Some may have seen this coming, others probably wanted it to happen but didn’t expect it. But it’s Christmas so who am I to disappoint?

Due to such high demand, I’ve dusted off the old mixing gear and thrown together the very last mix for the One Phat DJ Podcast. Call it an early Christmas present for all those new iPods that will be appearing under the tree.

One Phat DJ has made one last return in his final ever podcast mix - Encore.

Packed full of the some of the biggest house tracks from the last quarter of 2008, you won’t be disappointed with the quality of tunes in this mix. With the likes of The Shapeshifters, ATFC, No Halo, Future Funk, Haji & Emanuel, Wawa & Herd and Hoxton Whores thrown in, it’s almost a mini “best of 2008″.

Richard Earnshaw has been a busy man this year, putting his final touch to numerous floorfillers - the fact he has three remixes in a row at the start of the mix indicates just how impressive his work has been. No doubt we’ll be hearing more from Mr Earnshaw in 2009.

You’re also treated to some new material from a couple of local West Midlands ladies in the middle of the mix, firstly from the lovely Beverley Knight whose teamed up with Seamus Haji and Bryan Chambers in the brilliant “The Pressure“, then a funky number from new Birmingham label Nightingale Global Records with Pimp + Jam’s “Feelin’ U Feelin’ Me” which features the vocals of Norma Lewis.

There are also some classics (and all time One Phat DJ favourites) revisited towards the end of the mix in ATFC’s 2008 remix of his classic collaboration with Lisa Millet “Bad Habit” and The Shapeshifters injecting a touch of electro into their 2003 hit “Lola’s Theme“.

The whole package is wrapped up with a cheeky bootleg from Hoxton Whores who’ve mashed up Eric Prydz’s “Pjanoo” with the vocals from “Fusion“. This track has had massive support from the Hed Kandi circuit and I must admit - I actually prefer it to the original Pjanoo track. What better way to finish off the year?

So what are you waiting for?

Download the Encore MP3 right now!

Track Listing

1. Doug Willis - Shake
   Z Records
   00:00:00:00
2. Louie Vega & Jay ‘Sinister’ Sealee ft Julie McKnight - Diamond Life (Richard Earnshaw Remix)
   Bar Grooves
   00:07:52:37
3. No Halo - Put Your Hands On (Richard Earnshaw Mix)
   Hed Kandi Records
   00:12:52:37
4. Beatz Kinetic - Push The Fader (Earnshaw & Jones Remix)
   Duffnote
   00:18:05:47
5. Future Funk - Wildberry Tracks 2008 (Leo Cuenca Vocal Mix)
   Ambassade Records
   00:23:52:37
6. Knights Of The Round Tables - Grooved Me (Dirty Disco Mix)
   Room Control Records
   00:28:22:37
7. Loveless ft Amanda Wilson - Found A Miracle (Simmons & Christopher Club Mix)
   Groove Factory
   00:34:58:09
8. Haji & Emanuel ft Bryan Chambers & Beverly Knight - The Pressure (Original Mix)
   ITH
   00:40:42:32
9. Pimp + Jam ft Norma Lewis - Feel U Feelin Me (Hustler DJs Club Mix)
   Nightingale Global Recordings
   00:46:11:19
10. Wawa & Herd ft Amanda Wilson - The Right Way 2008 (Chris Ortega Funky Mix)
    JFunk Recordings
    00:51:03:56
11. Redroche - Give U More (Original Mix)
    Eyezcream Records
    00:56:33:56
12. The Shapeshifters - Lola’s Theme (2008 Re-edit)
    Nocturnal Groove
    01:02:03:56
13. ATFC ft Lisa Millett - Bad Habit (ATFC’s Lektrotek Re-Visit)
    Defected
    01:06:03:56
14. Hoxton Whores vs Pryda - Fusion vs Pjanoo (Hoxton Whores Bootleg)
    White Label
    01:13:18:56

Seeing as I was Yahoo! web developer for a year, you’d think I’d be “eating dog food” by pimping the YUI JavaScript library. Don’t get me wrong - it is a very powerful and comprehensive framework and definitely worth experimenting with at some point.

Unfortunately though, I had already been playing around with jQuery prior to my employment there so I was already sold on the minimalist, simple approach to jQuery, hence why it is my personal favourite.

Recently, I’ve been building quite a comprehensive web application at Premium Choice which relies heavily on JavaScript. There are many dependencies within the form whereby certain fields should only be shown when other options are selected.

The form adopts a step-by-step accordion wizard interface to simplify the process, therefore certain screens are hidden throughout the process. I was having issues trying to hide already hidden fields when changing options elsewhere. jQuery must be making the assumption that it is already hidden so you don’t need to hide it. However, I wanted to preserve that hidden state when the containing screen was eventually shown.

To get around this, you need to control the actual CSS rather than relying on the pre-defined jQuery $.show() and $.hide() functions, like so:

 if($(this).val()=='something') {
  // show the relating hidden field.
  $('#target_field').css('display', 'block');
} else {
  // hide the relating hidden field.
  $('#target_field').css('display', 'none');
}

It is very unlikely that this situation arises but, on the rare occasion when you encounter it, at least now you’ll know a way around it.

One of my all time favourite house producers from the last twenty years is Dave Lee.

You may not know him by that name but I wouldn’t be surprised if you’ve heard one or more of his tunes. He’s been known to saunter around the dance charts in many different guises such as Joey Negro, Sessomatto, Z Factor, Jakatta, Raven Maize, Akabu - the list goes on!

Last month, he released a compilation of material he’s created under one of his cheekier pseudonyms, Doug Willis. (Don’t get him mixed up with that Ozzy soap character who fathered another wannabe popstar.)

Throughout the previous twenty years, Dave has been releasing some outstanding productions as Doug Willis. The sound is a lot more disco heavy compared to his other material but don’t let that put you off - in my opinion, Dave is one of the finest disco house producers on the circuit and this eclectic collection confirms just that.

It still holds some of his trademark samples that you tend to notice now and then and with backing from some stunning vocalists, you’re sure to find a few firm favourites among the 2 disc set.

My personal favourites include “Shake“, “Gotta Thing“, “Get Down Tonight” and “Doug’s Place” but that’s being picky. All 21 tracks on the album are worthy in their own right.

Disc 1

1. Intro
2. Power To The People
3. Get Your Own
4. Dougdastardly
5. Begun 2 Luv U
6. Dougswana
7. Spread Love
8. You & I (Timmy Vegas Remix)
9. Two Tons Of Doug
10. Shake
11. Disco Owl

Disc 2

1. Skate Dancer
2. Discotizer
3. Gotta Thing
4. Think
5. Get Down Tonight
6. The Lovin’ Game
7. Doug’s Place
8. Dancin To The Beat
9. Tonight’s The Night (Sensory Elements Remix)
10. Dancin’

The EP is actually available from most big name online stores - iTunes are selling it for £9.48, grab it on CD from Amazon for £10.99, Play have got it for £10.99, Juno have it on download from £8.99 and CD for £9.99 and Traxsource have a high quality download for $17.99 (about £12.23 on today’s exchange rate).

Any house music fan should grab a copy right now. For about a tenner, it’s an absolute bargain and sure to get regular plays both out in the clubs and on your own.

Two years ago, I suggested how a rotation property would be a welcome introduction to CSS, allowing designers and developers to control their designs even further with an often used design pattern.

It seems I wasn’t alone in thinking of this and we are now getting very close to a fully supported solution.

Last year, the forward thinking WebKit guys implemented a new -webkit-transform property to their rendering engine. Among many things, this new property allowed for any element in a web document to be rotated using some very simply syntax:

#my_element {
  -webkit-transform: rotate(90deg);
}

This was all well and good but with support limited to WebKit browsers (like Safari and Omniweb), it had very limited appeal - it was more of a test bed for the future.

Only last month though, the Mozilla team released a nightly build which also supported the new transform property, also prepending their specialist prefix to it as -moz-transform which took the same values as -webkit-transform.

Mozilla also included a secondary property called -moz-transform-origin which allows you to control the point of origin (default is around the centre point).

By using the following code, you will have two of the most popular rendering engines covered when it comes to rotating:

#my_element {
  -webkit-transform: rotate(90deg);
  -moz-transform: rotate(90deg);
}

That’s Safari and Firefox now covered!

It’s obviously still too early to rely on these CSS properties for mass coverage but if you think along the lines of progressive enhancement - offering a richer experience to users of modern browsers while delivering basic functionality to those less fortunate - it is certainly something you can start playing with.

Twitter have done it with the rounded corners on their recent redesign and I’ve started sprucing up my redesign with several CSS 2.1 properties (check out the slightly rotated headings in the sidebar).

Generally speaking, this is a great move forward with the CSS specification. It’s unlikely to become a firm standard for many years yet but at least you can start sprucing up your designs by experimenting with the CSS Transform properties.

Back in 2003, one of my all time favourite tracks was released - The Shapeshifters‘ “Lola’s Theme“. The catchy vocals, the uplifting instrumentals - every aspect of the tune was what made a perfect house record for me. It quickly became a firm favourite in my record box and iPod, as well as among the crowds I went clubbing with.

So imagine my surprise this morning when I was informed by DJ Cruze that not only was the instrumental a sample but so were the vocals.

That trademark string sample is from What About My Love by Johnny Taylor - a disco track from 1984 - and the chorus is from Love Me Tonight by Anthony White - an acid house track from 1994.

For anyone who is a fan of Lola’s Theme, don’t forget the 2008 Re-Edit has just been released on Defected. It’s a little more of a twisted electro affair this time round but still got that original charm in my opinion.

Check it out on YouTube or grab a copy from iTunes.