MeadowLand – a fixed-width 2-column, free WordPress theme, with a right hand-sidebar, enabled for widgets. It’s also got gravatars, and post comments are separated from pingback/trackbacks.

The theme has been tested on Firefox 2, Internet Explorer 6 and 7, and Opera 9.

Demonstration: MeadowLand Demo

Download: MeadowLand WordPress Theme 1.2 – meadowland.zip

Release Notes:
Released under the terms of the GPL.
This theme is not sponsored.

8some is a 2 column fixed-width WordPress theme, with lefthand sidebar, enabled for widgets…

The theme is compatible with WordPress v2.2 upwards and has been tested on Firefox 2,3, Internet Explorer 6 and 7, and Opera 9.

User comments are separated from pingbacks/trackbacks, enabled for gravatars – and will work whether you’re using WP2.6, 2.5 or lower – you won’t need the WordPress gravatar plugin.
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Hmm, Technorati indices are swirling around again, added to the general strangeness that has attended Alexa rank this last month – and people still use these various ratings for making money decisions….

Highlands is a 3 column fixed-width, free WordPress theme, with righthand sidebar, enabled for widgets

The theme is compatible with WordPress v2.2 upwards and has been tested on Firefox 2,3, Internet Explorer 6, and Opera 9.

User comments are separated from pingbacks/trackbacks, enabled for gravatars – and will work whether you’re using WP2.6, 2.5 or lower – you won’t need the WordPress gravatar plugin.
Read more »

Most themes with a pages menu – as opposed to sidebar widget – will use a standard wp_list_pages function.

In terms of customisation, (mostly) people want to exclude certain pages – and to do this, add the exclude argument:

wp_list_pages('...&exclude=5,9,23&...

More info here

Fedburned is a 2 column fixed-width, free WordPress theme, with righthand sidebar, enabled for widgets in the style of a well-known feed aggregator/distributor.

The theme is compatible with WordPress v2.3 upwards and has been tested on Firefox 2, Internet Explorer 6 and 7, and Opera 9.

Demonstration: Fedburned Demo

Download: Fedburned WordPress Theme 1.2 – fedburned.zip

Release Notes:
Released under the terms of the GPL.
This theme is not sponsored.

A certain monstrous theme/template sales concern doesn’t get any better.

Had a client last week, who’d installed one of these things, on top of a WordPress 2.5, and it turned they’d sold him a WordPress version 2.2, which seriously wrecked the db – which hadn’t backed up – of course… It used to be that these templates could be a reasonable starting-point for a theme – if the client wanted a certain sort of lush graphics… but not now…

It’s all just gone a bit too pear-shaped….