JamesBranam's Blog

Last Day at Sun Microsystems

Hi all,

This is blog entry number 517. It is also my last for my Sun blog. Today is my last day at Sun Microsystems.

The past four years have been fantastic. Sun is a wonderful place to work: a great atmosphere and even greater colleagues. I will miss it very much. To leave Sun was a tough decision to make.

It's now time for me to move on. If you've been reading my blog over the years and still want to, you can. I have a personal blog at http://blog.jambra.net/bc/. I hope to see you there.

So, goodbye for now. See you around, wherever that may be.

Cheers!

--James

Posted at 05:29PM Nov 13, 2009 by branajam in Sun  |  Comments[2]

Last Week at Sun

Hi all,

My last week at Sun starts today. On Friday I'll be turning in my equipment and leaving the building for the last time (as an employee). The past four years have been great, and leaving isn't easy.

While at Sun, I had the opportunity to be part of the NetBeans writing team, one of the best teams I've ever encountered. Other members of the team taught me a lot and made me a better technical writer. I'm very grateful to have had such a wonderful opportunity.

And I can't forget the people I've worked with who are no longer at Sun. I owe them a lot as well.

And having worked on NetBeans for four years, I'll always be following the IDE, checking out new builds. I also hope to be an active member of the NetBeans community. Maybe I'll even write a doc or two for the NB Community Docs program.

Cheers!

--James

Posted at 04:15PM Nov 09, 2009 by branajam in Sun  |  Comments[0]

Four Years at Sun

Hi all,

It's been four years today since I first started working at Sun Microsystems. It has been great working for Sun. I've been involved in a lot of fantastic projects, and I've learned a great deal. Here's a quick list of what I've been involved with at Sun:

• Sun Java Studio Creator Project: Versions 2.0 and 2.1
• NetBeans IDE: versions 5.5, 5.5.1, 6.0, 6.0.1, 6.1, 6.5, 6.5.1, 6.7, and 6.8. (I started just before NetBeans 5.0 went out the door)
• Visual Web Pack 5.5
• Woodstock 1.0 and 2.0
• Integrating MySQL into NetBeans
• NetBeans Proficiency Exam preparation
• NetBeans Community Docs program
• Cloud Training Courses
• Sun Tech Days in London, Prague, and St. Petersburg (Russia)
• Blogging for Sun
• Python in NetBeans
• JavaScript in NetBeans
• Web Applications in NetBeans
• Database functionality in NetBeans
• Ajax in NetBeans

This anniversary is a little bittersweet for me in that this will be my last anniversary. I'll be leaving Sun Microsystems on November 13 for other employment. This means that I'll be blogging for two more weeks. I'll certainly continue blogging on my private blog.

Cheers!

--James

Posted at 10:53AM Nov 01, 2009 by branajam in Sun  |  Comments[5]

VirtualBox Rocks!

VirtualBox rocks!

As you know, I've been designing a training course for Cloud Computing and I've been playing around with hypervisors. My favorite type 2 hypervisor is Sun's VirtualBox. It's free and easy to use.

Look at the screenshot above. I have six operating systems installed as guest operating systems on VirtualBox. No disk partitioning was required to do this. Each operating system has its own virtual hard disk image. The image is expandable too.

If you haven't had the chance to check out VirtualBox, be sure to do so. You will like what you see.

Cheers!

--James

Posted at 11:13AM Oct 17, 2009 by branajam in Sun  | 

AWS Experience Part 14: Cloud Watch in AWS Management Console

Hi all,

This is another episode in the Amazon Web Services series. This time I'll talk about Cloud Watch. You say you don't know what Cloud Watch is? This is what Amazon has to say about its new product:

Amazon CloudWatch is a web service that provides monitoring for AWS cloud resources, starting with Amazon EC2. It provides you with visibility into resource utilization, operational performance, and overall demand patterns—including metrics such as CPU utilization, disk reads and writes, and network traffic. To use Amazon CloudWatch, simply select the Amazon EC2 instances that you’d like to monitor; within minutes, Amazon CloudWatch will begin aggregating and storing monitoring data that can be accessed using web service APIs or Command Line Tools.

Those of you who are used to using AWS will notice that there is a new column for images: Monitoring. The default is set to disable, and to enable monitoring via Cloud Watch, right-click the image and choose Enable Monitoring, as seen in the following image:

Cheers!

--James

Posted at 01:42PM Sep 24, 2009 by branajam in Sun  | 

Tuesday Update

Hi all,

A Tuesday update of what's going on in my job and life.

• I've been making some final tweaks to the Cloud training course I've been working on. We're really close now. This has been a great opportunity for me to dive deeper into cloud computing.
• I'm anxiously awaiting the Beta release of NetBeans IDE 6.8. I can't wait to take it for a drive.
• The family is back at home after summer in the country. It's great to have my wife and son back at home.
• I'm looking forward to getting started on the new course I'll be working on. It's another cloud course, similar to the one mentioned above, but much more in detail.
• I've also been enjoying the return of American football season. My team, the Indianapolis Colts, won their opener with the Jacksonville Jaguars.

Cheers!

--James

Posted at 02:29PM Sep 15, 2009 by branajam in Sun  | 

Sun Blog Entry Number 500

Hi all,

Today I've reached an important blogging milestone: This is the 500th entry for JamesBranam's Blog. I first started this blog back in December of 2005, after talking to my colleague Geertjan. Today I have to say that it was great advice from the blogging master.

I blog about lots of things, mostly IT-related, sometimes personal. I've enjoyed blogging, and have even expanded to more blogs.

Thanks to everyone for reading this blog, and thanks for the fantastic interaction. You have made it well worth the while.

Cheers!

-James

Posted at 09:00AM Aug 16, 2009 by branajam in Sun  | 

Sun and Facebook

Hi all,

Every once in a while, while I'm Facebook, I see a notification from Sun Microsystems pop up on my wall. In these uncertain times, it's good to see this, and i can't help but wonder how long I'll be seeing it.

I suppose that this could still happen long after the "event" that is to come. Talk about haunting from one's past.

Cheers!

--James

Posted at 06:49PM Jul 27, 2009 by branajam in Sun  | 

Installing Packages on OpenSolaris

Hi all,

I've been working more on my cloud computing course. I'm working on a module for creating a custom OpenSolaris AMI. In a couple of the steps, the user installs software on his virtual machine. It was so easy to do.

JDK 6.

pkg install SUNWj6dev

MySQL.

pkg install SUNWmysql

Apache Ant.

pkg install SUNWant

GlassFish. This is a little tricker:

1. Download GlassFish:

   wget  http://java.net/download/javaee5/v2.1_branch/promoted/SunOS_X86/glassfish-installer-v2.1-b60e-sunos_x86.jar

2. Install GlassFish:

   java -Xmx256m -jar glassfish-installer-v2.1-b60e-sunos_x86.jar

3. Click "A: or "a" to accept the license.

I wish everything were this easy.

Cheers!

--James

Posted at 05:56PM Jun 23, 2009 by branajam in Sun  | 

200th Blog Entry for FY2009

Hi all,

Today marks a special milestone for my blog: the 200th entry for FY 2009 (July 1, 2008 - JUne 30, 2009). It's the most I've blogged in a year, and I have to say that I've had a great time doing it. Here is a quick breakdown of my blog activity:

• FY 2006 (Dec-Jun): 27
• FY 2007: 87
• FY 2008: 183
• FY 2009: 200 and counting

The total to date is 470 blog entries (and this doesn't include blog entries made on the NetBeans Community Docs blog). I should reach an even bigger milestone in the first half of August: 500 total blog entries.

Then we'll see what happens. (You'll know what I'm talking about if you've been reading the news.)

Cheers!

--James

Posted at 09:00AM Jun 20, 2009 by branajam in Sun  | 

JavaOne 2009: Are You Attending?

Hi all,

JavaOne 2009. Are you attending?

It's a great place to be.

Lots of great sessions.

Lots to learn. Lots to see.

Swag.

Cheers!

--James

Posted at 09:00AM May 31, 2009 by branajam in Sun  | 

JavaOne Equals Empty Offices

Hi all,

It's that time of year again. JavaOne is about to begin, and lots of Sun employees from around the globe are off to San Francisco to attend. I've never seen anything like this year. Our office in Prague is turning into a ghost town. A lot of my writer colleagues went this year. I hope they have a great time. Maybe next year I'll go to JavaOne too.

Cheers!

--James

Posted at 09:00AM May 30, 2009 by branajam in Sun  | 

AWS Experience Part 5: Saving Money with EBS Snapshots

Hi all,

After playing around with Amazon Web Services for a couple of weeks now, and after racking up considerable charges to my account, I decided to look into ways of avoiding these charges. Using a snapshot is good way to do this.

A typical scenario is to launch an AMI, attach an EBS volume, and off you go. You store your data to the EBS volume. However, when you terminate your AMI, you lose your data. Here is a way around this:

1. Create a snapshot of your volume before you delete it.
2. Terminate your AMI and delete your EBS volume.
3. Go to the EBS Snapshots panel of the AWS Management Console. Right-click the snapshot and choose Create Volume from Snapshot.
4. Then attach the new EBS volume to you new AMI, with data intact!

Cheers!

--James

Posted at 08:26PM May 26, 2009 by branajam in Sun  | 

End of an Era

Hi all,

I found out yesterday than Roman (of Roumen's Blog fame) is leaving Sun Microsystems after five years. I wish him all the best in his new job.

Roman was loved by the NetBeans Community. He traveled around the world, spreading the world about NetBeans. He provided me with a fantastic example of how one should interact with the community.

Roman has also helped me out on a number of occasions, providing me with valuable information I need to complete a task. I learned a lot from him.

So, a new era begins at Sun: a Roumenless era.

Cheers!

--James

Posted at 09:00AM May 22, 2009 by branajam in Sun  |  Comments[2]

AWS Part 4: Blogging from the Road

Hi al,

I'm in London, England for an Amazon Web Services camp. It's a one day program that I'm really looking forward to. I starts in about an hour.

I was surprised by the number of things I had to do or download in preparation for the camp. Here is a list:

1. Sign up for Amazon EC2/S3, SQS and SimpleDB.
2. Install ElasticFox which makes it easier to work with Amazon EC2 images.
3. Install S3Fox which makes it easier to work with Amazon S3.
4. Download and install a trial edition of SDB Explorer.
5. Install and configure the Amazon EC2 command line tools
6. Download unzip the following archives:
   1. http://aws-bootcamp.s3.amazonaws.com/eclipse_installation.zip.
   2. This is just an installation of EasyEclipse Server Java with a few extra libraries.
   3. http://www.easyeclipse.org/site/distributions/server-java.html

I'll let you know how it goes.

Cheers!

--James

Posted at 08:00AM May 19, 2009 by branajam in Sun  | 

Nice Presentation on Cloudcomputing

Hi all,

By now you've heard that Sun Microsystems is getting more and more into cloudcomputing. For those of you wanting to know more, there's a very nice presentation here.

You'll find that Dave Douglas answers a lot of questions people may have.

See you tomorrow.

Cheers!

--James

Posted at 03:44PM Feb 28, 2009 by branajam in Sun  | 

Cloud Puns

Hi all,

Want to see what the future of computing looks like? Just go to http://www.sun.com/solutions/cloudcomputing/index.jsp.

While I welcome this great challenge for Sun, I also have to put up with a lot of cloud puns from my colleagues. For example:

A: So what does Sun's future look like?
B: It's in the clouds.

A: Our next task is cloudy at best.
B: I can barely see through the cloud.

There are many more. Somebody please help me.

Cheers!

--James

Posted at 09:00AM Jan 30, 2009 by branajam in Sun  | 

Cool Java Application

Hi all,

I discovered a nice Java application on the Internet tonight. It's great for keeping track of American college football. You can see it by going to Yahoo.com.

Cheers!

--James

Posted at 10:27PM Nov 15, 2008 by branajam in Sun  |  Comments[2]

Three Years at Sun Microsystems

Hi all,

Today is my three-year anniversary at Sun Microsystems. It has been a great ride so far. Here is a quick timeline:

November 2005 - May 2006: NetBeans 5.0 came out right after I started (Nov). I started out as an online help writer for Sun Java Studio Creator. I came on board right before the Studio Creater 2.0 release (Dec.-Jan.). I worked on the the 2.0 and 2.1 (May) releases of Creator.

May 2006 - April 2007: Java Studio Creator became Visual Web Pack, and was integrated into NetBeans 5.5 (Oct). I continued to write the online help, and I started to contribute tutorials.

April 2007 - December 2007: Visual Web was fully integrated into NetBeans 6.0 (Dec.), and I became the sole docs writer for Visual Web JSF: online help and tutorials. I also took on the Release Notes. A lot of work, but very rewarding.

December 2007 - May 2008: This was a very rewarding period for me. I began to blog a lot morel, and the NetBeans Community Docs program was created (Mar.) and started to succeed. I also began to move more into Web Apps and database technology. NetBeans 6.1 (May) was released during this period.

May 2008 - November 2008: The Community Docs program is doing very well, I'm blogging often, and my tech writing responsibilities include web applications, Visual Web JSF, databases, and some Ajax tutorials. NetBeans 6.5 (Nov.) is about to be released. This has been the best period yet.

Going Forward

Today's blog entry is my 352nd. I'll do a another special blog entry when I hit 500. Blogging has been very rewarding for me personally. I realize that I am no Geertjan (blogger extraordinaire), but I try to stay in contact with the community, and my blog has served this purpose well. The only thing I've regretted is the naming of my blog. James' Blog regularly makes the top 50 Sun blogs, but a lot of people out there don't associate me with James' Blog. It could be that a lot of them see "James" and immediately think "James Gosling" or other significant Jameses. In order to avoid this in the future, I've renamed James' Blog to JamesBranam's Blog, starting today. I figured my three-year anniversary is a good time to do this.

So, see you tomorrow at JamesBanam's Blog.

Cheers!

--James

Posted at 09:21AM Nov 01, 2008 by branajam in Sun  |  Comments[2]

Solaris Campus in Second Life

Hi all,

I was just reading Dana Nourie's blog again. I found some very interesting information there about plans to create a Sun Solaris Campus in Second Life. This is what Dana had to say about it:

"I'm very excited to announce that Sun is opening Sun Solaris Campus this month for developers. Don't think traditional campus - think a fun, unique and community-oriented virtual campus. At this inworld campus, you'll be able to talk with experts, listen to informative chats about Solaris, and network with other developers like yourself.

Of course, we are brainstorming for other similar campuses for Sun's various technologies, and other ways we can interact with you, the developer. One area I am looking at is our Club Java. This is a social place where people can met to chat business, or they can throw off their shoes and make use of the dance floor.

It looks like I might be hanging out there every now and then. So look for me (Cap Wind) and Dana (Dana Oceanlane) while you're there.

Cheers!

--James

Posted at 09:00AM Sep 08, 2008 by branajam in Sun  |  Comments[6]

Zembly: myPicks Beijing 2008 Results

Hi all,

A while back, I blogged about trying out a new Zembly app on Facebook.com. You predicted the medalists for each Olympic event, and, depending on how well you did, were listed on the list of top 100 players.

Well, as seen in the image above, I made the top 100, 78th out of almost 2,000 players. I finished second on my friends' list: Jan Chalupa (of NetBeans) did better.

It was a great experience, and this app really shows how great Zembly can be. Let's hope that there are other opportunities to try it out.

See you tomorrow.

Cheers!

--James

Posted at 09:00AM Aug 30, 2008 by branajam in Sun  | 

A Second Life for Developers

Hi all,

I just finished reading Dana Nourie's blog, and I want to pass on some very interesting information to you. It seems that Dana will be working more with the developer community in Second Life for Sun.

You can find out more on Dana's blog.

And while you're in Second Life, look for Dana (Dana Oceanlane) and me (Cap Wind).

See you there!

--James

Posted at 09:00AM Aug 28, 2008 by branajam in Sun  | 

Powered by Zembly

Hi all,

There's a great little application on facebook you should check out. You pick winners for all the Olympic events. I haven't done so well so far, but it's still early.

Let's see how you can do.

Cheers!

--James

Posted at 02:21PM Aug 11, 2008 by branajam in Sun  | 

Election 2008 Polls

Hi all,

Time to send another very interesting URL.

Rasmussen Reports: Daily Presidential Tracking Polling History

With the 2008 presidential elections coming up, it's nice to be able to track the candidates.

See you tomorrow!

--James

Posted at 05:21PM Jan 26, 2008 by branajam in Sun  | 

Web Effects

Hi all,

I was just sent a very interesting URL.

http://producten.hema.nl/

Have fun with it. By the way, you might want to turn the audio down a little before you go there.

See you tomorrow!

--James

Posted at 07:15PM Jan 25, 2008 by branajam in Sun  |