Like any skilled freelancer, you should always be aware of what you can have in your toolbox to use on your current and future projects.

How many times has a client or colleague asked ‘Do you know how to do this?’. You can confidently reply with a firm ‘Yes!’ more often the case. As a front end developer creating smooth interactions and event handling are possible to achieve quite rapidly with Jquery.

“jQuery is a fast and concise JavaScript Library that simplifies HTML document traversing, event handling, animating, and Ajax interactions for rapid web development”

If you haven’t already used it, or even if you have – below are three of the most comprehensive lists of Jquery Tutorials and Examples that I’ve seen, in a kind of Smashing Magazine ‘ultimate’ list way:

1. 50 amazing jquery examples
   
2. 51 best of jquery tutorials and examples
3. Ajaxrain.com

There are other links that are just as useful for other web code and services on our delicious account.

Should we add any other resources for jquery here, tell us below?

From the GeeKyoto conference a few weeks back.

Mark Simpkins and Ben Hammersley ran a one day conference in central London, with designers, technologists, artists, architects, policy-makers, explorers, economists and scientists, and lots of clever clever people, to discuss the future and how we’ll live in it.

I was attracted to this conference partly as I am fascinated about how other people percive the future, but also likeminded people attend conferences because we ‘are’ thinkers, innovators and shapers.

Seen as a progression or journey by developing ideas together, online, offline to make communication easier, quicker and without boundaries or frontiers. And perhaps encouraging others to think about their role in society now and in the future.

Play in todays world:

• 71% of adults used to play outside when they were young only 21% do now.
• Why? The public realm, and fear of, and for children
• Kids seeing play where adults don’t see it, and the result is often vandalism as it doesn’t work out.
• Experimented with swings at bus stops to see if adults utilise this.

Beyondcurrenthorizons.org.uk – what will the future of education look like in 2025?

Paleofuture – A blog that goes ‘Looking into the future that never was’.

• The future happens everywhere to everyone
• Economists and technologists are the ones who know
• Often people are mistaking the present for the future

‘The future demands your participation’, says Richard sandford. Who helps transform the way people learn through innovative technology and practice.

A good introduction and demonstration of diykyoto.com – electricity consumption that you can see, with the help of Wattson.

Finally, we were shown the wide channels of different way of thinking with todays online tools that let us collaborate and share more than ever before. At sites like:

• mysociety.org
• innovationexchange

A really thought provoking day and inspiring event, something different from the web design and development events I have recently attended. A new bunch of people to meet and share ideas with. Certainly will be back next year for what looks like to be a larger event.

Two articles published this month – online, and in print.

Firstly I’ve had another article published over at FreelanceUK.com.

I haven’t written about SEO for a long time, and I just wanted to recap on what is happening out there with Web 2.0 and SEO. Perhaps demonstrating by following a few ethical methods for SEO, you can create meaningful content for the search engines as well as more importantly, your sites readers.

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A great resource of web 2.0 trends, emerging technologies, web code, web services and what you should be checking out are on podcasts.

Great if your job involves travelling, have a short break, on have a long flight on the way back from a conference!
It’s a great way to keep in touch with whats happening on and around the web. And a different way of learning compared to getting the lowdown from friends and followers on Twitter.

For those on a limited budget for training or self learning this is an excellent way of listening to leading industry experts share their knowledge and information for free!
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A very easy web app for making your own lifestream, like the one for Jayonline

Check out Carlo’s magical badge builder at escaloop

This can be integrated into any site as long as you know the RSS feed for your flickr, or Twitter feed for instance.

Example of how the Escaloop badge works:

Without a doubt, the best CSS / XHTML training you can give yourself is pick up any of these books to learn about front end web development.

Most of the books involve learning and adapting web pages using CSS based layouts. Some are new, some are classics. I have learnt valuable tips on working practices for CSS management, color palette selection, and also layouts using CSS3.

Books like ‘Don’t make me think, and ‘Bulletproof..’ make you question ‘Why should I do it this way..?’. Then they cover alternatives you may not have considered. Some of these books are in their Second edition, a testament to how well they are written and deservedly gaining a place on any discerning geeks bookshelf.

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The 5 essential sites that I visited everyday in 2007

Flickr > Reading comments about my pics, and looking at my contact lists latest photos.
Delicious > For finding links i had forgotten.
Twitter > Microblogging for the masses connected community.

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