An Inside View on Java & Android from an Expert Trainer

Tuesday, 28 June, 2011

GogoTraining spoke with Michael Simpson, one of our leading industry-expert instructors, about technology and his involvement and reflections on the past, present and future.

GogoTraining: What inspired you to get involved in IT?

Michael Simpson: I have been fascinated by music and languages from a very young age, playing piano and violin while growing up.  I’ve always considered music, mathematics and languages just different means of expression — and computing / information technology yet another branch.  I built synthesizers and studied acoustics in college, which further blurred whatever faint divisions there were for me between music and computing. 

GGT: Of all the changes that have happened, which would you say was the biggest so far?

MS: The “democratization” and explosion of information that occurred due to the transformation of the ARPANet into the Internet and the arrival of the World Wide Web.  Today, we take for granted access to information that would have overwhelmed the world’s leaders only two generations ago.

GGT: What was a favorite or most interesting project you worked on, and why?

MS: One of my favorite projects involved interviewing experts to understand how they solved problems, translating those concepts into objects and classes, and representing those objects and classes in C++ (and, later, Java) constructs. I was able to combine programming skills and artificial intelligence skills in a cross-disciplinary technique known as “knowledge engineering.”

GGT: As an expert in Java, what’s a good tip for someone just starting to learn it?

MS: The  language’s syntax mimics that of C or C++, but take a deep breath, realize that it *is* case-sensitive, and understand object-oriented programming concepts and constructs BEFORE you take your first Java class.

GGT: Where do you see Android going in terms of growth and application?

MS: The Android software stack will grow to fill the void left by the gradual withdrawal of Symbian from the smartphone arena.  The development of emerging markets such as China, India, and the African / South American / Asian continents will create a burgeoning market for inexpensive, reliable mobile phones, bypassing landlines entirely.  “Cheap is good,” and free is better.  Android’s cost advantage will make it easier to penetrate those markets on a volume basis than Apple’s iPhone, Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7, or RIM’s BlackBerry.  A second avenue of Android growth will be the “embedded / smart appliance” area — refrigerators that know how to re-order, smart thermostats, better and more reliable car engines and so forth.

GGT: Any tips for those starting to learn Android programming?

MS: The Android stack is designed to run on many different types of devices, so determine what your “target market” is.  Think about your application’s appearance, “look and feel” and behavior before you write a single line of code.  Realize that knowing Java is a necessary, but NOT sufficient, condition of becoming an Android programmer.

GGT: GogoTraining’s Android Development Training Program has Java AND Android programming courses (Java being optional if one already knows it).  What is good to know coming in to the program?

MS:  Each Android application runs in its own miniature Java environment, so you should be proficient at creating, compiling and debugging standalone Java applications before tackling the Android programming courses.

GGT: What other sorts of practice or activity should one do in addition to the training program?

MS: After you go through the Java and Android courses, pick some non-trivial task that would have some value to your organization — organizing or scheduling deliveries, for example — and design and implement it using Android.  Once you’ve gotten the bugs *THOROUGHLY* worked out, show it to your friends, then to your management.  This will act as confirmation of your knowledge, and show your colleagues and supervisors that (A) you got something out of these courses and (B) you turned your new-found knowledge into something of benefit to the company.

GGT: What level of ability can someone expect to have upon completion of that program?

MS: You should have the ability to create, design and implement a small program that can solve or speed up a task whose solution has value to your company.  (A good tip is to think of a task like that while you are taking the course.)

GGT: What’s out there in IT that interests you the most right now?

MS: In the Android world — how Android will fare as vendors try to push it onto tablets.  The iPad and MacBook Air offer stiff competition.

In the non-Android world — security and “neural networks” (how information technology keeps data secure in a world of interconnected networks continually talking to each other, and to humans.)

GGT: What’s next for Michael Simpson?

MS: Finding the next boundary to push.  Seeing what’s over the next hill.  Discovering the next “what if …?”  Come join me!

Michael Simpson‘s is a knowledge engineer, developer and instructor with 27 years of experience in technology.  Michael teaches Java, Android and more.

Introductory Programming Courses Include Live Mentoring Sessions

Thursday, 9 June, 2011

Limited seats are available for two courses in July that include online video course material combined with weekly, 2-hour live mentoring sessions with the instructor.

The courses are introductory training for programming, including the following:

  • Programming for Non-Programmers: This course presents programming skills to the nonprogrammer. By the end of the course you will be creating programs to calculate square roots, asking for input from the user and moving graphics objects around the screen. This course hopes to prepare you for continuing your programming skills by moving onto other more traditional programming languages.
  • Introduction to C Programming: Introduction to C Programming Part 1 and Part 2 mentored online training introduces you to the C programming language. You will start with the layout of a C program and venture into control statements, loops, functions and basic I/O. Your development skills will continue in Part 2, where you will learn more complex data types such as arrays, structures and pointers. Solid programming techniques will continue to be emphasized.

The courses are part of nine unique online IT training courses with live mentoring sessions designed to fast-track career advancement opportunities as part of GogoTraining’s Mentor-Accelerated Summer IT Training Program.  The courses are scheduled in July of 2011 only, are affordable for anyone to take, and offer limited seats available.

These courses include the following student experience:

  1. WATCH online video course modules (assigned by week).
  2. DO hands-on lab work and exercises.
  3. ATTEND live, weekly online sessions with instructor.

The live, weekly online sessions allow students to:

  1. REVIEW the material watched during the previous week.
  2. DISCUSS the material with instructor including any questions.
  3. PREVIEW the material for the coming week.

Register today as seats are limited and filling up!

Limited Seats Available for Unique ITIL Learning Opportunity in July

Thursday, 9 June, 2011

As part of their Mentor-Accelerated Summer IT Training Program, GogoTraining has released nine unique online IT training courses with live mentoring sessions designed to fast-track career advancement opportunities.

Among them are two very affordable courses offering unique learning opportunities in ITIL® v. 3:

  • ITIL® v3 Foundations: The ITIL® v. 3 Foundations online training covers the Service Lifecycle, Service Strategy, Service Design, Continual Service Improvement, Service Transition, Service Operation, Managing across the Lifecycle, and includes mock exam questions to help prepare you for the exam. You will learn the basic concepts for a total comprehension of ITIL® practices for IT Service Management. The information you will learn in this ITIL® training course will correspond to the required knowledge needed when taking the ITIL® Foundation Certification Exam. GogoTraining is an ITIL® accredited ATO.  Completing this course fulfills all requirements to sit for your exam.
  • ITIL® Continual Service Improvement: This course builds on the general principles covered in the ITIL® Foundation course. It covers the lifecycle aspects of Continual Service Improvement (CSI) from a managerial/supervisory perspective, including – CSI principles, activities and technology considerations. It also gives an overview of the CSI Process. Additionally the course considers the interfaces between CSI and the other stages of the ITIL® Service Lifecycle. GogoTraining is an ITIL® accredited ATO.  Completing this course fulfills all requirements to sit for your exam.

These courses include the following student experience:

  1. WATCH online video course modules (assigned by week).
  2. DO hands-on lab work and exercises.
  3. ATTEND live, weekly online sessions with instructor.

The live, weekly online sessions allow students to:

  1. REVIEW the material watched during the previous week.
  2. DISCUSS the material with instructor including any questions.
  3. PREVIEW the material for the coming week.

The courses are scheduled in July of 2011 only, are affordable for anyone to take, and offer limited seats available.  Students are encouraged to register today as seats are filling up!

Android & Java Courses with Live Mentoring Taught by Expert Michael Simpson

Thursday, 9 June, 2011

School is in for the summer with Michael Simpson, programming expert and technical instructor, as he brings online video courses coupled with live mentoring sessions during July.

Simpson’s courses are part of nine unique online IT training courses with live mentoring sessions designed to fast-track career advancement opportunities as part of GogoTraining’s Mentor-Accelerated Summer IT Training Program.  The courses are scheduled in July of 2011 only, are affordable for anyone to take, and offer limited seats available.

Michael Simpson’s courses are:

  • Introduction to Android Programming: This training course is designed to quickly get you up to speed with writing apps for Android devices. This course will teach you the basis of the Android platform and the application lifecycle. You will be able to write simple GUI applications, use built-in widgets and components, work with the database to store data locally, and much more by the end of this online course.
  • Java 6 with Swing & Servlets: This course covers Java 6, an object-oriented programming language specifically created for developing applications that will run on a local-area network (LAN) or on the Internet.  The training teaches you the fundamentals of the Java language and packages. You will be able to use graphical user interfaces to persist information to the file system upon completion of this Java training.  You will also learn how to use databases and Web technologies with Java.  After completing this training course, you will be able to create multi-threaded, networked applications, use generics, access relational databases, and use servlets.

Michael Simpson’s 27-year career as a knowledge engineer, developer and instructor have afforded him the opportunity to develop a unique set of skills for technical training. Mr. Simpson has created almost one hundred weeklong training courses in diverse technical areas and supervised the development of over fifty others.

These courses include the following student experience:

  1. WATCH online video course modules (assigned by week).
  2. DO hands-on lab work and exercises.
  3. ATTEND live, weekly online sessions with instructor.

The live, weekly online sessions allow students to:

  1. REVIEW the material watched during the previous week.
  2. DISCUSS the material with instructor including any questions.
  3. PREVIEW the material for the coming week.

Affordable Oracle RAC and APEX Courses with Live Mentor Sessions in July

Thursday, 9 June, 2011

GogoTraining has released nine unique online IT training courses with live mentoring sessions designed to fast-track career advancement opportunities as part of their 2011 Mentor-Accelerated Summer IT Training Program.  The courses are scheduled in July of 2011 only, are affordable for anyone to take, and offer limited seats available.

Among them are two courses focusing on key Oracle technologies:

  • Oracle Real Application Clusters: This course explains Oracle’s Real Application Clusters (RAC) and provides a detailed look at installing and configuring Oracle’s RAC environment. This RAC online training covers topics such as system requirements, tuning, troubleshooting, utilities and architecture.
  • Oracle Application Express (APEX): This course will describe the components of Oracles’ Application Express tool.  Oracle Application Express covers the methods used within APEX to quickly and efficiently develop web based applications. This training covers how to install and configure APEX, build an application, create forms, reports, buttons, and templates, work with session states, page processing, navigation and utilities and handle security.

These courses include the following student experience:

  1. WATCH online video course modules (assigned by week).
  2. DO hands-on lab work and exercises.
  3. ATTEND live, online weekly sessions with instructor.

The live, online weekly sessions allow students to:

  1. REVIEW the material watched during the previous week.
  2. DISCUSS the material with instructor including any questions.
  3. PREVIEW the material for the coming week.

Register today as there are limited seats and they’re filling up!

Affordable Career-Advancing IT Training Workshops Available July Only

Thursday, 2 June, 2011

GogoTraining has released nine unique online IT training courses with live mentoring sessions designed to fast-track career advancement opportunities as part of their 2011 Mentor-Accelerated Summer IT Training Program.  The courses are scheduled in July of 2011 only, are affordable for anyone to take, and offer limited seats available.

Offered courses include popular selections from the GogoTraining online course catalog such as:

Courses in GogoTraining’s Mentor-Accelerated Summer Training Program include:

  • Expert instructors
  • The same material taught in corporate IT training classrooms
  • Engaging “classroom experience” video modules
  • Hands-on labs and exercises
  • Direct access to ask the instructor questions
  • Weekly 2-hour live online mentoring sessions including review, discussion and previewing of coming material.

The courses involve watching assigned online video material, doing hands-on lab and exercise work, and attending live online sessions with the instructor.  The live sessions are once each week for two hours and provide for instructor-led review, discussion and previewing of the coming week’s material.

“These are for someone who wants an advanced learning opportunity for a fraction of the time and cost,” says Marianne Cherney, CEO of GogoTraining.  “Our Mentor-Accelerated training courses are perfect for those who wish to gain extra skills needed for a promotion or new position.”

Spotlight: Ruby Developer Training Program

Wednesday, 1 June, 2011

In a continued review of GogoTraining’s recently-released Developer Training Programs we take a look at another one: the Ruby Developer Training Program.

Ruby is a flexible and dynamic language that offers development teams or individuals a shorter development time, better cost efficiency (over other web application languages), and easier code changes.  It’s popularity has steadily risen on the strength of being a useful language in web applications such as e-commerce, content management and more.

The job market for Ruby is large.  Ruby is a great skill to add to any resume focused on web application development.  In mid-2011, a search for “ruby developer” on popular job sites yielded approximately 1,400 open positions. On one site, Ruby was mentioned as a desirable skill in over 8,000 open positions.  In 2011, the average salary for a developer with Ruby included in their skill set is $70,070.

The Ruby Developer Training Program has three online, self-paced courses.  It includes the GogoTraining Programming Essentials Pack of two initial courses meant for those with no programming background.  Students with a programming background can consider forgoing those first two courses and going right into the Introduction to Ruby course (which is sold separately as well).

Learn more about the Ruby Develper Training Program, including course details and very affordable pricing.