Essential Resources to Become a Life Long Learner (in tech)

Is one of your New Year Resolutions to re-skill? Thinking about re-training for a new career (or even just a new hobby) in tech? Then you're in luck! 

Today, more than ever, the barrier to entry for starting to learn a new technology or programming language is all but nonexistent, all you really need is a computer (or even a mobile device) and a web connection and you are pretty much good to go - just choose your preferred technology, an IDE and get started.  Almost everything is open source or at least free to use for a single developer just out to learn and there is a wealth of blogs, articles and Q'n'A sites ready to help you with tutorials, walk-through's and helpful advice - many of these backed with ready and running code bases on GitHub free for you to play with and generally work out what is going on.

However, with all these resources it can sometimes be a bit daunting with so much content. Once you have chosen a language how do you know where to start? Here are some of our favourite sites and resources that we have discovered and found useful in learning new skills:

• iTunes U - a lesser known category on iTunes is their academic section, iTunes U(niversity) featuring loads of podcasts and lectures from a range of academic organisations, and some of this stuff is serious! Several large universities have uploaded full lecture series there, and by and large they are free to download (yes, you have to install iTunes, which sucks, we know).  Want to take the full term of Stanford university's iOS course? Its up there. Want to learn AI for chess playing from Cambridge uni? Yep, got that too. And for free.
• MIT OpenWare - MIT have been one of the strongest advocates of open sourced education. A lot of there lecture series are online (can also be found on iTunes, but can be avoided).  Is it just us who thinks its amazing that anyone around the world with a web connection can get educated by the most prestigious academic organisations around?
• Khan Academy - there is a lot of hype around this one, well funded with some pretty big names supporting it (jQuery creator John Resig is a Dean there), a not-for-profit aiming at providing free education for everyone. The academy provides lots of video based courses as well as interactive challenges and detailed stats on how you are doing.
• Udacity - this is another recent, well-funded startup trying to tackle free higher education for all. Founded my three robotocists it is slowly building a very respectable catalogue of uni level courses ranging from CS101 to AI for robotics. As with the Khan academy, the lectures are purely for the web so the videos are clear and designed for remote learning (different from the filmed university lectures which are targeting classroom based learning).  We have recently created and Open Sourced the Spring-Social implementation of the Khan Academy API - so if you are working with the JVM and want to have a play with the Khan Academy API then check it out on GitHub
• CodeAcademy - we have mentioned before we are fans of code academy, code academy is an in-browser development environment that walks you through programming exercises to help you learn with your hands - currently supporting JavaScript, HTML, Ruby and Python
• Free eBooks - there are loads of great free eBooks available online, so many there is no point listing them, instead I will just point you here. Which leads nicely on to the next point..
• StackOverflow - what really needs to be said about SO? It is the definitive q'n'a site for tech. If you are just starting learning head over and sign up, the help from the incredibly active community over there will be invaluable (although be sure to read the posting guides, they can be a little unforgiving at times!).
• Coursera - Another massively popular online learning resource, this one recently generated a lot of interest with its recent Scala course taught by the original creator of the language!  We are currently working on some secret integration with Coursera at NerdAbility, and you will soon be able to integrate your Coursera account and show off which courses you have completed!

Hopefully the above resources help on your path to re-skilling.  In reality, getting your hands dirty with code and trying to solve problems and fix errors is the best way to learn, so don't forget to get stuck in - and maybe when you are more confident try answering questions on StackOverflow!

Of course, with these new found skills you will want to show them off, so we'd recommend heading to NerdAbility and registering (if you haven't as already) and update your skills, add your StackOverflow profile and even add a custom section talking about what you are learning (employers always love to know that candidates are proactive and motivated when it comes to learning new things and keeping up with technology). 

Leave your comments with any other tools and resources you have found useful in your journey of becoming a life long learner.

Why it's Great to be a Developer in 2013

At NerdAbility we have been chatting about how great it will be to be a developer in 2013 and wanted to share some of our predictions, to help keep you one, two or even three steps ahead of the pack!

Startup Life

With the London startup scene still booming we think that the hunt for the best developers will really intensify and the need to stand out from the masses will continue to be a key factor in joining the hottest tech startups and SME's. Also (surprisingly) we expect to see companies moving away from CV's and resumes and relying more on GitHub and StackOverflow for screening candidates. There are also companies offering to test coders for you (at a cost of course), one that we think looks interesting is Codility. They offer online coding tests that you can customise and support a range of languages. Codility also offers the ability for developers to self certify by completing a monthly challenge.

We expect increased collaboration between startups to maximise their visibility as the UK economy improves in 2013. Also don't be shocked to see more collaborative / integrated services launched between startups and the SME's (maybe even enterprise?!). Take a look at the Argos and Shutl (delivery startup) collaboration for products ordered on www.argos.co.uk as an example of a big business working with a startup / SME. Hopefully this will lead to lots of exciting opportunities for developers!

Call Me Maybe? 

Will 2013 be the year of the meetup? We think so! Well tech meetups have been round for a long time, but we think 2013 will see their traction deepen as sites like meetup.com increase the accessibility and visibility of the great events being hosted around the UK. We hope to see companies encouraging their staff to get involved, present and share insights into their technical operations and innovations! Many events also have slots for new presenters in what are being called lightning talks. These are short presentations, demo's or talks that are the perfect way to share your thoughts, cool things you have made and get experience with an audience. So get involved and give a talk in 2013!

Is 2013 the year the world learns to code? 

Well the site CodeYear sure tried to make it happen in 2012! CodeYear received big support from around the web and even got NYC's Mayor Michael Bloomberg signed up! We think the best thing to come out of this initiative was the Codecademy platform. Here you can follow a range of programming courses for free and record your progress. This is a great alternative to sites like Code School that charge a monthly fee. It's worth noting with code school you do get access to great video content and the courses cover the latest technologies in depth. We think that the technical education space will continue to expand in 2013 as interactive learning technologies mature, which is great news for developers and students alike. We hope to see more people and groups (open source contributors, enterprises, developers) getting involved creating material for these platforms!

Engagement!

We predict your online and offline technology engagement will matter even more to companies this year, so now really is the time to start building your online portfolio and growing your engagement with the community. We thoroughly recommend joining StackOverflow and getting involved with the Q&A, uploading / open sourcing your interesting hobby projects to GitHub or BitBucket and blogging about any of the tricky problems you have solved. Also go along to interesting meetups and talks, with many of the best listed on meetup.com. If you are in London why not check out the London Java Community for a range of great events.

Remember a great place to show all that you are involved with is NerdAbility.com. We integrate with GitHub, StackOverflow, Geeklist, BitBucket, Google Code and all RSS / Atom blogs, so come on over and create your free profile now!

NerdScore!? NerdAbility Updates - August 2012

NerdScore is Live!

So far this month we have launched the "NerdScore" on NerdAbility.com! This gives your profile a score based on the connections and details you have added to NerdAbility. To work out your score we use the super secret "NerdOrithm"!

You can now show off your high score via http://nerdability.com/user/yourprofile, and increase it by connecting and using sites like GitHub, Bitbucket, StackOverflow! Go check it out :)

Profile NerdScore!

Enhanced StackOverflow Integration

We have tapped up the StackOverflow API to add further integration to your NerdAbility profile, now showing a summary of your SO "Badges" and your answer "Accept Rate". Check it out on your profile now, and if you havn't integrated with StackOverflow give it a try :).

Now with Badges & Accept Rate

What's Coming Up?

Over the next few weeks we will be pushing out some more new features to the NerdAbility site. These are focused around improving the user experience and giving you more control of the privacy and contact preferences for your profile.

We are also working hard on allowing you to integrate even more of the cool stuff you do on-line in to your  NerdAbility dynamic resume / CV. This includes the tech meetups and events you go to, the coding / software engineering books you have been reading and the presentations you have published on-line. So keep your eyes peel for update emails and blog updates to be the first to hear when these features go live.

Also ... Hot Skills & How To's

We want to show you some of the technologies that we have been using (and we think are quite cool). So expect to see some how-to blogs, which will get you up and running. These will include the extending the Spring Social framework and integrating with Java / Spring app MailChimp (the email campaign app). All of these examples will come with sample projects on GitHub!

Once you have had a play and could tell someone else how to do it why not add it as a skill on your NerdAbility profile? Its easy - see how below:

1. Sign Up or Sign In 

NerdAbility Login

2. Add the Skill to your profile - click "Want To Add A Skill", then add the details and click "Add Skill". Done :) 

Add a Skill to NerdAbility

3. Or even better why not share the code you are working on on GitHub or Bitbucket. You can then link your account to your NerdAbility profile and we will automatically add the skill to your page, sweet right? Just click the connect GitHub or Bitbucket on the right hand side of your profile.

Connect your GitHub or BitBucket to NerdAbility

That's all for the August updates from the NerdAbility team!

Please get in touch with us on Twitter - @Nerd_Ability or comment below with any idea, feedback or questions.

6 Steps to Getting an Awesome Tech Job

So everyone wants an awesome coding job using the ’latest technologies’ at a amazing company right? And the competition for these jobs is tough! People from big corporations want in on the exciting world of start-ups, and well-seasoned start-up coders want to work on the next big thing. Previously you needed a great hand crafted CV and 100 years of experience building monolithic Java EE / C++ apps to get noticed. Now companies want to see you are up to speed with new school technologies like Node.js, Groovy & Grails, Ruby, Scala, Clojure and that you also actively contribute via Blogs, GitHub, BitBucket, StackOverflow etc.

How do you get one of these awesome jobs you ask? Follow NerdAbility’s fool proof 6 point plan!.....

1.  Create a tech blog! – Have you been trying to learn a new technology but found the documentation is a bit shady? Did you spend hours on forums and post multiple StackOverflow questions to finally get to a solution? Then write a blog about it! Document the problem, the steps you took to solve it and give some sample code or even put the project on online. Next make sure to share it back with the people and forums that helped along the way. This is a great way to get your solution out there and people checking out your blog (maybe even the CTO of your next employer). Sites like Blogger and Tumblr make it super easy to get started, so go make one today!

On Privacy

Online privacy is a serious thing. People take how much they reveal of themselves online very seriously, and quite rightly too.

Privacy is important to us at NerdAbility as well. From the start, we have been upfront with where we stand - your NerdAbility profile is a public profile to the world of just how awesome you are, its not somewhere where people will upload photos of compromising situations, or share trade secrets, its a place where people say, hey, I have my blog, and my StackOverflow profile, and my GitHub profile.. why can't i just bring them to one place, so rather than hoping a potential employer googles me, I can just say, check me out!

After all, NerdAbility doesn't expose anything that is already private on the web to anyone - it only shows already publicly accessible data (GitHub, StackOverflow, BitBucket, Blogs - all public data only).  When we recently rolled out the BitBucket integration, on first launch, we were alerted that private repositories were being displayed - this wasn't something we had done intentionally, it was actually because making anonymous, unauthenticated calls to the BB API returns private data too (we know, crazy right?) - but this is important to us, as well as to you guys, so as soon as we were alerted, we put in an emergency fix it and released within an hour.

So, why are we going on about all this stuff? The reason is, pretty soon we will be rolling out user search, making it much easier for people to discover just how awesome you are (searching by name or by skills) - so we just wanted to make sure we are all on the same page.

If you still have concerns, fear not, we know this is a hugely important and sensitive subject, so despite NerdAbility only showing publicly available data, we will also be adding a privacy option, allowing you to opt-out of the search results!

Why We're Not Worried About Facebook's Job Board

Not long after NerdAbility was released in to the wild in beta, Facebook announced that they were going to be creating a job board.

Hmm, Facebook seems like tough competition, after all, they already have millions of users, about whom they know pretty much everything, but, to be honest, we're really not that concerned.

Here's why..

1. We're techies, looking to deliver a service for techies - even if the Facebook job board becomes a massive success, how worthwhile will it be for them to build up the service to cater for tech folk, integrating GitHub commits and stuff like StackOverflow? I cannot see it being worthwhile for FB to do so.  NerdAbility is focusing entirely on tech recruitment, and all our efforts are in enhancing the site to make tech recruitment a wonderful thing!....