jQuery is arguably the best Javascript framework available, its my framework of choice anyhow. During development when you need to quickly look up features and functions you can always browse through the online documentation, however, as an alternative there’s the beautifully organised jQuery 1.4 Reference Guide.
The book, written by Jonathan Chaffer & Karl Swedberg, is aimed at developers with at least a basic understanding of HTML, CSS, JavaScript and jQuery; it’s a reference guide, not a manual. Read on for my review.
WordPress Download Monitor is my popular plugin for managing files available for download in WordPress – version 3.3 is a major update containing many new features and improvements.
Version 3.3 (beta) is now available for beta testing to ensure this is a hassle free update when released officially. I would appreciate any feedback, praise and bug reports in the comments. Read more about the new features and grab it after the break.
I am releasing my MiniCard theme for wordpress which supports hCard/vCard microformats, tonnes of social networks, showing some portfolio items (optional), and more – all controllable from its own Theme Config page. This theme is free and licensed under GPL – there is also a premium pack available with many theme variations, and the footer feed functionality.
Read more for more information and the download links. I hope you find this theme useful and spread the word 
This week I’ve been trying out the new version of the free wordpress app for the iPhone. I was quite disappointed by the previous version (version 1) as it “lost” some of my drafts. This new version seemed to be a huge improvement, although I still found some problems.
The only iPhone app that lets you write posts, upload photos, edit pages, and manage comments on your blog from your iPhone or iPod Touch.
The Wordress Snippets series of posts will give you some useful code snippets for use in your projects – just copy and paste (but try to understand how they work!).
This snippet will add a stylesheet to your login page so that you can style it fully, and also change the default Wordpress logo link (to wordpress.org) and title text to something of your choosing. Add it to functions.php in your template.
The Wordress Snippets series of posts will give you some useful code snippets for use in your projects – just copy and paste (but try to understand how they work!).
This snippet will add rel="nofollow" to the links in your blogroll, or those outputted by wp_list_bookmarks. Add to functions.php or your links template.
I have had some requests asking me to improve the Wordpress Download Monitor documentation, so I decided to write (and maintain) this post explaining the ins-and-outs of configuring and using the plugin. Hopefully it will help you guys use the plugin, and also reveal more of its power and flexibility.
Don’t forget, if you love download monitor please make a small donation and/or rate it on the wordpress plugins directory. I also appreciate your contributions to the development of the plugin, so feel free to email me any code or your suggestions. Your support is very welcome!
Links: Download Monitor Page | Plugin Directory Page
“Learning jQuery 1.3: Better Interaction Design and Web Development with Simple JavaScript Techniques” is a revised and updated version of the excellent (and previously reviewed) Learning jQuery book by Karl Swedberg and Jonathan Chaffer.
Written for web designers and developers, the book contains thorough tutorials on how to get things done in jQuery, for example, manipulating the DOM, using AJAX, events, plugins, and effects.
Download Monitor 3 is upon us. Download Monitor is a plugin for uploading and managing downloads, tracking download hits, and displaying links. So far it has been downloaded over 45,000 times!
New features in version 3 include shortcodes, better template tags, daily stats, download logs and more! Download monitor 3 requires at least Wordpress version 2.5.
Links: Download Monitor Documenation | Plugin Directory Page
‘Shortcodes’ are a feature of wordpress used for executing custom functions by inserting a small snippit of code into a post. For example, my download monitor plugin now uses shortcodes; by entering [download id="1"] into a post, the plugin will output a download link.
The shortcode syntax varies, here are some examples:
[shortcode][shortcode atribute="value"][shortcode]Text[/shortcode]
Shortcodes can be created to perform a handful of useful functions. To use any of the shortcodes in this post I recommend adding the functions to your functions.php theme file (create it if it does not exist!). Ill show shortcodes ranging from showing adsense to speaking pirate! (written for wordpress 2.7)
