Sunday, August 31, 2008

Book Promotions

Today, I've just received a notification mail from JavaRanch saying that I won the Book Promotions again! Thanks God! This is the second time I won the Book Promotions. The first one was Head First PMP. And now... I've won the promotion of Beginning Object-Oriented JavaScript. I am looking forward to reading the book soon!

Ciao

Saturday, August 23, 2008

Outdated

As a seasoned Developer, I find that Java technologies are growing very fast. I don’t know about other technologies like .NET, Oracle, SAP, etc. I am pretty sure they are also growing, but I don’t know about their growing speed.

When I learn Java for the first time, I was using Java 1.4. I kept using it until I graduated from university. In my first job as Developer, my then project was using Java 1.4. At that time, Java 5 was still on beta version. One year had passed. I began to work in CSC Singapore. I was using various Java versions at that time due to I handled few projects at the same time. And… I was quite surprised when I suddenly heard that Java 5 had been released officially. I was, because I remembered I was using Java 1.3 at that time. I told to myself… OMG Java 5 is coming out and I am still here stuck with Java 1.3?? I really felt outdated. My situation hadn’t changed so much in one year after Java 5 was released. I remembered I was working in UOB, doing some bug-fixings and enhancements for a lousy client-server Swing application and … Java 6 was released!! I couldn’t believe it. I never even used Java 5 before and… now Java 6 has been released?? Thank God I could start to use Java 5 after I resigned from UOB. Although I used it only for a while, but at least I managed to put the experience on my resume.

Not only in Java Technology, I feel outdated in certifications area as well. As you know, I hold SCJP 1.4 and SCWCD 1.4, but now... SCJP 6 and SCWCD 5 have already been released! Don't ask me whether I'm interested to take the upgrade exam or not, but so far I am still satisfied with my 1.4 certificates.

As an IT guy who now wants to focus on his work, I am willing to put more certifications in my resume. I understand that certification is less important than real-world experience, but it would still be nice to have it. I am currently preparing for taking Sun Certification Business Component Developer (SCBCD) 5 exam. I feel that this certification, possibly, would be the last one I should take during my career as an Analyst/Developer. I am currently reading O'Reilly Enterprise JavaBeans 3 by Bill Burke. In addition, I read Mikalai Zaikin’s SCBCD 5 Exam Note (I am a fan of MZ Notes!). Unfortunately, quite different with my previous exams, I find so difficult to get some free mock exams online. I can only find the free mock exams from JavaBeat. Nevertheless, I'll try to get some other resources since I realized that in order to get a good score in certifications I must practice a lot and, not only that, I should actively discuss and share the problems in a forum such JavaRanch. I hope I can manage to get good score for this exam. Just wait and see.

Sunday, August 17, 2008

Free Rice

Few days ago, I saw this link, Free Rice, on one of my friends status in Yahoo Messenger. The point is that you generate the money that pays for the rice donated to hungry people by playing the vocabulary program. When you play the game, sponsor banners appear on the bottom of your screen. The money generated by these banners is then used to buy the rice. Happy donating!