As Chief Technical Officer for SitePoint, Kevin Yank keeps abreast of all that is new and exciting in web technology. Best known for his book, Build Your Own Database Driven Web Site Using PHP & MySQL, he also co-authored Simply JavaScript with Cameron Adams and Everything You Know About CSS Is Wrong! with Rachel Andrew. In addition, Kevin hosts the SitePoint Podcast and co-writes the SitePoint Tech Times, a free email newsletter that goes out to over 240,000 subscribers worldwide.

Kevin lives in Melbourne, Australia and enjoys speaking at conferences, as well as visiting friends and family in Canada. Hes also passionate about performing improvised comedy theater with Impro Melbourne ( http://www.impromelbourne.com.au/ ) and flying light aircraft. Kevins personal blog is Yes, Im Canadian ( http://yesimcanadian.com/ ).

For Amelia.

I wanted to have a picture here of me holding a boombox above my head, but they wouldnt let me.

Will you marry me?

For Jennifer:
People whove met me
Only since Ive known you
Never understand the
Good youve lead me to
Always

No matter what kind of ninja you area cooking ninja, a corporate lawyer ninja, or an actual ninja ninjavirtuosity lies in first mastering the basic tools of the trade. Once conquered, its then up to the full-fledged ninja to apply that knowledge in creative and inventive ways.

In recent times, jQuery has proven itself to be a simple but powerful tool for taming and transforming web pages, bending even the most stubborn and aging browsers to our will. jQuery is a library with two principal purposes: manipulating elements on a web page, and helping out with Ajax requests. Sure, there are quite a few commands available to do thisbut theyre all consistent and easy to learn. Once youve chained together your first few actions, youll be addicted to the jQuery building blocks, and your friends and family will wish youd never discovered it!

On top of the core jQuery library is jQuery UI: a set of fine-looking controls and widgets (such as accordions, tabs, and dialogs), combined with a collection of full-featured behaviors for implementing controls of your own. jQuery UI lets you quickly throw together awesome interfaces with little effort, and serves as a great example of what you can achieve with a little jQuery know-how.

At its core, jQuery is a tool to help us improve the usability of our sites and create a better user experience. Usability refers to the study of the principles behind an objects perceived efficiency or elegance . Far from being merely flashy, trendy design, jQuery lets us speedily and enjoyably sculpt our pages in ways both subtle and extreme: from finessing a simple sliding panel to implementing a brand-new user interaction you invented in your sleep.

Becoming a ninja isnt about learning an API inside out and back to frontthats just called having a good memory. The real skill and value comes when you can apply your knowledge to making something exceptional: something that builds on the combined insights of the past to be even slightly better than anything anyone has done before. This is certainly not easybut thanks to jQuery, its fun just trying.