Each poll has its own page, for example here’s a poll i created: Visit Poll the bar graph is generated using basic CSS and PHP to determine the percentages for the number of votes. Here’s a tutorial I wrote a while back on how to implement a similar graph

The Design

Much like wedeliver I wanted to create an appealing interface that’s easy on the eye, simple to navigate as well as containing all the functionality needed.

Visit the site

You can visit the site here and create a poll yourself. As I said in my post about wedeliver as a designer and developer it’s really important to do personal projects as well as freelance work you learn so much more building small applications in your own time.

What’s in the bundle?

1. jQuery Drag & Drop

   Using jQuery PHP and MySQL a complete drag and drop script that updates the database. demo

2. jQuery Delete

   Delete items using PHP jQuery using an AJAX request demo

3. PHP jQuery and MySQL Autosuggest

   A powerful autosuggest script that searches a MySQL database to return you result demo

4. jQuery & PHP username checker

   Checks the database to see if a chosen username exists in the database and returns true or false demo

5. CSS3 Buttons

   Styling elegant buttons using CSS3 demo

6. Feedburner Stats

   Using PHP and CURL to get your feedburner subscriber count demo

7. jQuery & PHP username checker

   Checks the database to see if a chosen username exists in the database and returns true or false demo

8. jQuery image Zoom

   create a simple gallery with a hover image effect demo

9. jQuery PHP & MySQL inline editing

   Edit page content directly in the browser inline using jQuery AJAX requests demo

10. jQuery Gallery

    Animated jQuery gallery with title and description demo

11. Highlighting form inputs

    Highlight any input field using JavaScript demo

12. jQuery JSON & PHP

    Create a simple product gallery using JSONP PHP and MySQL demo

13. jQuery Tabs

    Simple tabs rendered using jQuery demo

14. jQuery XML

    build a product gallery parsing XML using jQuery demo

15. jTruncate

    Using the jTruncate plugin to truncate text with a ‘more’ link demo

16. PHP Page scrape

    Scrape page contents using PHP and CURL demo

17. AJAX Check

    Check to see if a normal GET or POST request was made or if an AJAX request was made demo

18. PHP Pagination

    A useful and raw PHP pagination script that could be adapted in to a class demo

19. jQuery Sliding Menu

    jQuery drop down slide in / out menu inspired by 9rules.com demo

20. jQuery Tooltips

    An experimentation into building jQuery tooltips with AJAX requests, images etc demo

Its got to the stage where I can no longer read Mashable or Techcrunch because of the saturation and influence that these so called ‘social media’ experts and journalists seem to be having on the industry. This so called next movement has unfortunately made everyone (even my Mum and Dad!) an expert in social media (whatever social media really is?) so it seems. I used to be an avid reader of Mashable and Techcrunch however i started to notice articles that were just plain crap observations, for example recently i found this post on Mashable, ‘The top ten Twitter trends this week.’ I mean WHAT THE HELL! This made it into an article! This is a classic example of so called social media biting itself in the ass. Im a savvy internet user if i want to know what’s trending on Twitter i’ll check the Twitter homepage. Social media really just stands for, ‘We’re going to make your browsing experience twice as complicated by bombarding you with pointless facts an figures and plain obvious tips on how to promote your business using Twitter, Facebook and social networking.’ I mean HELLO! bands and teenagers have been doing this stuff for years on MySpace, Hi5, and Bebo its nothing new.

It’s just plain marketing bullshit, and it just purports to makes anyone an expert if you have a Twitter or Facebook account, so in effect it just bastardises people who actually are knowledgeable in this area. I don’t class myself as an expert in anything. If your an expert you have nothing more to learn and we all have something to learn even more so on the internet.

Social Media = Way too much noise!

A key tool for any budding web developer is API knowledge. It’s good to familiarise yourself with a variety of application interfaces. I started out using the Twitter REST API with PHP and CURL when twitter first launched the API to basically get a users tweets, pretty simple now I look back, but at the time it was the first time i’d done such a thing. As the development of social media continues this will increasingly open up opportunities to develop more and more applications that interact with one another and and make our daily chores more eventful.

Frameworks

There’s generally a framework for just about every programming language out there. Whether you decide to learn the jQuery framework for JavaScript or Cake for PHP each one will help you succeed as a freelancer and further your career as a web developer. Frameworks in many respects take out the arduous repetitive tasks we face daily and give us more time to focus on developing cutting edge products or applications.

iPhone Applications

Companies are Increasingly seeing the massive potential that there is in the mobile platform. Applications that are approved and make it into the Apple app store have the opportunity to be downloaded thousands of times and can potentially make a lot of money. Having a specific skill to be able to develop for this market can be very lucrative, especially in the current economic climate when companies are turning to social media to plug holes where they’re not seeing return on investment from other advertising sectors.

CMS Customisation

A handy skill to have is a general knowledge of how to use content management systems. For example building themes and plugins for WordPress, or modules and components for Joomla and Mambo. As a developer its important to have an idea of the structure of a variety of CMS’s. If you have a wordpress blog/site, that’s an easy way to familiarise yourself with the platform. Remember it’s always easier to learn something by immersing yourself in the technology.

Online Payments

Businesses are always going to need payment solutions online. Having the skills to take a site and integrate paypal or google checkout will allow you to go far. We’re starting to see many 3rd party software companies setting up and selling software at more affordable prices, take Panic for example. They are a relatively small company that develop a selection of web development software for the mac. Many new startups are settling for a product based revenue stream rather than making money purely through ads, revenue share, or partnership deals. This opens up the demand for skilled developers to be able to build payment solutions.

The Code

$(document).ready(function() {
    var f = $.farbtastic('#picker');
    var p = $('#picker').css('opacity', 0.25);
    var selected;
    $('.colorwell')
      .each(function () { f.linkTo(this); $(this).css('opacity', 0.75); })
      .focus(function() {
        if (selected) {
          $(selected).css('opacity', 0.75).removeClass('colorwell-selected');
        }
        f.linkTo(this);
        p.css('opacity', 1);
        $(selected = this).css('opacity', 1).addClass('colorwell-selected');
      });
  });

The html from the demo.

<form action="" style="width: 500px;">

  <div id="picker" style="float: right;"></div>
  <div class="form-item"><label for="color1">Color 1:</label><input type="text" id="color1" name="color1" class="colorwell" value="#edfa00" /></div>
  <div class="form-item"><label for="color2">Color 2:</label><input type="text" id="color2" name="color2" class="colorwell" value="#ff9505" /></div>
  <div class="form-item"><label for="color3">Color 3:</label><input type="text" id="color3" name="color3" class="colorwell" value="#f86c2a" /></div>

</form>