AJaX stands for Asynchronous JavaScript and XML. It is used to create more dynamic web applications where data displayed on a web page is obtained by using JavaScript to make asynchronous calls to server-side code that typically return the data as XML. The calls are made using a JavaScript class called XMLHttpRequest.

This talk will walk through an AJaX application that uses a JavaScript library called Sarrisa. The application retrieves data from a MySQL database in a fashion similar to Google Suggest.

Mark Volkmann has been a software consultant for Object Computing, Inc. in St. Louis since 1996. He has been developing software in Java since 1995. For the past few years he has focused on using XML with Java. As a consultant, Mark has assisted many companies with Java and XML application development.

Mark has created and teaches many courses in Java and XML. They include: Introduction to Java, Java Syntax for Non-C Programmers, Java Programming, Advanced Java Programming, Creating Graphical User Interfaces Using Java (Swing), eXtensible Markup Language (XML), XML Programming Using Java and Web Services Using Java.

Mark is a member of the St. Louis Java User Group steering committee and a regular presenter for that group. He is also a member of the St. Louis Ruby User Group. Mark has written for XML Journal, presented at XML DevCon conferences and presented at No Fluff Just Stuff Java symposiums.