Jeremy Ricketts works for iCrossing Inc. by day and enjoys freelancing by night, such as the website he built for the Coffee Depot, a local chain in southern California. The Coffee Depot holds a special place for me as it was a favorite escape when I needed to write a paper back in my college days. Its a treat to see it on ExpressionEngine and what Jeremy says about their espresso is true!

Tell us a little about yourself. How did you get started in web development?

Jeremy Ricketts: I got into web development like most people I know… completely by accident. I started by doing simple html pages, then discovered PHP, and eventually started trying out various CMS’s. I was freelance for a few years, then started contracting for goldstar.com, got hired there, and then got recruited to a large web agency a couple years ago.

Give us a little history on the Coffee Depot and how you ended up with the job.

Jeremy Ricketts: Coffee Depot has a special place in my heart as it’s one of the only real venues in my hometown where you can go to hear live music, poetry, etc. Their open mic’ night is packed every week and it’s very close to UC Riverside where I went to school. The owners already knew me and knew I did web design for small businesses.

Why did you choose ExpressionEngine for the site?

Jeremy Ricketts: This was one my first ExpressionEngine sites. Nearly every bit of the site is editable by the client. They were already using Google Calendar with their staff, so they were very keen on the idea of doing simple Google Calendar integration. What makes ExpressionEngine so wonderful for a front-end developer like me, is the templating layer. It’s really refreshing to have such a capable middle layer between my markup and the ExpressionEngine PHP. This was always something that drove me nuts about other CMS’s- having to fudge around with the PHP. Even though I’m not a programmer, it’s really amazing what I can get done with the native functionality of ExpressionEngine, a few plugins, and some creativity.

What aspect of the site are you most proud of?

Jeremy Ricketts: At the time I was pretty proud of the little jQuery lightbox I rolled out. You can see it on the locations page for the image thumbnails. This kind of started as an experiment (at the time I was just learning jQuery) and I was surprised at how little code it took to do that.

How does your client like the site?

Jeremy Ricketts: They love it. I wish they would update it more. But yeah, they think it’s the bee’s knees.

Are you using any ExpressionEngion Add-ons on the site?

Jeremy Ricketts:

• Image Sizer by David Recher
• File Uploader by Mark Huot
• Other tech details: sIFR3, Amazon S3 for static files (css, js, and layout images), and jQuery.

What’s your favorite drink at the Coffee Depot?

Jeremy Ricketts: Ha! Well, I am an Americano kind of guy. They have this super fancy one called a “Ice Blended Moondoggie” which is tastes kinda like a snickers bar if it was a blended coffee drink (if that makes sense). I just always get an Americano because they are so good at pulling espresso and I can’t pass that up.

What’s next for you?

Jeremy Ricketts: Right now, I’m wrapping up some of my freelance projects to I can get working on some long overdue personal projects (some of which will involve ExpressionEngine on the back end). Some of them are just ridiculous and fun and others are a bit more involved and interesting. ExpressionEngine has sparked an interest in content management systems for me, and I am currently learning some Ruby on Rails to try and scratch that itch. I think RoR will work well for creating more purpose driven, stupid-simple CMS systems where I need control over exactly what the user sees on the back end. ExpressionEngine will remain my weapon of choice for managing content on most other kinds of websites.