I’ve written my own website url shortening service. Its a work in progress and there’s still lots for me to do but the core functionality is up and running. I started off wondering how other shortening services worked so decided to make one in order to find out.

The url is: lee.cx.

Feel free to make any comments or suggestions.

jQuery makes several things MUCH easier when adding scripting to a web site.  With jQuery you can accomplish, with less code than what it would take with JavaScript alone, a lot of effects such as drop down menus, drag and drop elements, animations and form validation. jQuery is a JavaScript library which means the underlying language is still JavaScript but it adds usability and ease of use. Here are some of the reasons I use jQuery:

• First of all, it handles the vast majority of the browser compatibility issues, so you don’t spend large amounts of time rewritting code to work in every possible browser.
• The selectors allow you one simple way to browse the dom tree in a cross-browser compatible way that actually works. If you know how to select elements in CSS you know how to find them in jQuery!
• If you’re using AJAX it provides an easy to use method that works elegantly without having to code your own library.
• It’s easy to extend, and there are lots of add-ons that will handle most of the basic tasks you might run into.

If you have a understanding of JavaScript, jQuery will be easy to get a hold of as it adds easier to impliment functionality than hand coding everything in JavaScript.