What’s the Word – JSMag, Themes & Meetups

There are some fun things in the works right now in the JavaScript world, one of them is the new JSMag, which is putting out exciting JavaScript specific content to readers every month. I recently took on the role of a monthly column writer for their new "Hello World" column which focuses on things that are more generally glazed over by technical columns. With this monthly column we are targeting readers with a high interest in JavaScript that have not yet gained enough experience with the language to get the full effect of more technical pieces.

JSMag's blog post outlined their reasoning and intentions with this new piece:

...some of the feedback received has led us to introduce a new column this month. A recurring piece of feedback so far has been that much of the content appeared to be more advanced than many readers felt they could deal with. To that end, we’re introducing a new writer and column to our line up - Shea Frederick.

My first piece went out in the July issue of JSMag, and other than complaints from non Steelers fans (you know who you are) I was very happy with the resulting article.

Shea will be covering topics of interest to developers new to JavaScript, and perhaps even new to programming in general. His first piece this month is “Choosing a JavaScript Library” which can help someone new to the JavaScript scene understand the various options and make an informed decision.

Looking forward to increasing JavaScript's stranglehold on the world!! muhahaha!!! (evil laugh)

ExtJS Themes

Ive been playing with ExtJS themes lately, and im having a blast creating some very fancy looking stuff. It really is amazing how quickly you can make ExtJS widgets not look like ExtJS widgets anymore. Goodbye default theme.

Keep an eye out here for stuff to do with creating themes for ExtJS, you will not be disappointed.

JavaScript User Group

The Baltimore/DC area is a hotbed of IT work. A good portion of the work here is web related, and a chunk of that of course is JavaScript related, so for the past six months I have been hosting a JavaScript meetup group in Columbia, MD (halfway between Baltimore and the District). I have throughly enjoyed meeting people in my field, and discussing various things which are most often, but not always related to JavaScript.

Our next meetup on August 4th has a local JavaScript guru Lokesh Dhakar giving us his insights into user interaction. Please come out and join us if your in the area, we always have a great mix of local badasses and newbies show up. A few local business pitch in to make this happen every month, OmniTI provides our meeting space, and Mind Over Machines keeps our bellies full of pizza - thanks goes out to both of them.