2009-09-22
JavaBlackBelt is pleased to support JAOO Conference taking place in Aarhus, Denmark from 4-9th October 2009.
For our members, JAOO offers a free pass worth € 1,880.- .
View the JAOO auction.
JAOO Aarhus is the premier European software conference focused on engaging the hearts and minds of developers.
The event covers a variety of technologies including Enterprise Java, Ajax, Cloud, .NET, Functional Languages, Web 2.0, Architecture & Design, iPhone Application Development, Agility and more.
Full JAOO speaker list.
Full JAOO schedule for the conference
In addition to the main conference (5-7th October), delegates may choose to attend the scheduled additional tutorial days taking place on 4th, 8th and 9th October.
2009-07-24
We are currently deep in the process of rethinking what JavaBlackBelt is about and how it should work. We believe that by making it more useful, user-friendly and smarter, you, the community, will be better served and more engaged.
In the spirit of releasing early and often to get your feedback, features from this re-thought JavaBlackBelt - 4.0, for those keeping count - will be introduced regularly over the coming months.
The first, very modest, such feature is the new user profile page. Over time, it will become the central place to keep up with JavaBlackBelt activities of interest to you.
We've also decided to switch user interface technology. Out with Struts 2 and its page-driven model and JSP rendering, in with Vaadin and its component model and Swing/GWT-like API.
Vaadin is a UI framework sort of combines JSF and GWT. It actually uses GWT to render a thin client-side JavaScript application, but tracks the state of the UI on the server side.
Though the switch is a big one, the gains are worth it: working in Java all the way down to the client, but without having to worry about the limitations imposed when serializing objects to JavaScript.
We'll write more about this technical choice later.
2009-06-10
Since a few weeks now, the BlackBelt core team has been busy with creating quality material for learning Java technology. Besides coaches we are also looking for reviewers for the course material.
If you are interested in grabbing a few more contribution points feel free to send an email to nicolas {at} java black belt {dot} com to get the access.
2009-04-23
 We're coming to Cracow, Poland for the GeeCON conference on
May 7-8 to run the JavaBlackBelt challenge.
The first ten Belted Community Members to visit us will receive a
JavaBlackBelt T-shirt or polo.
One of you can join us for free by participating in the
GeeCON Conference Pass auction.
2009-04-15
Yesterday, your have been many to take the JavaBlackBelt challenge at the JSpring conference (Amsterdam). iProfs hosted us on its booth where Burak (from iProfs) gave a warm welcome to everybody.
Thank you for your participation, it was fun!.
See the pictures
2009-04-01
As you may know, JavaBlackBelt has just started a new coached e-learning activity to keep on building better developers. We're going to build and enhance the courses with community involvement, just like we do the exams. The courses are currently are hosted on an external CMS service, so the contribution process will initially be a bit manual.
Find out how to get more contribution points and recognition from the community at http://todos.javablackbelt.com
2009-03-13
Our friends of GIDS 2009 offer 10 entrances for their conference.
Great Indian Developer Summit is the biggest gathering of software developers from Java/J2EE, Microsoft computing technologies, Rich Internet Applications (RIA), Web 2.0, Ajax, Agile, SOA, and Enterprise IT. The theme for 2009 is "Tools, Technologies, Tips and Tomfoolery to Beat the Downturn". The speakers include Stephen Forte, Craig Mc Clanahan, Mike Benkovich, Dr. Venkat Subramaniam, Jonas Jacobi and Dr. Jim Webber who will cover topics such as Oslo, C#4.0, T-SQL Tips & Tricks, HTML 5 Communication, Guerrilla SOA, RESTful Apps with RoR & workshops on Programming MS Live Mesh, JRuby, Building Mashups & more.
The partial program (80%), including both sessions and workshops and the outline agenda has been published. Voting is also open until April 3 for the Great Indian Developer Awards; winners will be announced on April 25.
2009-02-28
This is the interview " How JavaBlackBelt Helped my Career" of Lukasz Kryger, taken at QCon London last year.
Lukasz was the lucky winner of the free pass offered in the auction room. It may be still time to win yours.
2009-02-17
The results of the 3rd survey are very exciting!
See the summary, video and report.
The results of the two first surveys will be published in the coming weeks.
Thank you for your feedback!
2009-02-07
(English summary below)
Nous avons eu et allons faire des activités intéressantes avec le très actif Paris JUG.
En Juin 2008, John a animé 2 sessions (en Français) dont vous trouverez les videos au ParisJUG.org
- Meilleurs Développeurs
- Comment Attirer et Garder les Développeurs
Le ParisJUG a décidé de féliciter sur son site tous les Français ayant passé une ceinture JavaBlackBelt. Notez la congratulation box (traduite) dans la partie gauche du site ParisJug.org.
JavaBlackBelt donne 15 points de contribution à tous les membres du Paris JUG sur demande au Paris JUG .
Finalement, JavaBlackBelt ira festoyer à Paris à l'occasion du premier anniversaire du Paris JUG. A cette occasion, nous ferons une activité learning-community plutot spéciale, que vous pourez déguster on-line.
English summary:
- Videos of 2 HR-oriented sessions animated by John are on-line, in French (sorry): Better Developpers, and How to Attract and Keep Developpers.
- French new belts are congratulated on ParisJUG.org.
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- Paris JUG members get 15 contribution points
- For the 1st anniversary of ParisJUG, JavaBlackBelt will join the party with a fun-special community-learning activity (video on-line after the event).
2009-01-20
The mission of JBB is to provide a great learning experience for our members. And we feel that the best place to go for feedback on how we are doing and how we should expand our services is, no doubt, directly to our members. If you have 5 minutes, we invite you to take this 7 question survey. The survey results will be reported in our next newsletter, with the results of the 2 surveys that we conducted in 2008.
PS: As a show of appreciation, we'll credit your account with 10 Contribution Points (at the end of the survey in 2-3 weeks)!
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2009-12-08
A few corba exams have just been created thanks to Martin Heinzl. These 3 exams are waiting for your questions.
2009-07-01
Alternative languages are currently the hottest thing on the JVM, so it's only fitting we should acknowledge them here at JavaBlackBelt, by simultaneously creating exams around two technologies that show just how vibrant the Java platform is.
There's an exam for the statically-typed Scala language, led by Jonhnny Weselly. If you know closures, can tell your map from your fold and compose your classes with traits, we need your questions!
On the dynamic language side, we've got a brand-new Grails exam, led by Mateusz Kwasniewski. If you know how Grails implements MVC and brings Rails-like productivity to standard Java frameworks, we'd be happy to get your questions.
2009-05-29
The Groovy - Basic exam has been released! It's a great testing tool for those getting started with Groovy, a dynamic language based on Java.
The exam covers basic Groovy skills, typically encountered early by those learning Groovy. It's main topics are:
- Running Groovy
- Fundamental Groovy
- Groovy Datatypes
- Groovy Control Structures
- and Groovy Beans
Think you know Groovy? Find out by taking the exam today!
2009-04-16
People often tell us that it's quite hard to figure out what JavaBlackBelt is all about.
And our new Coached e-Learning concept is going to add an extra layer to this confusion!
To solve this problem, we were planning to modify JavaBlackBelt website's home page, then we stepped back. Most web applications that we know have two sites.
- A "front" site that explains what it is.
- The application for registered users.
We decided to take this path too.
Starting today, when you go to www.JavaBlackBelt.com, you will find a new "get to know us" site - a set of multimedia resources explaining what JavaBlackBelt is and how people benefit from it.
For existing users, you get to the application site, where you take exam and contribute, by clicking on "the community site" button.
The home page of new site contains a 5-minute video that gives an overview of JavaBlackBelt. Existing users may well discovery aspects of JavaBlackBelt that they can benefit from too, so please check it out.
We hope that our many new visitors to JavaBlackBelt will better understand how it all works and how they can best take advantage of JavaBlackBelt for their specific needs.
2009-04-06
Distant Learning survey results
In December 2008 we conducted a survey about Distant Learning. We are pleased to share the report ( PDF) with you, which helped us determine:
- How people learn Java
- The perceived disadvantages of classical courses and traditional e-learning
- The perceived advantages of coached e-learning
- Which course elements coached eLearning should offer
- Why developers take exams
- How many hours a week developers would spend on e-learning
- If managers would offer coached e-learning to their developers
- If developers think managers would allow them to take coached e-learning
Again, we would like to thank the 130 participants in this survey.
New survey, more points
We are launching our next survey as a follow-on, this time specifically on Coached eLearning.
You can take the new survey here: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=SaH59Fy0TxcZykQKMN_2ftZA_3d_3d. As usual, we will reward your participation to the survey with 10 contribution points per participant.
You'll be able to read our conclusions by the end of April 2009.
2009-03-18
Here are the interviews of the 3 first professionals having taken a JavaBlackBelt coached e-learning: Patrick, Toan, and Véronique.
We have also interviewed their managers yesterday. To be published soon...
As soon as I catch an unhappy student, I'll interview him to be fair. I hope I won't have to make one unhappy on purpose, in order to have my article ;-)
2009-03-04
Visiting the JavaOne pavilion ... sometimes funny, often interesting. In this (late ;-) second part, we visit AMD, Oracle, and Sun Microsystems.
2009-02-13
As you know, we go to QCon London, March 9-13, and we are happy to offer a free pass to one of you.
Just bid in the auction room.
2009-01-21
This week JavaBlackBelt has reached agreement with Boston-based Global Force DIRECT for distribution rights of our enterprise services across North America and India. We believe that this move represents a major milestone for our company and community – we will be well-represented and poised for expansion into two of the world’s largest IT markets!
More about this on our blog and our press release.
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