Other training near Atlanta

There are two inexpensive conferences being held “close” to the Atlanta area.  They appear to be extended code camps (2 to 3 days) with slightly broader topics but many of the same speakers.  Both appear to have some good sessions:

• ·        Codestock - http://codestock.org/
• ·        Dev Link - http://devlink.net/

Atlanta Code Camp

I enjoyed the Carolina code camp so much I decided to attend Atlanta’s version 2 weeks later (May 19^th).  This was my first time attending Atlanta’s code camp and I had another good day of sessions.  Glen Gordon gave a nice overview of Windows 8 HTML5 development and I learned what SignalR is all about (and that it doesn’t seem quite ready for prime time yet). Comparing the 2 code camps I would say that Carolina’s is a step above – maybe because the sessions offered this year in Carolina more aligned with my current interest. 

• ·        http://www.atlantacodecamp.org/

Carolina Code Camp '12

I missed it in ’11 but returned to Mathews, NC on Saturday May 5^th for their annual Carolina code camp.  I had another great experience meeting fellow developers and catching up on some of the latest technology and practices.  I focused entirely on web and client s sessions that covered MCV 4, HTML 5, CSS3, single page applications using knockout and upshot.  The organizers of this code camp do a great job and highly recommend attending next year if you are in the area…or want to make a geek weekend out of it…5 hour drive from Atlanta allowed me to catch up on my backlog of .net rocks, java posse and other podcasts.

• ·        http://codecamp.developersguild.org/

Net Helpmsg

So apparently Net Helpmsg this has been around for a while but I just discovered it today. I was trying to track down the cause of a build error which included in the stack "exited with code 5".

Net HelpMsg is a utility that provides the error message description when you provide an error code:

A couple of links for more details (if more is needed):

• http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb490705.aspx
• http://ss64.com/nt/net_help.html

Free Programming Windows Phone 7 Book

Veteran's Day today – Thank you to all who have served to protect us.

Charles Petzold has releases a free e-book: Programming Windows Phone 7. I have barely opened the book so far but I am having flashbacks to my first Windows 3.1 programming experience and clinging to his Programming Windows 3.1 book for survival…I'm tempted to dig through the boxes in my basement to find my copy and reread it's the hello world example!

You can find it at his site: http://www.charlespetzold.com/phone/index.html or from Microsoft

Windows 7 64-Bit and Eclipse Issue

This week I ran into issues setting up a java development environment on Windows 7 64-bit. I attempted to use my company’s image which includes: 1) 32-bit JDK 2) Eclipse Galileo (32 bit) 3) Subcliplse plugin 4) The Maven plugin, m2eclipse.

Everything seemed to be going well until I tried to install the plugins…and received “An error occurred while uninstalling”. I dorked around for a bit trying to get it to work but was unsuccessful.

Realizing my OS was different (Windows 7 64-bit), I started over and went full blown 64-bit:

1. Install JDK 6 for Windows 64 bit (http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/downloads/index.html)
2. Install Eclipse IDE for Jave EE Developers – Windows 64 bit (http://www.eclipse.org/downloads/)
3. Within Ecliplse install the m2Eclipse plugin (http://m2eclipse.sonatype.org/sites/m2e)
4. Within Ecliplse install the Subclipse plugin (http://subclipse.tigris.org/update_1.6.x)
5. Within Ecliplse install Maven Extras (http://m2eclipse.sonatype.org/sites/m2e-extras) to integrate with SVN in eclipse.
6. Install the 64-bit version of SlikSvn (http://www.sliksvn.com/en/download): Subclipse doesn’t natively support a 64-bit version of JavaHL so a separate install is needed.

With these alternate downloads things so far are working great!

"Practical Liferay" Book Review

Practical Liferay is a non-technical book that explains the capabilities of Liferay and how to create a portal using its out-of-the- box components. It provides an idiots introduction to what a portal is and then takes you through the various admin screens and how to use the applications/portlets available. It does not discuss how to develop portlets and just briefly mentions how to extend Liferay with hooks.

I don't recommend this book because:

1. Already outdated – Although the book was published in 2009, it covers Liferay version 5.1 and there are already 2 newer releases (5.2 and 6.0) available. There are enough differences between the versions that make the step by step instructions useless.
2. No depth – The book provides little insight into the design or features of the Liferay that you can't pick up by exploring Liferay itself.

I think this is more equivalent to a Liferay for dummies and suited more for non-technical administrator who wants step by step instructions on getting a portal setup – of course it doesn't cover how to do this end to end. I would recommend starting with the guides Liferay provides: the Liferay administration guide and development guides.