A javascript library is a collection of functions and methods in Javascript for performing some of the most common needs like Dom traversing, event handling, adding Ajax interaction etc. There are many free Javascript libraries available like jQuery, Prototype, Scriptaculous, Dojo, MochiKit, Yahoo! UI Library (YUI). Prototype and Scriptaculous together forms the backbone of the Ruby-on-Rails project. YUI is a free set of utilities and controls supported by Yahoo!. Dojo Toolkit is a library having Java like syntax. All the libraries have their own highs and lows.

Recently jQuery has started getting a lot of attention. jQuery is a fast and extremely lightweight Javascript library. Recently jQuery v1.1.3 was released, which is said to be upto eight times faster than the previous version. But the biggest advantages is that the size of the library when compressed is just 20KB. Don’t you think that is great? Drupal 5.0 is using jQuery instead of the older drupal.js.

Another advantage is that jQuery can be used with other Javascript Libraries without conflict. It also has a clean and modular approach to plugins. Since writing plugins is very simple in jQuery, a number of plugins are available for most of the common uses.

With jQuery running an animation like sliding and fading are very simple. Interface is a jQuery plugin for animation. Interface is like scriptaculous library for prototype. It can be used for handling sorting, drag and drop effect and other complex effects.

Another important feature of jQuery is the ready function. For Dom scripting we have to wait till the complete Dom loads. Using the onload event handler for this purpose is a waste of time for pages having images as the event is triggered only when every element, including the images, have been loaded. jQuery provides a workaround, ie the ready function, which is called when the dom has loaded completely.

Sending and retrieving data via ajax has never been easier. jQuery provides us with a rich set of functions for managing it.

jQuery has a really simplified format for traversing the Dom. jQuery’s selector syntax is based heavily on CSS3 and XPath. Hence selecting and traversing through elements have never been simpler. Elements can be selected using id, classname, a combination of id and classname and XPath reference.

Another important feature of jQuery is method chaining. Every call of a method on a jQuery object returns the object itself. Hence to apply multiple methods to an element you can do it without typing the selector again. All you have to do is to chain the new method at the end of the previous method.

jQuery has made Javascript programming fun and enjoyable for me. Try it and feel its power.

Links

• Documentation
• Tutorials
• Plugins
• Visual jQuery
• Learning jQuery

Recently I got an opportunity to use a MacBook. I was amazed by its speed and the cool graphics. Vista looked like a reproduction of Mac OS X Tiger to me. The sidebar of vista seems to be inspired by the Dashboard Widget system of Mac. The new integrated instant desktop search and powerful indexing integrated with Vista was available in Mac Jaguar since 2002.

As with windows, the first thing I did was stuff it with as many softwares as I can. I always love trying out different softwares. After 2 weeks of constant use, I found out that I cannot live without the following programs.

1. QuickSilver - QuickSilver is an application that is a must for all Macs. I can’t tell you how wonderful it is, you will have to feel its power by using it. It is an unified, extensible interface for working with applications, contacts, music, and other data. You can search for files, lauch applications and files, open webpages, search the web, search your browser history, send mail, resize / convert images and do much more things with it. The list is endless. The most important feature is the integrated plugin system which further extends its power. LifeHacker provides some excellent tutorials and screencasts on QuickSilver. If you have a mac and is not using QuickSilver, I highly recommend you to download a copy now itself. Unfortunately, there is no comparable software for windows. Launchy seems to be the nearest match but is still way behind.
2. NeoOffice - Macintosh lacks an office suite as powerful as Microsoft Office for windows. Even though Microsoft Office is available for Mac, they are not fully compatible. NeoOffice, a fork of the Free and Open Source office suite OpenOffice.org, is a better alternative than the original OpenOffice.org office suite for Mac.
3. AppZapper - After installing a number of programs, I searched for the uninstaller utility for Mac. That was when I found out that Mac does not have a built in uninstaller utility like the Add / Remove Programs utility for Windows. My search led me to this application, which its developers describe as “The uninstaller Apple forgot”. AppZapper is not freeware.
4. Zipeg - Windows Explorer counterpart of Mac, Finder, has built in support for zip files. But it does not recognize some other formats like Rar. Also it lacks the ability to preview the contents of the archive without extracting it, because opening a zip file in Finder extracts the contents to the same directory. Furthermore, it cannot be used to create new archives. This made me think about an alternative and I found Zipeg. Zipeg is a simple and free compression and archive utility. It supports a number of formats like ZIP, RAR, ARJ, LHA/LZH, 7z, TAR, GZ, TGZ, BZIP2, CPIO, RPM, ISO, CHM and Z. Also you can preview images as thumbnail in the tooltip. Another important feature is the drag and drop support.
5. Adium X - Adium is a Free and Open Source Instant Messaging application which allows you to connect to any number of messaging accounts on a large number of supported services which include AIM, MSN, Yahoo! Messenger, GTalk etc.

Though there are many other applications that I like, these are the five applications I found hard to live with. Some other programs worth mentioning are

Browsers - Firefox, Camino and Opera

Graphics - GIMP , Xee2

Text Editors - BBEdit, Smultron

FTP Client - Transmit

BitTorrent Client - Transmission

Anti Virus - ClamXav

There are many services out there that provide free sms sending options. But the problem with most of the services are that they are limited to a particular region or a handfull of carriers. Today I am going to introduce you to a service that has no limitation. You can send as many messages as you want. The service is from Callwave. They provide a number of free sms sending widgets which you can add to your Google homepage (iGoogle), Yahoo Widgets, Mac Dashboard or Vista sidebar. Once the widget is added, you have to register for a free Callwave account. Which can be done from the widget itself. You will need a valid mobile number capable of accepting SMS for registering, because you will be sent an activation number to the provided phone number. You can use the same account with all the above widgets. Further, you can access an archive of all your sent messages at your Account Page.

They also provide free Visual Voicemail service. If you fail to answer a received call, the call automatically gets forwarded to Callwave. Callwave records the call and shows it in your widget, from where you can access it. The messages can also be accessed from any mobile phone too. Unfortunately, the service is currently limited to U.S. Hopefully they will expand it to other countries too.

If you have an email address (which most of us have), you would have received hundreds of emails saying how to become a millionaire or a billionaire. Unfortunately, making money online is not that easy. No one in this world is crazy enough to give you money for doing nothing. Or as the popular adage says, “There Ain’t No Such Thing As A Free Lunch”.
It is true that you can’t make money by doing nothing, but if you are willing to spend some effort then you can surely start making good money from the internet. But you should know to do the right thing at the right time. I am going to introduce you to some easy money making opportunities in the internet.

Forum Posting

Forum posting can provide you multiple sources of income. Inorder for a forum to succeed, there should be a large number of users. But it is a universal truth that people tend to join only active forum. Hence to lure new users into joining, many forum admins start giving out incentives just for posting. These include

• Revenue Sharing - A portion of the revenue from the site is shared with its users. This is done by showing the users ads in the forum occassionally. Most of the revenue sharing forums require you to have a Google Adsense account for joining revenue sharing. The Digital Point was the first site to test this idea and it turned out to be a huge success.

• Signature Sale - Most of the forums allow you to append a text of 250 - 350 characters at the end of every post you make. Since forum caters to highly targeted audience this space can act as a very efficient advertisment space. Hence there is a increasing tendency among forum users to sell the space as signature link, rather than use it to advertise their own sites. Usually the rate is calculated depending on the importance of the forum, the reputation of the user, the number of posts made by the user per day and the total number of posts made by the user. Normally the rate is $0.01 per post for a month. ie, if you have 1000 posts, then you can make $10 every month. If you are a consistant poster, this can become a very good source of income.

• Pay Per Post - This is the last resort by forum owners to increase their user base. Almost all new forums enforce this now-a-days. The user is paid a certain amount of money, something between $0.01 to $0.1, for each post he makes. This won’t be a constant source of income, as all the forums will stop it after they start getting a good amount of natural traffic.

• Rewards / Awards - This is another promotion technique by forum owners. Awards are given out at the end of every month / year in different categories like Top Contributor, Most Helpful user etc.

AGLOCO

AGLOCO stands for A GLObal COmmunity.

AGLOCO’s story is simple:
Do you realize how valuable you are? Advertisers, search providers and online retailers are paying billions to reach you while you surf. How much of that money are you making? NONE! AGLOCO thinks you deserve a piece of the action.AGLOCO collects money from those companies on behalf of its members. (For example, Google currently pays AOL 10 cents for every Google search by an AOL user. And Google still has enough profit to pay $1.6 billion dollars for YouTube, an 18-month old site full of content that YouTube’s users did not get paid for!

AGLOCO will work to get its Members their share of this and more.
AGLOCO is building a new form of online community that they call an Economic Network. They are not only paying Members their fair share, but they’re building a community that will generate the kind of fortune that YouTube made. But instead of that wealth making only a few people rich, the entire community will get its share.

What’s the catch?
No catch - no spyware, no pop-ups and no spam - membership and software are free and AGLOCO is 100% member owned. Privacy is a core value and AGLOCO never sells or rents member information.

What is it that you have to do?
Nothing. Download the viewbar available from your Agloco account page and browse the web normally as you do. Ads will be shown on the viewbar and you get money depending on the number of hours you browse the web with the viewbar running.

Blogging

This is another way to start making money from the internet. There are many popular free blogging sites which allow you to start your own blog. All you need is an email address. How does blogging earn you revenue? There are again several ways.

• Affiliate Marketing - Affiliate marketing refers to promotion of products. You can write reviews about different products and use your affiliate link / id. If people read your review and like the product, they will most probably use your affiliate link for buying the product and you will get your commission.

• Advertisement and Banners - You can run banners and advertisements on your site. They can be pay per click (PPC) or pay per impressions (PPM) ads. Blogspot has a widget for including Adsense ads on your site.

• Paid Blogging - This is not for starters. If you have an established blog with a very large number of bloggers, people will pay you to blog about their site / product. But inorder for people to contact you, you need to have a large user base. Others can get clients by announcing the service at popular forums like DigitalPoint.

Here I have shared some of the methods. I will try to tell you about more such methods when I get time. And please keep in mind that you won’t be able to make money by sitting idle. Always think about new ideas and how to make them practical.