Avoid Using Flash: The jQuery Cycle Plugin

My cousin Alexandra ran into an entertainment industry snafu earlier this year when an uncredited appearance on Lost gave the tv show’s internet fans free reigns to guess her name.  Unofficial credits began appearing on the photographer’s flickr photos, then TV Guide and, finally, on Lostpedia entries in English, and Spanish.  When she realized that a search of Alexandra Tobas wielded more content than a search of her correctly spelled name, Alexandra Tabas (with an ‘a’), she called me for help.  We did a bit of troubleshooting on her IMDB page, and on each Lostpedia entry.  I then did a ‘whois’ on her domain name.  She owned her domain name and didn’t have anything up yet!  This is a tidbit for everyone out there – if you do not like your search results, you only have yourself to blame if you do not have a site up under www.yourname.com.

While I do not have time to build her an entire portfolio right now, I went ahead and put up a simple page using the jQuery Cycle Plugin.  This plugin is an excellent way to mimic Flash objects without having to actually use Flash.  I never learned to use Flash seriously because it is a black box to search engines, although I’ve heard this has changed in recent years.  If this is old news, the new headlines are reporting that Flash uses unregulated cookies and is invading our privacy, which means I’m still staying away from it with a ten foot pole.  Many web designers hate Flash on similar principles, if not just for the sole reason that there is this misnomer that your website, brand or image is somehow cool because you use a Flash intro on your site.  Flash is fun to play with, but not necessarily the tool you want to use for heavy lifting.

That being said, jQuery Cycle Plugin is about the easiest thing you can use to add some pizzazz to your site.  In about three easy steps:

1. Reference the jQuery library, and the Cycle Plugin in your header.
2. Create a <div class=”pics”> and list your <img> within that div tag.  Make sure to specify each images height and width, and include an alt value, not just to be xhtml compliant, but because you want to add extra, search-able text, to your site.
3. Set the height and width of your .pics class in your css.  Make sure they are big enough to hold each image.
4. Add the following script to your file:

$(document).ready(function() {
$(‘.pics’).cycle({
fx: ‘fade’
});

The plugin’s demo site is super easy to follow for any beginner, and if you want to get fancier, you can change your transition type in your script. I will definitely be using this plugin for my own portfolio in the future!

View AlexandraTabas.com here!

Supa Dupa Fly Flash

Without the internet on my flight back from DC this weekend, I was forced to just make something up in Flash to see if I could learn something new. Compared to the last project, I can say that my significant accomplishments and growth in this skill are astounding, but I’ll let you judge for yourself:

You know this video is as fly as these shoes I bought this weekend:

Learning Adobe Flash

I’m learning Adobe Flash this morning, and just completed my first movie following this guide.

I know you are super impressed by my amazing flash skills, but what did you do before 8 am this morning?