Teach Me the Web

October 13, 2008

I finally got around to making it to a Refresh Baltimore event on this past Wednesday.  It worked out nicely because we had off for school on Thursday for Yom Kippur so there was no rush to get back home.  With me, aside from my wife (I clubbed her and made her go) was Zac Gordon web design teacher of Springbrook High School. Incidentally, we also got a chance to eat a nice meal with some friends in Baltimore that we don’t get to see that often so great time all around.  Now my wife on the other hand probably would not agree.

If you’re the type of person that would rather see the presentation that hear my words about it you can watch it thanks to Mr. Gordon who videotaped the event.  So a big thank you goes out to him for posting it.  Thanks Zac!

What is Refresh Baltimore?

Refresh is a community of designers and developers working to refresh the creative, technical, and professional culture of New Media endeavors in their areas. Promoting design, technology, usability, and standards.

Who spoke about what?

I was doubly excited because the speaker, Richard Worth, is a contributor to the Jquery Library, a powerful lightweight javascript library.  However, he was there to chat about the Jquery UI Library.

How was it?

Amazing.  The Jquery UI library brings the effects you have seen before in the scriptaculous javascript library (and others) but with the selector style and chainability you have come to know and love with Jquery.  It really empowers the lightweight javascript programmer or the designer.

Can I see it in action?

Sure can.

• Effects
• Slider/Range
• Product Slider
• Photo Manager
• Image Cropping

You can see the power of this library as a web application tool.  Richard reminded us of the likeness to the Operating System function, meaning that webpages are mimicking the function that an Operating System gives you.  Cool stuff.

Can we hear him speak?

You can review his conference list to try to catch him, but he is coming to Damascus HS to speak to the AWT students sometime in the Spring.  (Woo Hoo!)