A Happy New NetBeans Year

There are many things that I like about my job, but if I had to pick just
one favorite thing, it would be the people that I get to meet. Across the
United States and in several countries around the world I've been privileged
to meet interesting, talented, and highly motivated people. Some of these
folks I have only met via email but for many I have been lucky enough to
meet them face-to-face.

Interacting with so many nice members of the
NetBeans community is
an energizing experience. There are too many people to list them all here,
but I do want to share a postcard that I got in the (snail) mail the other day.
It is from Miki Shimizu, who I wrote about in an

entry on NetBeans Day Tokyo (click it for the full-size version):

She goes by the name
Noniko and has a popular weblog.
In addition, she
is a well-known member of the
Japanese NetBeans community and was kind enough
to participate in a skit with
Jeff Jackson
during NetBeans Day Tokyo. I talked
with her about some features she would like to see in the
NetBeans IDE and
we exchanged some emails. She appears to be multi-talented so I am assuming
she does all her own artwork. If you look closely at the monitor shown in
the postcard you can easily see the well-known NetBeans "cube" logo.

Noniko is planning for a happy new NetBeans year, and so am I. The
5.0 release
is due in just a few weeks. After that ships, additional announcements will
start in February that provide more details on the plans for the rest of 2006,
so stay tuned.

And the
NetBeans World Tour
continues. Next up is Bangkok, Thailand
(registration),
followed by
Chennai, India (registration).
Check out the World Tour
page for the rest
of the schedule. And have a Happy New Year. :-)