Ray Nicholus is a software developer for Widen in Madison Wisconsin who has been heavily involved in browser-based front-end development for years. From a popular JavaScript cross-browser no-dependency file upload library, to widely used web components, he has spent quite a lot of time writing libraries and web applications.

Since 2012 he has also been the lead developer and product manager of Fine Uploader, a popular cross-browser no-dependency file upload JavaScript library with a large number of unique features. He also is heavily involved in the open source web application software community through his work on various software libraries dealing with web components, video and image manipulation, and file identification.

In addition to frequent coding outside of his day job, he spends much time speaking about web development topics. He’s presented to students at the University of Wisconsin and DePaul University regarding careers in software development. Furthermore, he has prepared and delivered presentations to many professional developers regarding the mysteries of Cross Origin Resource Sharing, the importance of automated testing, the File API web specification, and the web components specifications. He organized and taught a JavaScript 101 class targeted at interested professionals, and spoke about the usefulness of uploading files directly to Amazon’s Simple Storage Service from the browser via Fine Uploader.

His writing includes the “You Don’t Need jQuery” series of blog posts, articles on Google Glass, and a large number of articles that help developers integrate file uploading capabilities into their web application or library. He was also featured in an article in Fortune Magazine by Anne Fisher based on his experiences with Google Glass in the workplace.

You can find a complete list of his most notable articles at RayNicholus.com.