RocketTheme Blog

James Spencer has been a valued member of the RocketTheme team since 2007 and has been involved in Joomla product development, documentation, and support throughout that time. He holds two degrees in Law, and currently resides in the UK.

In this article, we’ll ask James a series of questions in order to get to know him a bit more.

When and how did you begin with RocketTheme? What are some of the jobs you've had with us?

I joined RocketTheme in early 2007 as a member to use one of the templates for a project for College. I started helping out in the forums, and then was brought on board as part of the Moderator team and have become steadily more involved over the years. 
I've been involved in a lot of different areas over the past five years. These include: support (forum/email/premier support), demo construction, documentation, side development projects like Afterburner2, assisting with the main club releases, bug fixes, updates, and lots of different maintenance tasks over the years.

What is it like working for RocketTheme?

In short, awesome! Working from home is a great opportunity. Being part of a truly diverse and international working group really adds that something special. There are not many places you can work at that enable you to converse with people from the Americas, Europe and Asia, simultaneously. We all work hard, work together, and have a great time. 



Describe your workspace.

Screens, screens everywhere! Well not perhaps anymore. I have a small office with my 27" iMac, a 22" secondary LG display. I do have a 24" LG but not in use, as it hurt my neck too much from turning! First world coding problems! In short, very clean, tidy and bright!



What does your average day look like?

I live in England, so it’s very cloudy. I start my day by checking messages from the previous day from the RocketTheme team, then our support system. Then it’s on to any project that I'm needed for on that day, whether the monthly release, conversions, or whatever. Every day starts the same, but each ends up being quite different as I shift from project to project.



What are you working on right now?

Primarily, Joomla 3 conversions and upcoming template releases.



Take us through your home screen. Why those apps?

My standard work apps that I always have open are TextMate (I haven’t made the jump to Sublime Text yet, as I'm very particular about my setup), Chrome, MAMP Pro and Adobe Fireworks from time to time. I use a wide array of other apps, such as Paparazzi to supplement my main apps for varying tasks such as screenshotting, FTP and file comparison. James Spencer Desktop Apps

Dock (Left to Right): TotalFinder, Mail, Messages, HipChat, Chrome, Viber, iTunes, TextMate, MAMP Pro, Transmit, Adobe Fireworks, ImageOptim, JPEGMini, Araxis Merge, Adium, Versions, BetterZip, Paparazzi, Parallels & 1Password.

What do you do when you're not working?

I'm a social fiend, I love being out with friends and family, dinner, drinks, movies, long romantic walks... and other overly cliche activities. Where possible, I love travelling across the country to new regions and cities.

Five Things You May Not Know about James

• I have two degrees (Bachelors and Masters) in Law.
• My favourite games are from the Halo franchise.
• I hate any hot drinks, including tea, despite being English.
• My favourite TV genres are Sci-fi and Comedy.
• I'm a cat lover. 



Find James on the Web

Twitter: @Muffindcc