Did The Frugal Theme Solve My Throttling Problem?

Last week I wrote about the problem I was experiencing with Bluehost throttling my blog.

I did a bit of digging around to see if I could find any more information on the problem. I looked into my stats package and confirmed that many of the heavy use files were linked to the Headway theme. Much as I love it I knew that it would have to go so I decided so I decided to try another theme that I had been looking at for some time – the Frugal theme.

Created by Eric Hamm, this is yet another theme framework with a clean, white design (remind you of anything?) Since several sites I love run the theme and I got a tip from my web designer friend James at Men with Pens, I went for it and plunked down my $85. I wanted to play it safe and set up the theme before releasing it live so I used Theme Test Drive, but that caused too many fatal errors so I uninstalled it again. (That was my own fault, as I was warned that it hadn’t been tested with the latest version of WordPress).

Mindblowing Options

When you first look at the Frugal admin area, it’s likely to blow your mind as there are so many options to fill in. Before I made the switch, I copied all my Headway customizations and had them ready in a handy file.  Then I was ready.

Frugal has its own admin submenu with six sections. The first Settings/Uploads allows you to upload images to the image folder in Frugal and to save your settings.

Main Options contains a wealth of sub options for content, page display, SEO, navigation, comment and footer. As with similar themes you can input your Google Analytics or other tracking code, your meta description and keywords from this panel. You can also exclude pages and categories from the navigation (Frugal generates a list of all the numbers so you don’t have to go hunting for them, which is a killer feature in my book.)

Feature Options is also feature packed, pardon the repetition. You can choose from several home page layouts, with the optional addition of  a feature box and widgetized areas. You can also add custom functions or add up to four custom widgets and place these manually. I chose to have a static home page with a feature box, plus three ‘feature bottom’ widgets and three ‘home bottom’ boxes.  For some boxes you can set what they display in the admin panel, otherwise you have to go to the extensive widget area. (I’d like to see a way to turn off the widgets you aren’t using so the widget area doesn’t get too cluttered.)

Header Design is where you input the name of your logo and its size, as well as set various design options. You do the same for content in the Content Design section, where there is a very useful Universal Design box at the top for main settings. Finally there is Feature Design, with even more design options.

Frugal comes with a manual, which you will need to get started and make sense of the options. I don’t think it’s been updated as often as the theme, though, as it referred to a couple of things I couldn’t find.

A Smooth Changeover

Despite the initial complexity, the changeover was smooth and relatively quick. Initial setup was done within half an hour and I’d done practically all the tweaking within three hours. In an effort to cut CPU load I went for a simple colored background instead of my custom image. My site looks even better than it did before and I now have different home page and interior page layouts.

Solving My Problem?

Did installing the new theme solve the throttling problem? Not quite. There’s no longer a call for the heavy use files and the amount of throttling has been cut from nearly 4 hours in 24 to just over 1, though this is still not acceptable. And there are longer gaps in between throttling periods. However, I am still looking for a full solution – and possibly a new host. In the meantime, I’ll be sticking with Frugal.

Written by Sharon Hurley Hall from Get Paid To Write Online
Posted on March 18th, 2010 and filed under WordPress Themes
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