Thesis Theme Tools is very serious about protecting your privacy. In general, any information collected here is never sold, shared or divulged to anyone or any organization.
Your email address in comments or email is not sold, shared or divulged to anyone or any organization, ever.
Any personal information shared in “Contact” emails is kept strictly confidential, and is not shared or divulged to anyone or any organization, ever.
This site will respect the legal requirements of the State of Georgia and the United States of America.

Some of our site tools and advertisers use “cookies,” which are small files stored on your computer. These cookies do not store any personal information whatsoever, so your privacy is not violated by their use.

For example, Google Analytics, which helps me determine the effectiveness of this site, uses cookies to tell whether you are a first-time or returning reader. The only information in the cookie is whether you have visited Thesis Theme Tools before. It does not identify you or your computer, and is completely anonymous.

If you do not want cookies stored on your computer, you may change your browser settings to refuse them.

If you have any questions concerning our privacy policies, please email me using the “Contact” tab at the top of each page.

The community here at Thesis Theme Tools benefits when there are a variety of voices writing articles and comments. For this reason, guest posts are heartily welcomed as a way to bring fresh perspectives and experiences to readers.

If you want to write a post, contact me

If you think you would like to write a guest post for Thesis Theme Tools, please email me using the “Contact” tab found at the top of each page. You may have a finished post, the idea for a post, or just an different way of doing things that you think will be of interest to readers. All are welcome. The email does not obligate you in any way.

Please include the following information in your Contact email:

• Your real name. Guest posts can be anonymous or written under a pseudonym, but I need your real name.
• An outline of your experience and qualifications for writing a guest post.
• Links to other guest posts that you have written, to your blog, or to other materials if applicable. This will let me see your writing style, but they are not required. First-time writers are encouraged to explore writing a guest post.
• Your post subject or ideas. If you do not have a specific subject in mind, please include enough information so that we can work together on a topic.

In my reply to your initial contact we will discuss the possibilities. If you and I agree on a guest post, I will give you details about how to submit your post and other necessary information.

Editorial policy

In general, I try not to edit guest posts beyond basic spell checking — I want the words and style to be yours. I may add an image and will do formatting so that your post looks the best it can.

Payment for guest posts

Unfortunately, I cannot afford to pay you for a guest post. However, I do want to make sure that you receive as much credit as possible through links to your blog and other internet locations. You may mention your guest post in other media in any way that will be helpful to you.

Decisions regarding the suitability of guest posts

I bear the ultimate responsibility for this blog and its contents. All decisions regarding the suitability of guest posts are mine and are final.

Thesis Theme Tools is primarily funded by Mike Nichols as a service to the Thesis community. I do not accept payment for reviews, favorable articles, or any other content that would potentially conflict with the editorial policies of this site or violate the trust of my readers.

As a retiree on a fixed income, I have decided to use advertisements as a way to help fund this site. Advertisements are chosen based on these criteria:

• Products or services that I personally use and endorse, such as the Thesis theme, and HostGator, who is the hosting provider for this site.
• Products or services that are in strict adherence to the editorial policies of this site. That means no ads for miracle cures, no hype, and only products and services that are carefully selected to be of benefit to my readers.

Please consider visiting my advertisers. They are good people with good products. Besides, the small amount of money I receive from them helps keep this site up!

I love comments on this blog. They are as important as anything else written on Thesis Theme Tools. Comments add to the knowledge and community that exists here. Your comments are more than welcome — they are essential!

There are some ground rules for commenting, however, that are important to the maintenance of civil discourse in the comments. I regret that there are more negatives than positives, but I have found that there are people who want to abuse blog communities with comments that are inappropriate.

I moderate the comments, and check them out several times a day. I also respond to most comments. If you think a comment is inappropriate in any way, please email me using the “Contact” tab at the top of every page, and I will address the situation right away.

If you have questions or comments on this Comment Policy, please feel free to email me using the “Contact” tab at the top of every page.

1. Please be polite

No name calling, rudeness, personal attacks and similar comments will be tolerated. If you’re unsure whether your comment falls under these limitations, just remember the Golden Rule. And remember that your comment will be visible worldwide, so don’t say anything you wouldn’t want your mother to see! Discussions, even heated ones, are welcome, but keep it nice.

2. Comments must be true and correct in light of your knowledge and experience

This should be obvious. Any comments that violate this policy will be deleted.

3. Links in comments are ok

Relevant links in comments are actively encouraged. If you want to point to a link on your own or someone else’s site that is relevant to the topic, then please feel free to do so. This adds to the conversation and improves the blog. Note that if you have more than 2 links, the spam filter will pick it up and your message might not be displayed. If you want to provide more than 2 links, please email me using the Contact tab and let me know so I can rescue your comment from the spam filter.

4. Comments cannot be edited

Please remember that comments cannot be edited once they are made (I have looked at several plugins but they don’t work with WordPress 2.8). If you wish to have a comment deleted, please email me using the “Contact” tab at the top of each page.

5. No commercial messages

Commercial messages and links in comments are not allowed and will be deleted, no matter how good the product or service is, or how relevant it might be to readers. Allowing the comment or link to stand would be a tacit endorsement of the product or service without my having reviewed it. If you wish readers to learn about your product or service, please feel free to use the “Contact” tab at the top of the screen to email me to discuss the possibilities open to you.

6. Spam is deleted

I have spam filters in place which automatically catch the majority of automated spam comments. I don’t put up with it, and if any spam comments slip through the filters, I delete them immediately.

7. No trolls allowed

I delete comments with crude language, obvious attempts to anger others, or other comments that I deem not to be in keeping with the standards of this site. If these comments persist, I will ban the commenter from this site.

8. I reserve the right to edit any comment

An example of this would be a good comment that is made by a salesperson for a commercial interest. I would edit the comment to remove the commercial message. I always note in the comment that I have edited it.

9. I own this blog and my decision is final

I am the sole arbiter of whether a comment is libelous, hateful, hurtful, or otherwise inappropriate. This blog is my responsibility, and I take it seriously. The readers of Thesis Theme Tools are worldwide, and I believe I have a mandate to keep comments constructive, polite, and acceptable to this broad audience.

People who choose to violate these policies will be notified by email. After two notifications, they will be banned from the site. Should their email address be invalid, comments will be deleted immediately and the user banned from the site.

This is the Blog Page.

My name is Mike Nichols, and I live with my wife and daughter in Columbus, Georgia, a mid-sized city on the state’s west coast.

I am a retired now, but the majority of my working life has been in music, first as an orchestra conductor and teacher, then in a private studio. Between these two were 14 years in the computer industry, as a publisher of third party manuals, a software developer, Customer Support manager, and Senior VP of Information Technology.

I started my first blog, Anxiety, Panic & Health, on June 22, 2008. I searched through literally hundreds of themes, and finally settled on a couple. They kept breaking and were very frustrating to work with. I finally happened on Thesis and was instantly struck by the simple, clean appearance and excellent typography. But what really sold me was the forum, where I saw that I wouldn’t have to struggle with Thesis by myself, and would find plenty of help customizing it.

I bought Thesis on August 3, 2008 and upgraded to the developer’s license soon after. I have never regretted buying Thesis for an instant, for all the reasons listed on my start page, and for many more.

Although I have a background in software development and know several computer languages, I never had any experience with css and php until I started using Thesis. Over the past year, I have learned css and enough php to make myself dangerous! I learned by working through the examples on the forum. Though I tried several books, it was the forum’s hands-on approach that helped me the most.

I started Thesis Theme Tools on June 30, 2009 as a way to give back to the Thesis community, which has been so helpful to me. I want to provide a repository of information that is not found elsewhere, with tips for everybody from newbies to the more advanced Thesis user.

The lifeblood of any blog is user interaction through comments and email. I urge you to feel free to comment on any post or page. And I welcome direct emails through my “Contact” page. I answer every comment and every email.

I want to say thank you to the Thesis community, and to you, my readers. I look forward to a rich and rewarding future together!