Of late I've had to use Apache Derby in my work. SQuirrel SQL is a great, Java-based client for connecting to any JDBC compliant database.
I recently did a couple of screencasts (at my place of work) on installing and setting up SQuirrel SQL to work with Derby.
Here are the links to the screencasts:
Straker Interactive (where I work) have just announced "Web on the Piste -- The Ultimate Conference for Rich Internet Technologies".
It will be held in Queenstown, New Zealand, 22-23rd August 2007. And will cover topics like Flex, Ajax, Spry and Flash.
Go to Web on the Piste (http://www.webonthepiste.com) site to find out more and register.
But the basic idea is to come have fun on the beautiful ski fields of Queenstown and learn about rich internet technologies.
I like the idea :)
I'll be posting more this in the coming few weeks.
I made a presentation on CFCs to CFUG Auckland a few weeks back. Most of the CFUG users already had some experience with CFCs.
The presentation was fairly short. But the discussion was lively. A need was expressed to understand CFC best practices as applied to particular problems. There was also an element of sounding off experiences. And that made it quite interesting.
I've attached a copy of the presentation and the sample code used.
So, last week I completed the Flex 2.0 course for trainers. The course was held in Sydney, at the Adobe office in Chatswood. Spread over 5 days, the training comprised of two courses run consecutively. The first course, Flex 2: Developing Rich Client Applications, was spread over the first 3 days. The last two days covered Flex 2: Data and Communcations.
It was good to go over all the basics in the first 3 days. Even though most of the trainees of the course were fairly comfortable with a lot of the concepts in Flex, all felt that that it was good to put all the various concepts together. The labs at the end of the day were very well thought out and consolidated the concepts and learnings.