Hello, world! This is my Gift Wish List project!

Recently I received a newsletter from Netbeans.org notifying me of the latest version of Netbeans IDE, Netbeans v. 6.9. Over the past few years I tried Netbeans without success as my computer was either not compatible, powerful enough or I just could not make heads or tails of the software. Most of these issues were solved when I switched to openSuSE (oS) Linux. Since most of my computers are powered by oS 11.2, I have found I am able to do a lot more with my ageing computers so first I checked with YAST oS version of Windows Control Panel. oS had Netbeans v. 6.5 available for installation. I decided to install the older version on my Dell Inspiron 1501 (AMD Turion dual core) and was experimenting with Netbeans in no time.

It took me about 20 minutes to complete the first Java application - Hello World. I finally had success with using Netbeans. My next tutorial would take me about a day and a half to complete - Gift List web application using PHP and MySQL database, PHP and MySQL Web Development. It took a bit of time to learn to use the user interface (UI) but it has quite a few really great tools for configuring the database server, both local and remote, writing proper PHP and HTML code. The Wish List web application allowed me to create two database tables and and join them for cross referencing data from both tables. This is very important when developing business logic for ecommerce sites.

While revising the Wish List application to include Google AdSense ads I spilt some cereal on my Dell keyboard. This rendered my Dell work horse useless. Fortunately, the files were already on my server and checked with W3.org HTML validator and backed up to my network storage device. All I had to to was install Netbeans on my older Lenovo T60 ThinkPad. First I installed the oS Netbeans v. 6.5 and then decided to try the 6.9 version also.


Netbeans 6.9 was a bit more difficult to learn at first but then I realized it has more advanced and powerful features. I am very happy I decided to try both versions. I see myself using Netbeans to develop my sister's other site - www.jiliansaweczko.org the we use to promote her business to business fairs. This software will definitely help me develop the database structure to power the site.