BlackBerry "pinoyBBdev" Seminar

Mr. John G. Bibal II of pinoyBBdev

Last July 7, 2012, we were required to attend a Blackberry Seminar for our MOBIDEV class. It was an introduction to developing applications for BlackBerry Smartphones that was conducted by Mr. John G. Bibal II of Philippine Blackberry Developer Group (pinoyBBdev). He was accompanied by volunteers from Blackberry and Novare Technologies.

First thing we did was install some software that was required in developing a BlackBerry application. It took us a whole morning to finish installing because we were not informed ahead of time that we need to install some software before we can proceed with the actual development. While we were installing the software, Mr. Bibal asked if there were any BlackBerry user among the audience and he gave a BB magnetic pin to each of those users. Afterwards, he discussed some facts about BlackBerry, its history, platform, etc.

It was lunch time when we finished installing the Eclipse and Ripple software. We were given a one hour lunch break before continuing with the actual application development.

We followed the workbook provided and asked the volunteers for assistance while doing the step-by-step procedures. The workbook consists of four walkthroughs that we need to follow: reviewing online resources, setting up the development environment, creating and testing a new BlackBerry WebWorks Application and creating and testing a new BlackBerry Java Application. We were able to do the walkthroughs with the help of the volunteers who were there to assist us whenever we have questions or have encountered problems/errors.

pinoyBBdev workbook

The shirt I won during the seminar :D

The seminar was a great opportunity for us, Information Systems students, because we are tackling mobile application development as a partial fulfilment of our course. After the seminar, we now have a broader idea on how to develop BlackBerry applications and its difference in developing Windows applications.