See Also: Griddle Plays Live on Monday, March 31 @ The Elbo Room (640 Valencia St. - at 17th St. SF, CA) with The Lovers. $7 at the door. 21+

The Griddle Blog is FINALLY off the default WP template

There’s some roadwork ahead at the website of my favorite San Francisco Rock Band, Griddle. Most noticeably the blog is no longer using the default WP template. Also, the Buy Music page now lists all three of their full length albums with reviews, track listings, large artwork, and more. Last, but not leaset, the Home Page now uses MagpieRSS to gather the two most recent posts on the griddle blog with the category of Home Page to allow the band members to update their index page with their next show etc more easily.

And this is just the beginning! Flash mp3 player, style updates, and, of course, lots of cool jQuery interaction to come…

See Also: Griddle Plays Live on Monday, March 31 @ The Elbo Room (640 Valencia St. - at 17th St. SF, CA) with The Lovers. $7 at the door. 21+

It’s been a while, I know. Here’s the bridge between "when we left our hero" and present day plot… I found out on New Year’s Eve that the stealth start-up company I had been working for ran out of cash. I immediately went on the offensive, and over the next 12 days I sent out 10 resumes a day, rode innumerable trains, buses, and walked to parts unknown in search of a corporate soul mate.

On January 15th, I started at Zivity, a premium social network for mature audiences, as their first front-end developer. Since, I have helped Zivity push two beta releases, turned 30, begun paying back my debts, saw Griddle at Cafe Du Nord, and funked out to Maceo Parker live at the Fillmore.

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The title of this post is one of my favorite slogans of all time. It belongs to a Mexican restaurant in Phoenix called Dos Gordos (meaning two fat guys). “Skinny cooks can’t be trusted” is such a simple truth, and the same goes for any industry. It’s something I’m a firm believer in…

Web Services I Began Using in ‘07

The removal of Champagne Powder as a distraction has greatly increased the amount of time I’ve spent online (getting fat so-to-speak) this past year. Here are some of the services I began using in 2007:

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It’s no secret to those who know me that I haven’t been the most career oriented web-hacker in the past. I’ve lived a “permanent vacation” style of life over the years spending large amounts of time snowboarding and wakeboarding by day and coding by night. So, just before New Year’s Day 2007 I moved into my cousin’s San Francisco guest room determined to finally get serious about my craft and career. It was a tough year in which I had many struggles, unexpected set-backs, tight pockets, and much to learn in order to compete in the local market.

Web Technologies I Learned to Use in ‘07

If you’re not going forward you’re moving backwards in this industry. After taking some steps forward in late 2005, ’06 brought huge growth in my snowboarding skills and little progress in my development prowess. Looking back on the year that was 2007, however, I’ve grown exponentially as a developer. Here are some of the new technologies I’ve become proficient using over the year:

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See the jQuery + XML Slide Show in Action. 

Since early November I have been working full-time as a front-end web developer using jQuery, Template Toolkit, and CSS/XHTML on a daily basis. And, I guess you could say that during this experience I fell madly in love with jQuery and:

• Its 14K minified library!
• Its use of css-style selectors (ex: “#main” for the main id or “.someClass” for the someClass class.)
• The organic work flow I experience when using it in place of Flash. EMACS, VIM, TextMate, or whatever you use for XHTML, will work just the same for jQuery. No need for a second (not to mention expensive) environment for developing and debugging your applications.

So, recently I decided to run the "Folger’s taste test" on Barney Weinman as I developed the new Concept Junkies website for him. In this article I’ll show you how I used jQuery and PHP5’s Simple XML to create a 100% Valid XHTML feature in place of the oft-requested, and oft-gratuitous, Flash+XML image slideshow.

This tutorial assumes a good understanding of CSS (CSS Tutorial) and a very basic understanding of PHP (PHP Tutorial) and jQuery (jQuery Tutorial).

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