Duffel Blog - News, Tips, and Trips

Weekly DD Recap

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 11:07:00 -0800

In case you missed any of our users’ featured duffels this week, here’s the rundown:

Jesse’s NYC Trip showed how you can forgo the itinerary and simply lay out everything on the corkboard. Making game time decisions on exactly what you want to do each day can surely spice it up:

Nizza’s 3 Weeks in the UK showed a great combo of using the corkboard and itinerary simultaneously:

Bkarman’s Berlingasm stood true to its name and packed tons of activities into the itinerary:

Viviana’s Santiago de Compostela Pilgrimage was our first foreign language Duffel and had the most awesome looking map view we’ve seen to date:

And finally, Becktheanglophile showed much love for London in an activity-packed duffel with a corkboard full of ideas:

Have a Duffel you want to share? Email evan@duffelup.com. Duffelup and Go!

Daily Duffels are users’ Duffels (either future, present or past) that we feature in our online community because we think they look fun, interesting and well put together. To see all of our Daily Duffels, check our All Stars Page or follow us on Twitter.

College town pride on Duffel

Wed, 10 Mar 2010 09:07:00 -0800

It is no secret that once someone spends 4 (or 5…or 6…or) years of their life making friends, living, maturing, eating and partying…oh, and studying in one place, that place becomes near and dear to his/her heart. So dear, in fact, that the mere mention that another place could potentially be a “better” locale to spend these years is widely known to spur name-calling and fist-fights at bars throughout the country.

The truth of the matter is, in all seriousness, that the college years are truly a special part of life for those fortunate enough to have the experience. The knowledge gained in those years goes well beyond what one learns in the classroom, and of course, includes an understanding of the college(’s) town like no non-alum could ever be expected to acquire.

So, if you are new to Duffel and wondering where to get started, why not start with your college town? Or if you haven’t thought about your school days is a while, why not duffel up your college town? Or if you, somehow, someway, believe your college town is better than mine and truly “the best” and want it featured on our All Stars page, well then it’s time to duffel up your college town. When you’re done, send me an email at evan@duffelup.com with the link.

Have fun…and do be nice!

Goodbye Icons, Hello Text

Sat, 06 Mar 2010 13:38:00 -0800

We know you love to travel, and we’re very happy that we can make your trip planning process a tad easier and funner, which is why we’re constantly making improvements to our trip planner. As many of you have probably noticed, we have recently changed the look & feel of our user interface. We have opted away from some icons that may have been confusing and replaced them with still text. Not only, most users didn’t even noticed the Map View, so we labeled all our views (“Grid”, “Map”, “Print”). Now, it is easier to see exactly how to navigate around your duffel:

We think the look is simpler and cleaner and hope you all like it. Of course, our interface’s drag and drop features and our powerful Clip-It Bookmarklet tool remain the same and will continue to allow you the flexibility and creativity that make Duffel your online trip planning choice. If you haven’t done so already, sign up here!

Please keep your questions and comments coming. This is how we grow our community and adapt to your needs.

Happy Duffeling!

My Chile Trip, Earthquake and Wedding

Mon, 01 Mar 2010 10:38:00 -0800

Prior to my time working for Duffel in California, I spent about 5 years living in Chile. I studied, made friends, worked for a ski resort, married a Chilean woman and had the time of my life. My wife and I could not wait to get back down here for our friends’ wedding. We departed for Chile on Feb. 20.

The flight was long, as usual, but the events with family and friends in and around Santiago early in our trip more than made up for it, as they always do. We visited some of our favorite restaurants (see the duffel), got together for “asados” (barbecue’s), went to the rehearsal dinner, bachelor party, and were ready for the big day when we went to sleep on Friday night.

3:26 AM, February 27, 2010: My wife and I awoke to the room rocking back and forth, like a ship does, steadily intensifying as noises from kitchen cabinets, shelves, and the house itself began to grow louder. Being a Californian, I am no stranger to earthquakes, and as the temblor progressed, it was clearly time to take action.

Laying on the floor next to the bed - a technique I read about a few years ago which is supposed to create “triangles of space” if things begin to collapse - the rocking motion had turned so violent that it felt akin to the entire house being rapidly pulled back into a slingshot and then released and slammed into a solid brick wall. Over and over and over. The feeling was terrible, but the noise was at least as frightening. Like the thunder of a wrecking ball mixed with breaking dishes and trinkets. We could hear my in-laws in the front hall, yelling for us, and my wife could wait no longer so we stumbled out toward the front entryway of the house as the slamming continued and desperation began to set in. At that moment, it stopped. Outside, house and car alarms filled the air like a bad high school orchestra.

In the next hours, we used a battery operated radio to learn that this was indeed a huge earthquake (we later learned is was an 8.8 at its epicenter and 8.3 in Santiago) and had effected much of the country which is widely recognized more for its shape than for its stable economy and wonderful tourist attractions. In our area of Santiago, we got power back by 10 AM and tuned in to the local news where we, little by little, found out more about the devastation in more southern regions like Bio Bio and Maule. Although Santiago stood strong for the most part (a testament to the modern construction practices in place here and good economy enjoyed for many years), in places like Talca and Concepcion, whole apartment buildings toppled, bridges collapsed, and some coastal areas were hit by tsunamis. Situations were desperate, but the Chilean response has been whole-hearted and impressive.

Our friends’ wedding amazingly was still able to take place on Saturday night, although the ceremony had to be moved and the reception completely modified. Friends and family came together to make the most of a difficult situation, and the bride and groom were touched at the comradery displayed by all involved.

As I write this, there are still tremendous rescue, relief and security efforts taking place in many parts of the country. Many people are without water and electricity and there are still many unknowns when it comes to national and international travel (though it appears international flights will begin to leave Chile within the next 24-48 hours). The Chilean Government is working hard to get people the essentials they need. Things in Santiago have begun to stabilize and I promise you people are eager to begin the rebuilding process and further demonstrate the resolve of this country. Trust me, it will not be long before trips to Santiago, Vina del Mar, the Lake District, Torres del Paine, the Altiplano and the wine country like this (see the duffel) are once again on the calendars of thousands of international tourists. And so they should be.

Weekly DD Recap

Fri, 19 Feb 2010 10:14:00 -0800

This week’s Daily Duffels gave us a plethora of ideas and advice for our duffels and travels around the world. In case you missed a day, here’s the weekly compilation:

- España by Ann Marie: http://duffelup.com/trips/espa-a

- Athens by Woaiken: http://duffelup.com/trips/athens-march-2010

- Ski Resorts by Natalie: http://duffelup.com/trips/ski-resorts

- Thanksgiving 2009 by John (see his comments below) http://duffelup.com/trips/thanksgiving-2009-5

- China Summer 2010 by Dafydd: http://duffelup.com/trips/china-summer-2010

Have a Duffel you want to share? Email evan@duffelup.com. Duffelup and Go!

Duffelup Journal 2/18/10 "Thanksgiving 2009 (DC) by John R. Lee

Thu, 18 Feb 2010 10:30:46 -0800

Note from the Admin: John’s Duffel Thanksgiving 2009 was selected “Daily Duffel” for 2/18/10. Daily Duffel authors are invited to comment on their experiences for the Duffelup Journal. This is what John had to say:

I created the Duffel to help me visually manage things I wanted to do while I was going to be in Washington D.C. for several different events. It was the Thanksgiving holiday and I was spending time with family, seeing my brother perform at The Kennedy Center (it was the first-ever performance of the Nutcracker there), attending a work luncheon and, finally, having some downtime to do focused sightseeing. Lots of variables and some that were moving targets (i.e. family time). So, Duffel solved a few problems for me. Not only could I visualize my itinerary - it helped the organization process in creating the itinerary too. I had asked friends, colleagues, posted on my blog, did my own research, etc. Duffel gave me a place to dump all this stuff and then piece it together as trip details became finalized over time.

I created it by myself but I shared it with family members in-case they wanted to add anything or tag along. I’ve used Duffel previously to put together vacations with my girlfriend though and the collaboration aspect is very useful. There were lots of moving parts and Duffel helped visualize and place things with the flexibility to easily move them around at a moment’s notice, etc.

The trip went great. If you’ve been to a place several times already and done the requisite tourist attractions, it’s always fun to go off the beaten path and focus your travel to get the most out of it. For example, instead of trying to go to all the museums - focus on one, and really explore it. Like many other things, people are traveling to “get away” but usually don’t get a chance to really change their mindset if they plan every minute and stuff as many things as possible into one day. What have you done then? You’ve just stayed busy somewhere else. I think being able to visualize my trip and really understand what a person does in one day to not overwhelm themselves helped me ensure that I enjoyed my time away - not just spent it.

Sounds like the trip was a success John. Thanks for the insightful comments! You can view John’s Duffel here: Thanksgiving 2009

Where are you going next? Send your Duffel experiences to evan@duffelup.com to be featured.

Weekly DD Recap

Fri, 12 Feb 2010 09:37:00 -0800

Featured Duffels from this week covered a hodgepodge of timely themes. It’s not too late to duffelup some last minute travel plans around one or several of these motifs:

FOOD

Bourdain’s 13 Places Before You Die: http://duffelup.com/trips/bourdain-s-13-places

Food in Italy by Verney: http://duffelup.com/trips/food-in-italy

SOUTHERN HEMISPHERE

7 Days in New Zealand by Renato: http://duffelup.com/trips/7-days-in-new-zealand

Chilean Wine Vacation: http://duffelup.com/trips/chilean-wine-vacation

Carnival in Rio: http://duffelup.com/trips/carnival-2010

VALENTINE’S DAY

Cupid’s Chinese New Year: http://duffelup.com/trips/cupid-s-chinese-new-year

San Francisco Beer Week on V-day: http://duffelup.com/trips/sfbeerweek

Zurich Valentine’s: http://duffelup.com/trips/zurich-valentine-s

MARDI GRAS

The Big Easy by Stina: http://duffelup.com/trips/mardi-gras

Have a Duffel you want to share? Email evan@duffelup.com. Duffelup and Go!

Duffelup Journal 2/12/10: "The Big Easy" by Stina

Fri, 12 Feb 2010 09:08:00 -0800

Note from the Admin: Stina’s Duffel The Big Easy was selected “Daily Duffel” for 2/11/10. Daily Duffel creators are invited to comment on their experiences for the Duffelup Journal. This is what Stina had to say:

I have always wanted to visit NOLA during Mardi Gras. It’s on my “bucket” list! NOLA is so rich with tradition, culture, and most importantly, FOOD! My friend is currently there for work, and during the day I plan to go sightseeing on my own.

My original reason for using Duffelup was to be able to organize my days according to which part of NOLA I was in using the map so I could be efficient and maximize the number of places to see. When I told friends that I was planning to go to NOLA, they all had recommendations for me, from beignets to the St. Charles streetcar to the French Market. Instead of having to write the ideas down on pieces of paper and carry them with me everywhere, I was able to use Duffelup’s bookmarklet to “save” the activities and foodie places with all the pertinent information. Organizing my daily list of “to-dos” was a piece of cake using the map view.

A plus to sharing my NOLA Duffel with my friends is that they know where I plan to be each day. If for some reason anything were to happen to me (knock on wood), I have the details of all the places I plan to be at.

I am so excited to be in NOLA for Mardi Gras! Their Superbowl victory last weekend will be sure to make my visit even more amazing!!

Awesome Stina…Have a great time! You can view her Duffel here: The Big Easy

Stina’s all duffeled up and ready to go. Where are you going next? Send your Duffel experiences to evan@duffelup.com to be featured.

The Big Easy Bachelor Party Duffel

Fri, 05 Feb 2010 14:42:00 -0800

What could be finer than going to a buddy’s bachelor party in New Orleans with a bunch of other buddies during the second weekend of the 2010 New Orleans Jazz Fest? Pardon that cliche of a start, but it’s unbeatable, and I can’t wait. My musically inclined friend who came up with the idea deserves his due praise. 12 of us will make the trip. None of us know much about the Big Easy.

As of last week we had thrown around a few ideas, sent a bucketful of emails and, thanks to the best man, decided on lodging. But when it comes to the what-to-do’s of the trip, a little help certainly seemed like a welcomed prospect – organizational-wise and idea-wise. Enter Duffel.

I (Evan) use Duffelup.com every day. I’m the community manager here, so it’s my job. And I saw a really cool opportunity when I thought about this sure-to-be memorable (for better or worse) adventure to New Orleans in late April. This trip was made to be Duffeled.

I went to my dashboard and started setting the table. I used the bookmarklet to clip in Jazz Fest info, potential nightlife, restaurants that had good ratings on Yelp and the sweet luxury villa that the best man lined up for us as a project mayhem home-base of sorts.

Now for the rocket fuel: New Orleans buffs, locals, lovers and experts please take a step forward. Our Duffel is here: http://duffelup.com/trips/jazz-fest-bach-party and we’re hoping your advice and suggestions can push this thing into a full-on, creole-induced orbit.

I’ll be updating our progress here from time to time so please check back. To start getting expert advice on a Duffel of your own, visit http://duffelup.com. To have your Duffel featured, email me at evan@duffelup.com.

Happy Duffeling.

Weekly DD Recap

Fri, 29 Jan 2010 12:38:00 -0800

The past week’s Daily Duffels were packed with unique, interesting and useful information for travelers, wanderers and locals alike. DD’s burned bright in our Twitter feed and zipped around our online community, but in case you missed a day or two, here’s a quick rundown:

1) In a demonstration of how Duffel can be used for more that just travel planning, mike mora took us on a unique tour of things to do and places to hang in NYC in A New York Sip: http://duffelup.com/trips/a-new-york-sip

2) Dana showed us how organizing and laying out your trip itinerary is a cinch, and the freedom that the bookmarklet tool brings to this process in Rome, Italy: http://duffelup.com/trips/dana

3) Interesting Pacific Northwest activities abounded in Christine Srivongse’s Portland Weekend: http://duffelup.com/trips/portland-weekend

4) We got to ride shotgun up the California coast with Amy Hanoa in her Duffel Norcal Roadtrip: http://duffelup.com/trips/norcal-roadtrip You can see her comments on the trip below in the 1/27/10 edition of the Duffelup Journal.

5) Stefano and his girlfriend took Vegas (or so tried) in a Bourdain-inspired visit to Sin City in Taking Vegas: http://duffelup.com/trips/taking-vegas See his comments and photo in yesterday’s Journal below.

6) And just today equeq tuned us in to some mad Miami-Dade eats and drinks knowledge sure to benefit those partaking in local Superbowl festivities in Eatery&Bars-Miami: http://duffelup.com/trips/eatery-bars-miami

Have a Duffel you want to share? Email evan@duffelup.com. Duffelup and Go!

Duffelup Journal 1/28/10: "Taking Vegas" by Stefano

Thu, 28 Jan 2010 11:04:00 -0800

Note from the Admin: Stefano’s Duffel was selected “Daily Duffel” for 1/28/10. Daily Duffel Creators are invited to comment on their experiences for the Duffelup Journal. This is what Stefano had to say:

We had a great trip in Vegas. It was a ton of fun just organizing my thoughts on duffelup, placing restaurants, hotels, etc - and then letting the gatekeeper - aka “the girlfriend” organize it all and turn it into a cohesive trip. Unfortunately, despite the duffel’s name, we didn’t take vegas - vegas took us.

(Stefano and his girlfriend taking Vegas)

Thanks Stefano…I know the feeling! There’s nothing quite like that flight home from Vegas. You can view Stefano’s Duffel here: Taking Vegas

Duffelup Journal 1/27/10: "Norcal Roadtrip", duckiesandie (Amy Hanoa)

Wed, 27 Jan 2010 10:13:00 -0800

Note from the Admin: Amy’s Duffel was selected “Daily Duffel” for 1/27/10. Daily Duffel Creators are invited to comment on their Duffelup experiences for the Duffelup Journal. This is what Amy had to say:

During my boyfriend’s vacation here in California, I decided to plan the quintessential roadtrip up from LA to Northern California to show him the sights and visit a few friends. We kept throwing out ideas about what we wanted to do, who we wanted to see, and the stuff we wanted to eat… but nothing was getting solidified.

I took it upon myself to play the troop leader and started packing my “Duffel Up.” Since we were constantly on the move and meeting up with a few different people during our trip, the public board was a great way to link everyone and let them see when and where we were going to be at all times. This allowed us to plan accordingly and still get to do everything we originally planned.

All in all, the trip was a major success. We got to bowl all night, be awesome at Lasertag (I took 1^st place!), run around a huge trampoline arena, and eat great food with some amazing friends. If anyone needs some ideas for their trip to the Bay Area, check out my Duffel. :-D

Very cool Amy! You can view Amy’s Duffel here: Norcal Roadtrip!

Create a public duffel – even if you aren’t travelling

Fri, 22 Jan 2010 12:45:00 -0800

Creating a public duffel isn’t just a chance to show off your duffelup skills, it can also be a very informative resource for fellow users. And it may be featured as a “Daily Duffel” in our Twitter community, or elsewhere in the future. Even if you aren’t actually planning on going anywhere, duffelup someplace you’ve been, or a restaurant list, or somewhere you would like to go one day. Have fun and let the creative juices flow.

Shiny New Widgets For Your Blogs or Websites

Wed, 16 Dec 2009 23:23:00 -0800

It has been a while since we last updated. Apologies - we’ve been busy cranking out exciting new features. One of the new features is the Duffel Widget (which you can see on the right). It is a list of your “active trips” or “active duffels”, depending on whether you use Duffel to plan your trips or to save your favorite spots (or both). If you want to grab one for yourself, go to http://duffelup.com/site/tools and start showing off your itineraries!

Hot New Features Right Off the Grill

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 11:14:00 -0800

As everyone was enjoying their Halloween weekend, we were working away and quietly released a handful of new feature that further improves your trip planning experience. First off, we redesigned our city pages to provide you with activities and hotel recommendations. Secondly, Duffel is more social, thanks to sharing capabilities with Facebook and Twitter. Thirdly, our bookmarklet tool is better and smarter for easier web clipping. There are many more new and hot features, which we’ll try to summarize them for you below.

All new city page

As you can see from our New York City page, we have significantly improved the look and feel. Not only are there “profile pictures” for every duffel, we also have a slew of activities and hotels recommendations for you, hand-picked from our partners. Now you can browse through other travelers’ duffels as well as activities and hotels all on one page.

Sharing and Favorites

We know you want to share with friends and family that perfect trip you planned, and we make it easy. With a click on the “Share” button, you can instantly post a message on your Facebook wall or Twitter account.

Find an interesting itinerary built by your friend or another duffeler? Favorite it and it will show up under your favorites collection.

Smarter Bookmarklet

Forget copy & paste! Our new Clip-It tool automatically picks up your highlights on a website.

Google Search your duffel map

Are you looking for the closest coffee shop from your hotel? Use Google’s search right on your duffel map! You can also add the search results to your duffel directly without copying and pasting, making your trip planning even easier.

And many more…

There are many more exciting new stuff on Duffel, so why not check them out!

Tip: How to Post Driving Direction and Map to a Duffel

Fri, 16 Oct 2009 14:36:00 -0700

This is the first of the how-to / tips & tricks series. How-to series are created to educate users on how to maximize the potential of using Duffel. Hope you’ll find them helpful!

Problem: When I was planning my trip to Greece, I realized that I need walking & driving directions from point to point. How do I save this in my duffel? This post illustrates the utilization of Google Maps driving direction and its application to your trip planning process. The tutorial assumes that you print out your duffels using “print view” and carry them while traveling. Follow the procedure below and you’ll have a good-looking print view with driving directions.

1) Find driving / walking directions on maps.google.com. In this example, I’m plotting directions from SFO International Airport to San Francisco, Ca.

2) After the direction has been plotted, click the “Link” link on the top right of the map. Copy the HTML in “Past HTML to embed in website”.

3) Go to your duffel and add a Note. Paste the HTML in the Note body. (Optional) Since I like large maps, I changed the width to “600” (from “425”) and height to “600” as well (from “350”). You can also add any note you need to the beginning or the end of the HTML; I pasted the actual text of the driving direction.

4) Save the Note, and it will look something like this (pretty ugly, I know).

5) Fear not. The final print view looks much prettier.

Hope this is helpful getting driving directions in your duffels. You can also look at a real-life example here (grid view here). Enjoy!

We Launched at TechCrunch50!

Wed, 23 Sep 2009 13:29:00 -0700

The day finally arrived. After a year and half of eating, breathing and living Duffel, and nine months of interacting with our favorite Beta testers, we finally launched at TechCrunch50 DemoPit on last week! To say that we were nervous is a drastic understatement — we were scared sh-tless (pardon our French, though we do love France). Despite the staying up late and waking up in a cold sweat, launching at TC50 was one of the best experiences we could have hoped for. People loved our intuitive interface and were fascinated by the ease of use, but perhaps most rewarding of all, they shared Duffel’s vision and gave invaluable feedback. Sometimes being entrepreneur takes a little bit of “crazy” and it’s comforting to know that we weren’t alone. Besides, earning Jack Arrington’s (Michael’s father) poker chip was one of the events that made our day a bit different than ordinary.

A big thanks to our die-hard fans who helped to make this day happen. Duffel would not have been what it was without your support and feedback. Thank you for your passion. Thanks for all the buzz on Twitter and Facebook, and if you haven’t had a chance to, you can follow us on Twitter @duffelup and fan us on Facebook. Moreover, thanks to our stellar Duffel team who believed in Duffel and worked endlessly around the clock - you are the brain of Duffel. And finally, thanks to TechCrunch50 for putting up a great show. It was absolutely an eye-opening experience.

As part of the launch, we did put in quite a bit of interesting features. The list goes on, but first off, we gave our homepage a fresh face-lift. It is now more interactive and inviting - do you agree? We are also integrated with Facebook Connect, so now you can invite and share with Facebook friends. And of course, you also can sign up using a Facebook account. Besides the new features, we made quite a bit of changes to improve our trip planning dashboard, as well as gave users recommended activities to kick start their travel research. We’d love your feedback on these.

Despite the successful launch, we’re not stopping here. There are still a lot of work to do, problems to solve, and challenges to overcome. Our vision - to build the most flexible trip planner for every traveler - remains unwavering. We are stronger than ever, and we are here to make a difference. Stay tuned - we’ve got more exciting news coming!

Follow @duffelup on Twitter

Tue, 09 Jun 2009 14:12:00 -0700

I’ve been hesitant to tweet about Duffel. Actually, I’ve been hesistant to publicly market Duffel in general, mostly because I feel it isn’t ready for prime time yet. But as the founder and developer, I know I’ll always be “unready.” The day I launched private beta, I was kicking and screaming about how it wasn’t ready - but it had to be done and I thought if anything screwed up, at least it would be limited to a small set of users.

Months later, all the hard work and attention to details paid off. Duffelup.com is still running and we didn’t lose the database! More importantly, we’ve been quietly hitting milestones, adding new features and tweaking the interface, despite a few life events and setbacks. Every pending milestone, I would attempt make it our public beta release; but everytime we reach the milestone, I would start feeling uneasy and push back the big day.

Well, I’m still not convinced that we’re ready yet. However, I want to come out of the closet and slowly start writing about Duffel in open public, whether through this blog or via Twitter. We have a great marketing consultant leading this effort, so tweets will be plentiful and interesting. Because Duffel is a visually stimulating tool, not only will we blog and tweet, we will also start collecting stunning travel photos submitted by strangers around the globe. Most people look for travel inpsiration through photos - we want to nuture that inspiration.

Having said all that, please follow us on Twitter for site updates, new features, travel tips and interesting nuggets. Also check back this blog for more verbose version of the tweets.

Share Your Travel Experience and Photos with Duffel!

Tue, 12 May 2009 15:54:00 -0700

To submit to Duffel Visual:

Once every week, we like to post memorable travel photos from our users. Why don’t you share your experience with us?

Submit your travel photo (single high resolution photo), a sentence describing why the photo is memorable, and source URL via blog@duffelup.com.
Send us the URL to your duffel that is relevant to your photo.
Our editors will pick out a few amazing photos and post it on http://visual.duffelup.com every week.

To submit to Duffel Blog:

If you feel inclined to write more about your travel experience, you can submit your story to Duffel Blog.

Submit your travel story, photos, and captions (if necessary) to us in via blog@duffelup.com.
Because we want to help travelers reading your story to plan their trips, we strongly recommend you create a duffel for your trip or send us the URL to your duffel if you already have one. Make sure your duffel is public.

Please give us some time to review your stories and photos. We’re excited to share with the world your passion for travel and photography! Look forward to hear from you!

Introducing Duffel Visual

Thu, 07 May 2009 19:31:00 -0700

I’ve been toying around with picture posts in Tumblr, and I came across Photoboard, a great theme for photo-blogging. It matches so well with Duffel’s Ideaboard (even the drag & drop!) that I created a photo-blog called Duffel Visual, where Duffelers can share their priced photographs with other users.

Shout outs to Ben Delaney for designing such a good looking theme!