I really like using jQuery. So far I’ve found some really nice solutions for sliding feature items. I’m using the Beautiful Slider example I found at dreamcss.com on most of my online design portfolio pages. I wanted to change the pace a little on a couple sections so I implemented the jQuery 3D Cloud Carousel plugin with image lightbox. See below:

It is always a concern when implementing Flash that you keep it from being to “flashy.” Most of us remember those cumbersome Flash intro pages, or should I say “Skip Pages.” The CU3ER flash banner is a whimsical slide presentation. The depth of the 3-D rotating cubes stimulate your senses. The stimulation can be almost hypnotic. Here a design for 40th-Division-WW2.com that shows how simple and elegant the CU3ER image slider solution can be in a web design.

Last weekend my wife and I found an interesting image of an old auto shop at a little shop in Niles, CA. Weeks earlier we found a weathered old book at shop in San Juan Bautista, CA. I’m always looking for exciting ways to show my friends our latest finds. I could just post the image on one of my social networking accounts, but I want to recreate the excitement I had when I found the artifact. So the hunt goes on… online.

The real find of the day was this sweat jQuery effect I stumbled on at Tutorialzine. It’s called “Apple-like Retina Effect With jQuery.” You might have seen, or built similar effects in flash. Nevertheless, this is simple and lightweight. Little knowledge of CSS and the ability to identify a couple of dimensions that need to change within the JS code and you can amaze your friends. As I hope I have. The growing world of jQuery solutions offers visual designers an effective way to enhance their page design, without Flash. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not someone that advocates the demise of Flash. Just like having options.