Why I Recommend Elegant Themes

Last week, I started to put together a new product reviews section on this site. This will be a replacement for the old “Toolbox” page which has been on this site for awhile now.

One of the things I’m going to be doing for this section of the site is having a video to go along with each recommendation. The video will fully explain why I like the product and any pros and cons of note.

See, it is one thing for somebody to just drop a bunch of affiliate links. It is one thing for somebody to pimp anything under the sun just because it pays out a commission. There are too many people who do dishonest product recommendations and lead people astray… and I think it is bullshit.

So, I’m doing something different.

If I’m going to recommend a product to you, I’m going to get on a video and I’m going to tell you straight up what I think of it. You can SEE me talk about it. I want things to be transparent in this regard.

Right now, this reviews section talks about things I recommend. But, who knows… I may very well expand it to things that I DON’T recommend. After all, there is garbage out there, too. And, after 14 years of doing this, I’ve gotten fairly good at differentiating between truly good solutions and things which were obviously just put together to make a few bucks and add no real value.

So, that’s where I’m going with it… and today I’ll start out with…

Elegant Themes

I have long recommended the themes over at Elegant Themes to people who want something better than a freebie theme can offer. One of the reasons I recommend them is because of the price, quite frankly. 🙂

Here’s a video to explain…

Our theme over at PCMech.com is derived from one of their themes, as I show you in the above video.

Now, let me address one thing which I didn’t mention in the video. And that is…

Why aren’t I using a framework like Thesis or Genesis?

The reason is unique to me. See, I’m actually pretty damn adept at HTML, CSS and PHP programming. Hell, back in the day, I actually personally created a content management system to power my tech site which, at the time, rivaled the capability of Wordpress itself.

I’m a nerd. 🙂 Which means I am not only able to hack up my themes any way I please, but I PREFER it. For somebody like me, a framework sorta kinda gets in the way.

I have nothing against Thesis or Genesis and there is still a possibility I’ll move to one of them in the future (because they do bring their own sets of conveniences, to be sure).

Theme frameworks are not really THEMES… they are FRAMEWORKS. That’s why they look so damn basic out of the box. And, unless you know how to customize those solutions quite a bit or hire somebody to do it, you can generally recognize one of those frameworks on first glance.

If you want a great theme right out the gate and money is an issue for you, definitely check out Elegant Themes. You have access to their entire library of themes for one low price.