There are a number of lightbox tools are available. Until I discovered ColorBox JQuery plugin, I wasn't completely comfortable using any of them.

Why ColorBox? Well, it is easy to use, lightweight and it supports all kinds of different content like photos, photo groups, slideshow, ajax, inline, and iframed content.

I am using ColorBox JQuery plugin on one of my sites but I wish it was as easy as the thumbnail viewer plugin when using on a WordPress site. With thumbnail viewer plugin all you need to do is add rel=thumbnail to any link tag surrounding your thumbnail. You'll see an example below.

There are a couple of WordPress ColorBox plugins available. I haven't tried the LightBox Plus yet. I haven't been able to get the JQuery ColorBox WordPress plugin to work. I'd rather use ColorBox JQuery plugin on my WordPress site without a plugin. I am still experimenting with that. Including JQuery functions on WordPress header is a little different. I will soon update you on that. Stay tuned...

UPDATE 03/06/2010:

OK! Now the image on this post works with ColorBox. Here is how I made it work:

Added the link to the ColorBox stylesheet on the header.php right after all the other stylesheet links.
After "wp_head();", I put the link to the ColorBox script and the JQuery function call:

$(document).ready(function($){
$("a[rel='colorbox']").colorbox();
});

Now, pay attention to the $ in the function bracket. You won't see it on ColorBox example pages. This is required when you are adding JQuery functions to your WordPress header. Without that all the $ within your code would not be interpreted correctly. This is the best way to add JQuery functions to your WordPress header.

Finally I added the rel="colorbox" to the link to the image. You can use a different name but make sure it is the same one you in the JQuery function.

One last point: If you have the WordPress Flickr Manager plugin as I do, disable the image viewer.

Here is the ColorBox example:

Resource management is better than before, with hogging all but eliminated. It provides a smorgasbord of information and options for advanced users, but it's simple enough for beginners, and runs smoothly and silently in the background. The version 3 interface utilizes a plain white color scheme and replaces old terminology with more intuitive terms such as Summary, Firewall, Defense, and Miscellaneous. In each, there are links to relevant security issues so users can drill down to learn more about how the firewall is performing. The firewall rears its head most often when Security Alerts ask about new Internet connections as the program "learns" your computer's behavior.

CNET editors' review by: Seth Rosenblatt on June 22, 2009

Try Comodo Internet Security Pro for 30 Days, FREE

phpBay Pro is a great Ebay Affiliate plugin for WordPress for generating affiliate income using eBay partner Network. With phpBay Pro, you can quickly and easily add rich keyword based content to your Wordpress blog to complement your existing content.

phpBay Pro plugin for WordPress is a powerful tool you can use to integrate eBay auctions into your website / blog. When a user clicks on a product and places a winning bid, you receive a commission from ebay.

If you have been thinking about finding additional ways of monetizing your blog; phpBay Pro is the way to go. You do not even need to build full-blown auction sites. Just add 5-10 auction items that are related to what you are writing about on some of your posts by using phpBayPro. Your readers will appreciate the immediate availability of products you are writing about and you will make money when they purchase these products.

Here is another tool I use and recommend:

Constant Contact for email marketing, newsletters and online surveys. It does not cost a bundle, it is easy to use and you can get started immediately. It is do-it-yourself email marketing at its best. I have been using constant contact for years now and I am impressed by their service. They have a variety of templates that are easy to use and customize. They also make it a snap to create subscription forms that you can integrate into your web site.

Constant Contact's leading email marketing and online survey tools supported by its expert personal coaching and support help all types of small businesses and organizations create professional-looking email newsletters and insightful online surveys and begin a dialogue with their customers.

The service is great to build and maintain an opt-in list for permission based email marketing. You can send eye-catching HTML email newsletters, email postcards, coupons to your clients, customers or web site visitors. There is a wealth of information available on their site.

You can try Constant Contact free.

Do-It-Yourself Email Marketing

 

Last week I had to put together a site in a few hours that would contain videos, mp3 files and a simple contact form.  Considering the lack of time I decided to use WordPress to put this site together.

Step One was to pick a theme that I can quickly make it look distinct without spending much time. I found the Options theme by Justin Tadlock was perfect for the job. I have not studied the documentation and not even using most of the options available but it was a good choice since it fit the project.

Step Two was to add some static pages. One was a location page where I wanted to use Google Maps Plugin for WordPress I mentioned here before. Unfortunately it only displayed the map as a gray rectangle. Figuring that it was due to style sheet issues and not having time to go through it, I opted to use the iframe embed of the Google Map which worked perfectly.

I also wanted to have some documents available on this site. I like scribd and the ipaper format so I went ahead and got the WP IPaper Plugin. It did not work at first. Since I really wanted to have the IPaper version of documents on this site, I decided to spend a little more time to troubleshoot which led me to discover that the plugin works only if you do not put the access key in quotes. Cool!

It is time for the videos and I realize what a hassle to embed videos in WordPress... Well, after a quick search online I came across FLV-Embed Plugin. Since I already had FLV copies of videos available this plugin was a perfect choice.

To have the mp3 files embedded, the clear choice was Audio Player WordPress Plugin.

When it came to deciding on the contact form, I quickly scanned and tried a few plugins promising to accomplish this task effortlessly. Finally I decided to use cforms II. It is easy to understand, install, use and customize. It does the job!

In less than three hours Swift299Gas.com was up and running thanks to WordPress and all these theme and plugin authors who make them available.

When I wanted to have basic AJAX functionality, I searched, downloaded, tested a variety of AJAX frameworks. In the end I started using JQuery to add AJAX and other nifty interactions to the web sites I build.

jQuery is a fast, concise, JavaScript Library that simplifies how you traverse HTML documents, handle events, perform animations, and add Ajax interactions to your web pages. jQuery is designed to change the way that you write JavaScript.

JQuery.com

Above pretty much sums up what JQuery is and what it will do for you. It is easy to understand and use but if you are in a hurry and need to get certain type of interactions available on your web site, you can find a solution by browsing through the library of plugins that are readily available. In no time you would have Ajax functionality available on your web site.

Here are some of my favorite JQuery Plugins:

Tablesorter 2.0
Sean O's MP3 Player
UI Tabs

If you wanted to dig deeper and learn more about JQuery, there is a wealth of information available online including tutorials. You may also want to get the following books:

Learning jQuery

Jonathan Chaffer. Packt Publishing 2007, Paperback, 380 pages, $31.57

jQuery in Action

John Resig (Foreword). Manning Publications 2008, Paperback, 376 pages, $20.00

 

Once you have good solid text editor like UltraEdit, you want to have another tool to compare and merge files.

SourceGear DiffMerge is the tool I use to visually compare and merge files. It is easy to use and saves a lot of time for me when applying changes to the different versions of source code. And it is free for a single user  pretty much any number of users -- as Paul Roub corrected below. I recommend you give it a try.

I want to share with everyone the tools I use and recommend on the Tools Categories of this blog.

Number one tool everyone needs to have is a good solid text editor. Notepad is useless. There are probably zillions of text editors out there. My choice has been UltraEdit for a long time. It is just one of these utilities I couldn't do without. I find it a lot more intuitive to use compared to other text editors available.

UltraEdit is the ideal text, hex, HTML, PHP, Java, Javascript, Perl, and programmer's editor.  I probably am not taking advantage of all of its capabilities but for what I use and what I need it is an absolutely indispensible tool for me. I love that I can open huge text or csv files, do quick searches, use it as a HEX editor, put windows side by side and all kinds of neat stuff. Its search and replace functions are great.

UltraEdit is my text editor and I recommend it to anyone.

Click here to try UltraEdit.