It’s that time of year again, when I find a picture to spread some festive cheer, so here you go – enjoy!

Jquery Even though i’ve been using jQuery to make web apps for quite a while, this simple function passed me by until quite recently. When loading data asynchronously, the end user doesn’t get any feedback that anything is actually happening (unless you display a loading gif or something similar). This can often lead to the user clicking repeatedly and risking things fucking up. I usually would include an animated loading gif next to the call to action, initially hidden by CSS, and then using jQuery would display it when the call to action was clicked. After the response was received...

Over the last few month’s I have been using jQuery more and more in my web projects to do everything from style forms to adding interactivty to lists via drag and drop. In this post I will share with you my simple jQuery alert plugin. About Simple jQuery alert that is just that – really simple Use it to give feedback to your users when they have updated a page for example. Features There are three types of alert: Success Error Information   The alert can fade away after a specified amount of time The alert can be clicked to fade away Usage Include the CSS and plugin files in your...

So it seems my server got overloaded due to the excessive api calls my lastest mashup was making to the last.fm server. This did work fine when I had it running locally, I may post a video of it in action instead of the demo. In the meantime I am thinking of another tool. The other day I worked out how much my iTunes collection was worth based on 79p/track. The figure was over £18k!! Maybe a little tool to work out your last.fm value based on your plays would be fun, if I was feeling cheeky this could be linked to how popular each artist was. It may even be nice to plot these against your friends...

(with a little help from my iPhone) So I finally gave in and brought an Apple TV last month and managed to get a little discount thanks to the Thanksgiving Sale. It was a long and arduous decision; I read many blogs and really did my research as i’d heard mixed reviews about the device. I must admit that the ability to install Boxee onto it did swing my decision slightly.  The ATV out of the box is a bit pants (a bit like the iPhone) but with a few simple hacks the thing can be really good – again like the iPhone. For this reason I decided to apply the aTV hack. I even forked up the...

Just a quick post to show you a web service that allows you to create and download ringtones for your iPhone. Simply head to http://audiko.net and follow the instructions. Here is one I made earlier: http://audiko.net/ringtone/Roots+Manuva/886290/Buff+Nuff+%28Prod.+By+Toddla+T%29/en.html?fresh

The Scenario You are creating a Flash project that feeds text in from an external XML file. The text is currently in English but there is a requirement that the text be changed to other languages. The Problem You have added foreign characters such as é, ü or ß and they don’t show up in Flash. The Solution Follow these steps below and all should be well: Ensure that your XML document is formatted as UTF-8. If you are using Coda, it’s simple enough. and that is also has the correct XML declaration in the header:  <?xml version=”1.0″ encoding=”UTF-8″ ?> Ensure...

I have just spotted an error with the location abilities of the two apps I have made that use the GMap component that causes the Flash to crash. As soon as I can I will investigate these errors. Sorry for any inconvenience caused. Leon

The latest issue of Web Designer Mag recently landed on my door mat and I was pleasantly surprised to see some of my work included in the mag and on their promotional disc. I was contacted by the editor a month or two ago about flCodr – the online repository for actionscript snippets. The site allows you to add and view snippets of actionscript code, perfect for when you can’t remember how to parse XML. Web Designer Mag say that: flCodr.com is a repository of code that has been placed in a single centralised location for quick and easy access. The site works by providing a simple search...

Looking for a Flash extension that will allow you to find a latitude and longitude based on a location? Then you need my locator panel, which is now also available on the Adobe Exchange. http://www.adobe.com/cfusion/exchange/index.cfm?event=extensionDetail&loc=en_us&extid=1526018