ClaytonJames<lengthy rant>
I have been assisting a young lady who is very interested in setting up her first blog. In her quest for a multitude of features both social and media oriented, she happened upon one that seemed to very much suit her taste. http://wordpress.org/extend/themes/techified
As I write this, it seems to have accrued over 3,000 downloads. I can see why. I like it too.
So here we go.
This is the info from the download:
Theme Name: Techified
Theme URI: //cheon.info/692
Description: Nice and Sleek design. Suitable for all blog niche.
Version: 1.0.6
Author: CheonNii
Author URI: //cheon.info
Here is what I Believe to be more accurate:
Theme Name: Techified
Theme Style: Premium Technology Wordpress Themes
Theme URI: //www.technologytricks.com/
Description: Nice and Sleek design. Suitable for all blog niche.
Author: izwan00
Author URI: //www.technologytricks.com/
I leave you to compare licensing at your leisure if you care to.
...And here is my gripe: I installed it and it looked good. Preliminary setup was fast, and it looked like “the one” for my immediate purpose. First thing I notice is the hidden 1x1 AddThis button… but text is present instead and that’s ok. It's by design. So I then quickly check header responses and see that it is tracking the “addthis” usage via the account of the “author”. “//www.addthis.com/bookmark.php?v=250&pub=cheonnii”. No big deal. People create themes and forget to delete their ad account info, or social bookmark references all the time. I just substituted the public "addthis" URLs for all instances of the personal one in index.php and single.php. I then turned my attention to correcting the glaring spelling errors in the footer:
“Power by WordPress. Techified theme ptimization and Chinese by CheonNii.”
I open footer.php and after removing some unnecessary cruft from the structure, I change “Power” to “Powered” ( I understand that language barriers create minor roadblocks sometimes - no big deal ) and as I attempt to correct the spelling on the word “ptimization” - the omission of the “o” is obvious – I discover that it can’t be done from there. Hmmm, interesting. Let’s fast forward twenty minutes to when I discover that it is being called into the footer from /techified/js/MenuMatic_0.68.3.js
So I look at the script, and it’s packed. No big deal. Happens all the time. I unpack the js, but to my eyes, it might as well be written in Greek. I don’t know shiat about javascript, but what I do know is that when I replaced it with a fresh copy of MenuMatic_0.68.3.js,the link in the footer disappeared, and everything else appeared to still operate normally. Can I draw any legitimate conclusions from that?
The original theme was released with heavy base64 obfuscation. I know because I checked. In my opinion, this theme has been decoded, crap-hazardly reassembled, and then re-distributed. But not until the “new author” altered the above .js to place his own link into the footer in a manner that would not allow alteration. I have no problem leaving credit where due. What do I care, it’s all good advertising… UNLESS YOU SUCK!
I don’t know if the individual claiming to be the author here, has any working relationship with who I think the “original” author may be, but I think it’s a crappy thing to pull. If anyone cares to look at that script and maybe shed some light on the string that places the link in the footer, I would be grateful for the education. I would be even more appreciative if someone could point out where and why I might be incorrect.
I simply replaced the script, but the theme no longer gives me a warm fuzzy. I guess I just wanted to give others who may be using it a heads up... that and I have a very disappointed young lady on my hands.
And to you, mister “CheonNii” ; I know a little lady who thinks she would now like to apply a B.F.H. to both your little toes.
:-)
Peace.
</ lengthy rant>
toyNN
webhauser