Brian Leonard's Blog

November 2005 Archives

The Fast Way to $5000

eBay just launched their Developer Challenge 2006. Here's a chance to potentially win $5000 plus a host of other prizes. You can participate as an individual or a team. They've even provided a list of project ideas to get you started. So what am I offering? The jump start to get up and developing quickly in the NetBeans IDE. Earlier this year I produced two articles, and I've just updated them both to make sure they still work with the latest NetBeans 4.1 release. They are:

• Using NetBeans to Develop with the eBay SDK for Java, and
• Launching the eBay Java SDK API Calls Demo Sample Application from NetBeans 4.1

The 1st article's a great getting started guide, outlining everything you need to do to get up and running with the eBay SDK. The 2nd article is great because it shows you how to run an application that demonstrates how to use 90% of the eBay API. Just figure out what you want to do and start by borrowing code from the sample application.

Now, if you decide to join as a team, take advantage of the NetBeans Collaboration modules. Or, if you want to live on the edge a little, check out the new Matisse GUI Builder in the NetBeans 5.0 Beta 2. This tool will seriously give you a leg up on any developer coding Swing by hand.

Create This

As a technology evangelist for NetBeans I obviously spend a lot of my time showing developers all of the great new features in the IDE. Two of those new features are the Matisse GUI Builder and the Visual Mobile Designer, both of which allow for drag-and-drop GUI development. So we've got rich client development covered in both the J2SE and J2ME spaces, but what about J2EE? The common question I always get is 'Do you have a WSIWIG JSP editor'? In NetBeans, no. However, we have a separate product that does just that, and it generates JSF compliant code to boot. It's called Java Studio Creator. And you'll see from their home page that you can get it for $99.

However, I know any outlay of money can be a deterrent. Well, guess what? Today, if you go to the netbeans.org home page, you'll see a link to get Creator for free!. Yes, that's free as in beer, lunch, et al.

All that's required is that you be a member of the Sun Developer Network (which you should be already, because it's also free). Once you log into SDN, the license to unlock Creator will be emailed to you. So then just download, install, set the license, and start creating. Here's a short tutorial to get you started.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.