I’ve been creating some demo movies as part of my on-line classes and have posted them out on blip.tv.
I thought you might like to look at the series. I’ll be adding new ones on a regular basis.
Here’s a link showing all the videos available out on Blip.tv.
I’m using ScreenFlow to create my onscreen videos. This is an amazing program that allows me to capture video and sound and edit using scrolling and panning. Mac only. What is displayed here is only the video portion of the more complete tutorials I offer as part of my online and face2face courses.
The videos shots of my whiteboard talks are taken using a very inexpensive ($150) Aiptek HD1080P pocket-size video. Chad Peterson, one of my students is working on the editing. These resulted from one of my online students asking me to record my entire class. That is very difficult, getting good sound, but I thought I’d try some simple videos that focused on specific concepts to see how enhance the learning activities for each module.
I’d be interested in your comments on how useful these would be to you as a student. Thanks!
Here’s an excellent site that Andrew Maurer, our help desk aficionado, sent me. You can watch different sort algorithms in action by clicking on the sort data in each column. Notice how much faster some sorts are, especially when compared to the Bubble Sort.
http://www.cs.rit.edu/~atk/Java/Sorting/sorting.html
Thanks Andrew.
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Being a one-language programmer isn’t good enough any more. In today’s world you need to have the right “product mix” to stay in the job market. Here is a story from eWeek.com highlighting the ten most popular languages along with how many jobs are available for each based on the current jobs out on dice.com, one of the more popular tech job sites.
Java and C# rate the highest with a total of over 19,500 jobs. Keep in mind that C# is the “Java” as part of Microsoft Visual Studio. If you learn Java and you’ll be able to easily write code in either language. Another hot language to know right now is VB.NET with 2,090 jobs.
What the article doesn’t cover is the future… In the next 10 years 30-50% of the COBOL programmers in the USA are going to retire. When I first heard these numbers, several years ago, I thought that the mainframe companies would convert over to the languages that are now common on the PC platforms, but this is not proving to be the case. According to the IT people at Wells Fargo Bank, COBOL be around for a long time to come.
Chad Fowler, the author of “My Job Went to India – 52 Ways to Save Your Job” adds to this discussion. He points out that “Java and .NET programmers are a dime a dozen in India. As a .NET programmer, you may find yourself competing with tens of thousands of more people in the market than you would if you were, for example, a Python [or Ruby On Rails} programmer.” He points out that, “You don’t find mainstream Indian offshoring companies jumping on unconventional technologies. They aren’t first-movers. They generally don’t take chances.”
He recommends competing in the job market in which there is actually lower demand globally and focusing on niche technologies such as COBOL in the banking industry or Ruby-On-Rails, which is the cutting edge (right now) in web programming.
Does this mean you shouldn’t take Java or VB.NET? Not really. These languages are considered the base knowledge for today’s programmers. And, once you understand how Java and VB.NET works you can pick up other languages like Ruby On Rails much more quickly.
The key is not to focus on any particular language but to learn the concepts that are common to all programming languages. Once you have that base you can adapt quickly and easily to the changing needs of the job market, now, and in the future.
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Got API?
An Application Programming Interface is a set of functions that let you “hook” into a system without having access to the source code or inside workings of that system. There’s an API for all the modern languages like Java, PHP, Ruby On Rails, and HTML. Sites such as Google, Amazon, and eBay all have an API allowing programmers to access information from their sites. Here’s a list of the APIs Google has available for many of its services including maps, adwords, and Blogger data. This lets a savvy programmer include all types of eBay or Amazon services on their web site by using what these sites have already created.
You can also think of an API as a dictionary. Just like an English dictionary displays words and their meanings, an API lists all the functions available in the API as well as what type of information each one is expecting and what type of information each function will return. Programmers use an API as a reference in using functions correctly.
Up until now a programmer had to keep a copy of each API on their computer or keep a list of bookmarks pointing to the APIs out on Web.
gotapi.com changes all of that. All the common language APIs are now available from a single link page. (Sorry, the application APIs such as Google, Amazon, and eBay aren’t listed yet.) As a programmer this means you can find information quickly as you are writing code.
Tip: With the gotapi.com page displaying, click and drag the icon in the Address field 
of your browser and drop it on upper part of your Start menu button. You’ll see a solid black line showing you were it will be positioned as you drag it into the Start list.
Anytime you need to look up a function, gotAPI.com is only a click or two away.
- Special thanks to Sean Washington for reminding me about this really great programming tool.
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Everyone likes free books. Here is an excellent resource being organized by Globaltext.org .
Here’s a summary from their web site:
Through what he’s dubbed, “The Global Text Project,” Rick Watson and an international team of professors aim to create a free library of 1,000 electronic textbooks covering subjects typically encountered during the first two years of college. A prototype text is already complete, and work is underway on the first book in the series.
The prototype book was created in 2004 because Watson couldn’t find a comprehensive textbook for a graduate level XML programming class he was teaching. Each student was assigned to write chapter, and Watson served as editor-in-chief. The book, “XML: Managing Data Exchange” (http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/XML), turned out so well that it is still used in classes at UGA today. Each class that uses the text makes improvements on it, leaving it in better condition than they found it.
I looked through the XML text as well as the Java text and they both are an excellent resource for my class.
It’s interesting. Last semester I had my Web III (XML) class start a Wiki as part of the learning process. The idea was to do exactly what wikibooks is doing, although I didn’t know about wikibooks back then. I was disappointed when the students simply posted information that they copied from other sources on the Web in order to complete the assignment each week. I deleted the whole thing over the summer and decided not to pursue it.
Now I’m thinking of resurrecting this project. We could focus on a specific topic and all work together using a private wiki (a wiki is a web page where a group of people can all edit the pages – wikipedia is the most famous of these.) At the end of the semester we could submit the chapter to wikibooks.
Meanwhile, you don’t have to be in a third-world country to take advantage of these textbooks. Go out and find your favorite topics and bookmark them for reference.
Thanks to Tom Edwards for sending me the link about this.
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For just a minute imagine you are an employer deciding who to hire. Both candidates seem to be excellent programmers. They both interviewed well, making good eye contact and each had a nice strong handshake. The first candidate types 30 word per minute and the other types 90 words per minute. Let’s say the position pays $30/hour… One employee has the potential to produce over 3 times more than the other. Which would you hire?
So, how do you become that 90 wpm person?
I strongly recommend using TuxType, an open-source typing tutor, that is available on SourceForge. You’ll not only improve your typing speed but you’ll have a grand time doing it.
Here’s some tips on increasing your typing speed in 10 minutes.
Cognitive scientists have found out that not all our memory is in our brains. Virtually every cell in our body “remembers” things. Athletes have demonstrated this for years.
You can use this to your advantage by practicing twice each day. First, practice intensely for 10 minutes every night before you go to sleep. 10 minutes. No more. No less. Your brain and muscles will continue processing the information as you sleep. Then when you wake up do the same practice for another 10 minutes. Intensely, with no distractions. This will reinforce what you learned the night before, telling your brain (and each muscle cell) that, “Hey, This is important!”.
Keep doing that seven days a week without fail and you’ll be typing a steady 90 wpm in no time.
Want to customize the practice words?
TuxType uses simple text files for its word list. Look in the folders to find these lists and then make up your own. I made a list of all the HTML tags and several special characters in order to help me increase my speed with the less than, >, and & keys.
