There are some major blog networks out there that garner quite a bit of attention, not only among savvy Internet users, but even among mainstream media. One such network is Gawker Media and its family of blogs that cover just about every niche and interest group. What if you could capture the same kind of look and attention for your own blog?

While HackerWP sounds like it could be something with some malicious code in it to hack away at your security settings, it’s actually a WordPress theme inspired by the look and feel of one of Gawker Media’s most popular websites: Lifehacker. A theme similar to this one is also used on other Gawker Media properties like Gizmodo.

You get a few featured stories across the top of the page, complete with square-shaped thumbnails and headlines. Next to this is a space for an ad block and below all of this is the header banner with your brand logo and name. A vertical skyscraper ad block occupies the left side of the screen and the content is shown as excerpts across the body of the main page. Readers can also see the associated categories, tags, and comment count from the main page.

For more information, including a large screenshot, check out HackerWP on Ericulous.com. It is also there that you can find a live demo before you choose to download and activate this theme on your own site.

Friday means it’s time to take a step back from our daily ventures and explore a few things that the blogosphere has had to say in the preceding week. What happened this week? Let’s see!

Zac Johnson, it’s fair to say, has been able to make quite a successful career for himself as an online entrepreneur. He also recognizes that there are several six figure jobs out there that do not require a college or university degree of any kind. Education is a good thing, to be sure, but it’s not a prerequisite for success.

Raul Pacheco is turning to his ever-growing audience for a little help. He’s making his way to Toronto for work purposes, but he wants to know what is there to do in the major Canadian city. He’s already familiar with Montreal, Ottawa, and other cities in Eastern Canada, but he wants to learn a little more about the T-Dot. What do you have to offer?

RT Cunningham is an expatriate currently living in the Philippines with his wife, but he was positively appalled by the treatment that US citizens get in their own home country. A laptop search, for instance, could entail more than simply opening it and turning it on; the security agent could search through your files for mentions of terrorist-related information.

Claudia and Sergio Olivos are, by their own accounts, comfy in the studio. They recently decided to make their studio space “more comfortable” by avoiding the existing stiff wooden chairs and making their way through Craigslist for some free furniture. Most notably, they got an old (but well-made) sofa and it’s a perfect fit! A $20 coffee table was added as well.

Joseph Planta got “on the line” with former Vancouver mayor Sam Sullivan. The former mayor had previously been interviewed by Joseph in 2004, so they catch up on not only Sullivan’s mayoral run, but also his most recent project: the Public Salon at the Vancouver Playhouse. Several speakers and presenters are already lined for the event, including Bill Rees, Peter McKnight, and Chief Justice Lance Finch.

It never ceases to amaze me when I am looking for information about a particular business and discover that I can’t find their website. And then, it shocks me even more when I learn that they don’t have a website at all. In this day and age, owning and running your own company website is remarkably affordable and there is no excuse for a business of any kind not to invest the relatively small amount of money each year to maintain one.

This goes without saying for online business, but offline ones should get proper websites as well. Many restaurants, for example, could benefit from having even a modest web presence. On the website, such basic information as a phone number, address, and hours of operation could serve greatly to increase interest and to drive customers to your front door. Without this, people may not be bothered to find you and will simply go to “the next guy” instead.

Owning your own company domain and website also allows you to have a more professional-looking e-mail address on your business card. Instead of having yourbusinessname@hotmail.com, you can have yourname@yourbusinessname.com. That looks much more legitimate than having a Hotmail or Gmail account as your primary point of contact. Add in a Twitter account and a Facebook page too!

Just make sure that when your website goes live that it contains all the vital information that a customer may want to know. It helps to have a “menu” or a list of available products and services, even if you choose not to list the prices on your site. Hours of operation are very important too and, above all else, make sure that your phone number and address are clearly visible, prominent, and accessible.

Do you have multiple blogs, perhaps within the same blog network? Do you have readers on one website that just may be interested in what you’ve been writing on some of your other sites? Wouldn’t it be great if you could have some cross-site traffic in a truly organic and natural way? Well, there’s a new plugin designed specifically for this purpose.

The suitably named Multisite Latest Posts Widget is a plugin that will give you a new widget that can then be placed in your WordPress blog sidebar. The widget displays not only the latest posts from within the current blog, but it can also pull the latest posts from other blogs and amalgamate them into one unified list.

This widget plugin will only work with multisite-enabled WordPress sites, but its functionality is fantastic for people who own and run multiple blogs. The plugin allows you to change the title of the widget and define the number of posts to show. It will also show the post’s stripped down content if the post’s excerpt is empty.

Grab the free download from the official WordPress Plugin Directory at WordPress.org.

When you are shopping around for a television package from the different providers in your area, you’ll notice that the vast majority will offer you a number of different bundles. These “value packages” are supposed to give you the best bang for your buck, and on a per-channel basis, that may be true. However, you could be paying for channels you don’t actually want.

For this reason, you may be more inclined to look at some of the “a la carte” options where you pay for single channels at a time. This works out to more money on a per-channel basis, but you are only paying for what you want. The trouble is that many cable and satellite providers may have limited a la carte options, forcing you into certain bundles if you want particular channels.

Is this really the best business practice? On the one hand, some customers may appreciated the added value that bundles can provide, but others can be very frustrated with being “forced” into a bundle just to get a couple of channels that they actually want. The same concept extends into other industries as well, like cookware sets, cell phone plans, and so on.

It may complicate the billing process, but it may be in a company’s best interest to offer both value packages and “a la carte” options. The former can work out to be “more worth it,” so to speak, whereas the latter can make for a more customized product.

Even if you happen to work from home as an Internet entrepreneur, you probably still deal with little tools and other pieces that can easily get lost, dropped, and stepped on. Sometimes, the best gadgets are also among the simplest solutions. Such is the case with the MagnoGrip wristband.

It is designed largely for DIY experts, handymen, contractors, and other similar professionals, but there is no reason why hobbyists and other people can’t make great use of this product as well. In short, it’s a magnetic wristband that can be used to hold loose nails, screws, nuts, bolts, drill bits, fasteners and other metallic items that would otherwise get lost on the floor while you are working.

Made from heavy duty canvas, industrial grade velcro, and powerful magnets, the MagnoGrip allows you to finish jobs in less time and with less frustration. The magnets on it are so strong that they can be used to hold a hammer in place while you use another tool, though that may not be the most comfortable of applications. It is also big enough for wrists as big as twelve inches.

Find the MagnoGrip on ThinkGeek for $14.99.