2015

June

• An Introduction to Programming with Minecraft at the Oklahoma City JUG

  On Monday, July 13, I will be leading the monthly OKC JUG session, whose topic this month is "An Introduction to Programming with Minecraft Mods". We’ll be using a modified version of the curriculum Arun Gupta has developed for this Devoxx4Kids program, with examples taken from the book he and his son wrote, Minecraft Modding with Forge: A Family-Friendly Guide to Building Fun Mods in Java.

  Here is the announcement sent to the Oklahoma City tech community. If you’re in the area, come check it out!

2011

September

• Android at the OKC JUG
  

  Today, I presented basic Android development at the Oklahoma City JUG. In the presentation, we walked through a very simple (and very ugly) note-taking application. The app allows the user to list, view, add, edit, and delete notes. There are no bells and whistles in the app, as I was trying to find something that is non-trivial enough to be interesting, yet no so complex that the audience gets lost in all the details. Overall, I think I succeeded there, though I guess the evaluation slips should tell me how far off I really was. :)

  As I said at the start of the talk, it’s not a pretty app, and I likely violate many of the best practices the Google and other experts suggest, but it’s a functional app and, for that reason alone, I think, a decent start. I’ve pushed the sources to GitHub so anyone can take a look at it, fork it, etc. As time permits, I hope to clean the code up some, and add, via comments, some of the discussion we had in the talk itself. That will likely make the code a bit more valuable and interesting.

  Thanks to all who attended, especially those who shouted out hints for things I broke. :P

2009

January

• Free JCP Membership for JUGs Through the End of February

  If you are a member of a JUG (or happen to run one) and would like to be able to join the Java Community Process (JCP), you now have two options. For US-based JUGs, you can affiliate yourself with the new umbrella JUG-USA. According to Van Riper of the Silicon Valley JUG and the coordinator of the JUG-USA effort, all you need to do to be affiliated with JUG-USA is promise to link back to the JUG-USA Map and let him know. As an affiliated JUG, you have access to the JCP, including JSR submission as well as Expert Group membership, through JUG-USA. If, however, you’d like to have your JUG become a member directly, which is currently the only option (that I know of) for non-US JUGs, you can follow these directions (thanks, again, to Van Riper):

  If you want to do this, it is actually quite easy to do and the process is fairly well documented here for organizations joining the JCP: http://jcp.org/en/participation/membership2

  You simply follow the 6 steps listed on the page above. Since JUGs are being given special treatment with organization membership fees waived, two of these steps are a bit fuzzy. I had a chance to talk to Patrick Curran at the recent JCP Birthday Party to clear up the fuzziness though. So, follow the 6 steps with these two clarifications:

  1. You can skip step 4. You should not initial any of the listed "Process Cost Sharing" choices on page 3 of the agreement. There is none that apply to our special situation.

  2. For step 6, you do need to fill out both sections on page 11 of the agreement. Even though your JUG membership cost will be zero, Patrick indicated that they will need the "Accounts Payable Contact Person" section filled in. However, that person won’t be receiving a bill or the bill will have an invoice amount of zero.

  Once you have completed the agreement, you follow the instructions on this page to either FAX it or mail it to the JCP Management Office for processing: http://jcp.org/en/participation/membership_submit

  That is all there is to it. As a point of reference, my individual membership agreement was processed in just two days time after faxing it in. It is possible that organization memberships will take longer to process than that. If you do not get confirmation back within a week, I would contact the JCP Management Office to check on your membership processing.

  The Oklahoma City Java Users Group, Inc. will be utilizing both methods. :)