Back in November, at our Realtime CrunchUp event, I sat on the geolocation panel with members of Twitter, Foursquare, SimpleGeo, GeoAPI, Hot Potato, and Google. At one point, I raised the question if location was going to be the next battleground between startups large and small, much like social identity plays (Facebook Connect vs. Google Friend Connect) and status updates (Twitter vs. Facebook). All of the panelists indicated that it wouldn’t be, because they could all get along. How sweet. Sadly, I don’t believe them. I believe they might think that right now, because it’s still very early in the game. But it’s still a game, and people are going to play to win.

I’m sure some of them would counter that because location data is fairly standard right now, and moving easily between services, all of them will win. But that’s not true either. While location, as a whole, will win, there will be individual companies that end up ahead of others in the space. More to the point, there will be one or two services that people will go to for their social location data. That’s what we’re moving towards. And the bigger companies are starting to realize it. That’s why today we saw what may be the first maneuver in an upcoming rush to secure the location landscape, with Twitter snatching up Mixer Labs, the team behind GeoAPI.

Twitter co-founder Evan Williams writes today that “We will be looking at how to integrate the work Mixer Labs has done with the Twitter API in useful ways…” and notes that they’ll be working on adding contextual local relevancy to tweets. But those vague statements don’t mean a whole lot. Here’s what likely really went down, based on what we’re hearing: Twitter scooped up some solid talent in the location space, on the cheap (in the mid-seven figure range, we’re hearing from multiple sources). Mixer Labs CEO, Elad Gil, for example, was the original product manager for Google Mobile Maps. Four of the other six Mixer Labs employees are also former Googlers, including co-founder Othman Laraki.

What Twitter likely won’t be doing is getting into the core location platform business anytime soon. Though GeoAPI says it has “no plans to retire the current GeoAPI” that seems quite likely to happen as Twitter will just cherry-pick whatever they want from it and merge those elements into its own location APIs. But again, this was mainly a talent acquisition. Twitter is unlikely to compete with what a company like SimpleGeo is doing (and what GeoAPI was doing) because their main goal is to attach location to tweets, for now. SimpleGeo wants to provide general location information to startups, tweets or not. “Unless Twitter was to change their policies regarding distribution of location tagged tweets (or there was a disparity in the availability of aggregated location data), the acquisition doesn’t change our approach at all. We’re still going to continue working with SimpleGeo,” Hot Potato’s Justin Shaffer tells us.

Going forward, however, Twitter is likely to try and position itself as the main syndicator of location. That’s likely to put them up against Foursquare, Gowalla, and yes, eventually, Facebook and Google.

Again, right now Twitter, Foursquare, Gowalla, and many of the other smaller players in this field play very nicely with one another. That’s because they all have a common goal: Getting location to take off. And it’s working. But the problem that the Foursquares and the Gowallas have is that their core product is based around location. If people decide that they’re getting sick of the gaming elements, or someone like Twitter or Google moves in to secure better local coupons based on location, the location-only players could feel the heat. Of course, both are also likely to be very pretty acquisition targets in their own right next year. And guess who will be buying? Twitter, Google, and Facebook.

In my mind, this is how this is shaping up. The companies with the clout (because they do other things) are going to start scooping up the smaller location-only services. Of those bigger players, Twitter is by far the smallest and weakest, but they’re smart to get started in the buying spree early with the GeoAPI purchase. Don’t be surprised if they scoop up another location service sooner rather than later.

Meanwhile, Facebook has been dragging its feet (to say the least) getting into the location game. We’ve been hearing for months that they’ve been at work on their location solution, and at one point were even racing Twitter to beat them to it. Obviously, that didn’t happen. And last we heard, they were still a few months out mainly because of the privacy implications. But you can bet Facebook will enter the location space in a meaningful way in 2010. And if whatever they’re working on doesn’t get traction. Look for them to start making acquisitions in the field quickly.

The third big player, Google, has Latitude, but they may be too far ahead of the curve with their thinking there. So far, the check-in model has proven to be the one people are gravitating towards. Latitude employs the “always updating” model. That may be the future, but we’re not ready for it yet, and it’s hurting Google in the location space. Again, a quick aquisition could solve that. Of course, Google had a perfect chance to be way ahead of the game when it bought Foursquare co-founder Dennis Crowley’s previous startup, Dodgeball, in 2006. But it badly dropped the ball (pardon the pun) with that one, letting the service die, as Crowley left in a huff. Because of that, a Google/Foursquare marriage may look to be out of the picture — but money heals all wounds, so never say never.

Location, as a trend, remains on fire. Startups are getting funding from big name investors left and right. And you can expect that to continue into 2010. And you can expect the big players to step up their game in the space as well, as they all look to connect the social online world with the real world — a real world that has also has a lot of money potentially tied to location.

I asked SimpleGeo co-founder Matt Galligan for his thoughts on Twitter’s move today. “I think it validates the Geo space in a very, very big way. One of the hottest companies just made a major bet on it,” he says. As he went on, his sentiments echoed mine, “I don’t think it’s far behind that we see similar plays from other big companies.” With its biggest rival now neutralized, that could include SimpleGeo down the road. Consider every location player now on acquisition watch.

Game on.

[photos: flickr/Serge Melki]

WordPress ()

Mashable’s ()

Fight Spam

Akismet – Antispam plugin from the creators of Wordpress that uses a central database of spam comments to flag spam. Requires a free API key from Wordpress.com ()

Spam Karma – Analyzes comments for spam based on a karma system.

Bad Behavior – Prevents spambots from even accessing your site by analyzing their HTTP requests.

Did You Pass Math? – Asks commenters a simple math question before their comments are posted.

Comment Timeout – Closes comments on old posts.

Encourage Commenting

BlogFollow – Shows a snippet of the commenter’s blog at the bottom of the comment.

DoFollow – Removes “nofollow” attributes from links in comments so search engines can follow them.

DoFollow Trackbacks – Removes “nofollow” attributes from trackbacks

Show Top Commentators – Lists the most frequent commentators on your blog, along with links to their blogs, in your sidebar.

Improve appearance

Nicer Trackbacks – Improves the appearance of trackbacks from other blogs.

WP-NoSh*t – Filters bad words from comments.

Numbered Comments Adds numbers to comments.

AuthorHighlight – Highlights comments by the blog’s author.

Comment Highlighter – Styles comments based on the author’s name, email, or URL.

wp-chunk – Truncates long URLs in comments to prevent them from stretching the page.

Enable rich comments

Custom Smileys – Adds clickable smiley emoticons to comments.

TinyMCEComments – Turns the comment box into a full-featured rich text editor.

Live Comment Preview – Allows readers to preview their comment before posting.

Edit Comments XT – Lets commentators edit their own comments.

Enable avatars

Gravatar () – Displays user-selected avatars from a central database next to comments.

Favatars – Pulls the favicon from a commenter’s blog or website, and uses that for their avatar.

MBLA – Adds user images from MyBlogLog to comments.

OpenID Comments – Lets readers comment with their OpenID identity.

Show off comments

WP-Most Commented Posts – Displays posts with the most comments in the sidebar.

Latest Comments with Avatars Reloaded – Shows the latest comments, along with the MyBlogLog avatars of the commenters.

Allow better conversation

Simple CoComments – Tracks the conversation across blogs.

Comment Karma – Digg ()-style voting on comments.

Quoter – Allows users to quote a previous comment in their comment.

Whisper – Lets users “whisper” comments that are only visible to one person.

Moderate comments effectively

Comment Twitter SMS Notification – Notifies you of new comments through Twitter SMS.

Bannage – Adds the ability to ban users from commenting by name, email, or IP.

CommentCentral – Allows batch opening and closing of comments on multiple posts.

So, if you are looking to up your game some, or just learn the basics, check out these sites.

In no particular order, the top 10 Photoshop tutorials are:

In this tutorial, I’ll be covering the various things you can do with the post image feature. Some things will be specific to end users while others will be useful for theme and plugin developers.

One important thing to note is that this new feature is an image-based representation of a post. The image itself is directly tied to your post. You shouldn’t think of it as something different than that.

How does an end user make use of this feature?

First, your theme must add support for it. Otherwise, you won’t be able to use it. At this point, let’s assume that your theme does support it. I’ll go over instructions for theme authors later.

To use this feature, you must be within the post editing screen of your WordPress admin. On this screen, you’ll see a new meta box labeled “Post thumbnail” (or “Page thumbnail” for pages). There’ll be a link to “Set thumbnail,” which will allow you to use the media uploader to load a new image.

It’s not just for thumbnails

Even though it is called “post thumbnails,” we can technically use the feature for all sorts of things (e.g., feature images, medium-sized images for the front page, etc.).

By default, WordPress gives you several image sizes each time you upload an image. These image sizes are:

• Thumbnail
• Medium
• Large
• Full (the image you uploaded)

Some plugins even extend this by allowing more intermediate sizes. The important thing is that you understand that more than thumbnails can be used here.

How to add support for the post image feature in a theme

Theme authors, I’m going to make this simple for you. You only need one line of code to turn this feature on for your users. Add this to your theme’s functions.php file:

add_theme_support( 'post-thumbnails' );

Or, you can register support for specific post types. For example, let’s suppose you wanted to add thumbnail support for both the post and movie post type but not for the page post type. You’d use this instead:

add_theme_support( 'post-thumbnails', array( 'post', 'page' ) );

Of course, that one line doesn’t actually add anything to the front end for you. You’ll need to call the image somewhere within The Loop in your template files. For example, you might want to add thumbnails to your category archives. You’d do this by adding this line of code:

<?php the_post_thumbnail( 'thumbnail' ); ?>

Or, maybe you have a section on a special template that calls for medium-sized images:

<?php the_post_thumbnail( 'medium' ); ?>

Or, a huge sliding feature area on your front page and need the full-sized image:

<?php the_post_thumbnail( 'full' ); ?>

That’s all there is to it. As a theme author, you can hand over some powerful functionality to your users with just a couple of lines of code.

The rest of this tutorial will focus on developer features and some options for using older images.

Checking if the post has an image

Sometimes, you may need to check if a post has an image. There’s a function for that called has_post_thumbnail(), which will return true or false based on whether there’s an image.

In this example, we’ll check if there’s an image. If there’s not, we’ll show a default image instead.

<?php
	if ( has_post_thumbnail() )
		the_post_thumbnail( 'thumbnail' );
	else
		echo '<img src="default-image.png" alt="Example Image" title="Example" />';
?>

Getting the post image ID

Maybe you need to write your own custom script but still want to allow users to upload their own images. You can grab the post image ID and use it. This ID is saved as the meta value for the meta key _thumbnail_id. It is the ID of the attached file.

You only need to call the function in your code like so:

$image_id = get_post_thumbnail_id();

How to return the image instead of displaying it

In some scenarios, you might want to return the post image for use in your PHP code instead of displaying it.

Here’s an example of that functionality:

$image = get_the_post_thumbnail( $post->ID, 'thumbnail' );

How to filter the image size

Some plugin developers may want to filter the image size (or maybe even child theme authors). The post_thumbnail_size filter hook is available for that. The filter function below is for changing the thumbnail size to medium.

Add this PHP code to your theme’s functions.php file or your plugin file:

add_filter( 'post_thumbnail_size', 'my_post_image_size' );

function my_post_image_size( $size ) {
	$size = 'medium';
	return $size;
}

Changing the HTML output of the post image

There may be some scenarios where you’ll want to change the HTML markup of the displayed image. In this example, I’ll show you how to wrap the image with a link to the post.

Add this PHP code to your theme’s functions.php file or your plugin file:

add_filter( 'post_thumbnail_html', 'my_post_image_html', 10, 3 );

function my_post_image_html( $html, $post_id, $post_image_id ) {

	$html = '<a href="' . get_permalink( $post_id ) . '" title="' . esc_attr( get_post_field( 'post_title', $post_id ) ) . '">' . $html . '</a>';

	return $html;
}

What happens to my old images/thumbnails?

If you’re like me and many others, you may have been using custom fields to add images to your posts for years. If you switch to this new method, everything will be lost.

I’ve got a solution for this problem: The Get the Image plugin.

Version 0.4 will be released when WordPress 2.9 is out. Not only will support be added for the new WordPress post image feature, but you won’t lose all of the hard work you’ve put in. The plugin will have the ability to check for post images in five different ways (in the below order):

• Custom fields.
• New post image feature.
• Attached image.
• Scan the post for images.
• Default image.

For those of you already using this plugin or a theme of mine that includes the script, you’ll only have to upgrade the plugin or theme. The feature will be turned on for you by default, so you will be able to start using the new feature without touching anything but an upgrade button.

Have fun with your new post images

I hope this tutorial has given you an in-depth look at the post image feature. There are some limitations, but on the whole, this feature will make things much easier for end users compared to the currently-available methods.

If you’re a user of my Get the Image plugin or Hybrid theme, look out for an update within a few days of WordPress 2.9. You’ll be able to start using the post image functionality soon.

Keep in might that these are new releases and so, their stability and status should be considered as BETA. You might want to test them on a backup server before going live. The descriptions listed here are those submitted by the plugins’ authors and do not necessarily express my views.

1. WP Content Slideshow

WP Content Slideshow shows up to 5 Posts in a very nice and powerfull Javascript Slideshow. On the left side of the Slideshow it displays an image for every post. On the right side, there are all the titles (and a small description under the title) of the posts. The Slideshow highlights the active post and repeats automatically after getting to the 5th post. You have a powerfull Administration Area to adjust the category, the number of posts, the width and height, and many colours for the Slideshow!

Download: WP Content Slideshow
Compatibility: 2.6+

2. Sidebar Generator

Now you can create as many sidebars as you need for any page you want. Thats right, page/post specific sidebars. You can easily seperate your site into sections, or make every single page have specific sidebar content on it. Great for CMS sites.

Download: Sidebar Generator
Compatibility: 2.8.0+

3. WordPress Tabs Slides

Tabs and Slides (in post/page) Plugin gives you the ability to easily add content tabs and/or content slides. The tabs emulate a multi-page structure, while the slides emulate an accordion-like structure, inside a single page!

Download: WordPress Tabs Slides
Compatibility: 2.5+

4. Custom Login Page

With the Custom Login Page, you can change the background image of your login page, the background image/color of your login form div, the main logo image of your login page, and add custom CSS. All through a simple interface. Remember to view the Help tab at the top of the settings page of the plugin.

Download: Custom Login Page
Compatibility: 2.0.2+

5. Featured Page Widget

Allows you to feature pages on your sidebar using an excerpt of the page and a text or image link to the page.

Download: Featured Page Widget
Compatibility: 2.8 – 2.8.4 (maybe 2.8.5)

6. Ecwid Shopping Cart

Ecwid is free full-fledged shopping cart that can be easily add to any blog. It offers the performance and flexibility you need, with none of the hassles you don’t.

Download: Ecwid Shopping Cart
Compatibility: 2.7+

7. SubHeading

This plugin uses a custom field to allow subheadings to be added to both posts and pages. The custom sub heading field is re-positioned so that it is displayed directly below the main title.

Download: SubHeading
Compatibility: 2.8.2+

8. ShowTime Slideshow

Displays all pictures attached to a post/page as a slideshow. Simple setup. This plugin requires Adobe Flash, reverts nicely to default WordPress gallery if Flash is not found. Choose among high quality transitions. Ken Burns (pan&zoom) and many other effects. Full Screen mode.

Download: ShowTime Slideshow
Compatibility: 2.7+

9. Quick Adsense

Quick Adsense is an Ads management Wordpress plugin. It offers a quicker & flexible way to insert Adsense or any Ads code into a blog post. Besides, it can randomly place the Ads anywhere within a post. It comes with a simple setting page, and it does not overwhelm you with complicated customizable options.

Download: Quick Adsense
Compatibility: 2.5 – 2.8.4 (maybe 2.8.5)

10. Members

Members is a plugin that extends your control over your blog. It’s a user, role, and content management plugin that was created to make WordPress a more powerful CMS. The plugin is created with a components-based system — you only have to use the features you want.

Download: Members
Compatibility: 2.8+

With the buzz created around these themes, regular users became aware of what could really be achieved, and thus, those that could not afford the license of a premium theme, became more selective with the free ones. A good-looking theme was not enough anymore, and WordPress developers realized it.

A good premium theme would bring its developer not only a good amount of money, but also recognition in the community, and this is where the free theme developers scored their biggest points. Now that their “turf” was endangered they had to react, and they did. For premium themes like Thesis or WP Unlimited, users have now alternatives like Thematic, Hybrid, Carrington, WP Framework or my own (even if not a framework) Simple Balance.

Why should free theme developers consider adding an options page?

Because being “cool” is just not enough anymore. Theme developers need to learn how to be useful. Free stuff can be either useless and ignored or useful and praised. I’m yet to see the developer offering a free theme without gaining something from it, be it awareness, expertise, backlinks, donation money, you name it! But none of these are achieved through an uncompetitive – even if free – product.

5 Most looked for options in a WordPress theme

“Stand out from the crowd!” If I had a penny for every time I read this I’d laugh at Shoemoney’s AdSense check image sipping a chilled cocktail somewhere on a tropical island, but you know what? This saying is so true that it cannot be repeated enough, and users KNOW IT! Theme users want to be able to have their own identity online. They need to be able to customize their themes and make them express who they are and what they believe in. And this is where options pages come into play. What are the most looked for options? Let’s see…

1. Logo and / or header image update / replacement

It doesn’t matter if it’s a professionally designed logo or a simple Windows Paint play. If it gives the blogger satisfaction and he wants to display it, let him do so. Add either a file upload box or an input box where the user could enter the full URL to the logo image to use. Same goes for the header images.

2. Layout structure

If you’re developing a 2 column theme, give the user the option to choose to display the sidebar either on the left, or on the right. With 3 column themes, you can give them even more options, like having the content centered, between the sidebars, or having both sidebars on the same side (right or left) of the content. If only takes a couple of PHP conditions and some “visionary” CSS coding.

3. Custom navigation menus

Don’t expect users to want every page that they publish to show up in their blog’s main navigation area. Give them the option to select which pages should show up there, and why not, add their own links, even if external.

4. Custom RSS URLs and email subscription forms

Implementing a FeedBurner email subscription form is fairly easy for any developer, and I’m pretty sure that any dveloper knows how to customize such a script. The fact that it functions mostly based on a simple user ID should make the customization even easier through a theme options page.

5. Advertising management

Not everyone uses services like BuySellAds, or is affiliated with an advertising network. Some users actually prefer to take care of the advertising themselves. So, why not give them the possibility to do so by adding a few more field to the options page. Let them select the number of banners they need displayed, do-follow option, position of banners and so on. It takes a bit to develop, but the user response to it is amazing.

Additional options you could consider implementing

While the 5 options above are the most looked for, some users might also find the following options useful:

• Overall switch between serif and sans-serif typography;
• Theme color adjustments. Here are a couple of web-based color picker scripts you could use: one, two, three and four;
• Alternatively, you can offer a built in color schemes system;
• Custom “featured” areas;
• Additional, customizable widget areas;
• Twitter updates area;
• And the list could go on and on…

The limits are set by your knowledge and enthusiasm

While the enthusiasm is not something you train, but rather have it or not, knowledge can be trained. Remember that the WordPress Codex is your best friend, and the support forums can be of tremendous help. Additionally, Stefan Vervoort of DivitoDesign and WPToy has put together a very useful PDF called the “WordPress Theme Development Checklist“. Do take a look (and use it!).

So, the next time you think of releasing a free theme, ask yourself this: Is you theme competitive enough? If it’s not, it will not stand a chance when the alternatives are so smart!

jQuery 1.4 was recently released. This wasn’t simply a maintenance release as some had speculated; there are many new features, enhancements and performance improvements included in 1.4! This post covers the new features and enhancements that you may find beneficial.

You can download jQuery 1.4 right now, here: http://code.jquery.com/jquery-1.4.js

1. Passing Attributes to jQuery(…)

Pre 1.4, jQuery supported adding attributes to an element collection via the useful “attr” method, which can be passed both an attribute name and value, or an object specifying several attributes. jQuery 1.4 adds support for passing an attributes object as the second argument to the jQuery function itself, upon element creation.

Let’s say you need to create an anchor element with several attributes. With 1.4 it’s as simple as:

jQuery('<a/>', {
    id: 'foo',
    href: 'http://google.com',
    title: 'Become a Googler',
    rel: 'external',
    text: 'Go to Google!'
});

You may have noticed the “text” attribute— you’ll probably be wondering what that’s doing there, after all there’s no “text” attribute for anchors! Well, jQuery 1.4 utilises its very own methods when you pass certain attributes. So the “text” attribute specified above would cause jQuery to call the “.text()” method, passing “Go to Google!” as its only argument.

A better example of this in action:

jQuery('<div/>', {
    id: 'foo',
    css: {
        fontWeight: 700,
        color: 'green'
    },
    click: function(){
        alert('Foo has been clicked!');
    }
});

The “id” is added as a regular attribute, but the “css” and “click” properties trigger calling of each respective method. The above code, before the 1.4 release, would have been written like this:

jQuery('<div/>')
    .attr('id', 'foo')
    .css({
        fontWeight: 700,
        color: 'green'
    })
    .click(function(){
        alert('Foo has been clicked!');
    });

Read more about jQuery(…)

2. Everything “until”!

Three new methods have been added to the DOM traversal arsenal in 1.4, “nextUntil“, “prevUntil” and “parentsUntil“. Each of these methods will traverse the DOM in a certain direction until the passed selector is satisfied. So, let’s say you have a list of fruit:

<ul>
    <li>Apple</li>

    <li>Banana</li>
    <li>Grape</li>

    <li>Strawberry</li>
    <li>Pear</li>

    <li>Peach</li>
</ul>

You want to select all of items after “Apple”, but you want to stop once you reach “Strawberry”. It couldn’t be simpler:

jQuery('ul li:contains(Apple)').nextUntil(':contains(Pear)');
// Selects Banana, Grape, Strawberry

Read more about: prevUntil, nextUntil, parentsUntil

3. Binding Multiple Event Handlers

Instead of chaining a bunch of event binding methods together, you can lump them all into the same call, like so:

jQuery('#foo).bind({
    click: function() {
        // do something
    },
    mouseover: function() {
        // do something
    },
    mouseout: function() {
        // do something
    }
})

This also works with “.one()“.

Read more about .bind(…)

4. Per-Property Easing

Instead of just defining one easing function for a single animation, you can now define a different easing function for each property that you’re animating. jQuery includes two easing functions, swing (the default) and linear. For other ones you’ll need to download them separately!

To specify an easing function for each property simply define the property as an array, with the first value being what you want to animate that property to, and the second being the easing function to use:

jQuery('#foo').animate({
    left: 500,
    top: [500, 'easeOutBounce']
}, 2000);

See this code in action!

You can also define per-property easing functions in the optional options object as property name-value pairs in the “specialEasing” object:

jQuery('#foo').animate({
    left: 500,
    top: 500
}, {
    duration: 2000,
    specialEasing: {
        top: 'easeOutBounce'
    }
});

Editor’s Note – The author of this article, James Padolsey, is being modest. This new feature was his idea!

Read more about per-property easing

5. New Live Events!

jQuery 1.4 adds support for delegating the “submit“, “change“, “focus” and “blur” events. In jQuery, we use the “.live()” method to delegate events. This is useful when you have to register event handlers on many elements, and when new elements may be added over time (using “.live()” is less-costly than re-binding continually).

But, be careful! You must use the event names, “focusin” and “focusout” if you want to delegate the “focus” and “blur” events!

jQuery('input').live('focusin', function(){
    // do something with this
});

6. Controlling a Function’s Context

jQuery 1.4 provides a new “proxy” function under the jQuery namespace. This function takes two arguments, either a “scope” and a method name, or a function and the intended scope. JavaScript’s “this” keyword can be quite tricky to keep a hold of. Sometimes you won’t want it to be an element, but instead an object that you’ve previously created.

For example, here we’ve got an “app” object which has two properties, a “clickHandler” method and a config object:

var app = {
    config: {
        clickMessage: 'Hi!'
    },
    clickHandler: function() {
        alert(this.config.clickMessage);
    }
};

The “clickHandler” method, when called like “app.clickHandler()” will have “app” as its context, meaning that the “this” keyword will allow it access to “app“. This works quite well if we simply call:

app.clickHandler(); // "Hi!" is alerted

Let’s try binding it as an event handler:

jQuery('a').bind('click', app.clickHandler);

When we click an anchor it doesn’t appear to work (nothing is alerted). That’s because jQuery (and most sane event models) will, by default, set the context of the handler as the target element,- that is, the element that’s just been clicked will be accessible via “this“. But we don’t want that, we want “this” to be set to “app“. Achieving this in jQuery 1.4 couldn’t be simpler:

jQuery('a').bind(
    'click',
    jQuery.proxy(app, 'clickHandler')
);

Now whenever an anchor is clicked, “Hi!” will be alerted!

The proxy function returns a “wrapped” version of your function, with “this” set to whatever you specify. It’s useful in other contexts too, such as passing callbacks to other jQuery methods, or to plugins.

Read more about jQuery.proxy

7. Delay an Animation Queue

You can now add a delay to your animation queues. In fact, this works on any queue, but its most common use case will probably be with the “fx” queue. This allows you to pause between animations without having to mess with callbacks and calls to “setTimeout“. The first argument to “.delay()” is the amount of milliseconds you want to delay for.

jQuery('#foo')
    .slideDown() // Slide down
    .delay(200) // Do nothing for 200 ms
    .fadeIn(); // Fade in

If you want to delay a queue other than the default “fx” queue, then you’ll need to pass the queue name as the second argument to “.delay()“.

Read more about .delay(…)

8. Check if an Element Has Something

jQuery 1.4 makes it easy to check if an element (or collection) “.has()” something. This is the programmatic equivalent to jQuery’s selector filter, “:has()“. This method will select all elements in the current collection that contain at least one element that complies with the passed selector.

jQuery('div').has('ul');

That would select all DIV elements that contain UL elements. In this situation you’d probably just use the selector filter (“:has()“), but this method is still useful when you need to filter a collection programmatically.

jQuery 1.4 also reveals the “contains” function under the jQuery namespace. This is a low-level function that accepts two DOM nodes. It’ll return a boolean indicating whether the second element is contained within the first element. E.g.

jQuery.contains(document.documentElement, document.body);
// Returns true - <body> is within <html>

Read more about: .has(…), jQuery.contains(…)

9. Unwrap Elements!

We’ve had the “.wrap()” method for a while now. jQuery 1.4 adds the “.unwrap()” method which does the complete opposite. If we assume the following DOM structure:

<div>

    <p>Foo</p>
</div>

We can unwrap the paragraph element like so:

jQuery('p').unwrap();

The resulting DOM structure would be:

<p>Foo</p>

Essentially, this method simply removes the parent of any element.

Read more about .unwrap(…)

10. Remove Elements Without Deleting Data

The new “.detach()” method allows you to remove elements from the DOM, much like the “.remove()” method. The key difference with this new method is that it doesn’t destroy the data held by jQuery on that element. This includes data added via “.data()” and any event handlers added via jQuery’s event system.

This can be useful when you need to remove an element from the DOM, but you know you’ll need to add it back at a later stage. Its event handlers and any other data will persist.

var foo = jQuery('#foo');

// Bind an important event handler
foo.click(function(){
    alert('Foo!');
});

foo.detach(); // Remove it from the DOM

// … do stuff

foo.appendTo('body'); // Add it back to the DOM

foo.click(); // alerts "Foo!"

Read more about .detach(…)

11. index(…) Enhancements

jQuery 1.4 gives you two new ways to use the “.index()” method. Previously, you could only pass an element as its argument and you’d expect a number to be returned indicating the index of that element within the current collection.

Passing no arguments now returns the index of an element amongst its siblings. So, assuming the following DOM structure:

<ul>
    <li>Apple</li>

    <li>Banana</li>
    <li>Grape</li>

    <li>Strawberry</li>
    <li>Pear</li>

    <li>Peach</li>
</ul>

When a list item is clicked you want to find out the index of the clicked element amongst all the other list items. It’s as simple as:

jQuery('li').click(function(){
    alert( jQuery(this).index() );
});

jQuery 1.4 also allows you to specify a selector as the first argument to “.index()“, doing so will give you the index of the current element amongst the collection produced from that selector.

You should note that what’s returned from this method is an integer, and it will return -1 if the selector/element passed cannot be found in the document.

Read more about .index(…)

12. DOM Manipulation Methods Accept Callbacks

Most of the DOM manipulation methods now support passing a function as the sole argument (or second, in the case of “.css()” & “.attr()“). This function will be run on every element in the collection to determine what should be used as the real value for that method.

The following methods have this capability:

• after
• before
• append
• prepend
• addClass
• toggleClass
• removeClass
• wrap
• wrapAll
• wrapInner
• val
• text
• replaceWith
• css
• attr
• html

Within the callback function, you’ll have access to the current element in the collection via “this” and its index via the first argument.

jQuery('li').html(function(i){
    return 'Index of this list item: ' + i;
});

Also, with some of the above methods you’ll also get a second argument. If you’re calling a setter method (like “.html()” or “.attr('href)“) you’ll have access to the current value. E.g.

jQuery('a').attr('href', function(i, currentHref){
    return currentHref + '?foo=bar';
});

As you can see, with the “.css()” and “.attr()” methods, you would pass the function as the second argument, since the first would be used to name the property you wish to change:

jQuery('li').css('color', function(i, currentCssColor){
    return i % 2 ? 'red' : 'blue';
});

13. Determine the Type of Object

jQuery 1.4 adds two new helper functions (stored directly under the jQuery namespace) that help you determine what type of object you’re dealing with.

First, there’s ”isEmptyObject“, this function returns a boolean indicating whether or not the the passed object is empty (devoid of properties – direct and inherited). Second, there’s “isPlainObject“, which will return a boolean indicating whether the passed object is a plain JavaScript object, that is, one created via “{}” or “new Object()“.

jQuery.isEmptyObject({}); // true
jQuery.isEmptyObject({foo:1}); // false

jQuery.isPlainObject({}); // true
jQuery.isPlainObject(window); // false
jQuery.isPlainObject(jQuery()); // false

Read more about: isPlainObject(…), isEmptyObject(…)

14. Closest(…) Enhancements

jQuery’s “.closest()” method now accepts an array of selectors. This is useful when you want to traverse the ancestors of an element, looking for (more than one) closest elements with certain characteristics.

In addition, it now accepts a context as the second argument, meaning that you can control just how far or how close you want the DOM traversed to. Both of these enhancements accommodate rare use cases but they are used internally to great effect!

Read more about .closest(…)

15. New Events! focusIn and focusOut

As mentioned, to delegate the “focus” and “blur” events you must use these new events, called “focusin” and “focusout”. These events allow you to take action when an element, or a descendant of an element, gains focus.

jQuery('form')
    .focusin(function(){
        jQuery(this).addClass('focused');
    });
    .focusout(function(){
        jQuery(this).removeClass('focused');
    });

You should also note that both of these events do not propagate (“bubble”); they are captured. This means that the outermost (ancestor) element will be triggered before the causal “target” element.

Read more about the focusIn and focusOut events.

Enjoy jQuery 1.4, the most anticipated, most feature-rich, best performing release of jQuery yet!

Well, that’s it! I’ve tried to cover the changes which I think will have an impact on you!

If you haven’t already, you should check out the ”14 days of jQuery“, an awesome online event marking the release of jQuery 1.4, and jQuery’s fourth birthday!

And don’t forget to checkout the new API documentation!

It’s been a long drought for IPOs, but venture capitalists and tech entrepreneurs are hopeful that 2010 will be the year they rain down on the Valley once gain. Earlier this year, a handful of IPOs trickled out, such as OpenTable, Rackspace, and A123Systems. But what people are really waiting for is another Netscape moment—an iconic IPO which will whet investor’s appetites and open the floodgates for others to follow.

Below is our list of the top ten IPO candidates for 2010 in the technology industry (and, no, it doesn’t include Twitter). I conducted an informal survey of some top VCs and angel investors. These are the names whispered about the most in the Valley and other tech circles. The hope is that the economy will swing back and the public markets will become receptive to IPOs, especially towards the second half of the year.  The stock market in general is finding its legs already.  The S&P 500 is up 24 percent this year. If the bull market continues, that will be good for the prospects of seeing these potential IPOs.  And if it doesn’t, there’s always M&A.

1. Facebook. Total raised: $716 million.

If there is one company which everyone is looking towards for a new Netscape moment, it is Facebook.  The company can pretty much go public any time it wants.  It is already the fourth largest site in the U.S. and the world.  Its last private common stock sale valued the company at $11 billion, which may or may not be rational.  The key to a large public valuation will be whether Facebook can figure out how to turn all of that attention into advertising dollars.  So far it is said to be on track to beat its $550 million revenue projections from earlier this year.  A Facebook IPO would certainly create a halo effect for other tech offerings.  Even if it doesn’t go out in 2010, the prospect that it might could still help other companies go public as hungry investors grab what they can get.

2. Zynga. Total raised: $219 million.

Social game developer Zynga is on a tear, with more than 230 million people a month actively playing its games such as FarmVille, PetVille, and Texas HoldeEm Poker.  The company just raised a whopping $180 million round.  It is believed to be Facebook’s largest advertiser and pulling in at least $250 million in revenues on its own.  But it is also at the center of the Scamville controversy over how it makes some of its money from scammy offers.  If it can convince investors it has cleaned up its act, they will gobble up an IPO.

3. LinkedIn. Total raised: $103 million.

The other social network, LinkedIn is like the enterprise version of Facebook. It is where business gets done and people find jobs.  LAst year alone it raised about $75 million at a $1 billion valuation. Founder Reid Hoffman has spoken repeatedly about LinkedIn’s ability  to IPO.  Earlier this year, he recruited former Yahoo exec Jeff Weiner to be CEO and is spending more time himself as a venture capitalist, which has always been his sideline.

4. Glam Media. Total raised: $125 million.

Glam Media is one of the fastest growing ad networks and collection of fashion- and women-oriented sites.  At a time when traditional media and women’s magazines are suffering, Glam is saw display advertising revenues across its network up more than 50 percent in 2009.  CEO Samir Arora expects the company to be profitable in the fourth quarter, and is recruiting executives with big-company experience.  Ad networks which dominate their niche are an easy lay-up for investors.

5. Demand Media. Total raised: $355 million.

Demand Media is another LA-based company, started by former MySpace chairman Richard Rosenblatt.  Demand Media owns a collection of sites such as eHow, Livestrong, and countless niche sites.  It also owns domain name registrar eNom, which generates a lot of its cash.  Demand Media is a content mill, churning out articles and videos for its niche sites like Golflink.com and Trails.com  cheaply and quickly in response to what people are searching for.  It may not be sexy, but it is lucrative enough that potential acquirers are sniffing around and AOL’s Tim Armstrong is looking to copy and improve on the niche content model.

6. Gilt Groupe. Total raised: $48 million.

Gilt is a private online shopping club for luxury goods.  Its revenues are reportedly around $200 million this year, and expected to more than double next year.  IPO talk is already in the air.  Gilt’s counterpart in Europe, Ventee-Privée, is rumored to be in acquisition talks with Amazon for around $3 billion.  And Kleiner Perkins just invested in One Kings Lane, another private shopping club based in England.

7. Etsy. Total raised: $31.6 million.

Another niche e-commerce play could be Etsy, the Brooklyn-based marketplace for handcrafted goods.  Sellers on Etsy are on track to trade $200 million worth of goods on the maretplace this year, double from last year.  Founder Rob Kalin recently took over again as CEO and says the company is now profitable.  Etsy will never be as big as eBay, but its focus means that can become a the alternative eBay for buyers and sellers of high-quality, custom-designed apparel, furniture, and other goods.

8. Yelp. Total raised: $31 million.

Yelp was nearly acquired by Google for around $500 million before the deal broke down last week.  The fast-rising local reviews site now might try the public markets instead.  The company already has 300 employees and is becoming a powerhouse in the online advertising for local businesses, which is an area of growth every major Web company wants to participate in.  Already the IPO filings are starting to come in, with ReachLocal filing to raise $100 million for its local ad network.

9. Tesla Motors Total raised: $783 million.

Why would you invest in GM IPO if you could invest in Tesla instead?  Silicon Valley’s electric car company is expected to hit the public markets.  Building a car company takes massive amounts of capital, and Tesla has raised nearly $800 million so far.  Most of that comes in the form of government loans, such as the $465 million it received as part of the government’s $25 billion bailout of the U.S. auto industry.  A lot of the capital also comes from partner Daimler, and billionaire founder Elon Musk.  But, hey, at least Tesla is profitable, which is saying a lot for a car maker.

10. Skype Total raised: $69 million

Despite all the drama surrounding eBay’s recent sale of Skype to a group of private investors including Silver Lake Partners and Andreessen Horowitz for $2.75 billion, the deal got done.  Skype is already a major Internet brand, with more than 500 million users of its Internet calling, IM, and video communications service, and $185 million in quarterly revenues.  Before eBay found its buyers, it was very publicly pursuing the IPO route.  And given that eBay retains a 30 percent stake in Skype, that is still an option if its growth continues apace.

Runner’s Up:  The ten names above are the most likely to go public if the markets open up.  Other companies which might tap the public markets include Associated Content, Brightcove, Digg, StumbleUpon, LiveOps, Workday, MerchantCircle, ExactTarget, Chegg, and Rearden Commerce.  Most informed observers do not expect a Twitter IPO next year.  It is too early.  The company just raised $100 million, and still needs to figures out its business model.  Maybe in 2011.

Which of these companies do you think is most likely to IPO?  Which ones would you invest in?

One of the most frustrating things to me is when I’m trying to get work done over the holidays and get nothing but away messages. It seems like everyone in the world takes a few weeks off, even when they are in the office. And if you rely on others to help you work by way of getting information to complete the job, it can be really challenging.

So if you can’t get to the things you want to do right now, you can still stay productive while the rest of the world seems to be at a standstill. Here are some tips to help you stay productive during the holiday lull.

Focus on solo work. Just because a contact you need to get in touch with is out of the office for the holidays, you may still be able to get work done. See if you can work on other parts of a project. Or focus on a project where you do not need anyone else’s assistance. You can still be earning money during the holiday lull this way. I find that I have several ongoing projects (like blogging) and can catch up on these sorts of tasks during the holiday break. There are no sharp deadlines and it’s quite enjoyable to work quietly during this time of year.

Clean up 2009. One of the things that I do this time of year before the excitement of opening up my new planner is getting things from the current year in order. This means that I am making a quarterly tax payment, getting receipts together to prepare for taxes and trying to get last-minute stragglers to pay up so I can close out my accounting for the year. It may seem tedious but it’s a great idea to get to these tasks now. When things do pick up again, you don’t want to have to turn down work in order to keep your business in order.

Plan for 2010. This can be the exciting part! It goes beyond setting and writing down any goals you have for the new year. Each year I set up the same files by year so in 2010 I’ll set up files for my bills and other personal stuff, and clean out my work files. Instead of having a 2010 file for every client, I keep one file per client. I clean out what I don’t need and keep the rest. I may need to look back at previous work and I want to have everything in one place.

Remember marketing? Oh friends, it’s a great time to work on your marketing and catch up on networking during this lull. Send out a promotional mailer or email newsletter. Attend a networking event or simply catch up on all your LinkedIn friend requests. Keeping your business presence up is vital and oftentimes, freelancers cannot do this (or neglect to do it) when work is plentiful. So if you’ve thought about a new promotional strategy for the new year, it’s a great time to get to work on it.

Give your office a makeover. Go beyond cleaning out files–give your office a facelift. Sure, it’s not paying work but the benefits can totally pay off! And without any pressing deadlines you are free to work at your own pace and will probably find that this is an ideal time to slap on a fresh coat of paint, clean up your desk or create a new art installation. Be sure to look at ways to make your office visually appealing and also functional. This year I bought a magnetic strip to hang over my desk. I can always change the art on it to keep things fresh. You can do something like this to keep track of project notes, too! (This is kind of a fun one, so be sure that other necessary tasks are completed before you tackle it. Otherwise, it’s not just a fun undertaking because it can really help to inspire creativity!)

Give yourself a rest. If it all bottoms out and you’re out of work for a few days or weeks, that’s okay. Many freelancers report that this is a slow time of year and you are not alone. If you are burned out or simply do not feel like working on other things right now, it is an ideal time to take a break. Watch the snow fall like everyone else, spend time with family and friends, or work on another hobby that you rarely get to devote time to. We all need a vacation at some point and I have found that taking one at this time of year is smart because the rest of the world is usually on a holiday, too.