes so that all the math adds up in the future.

Let me know what you guys think of the openness of the rating system now.

BTW, sk08themes.com is open and in beta now as we try to implement some new features. :)

Over 100,000 registered users!

I've been watching the total count of registered users on the theme sites climb. I noticed this morning that we passed 101,000 users in total! Wow! I never thought the sites would ever get this large. On sk3themes.com we have a total of 7,199 themes available and 6,062,134 themes downloaded, sklxthemes.com has 2,805 themes with 1,091,919 themes downloaded, and their little brother, skslidethemes.com, has 615 themes available with 133,023 themes downloaded.

We totally couldn't have done it without all those people out there that created and uploaded themes. If you're one of those people, let me say thank you from all of the downloaders and myself included. When will we hit 200,000?

Database problems with skslidethemes.com

Sorry gang, looks like we're running into some database weirdness with skslidethemes.com. We've got the tech guys looking into things to try to figure out what's up. In the meantime, the site is temporarily offline while we fix things. Thanks for your patience!

Looks like someone got a Sidekick for the Holidays

Wow, looks like Sidekick LXs and Sidekick Slides were the presents to give this year! We've noticed an increase in visits to both sites since December 24th, and we've even seen more people visiting sk3themes.com. I guess all the new LX/Slide owners are handing down the 3s? :) Unfortunately this increase in visitors has slowed things down a bit on the server. I'm doing my best to optimize everything, but I fear that one of the sites is going to have to move to a new server. If so, then this will be happening sometime in January, once all this holiday rush dies down. So hang in there, things might be a bit slow during the evenings when the sites are the most busy. Please let me know what you guys experience. Is the speed unbearable? Is it alright that you have to wait a few extra seconds for new themes? Or are you totally unable to reach the site at times? We want to hear your input. :)

Sidekick Slide Themes
Sidekick LX Themes
Sidekick 3 Themes

Browsing themes on sklxthemes.com and sk3themes.com

Hey gang, unfortunately we had to disable browsing themes in large chunks at a time, i.e. no browsing 50 themes on one page. This was literally killing the server and the site wouldn't even load sometimes. So, sorry, you'll have to stick with 20 themes on a page at a time, which we figure is more than enough. It's only one extra click to load another 20. :)