You never know what you might get when an author decides to update a book. I've seen this done well and I've also more commonly seen this done poorly. However, the update to the Learning jQuery book is exceptional. If you already own the first edition, rest assured the second edition is worth the price of admission.

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  Photoshop is static—the site is not. The site is dynamic in content, layout and interaction. It’s too easy to forget all of the details that come about when users get involved. But engineers end up having to fill in the gap where the designer has not accounted for all of these dynamic concerns.  

 -  Bill Scott

First and foremost, I would like to mention that this book review and the opinions contained within it reflect my own personal thoughts. While I might contribute and participate on the jQuery & jQuery UI open source project, my intent here is to speak as an individual representing my opinions as an individual.

The author Dan Wellman, of the jQuery UI 1.6: The User Interface Library for jQuery book from Packt Publishing should be applauded for bringing the first jQuery UI book to completion. You will learn a lot from this well written book about the general usage and implementation of the UI widgets, interactions, and effects. However, the book suffers from an unavoidable downfall: its content is already deprecated. And with technical books timeliness matters.

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1. I hate small insects such as creepy spiders and would prefer that they not crawl on me, especially when I am sleeping.

2. Everything I am good at is a product of an adult telling me I was good at it as a child.

3. I’ve co-authored 2 books and am working on a third now, which I said I would never do again!

4. I’ve never broken a bone or had a major surgery (except for that rock they took out of my ear when I was a kid).

5. I own three bikes (road, triathlon, mountain) that likely cost more altogether than our used Cross-country Volvo.This thought disturbs me at times.

6. I am going to give up on snowboarding this year and return to skiing.

7. I am a regular participant in an open source project called jQuery.

8. Much to every-one’s surprise I know very little about computers and a whole lot about web technologies that have nothing to do with the hardware or software (os) that is your computer. And networking, forget about it. I read the manuals too!

9. I am not really that smart, I just know how to use Google and Wikipedia.

10. Scary movies are not my cup of tea. Heck, I am still afraid of the dark. Don’t imagine I’ll ever get over that.

11. If you wake me out of a dead sleep by surprise and are within striking distance, you’ll likely get an unconscious punch in the face. The same is going to happen if you sneak up on me or jump out at me with the intent of scaring me.

12. I really can’t understand why anyone would pay to be scared by amusement rides. There are plenty of situations in nature that would scare the crap out of most people. And all of this is free.

13. I have a fear of all medical and dental offices. Really any room that requires me to lay down so that another human being can work on me.

14. If I could make a living at it I would stop the silliness I am doing today and study/teach theology and philosophy full-time. Then I would travel the world debating the rational evidence for a christian world view.

15. As of late I’ve oddly found myself enjoying and seeking public speaking engagements.

16. I don’t think I have ever had a best friend who was not a girl (my wife).

17. As I have gotten older, my feet have gotten wider. In most cases I can only purchase shoes if they come in a wide width.

18. I’m sort of addicted to outdoor clothing and gear. A close second to this addiction is my addiction to technology gadgets.

19. I currently own two neck ties, which I wear only when my wife makes me. They are both already tied. If they even came untied I would have to find someone who wears ties to tie them for me.

20. I recently started eating grapefruit, which I’ve been repulsed by in the past. I find them very delicious now, but feel very elderly every time I eat one.

21. I love being cold. I love cold mornings. I love seeing my breath penetrate the cold air around my face. I even love it when my nose hairs freeze a bit on each breath.

22. I drive a Yukon XL Denali that comfortably seats 7 people with room for cargo. I never thought I would own such a large vehicle and likely wouldn’t if I had a commute to work (I work out of my house). I’m surprised how much I like it. I often drive it around and have to remind myself that it’s a just a car. It’s just a car.

23. If I had the room to store it (and the money to buy it), I think I could really get into the motor-home scene.

24. I wish I had a motorcycle again, but still don’t feel I’m old enough to responsibly use it.

25. This is therapeutic, so I am going to continue on writing.

26. There was a short period of time I thought I might be an alcoholic. That was until an alcoholic told me how to determine if I was an addict. He told me to drink one shot of my favorite poison, then go to bed early. If I could fall asleep and sleep through the night he said, then you likely I was not suffering from alcoholism. After that, I knew I was not an alcoholic and continue to enjoy the tasty nectar known as beer.

27. I am not very good at parenting. Don’t get me wrong I love my kids. But I think some people slip into parenting like a comfortable slipper. For me, its more like I am walking around on broken glass. Truth be told, my kids are wonderful, I seem to be the broken part of the puzzle.

28. Its been years and I have never tired of the taste of a Reece’s peanut butter cups.

29. I was blogging before blogging was mainstream.

30. Tivo has changed my life. And now you can beam netflix movies from the web to the tivo box and watch movies instantly. No waiting, no video stores, no mail required.

31. I don’t watch other people play sports, and frankly I don’t understand why anyone else would. Why watch when you can do.

32. I actually think about the questions people ask me. A good friend of mine has labeled this “the cody buffer”. I guess it can be a significant amount of seconds depending upon the question.

33. I have a work bench in my garage, but likely don’t deserve it.

If you ever need to cache a set of elements, because you are about to remove them, the jQuery get() method is really handy. For example, in the code below I am saving all my <li> elements on the page in an array, removing them, and then adding them back into the page using this array. Make sense?

<html>
<head>
<script type="text/javascript" src="http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.2.6/jquery.min.js"></script>
</head>

<body>

<ul>
<li>test</li>
<li>test</li>
<li>test</li>
<li>test</li>
<li>test</li>
<li>test</li>
<li>test</li>
<li>test</li>
</ul>

<script>

var test = $('ul li').get();

$('ul').empty();

$.each(test, function(){
$('ul').append('<li>'+$(this).html() + ' new</li>');
});

</script>
</body>
</html>

Here is the slide deck I will be presenting tonight at the Boise Web Technologies Group Meetup.

Additionally, here is a link to the selector lab which is going to be demonstrated during my presentation.

http://codylindley.com/jqueryselectors

I did a small amount of work (base CSS & XHTML files) on the new diapers.com site which recently went live.

The site is a great example of the high quality creative, interaction design, and visual design that comes out of Fluid. Also, the site is driven by jQuery. The developers did an excellent job of implementinng the work that Fluid did. I can’t say enough about the quality of work that has been done here by everyone.

And as a side note, thenorthface.com site I slaved over for so many months is on the 2009 hot retail website list.

I’ll be giving a talk on jQuery this coming Thursday (Nov. 13) at a Boise Web Technologies Group Meetup. Details.