After enjoying doing a site for my first client so much, and since I absolutely love making WordPress themes (Although there are only two that I actually released, the one for my site and a friend's site's theme.) I'm debating where to start doing professional WordPress theme design like Brian Gardner and other theme celebrities do. Right now I'm still in the thinking phase, deciding whether or not I want start doing it. Also, don't expect any offers for theme design until I'm finished with 5 by 5 on the 5.

This is an idea that I thought of; I will release 5 free WordPress themes, with 5 stylesheets that can be used with all of the themes to change their color. So you could quickly change a stylesheet and your theme would turn a different color. All of the themes and stylesheets would be released gradually on days ending with a five (5, 15, or 25).

WP-Cache, what does it do?

A very powerful plugin for WordPress, WP-Cache is a systematic caching system that aims to improve the overall performance of WordPress while still providing many options for configuring the caching itself. Its main purpose is to reduce server load in extreme conditions, like that of a Digging.

The Options

The most important part of WP-Cache is its string matching system that allows you to specify what pages should and shouldn't be cached by simply including their URL. You can also specify an expire time for cached pages, and can quickly delete all cached and expired pages to reduce file size on the server.

Performance?

I have not personally been able to run some absolute performance testing, and on a server like the MediaTemple (gs) GridServer, it is unlikely that I will be using it for a long time. None the less, WP-Cache is a very powerful plugin that should come in handy for surviving any traffic spike.

Are the stories true?

I've heard my share of horror stories about WordPress blogs crashing under moderate diggings because of under-optimized themes. Since I'm on a GridServer right now that doesn't have me worried much, but if my blog actually becomes somewhat popular (Yeah, right!) and starts using up a lot of resources I might actually have to worry about theme optimization. Have any of you been forced to optimize your own themes to deal with server load?

The Question

I'm considering figuring out how to remove the requirement of an email on comment posting so that commenting on my blog will be quicker and possibly more "friendly." Should I?

The Problem

I'm worried that doing this might encourage spamming more (I don't know how.), but Chris Kalani seems to be doing fine without requiring email; and I personally do like not having to enter my email on his site. It seems like there are some pros and cons to doing this; along with the difficulties of trying to figure out how to even make it not require an email.