Dave Marquardt's WeblogToday's Page Hits: 179
This page validates as XHTML 1.0, and will look much better in a browser that supports web standards, but it is accessible to any browser or Internet device. It was created using techniques detailed at glish.com/css/.
Perceptions of Sun based on remoteness
It occurred to me recently that I probably have a very different perception of Sun from my colleagues who work in Menlo Park. To me, meetings never take place in person, they're always conference calls. I rarely see my colleagues, but I know them from e-mail and the phone. My colleagues in Menlo Park, on the other hand, probably see meetings as taking place in conference rooms, and they see most of their colleagues daily, or at least can walk to their offices.
I suspect this has a major impact on how me and my colleagues view Sun. For me, if I'm in a meeting where something is being discussed that's irrelevant to me, I can multitask. For those in the conference room, they suffer through being bored. :-). On the other hand, my experience at Sun is that I have very few meetings that are boring, irrelevant or useless. This is unlike other places I've worked, and I really appreciate it.Posted at 01:05PM Nov 29, 2005 by Dave Marquardt in Sun | Comments[1]
Five years at Sun
I joined Sun on October 30, 2000, so I've just passed my five year anniversay with Sun. I have to say, while Sun isn't perfect, it's a pretty good place to work. I've learned a lot in the past five years, and continue to learn more on most every day. I've seen Sun change too. For example, at the time I was hired, there was a push by upper management for "global engineering", i.e. people could live and work wherever they choose. I'm well aware of this idea because I live in Austin, Texas, and for most of my five years most of my colleagues have been elsewhere. When I joined I really think that some parts of Sun did not believe in global engineering, and if you weren't in the primary location, you were treated, by some, as a second class citizen. I'm happy to say I rarely (almost never) encounter that attitude now. There've been numerous other changes at Sun during the past five years, and it's been tough for a lot of folks, but I think we're getting out some hot products and interesting ideas.
Like many companies, Sun gives you a gift after some milestone anniversary with the company. With Sun this starts at five years. Well, Sun finally dragged me into the late 20th century by offering a digital camera as a gift selection. I picked it, and I finally have my first digital camera, at least half a decade after most people. Or so it seems. I haven't played with it much yet, but I expect my blog will have more pictures in the future because of this. While I have a scanner, for some reason it's a big pain to scan in photographs at home. I'm hoping a digital camera will make this easier, but we'll see.Posted at 05:22PM Nov 04, 2005 by Dave Marquardt in Sun | Comments[0]
Dedication of E25K `Maverick' system at University of Texas
This morning several of us from Sun's Austin, Texas office are going to the dedication of the University of Texas Advanced Computing Center's new E25K and "the first of its kind Visualization Grid system from Sun." Not only is this cool stuff, the big E25K is right up the alley of the kind of work my team does, which is scalability and performance work, particularly on high end systems. For more on this, see Sun Micro, UT Austin, Team Up on Supercomputer.
Posted at 10:13AM Oct 01, 2004 by Dave Marquardt in Sun |
