Friday February 25, 2005

Moving Sun to Solaris 10

We have started a very aggressive plan to roll out Solaris 10 across the approximately 1600 servers we have world wide. Obviously it is to Sun's advantage to demonstrate how quickly and painlessly we can do this. A key part of our strategy is to put in place a very strong change acceptance program (CAP).

In our CAP team meeting this afternoon we talked about our vision for the transition. It includes some of the following components.
Our roll out strategy is intentionally aggressive.
Executive communications to the Sun user base will emphasize the need to be aggressive in our roll out plans. Focused leadership will dramatically help our CAP efforts.
All applications will not have been tested before the Solaris 10 /JDS roll out. We will have excellent options and support in place to make sure all users can run the applications they need to.
We will have a clear and well understood mechanism in place for people to report problems and get answers.
Support will be outstanding. Our support organization will have extensive training.
The SA community will be well informed and active supporters of the success of Solaris 10.
We will use aggressive methods to get answers to people.
User will recognize the move to Solaris 10 is part of a continuum which started with the move to JDS preview.
We will be supporting Sun's success by demonstrating what a great O/S Solaris is.

We have a lot to do to make our vision a reality but having a clear shared future state (vision) is the first step.

Thursday February 24, 2005

SunRay Power savings

Michael Jordan did an interesting posting today. He pointed out that utility cost make up for about 10% of a corporate real estate budget, about as much as property tax. It reminded me of something that some people may not raealize. SunRays save an enormous amount in utility costs. Instead of running a computer in my office all I have is basically a monitor. It makes no noise, it doesn't heat up the office and it uses a very small amount of electricity. Sun has more than 27,000 SunRays deployed which results in over $24 million saved annually. Of that $2.8M is electric power costs.

Do you have to be a techie to blog?

I just ran into a co-worker who is planning to start a blog. We were talking about how daunting it can be. There are all sorts of things that aren't intuitively obvious. I know when I started I basically just played around until I figured stuff out. That is what he has been doing too.

I'm sure that when non bloggers read a blog like mine they wonder what the heck a permalink is.The answer is: If you copy the permalink you will get the permanent URL for this posting. You can use it to insert a link to my posting in your blog. If you just used my blog URL you would always get the most recent posting not the specific one you want to point to.

And how do you format your entries? You need to know a tiny bit of HTML which is really easy but how do you figure it out? I found this posting from Geoff Arnold that was really helpful. I also have an email I'll send to anyone who wants it. It lists the tags you need for paragraphs, bold, italics and linking. I'd put them here but then I'd have to figure out how to make the blogging software show them and not interpret them. I know it can be done I just don't have time today to figure it out.

If I tell someone a web address or my email address today most people know what I'm telling them. But not too long ago if I gave someone a web address or my email address they didn't have a clue what I was talking about. I wonder if blogging will eventually get to the point where talking about your RSS feed or your aggregator (like Bloglines) will mean something to more than 1% of the population.

Monday February 21, 2005

Recovery

I'm just getting my home PC back in service after a hard disk crash of some sort. (maybe a virus?) The worst of it is I had no backups. I certainly know better but I guess I am too much of an optimist. Anyway probably the worst thing I lost was an inventory of my home library that had about 700 books in it and was about half finished. I used this really cool program called Readerware All you have to do is type in or scan in the ISBN for your books and it looks up all the info for the book from web sites like Amazon and the Library of Congress. I don't know why I was so much enjoying creating the inventory or why it seems so cool but I think it must have something to do with how much I love books and the pleasure of seeing all my books listed in one place. Oh well, I'll probably start over again in a few weeks and this time I will keep back ups!

Wednesday February 16, 2005

What business is Sun in?

As I have mentioned I am on vacation taking a financial planning class this week. At lunch today I was talking to a financial planner from Seattle who works for a large brokerage house. After I told him that I work for Sun he asked me " So what is Sun's business? " I felt like I should have a really good answer. You know I should have an elevator pitch answer, but I wasn't sure that I did. I took a deep breath and said, " Sun has always been known as a computer hardware company and we still make great powerful computers but we are becoming more and more of a software company. We also are becoming a services company. For example we just announced a subscription service that will allow people to buy computer power for $1 per CPU hour." The conversation went on from there. It seemed like an OK answer but I felt like it could have been better.

Monday February 14, 2005

SunRay under Hyped

I love what Rob Wright says in this blog posting about SunRay. I never thought about comparing what it costs to lease a PC to what it might cost for a service offering SunRays with broadband. But Rob is right it would be a great deal. He also talks about how much tech support a PC requires. I flew down to San Diego last month to reload Windows on my parents PC because the viruses had made it unusable. SunRays make this a non issue. Read what Rob says! I do believe that someone will offer this service.

Here's something else to think about when it comes to SunRay. I was in a meeting this morning and people were talking about a government customer they had been talking to. The social workers in this agency deal with a lot of very confidential information. They were very excited about the idea of having all that data secure on the agency's computer but available to employees wherever they are. The social workers could just use their Java cards in a drop in location or even carry a wireless SunRay. No more hard disks full of confidential information floating around. It makes a lot of sense to me. This Bill Vass presentation about Mobility with Security says it all much better than I do.

Sunday February 13, 2005

Great Music and Great Food

Last night as our Valentines gift to each other we went out for live Dixieland music and dinner. We saw Mal Sharpe's Big Money in Jazz New Orleans Band, with Lady Memphis (vocals) at the The Downtown Restaurant in Berkeley. What a wonderful restaurant. We were sitting right in front of the stage. And when I say stage I really just mean a 12 inch platform at the back of the restaurant. So we were right there!

The food was great. We started with salad and a plate of fried olives stuffed with anchovies. I think they are a specialty but boy were they good. They had some special Mardi Gras menu items so I had the spicy fried catfish and Duke had the Gumbo. They each had just the right amount of spicyness and were perfectly prepared. I would recommend the restaurant even without the music.

As we started to eat the Dixieland music started. All I could do was smile at the combination of great music and great food. The vocalist Lady Mem’fis was sitting at the next table. Even before she got up on stage and started singing you couldn’t help notice what an elegant woman she is. They started with a couple of songs featuring the band members. I especially liked the pianist, Charlie Hickox. And then Lady Mem’fis started singing. What a performer and what a voice. I love blues and jazz. Her rendition of the song "Dream" was special. After the break and some more Dixieland music, the guitarist (Whose name I’m sorry I can’t remember.) sang the song "She talks too Much". He said it was because his ex-wife had just called. Mal Sharpe gave him a hard time that "She talks too Much" is a politically incorrect song to sing in Berkeley.

Then Sharp pointed out that three of the musicians who had just finished performing across the street at The Jazz School were at a table behind us. He invited them to join in. So the last song had these three additional awesome musicians. Steven Bernstein played something that looked like a cross between a trumpet and a trombone. Ben Goldberg played the clarinet. And Jeff Cressman played the trombone. There we were, right in the middle of it all - ten guys and Lady Mem’fis making this amazing music. As we left about midnight all I could do was smile. What a wonderful evening.

Thursday February 10, 2005

Book Club

My monthly book club meeting was Tuesday night. We read "Middlesex" by Jeffrey Eugenides. I have to admit that I haven't finished it. I love to read. In fact reading is one of my passions. But I have been spending all my reading time studying for the CFP exam. I've enjoyed the book so far but I don't want to give my opinions until I finish it. I will definitely finish it.

What is truly amazing is that the 12 other women in the group all loved "Middlesex". This is very unusual. The women in this group are very articulate and literate. Several of them were teachers. We usually have very diverse opinions about a book. This time only the comments were diverse. Comments included how emotionally moving the novel is, how well constructed, how well Eugenides gives you a sense of being there, and how well the many themes are woven together. It is almost impossible to describe what "Middlesex" is about. It is about so many things. It definitely is an epic. Even though I have only half finished it I can see why it won the Pulitzer prize.

Wednesday February 09, 2005

Nuclear submarine accident

I read an interesting article in Wired News yesterday. It was about a nuclear-powered submarine accident. What really struck me was that I never heard about this in the mainstream media. Did I just miss it? It seems like a nuclear submarine running into an undersea mountain and killing one crew member and seriously injuring 23 others would be a big deal.

The other thing that the story made me think about was how to solve the problem of undersea mapping. Why couldn't you put some of the new undersea imaging tools described in the story on ships already crossing the seas, combine them with GPS technology and collect the data. The data could then be downloaded to a Sun Grid and processed across the grid. Out of this would come updated more accurate maps. Perhaps it is already being done. It is the kind thing I would dig into some more if I had the time. It also seems like the the kind of story that distributed journalism, as described by Dan Gilmor, could really fill out.

Blog Comments

I don't read comments on other people's blogs as often as I probably should. There is no doubt that the conversation can be even more interesting than the initial blog. For an example look Jonathan's comment on this post of mine Another very interesting comment is what James said on yesterday's blog I'm curious how many people look at comments and what makes you click on the comments link. I guess in my case I do it when the blog was thought provoking.

Tuesday February 08, 2005

Office as a service

James Governor is one of the founders of RedMonk, a small industry analyst firm. His Feb 4 blog entry reflecting on what he heard at Sun's recent analyst conference about the Sun's drive into grid and service management was thought provoking. He ends by asking "Why am I so bullish on services and service oriented economics? They seem to have momentum; they are winning in the market. ...... Service management is a notion I subscribe to. Service Oriented Economics will underpin the successful business models of the next few years, ..... Sun is getting ready."

The blog entry was thought provoking because it got me thinking about Openwork, Sun's consulting offering to share our experiences and learnings from the internal work infrastructure program we call iWork. James says "Sometimes it seems like Mr. Schwartz doesn't believe anyone should own things at all, except service providers that is, who should build the infrastructure for us. Rent your house don't buy it... Actually Jonathan would probably rethink house market economics entirely, de bono style. Talk to cable companies and suggest they offer free accommodation in some remote (cheap) corner of the world as part of multimedia services offering--TV, broadband, wifi subscription, music downloads and phone. You get a nice cozy pod and all the multimedia frenzy you can imagine, why bother going outside at all? Excuse the digression but that's the thing with Sun at the moment, there is a lot of innovative thinking going on." He is right there is a lot of innovative thinking going on. It is one of the best things about working for Sun.

So think about distributed work. Currently I don't own an office, but I have one wherever I need one. All I really need is a SunRay and a phone. (With VOIP I probably won't need a phone much longer.) So why not the office as a service. Charge for the SunRay service and the computing power it gives me. My desktop is totally customized for the way I work and is accessible when ever and where ever I insert my Java badge. Why not just throw in the office space for free?

Friday February 04, 2005

To LA this weekend

My youngest is moving back to LA this weekend to finish her junior year in college. Last semester she studied in France so it has been eight months since she lived down there. She drove down this morning. Tomorrow my husband and I are driving a very full van load of stuff down to her. We were down there two weeks ago to look at apartments with her. The very boring highway 5 through the California central valley is becoming way too familiar. It is pretty exciting though to be helping her set up her very first apartment.

Thursday February 03, 2005

One of the Best Restaurants in the San Francisco Bay Area

We had dinner last night with some long time friends. Rather than go out they picked up food from Kabul in Sunnyvale. 833 W El Camino Real, Sunnyvale, CA 408-245-4350. Food from Kabul is consistently very good and picking up their food to go makes a wonderful dinner party. Masood Mortazavi described the restaurant in his blog. Personally I think they are one of the best restaurants in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Dorothy McEwen Links

The article about Dorothy McEwen in today Monterey Herald, and her obituary.
The Digital Research Site

In an email to me today Patie McCracken says it all about Dorothy. " She worked hard, lived her dreams and gave back to the world."

Wednesday February 02, 2005

Dorothy McEwen RIP

I just heard that Dorothy McEwen died Monday night at her home in Carmel Valley. Dorothy with her then husband Gary Kildall founded Digital Research. DRI was a pioneer in the computer industry. They created and sold CP/M, the first microcomputer operating system. Dorothy hired me at DRI in 1982 as the technical support manager. From my perspective she ran the business side of the company and Gary ran the technical side. It was a real honor to be a part of what they created and what we even then knew was the birth of the the personal computer. Dorothy was a great lady and I have the utmost respect for her and for what she achieved.

The email I received said that she died of brain cancer which she had been fighting for the last two years. She was an amazing woman and between Gary and her; they left their mark on this earth for the better.