I can't take credit for remembering, however today is kind of Solaris 2.0's sixteenth birthday, well at least its the 17th anniversary of Sun announcing 'the first shrink-wrapped distributed computing solution' aka Solaris. Actually I think Solaris 2.0 (along the same lines as the Star Wars films, 2.0 was first, and 1.0 was a follow-up!) was released until June 1992, but any excuse to celebrate!

I just hope you don't end up with Neil Sedaka's 1961 hit, Sweet Sixteen stuck in your head for the rest of the day, as I did last week when I heard the news. For that I can only blame former Radio One DJ Ed 'Stewpot' Stewart.

Roll on next year and I'll start quoting Beatles lyrics...

...and all over the United Kingdom, Europe, Africa and the Middle East, virtually no-one has been logging support cases, which is quite nice; especially for all of us who have been working today in the Technology Service Centre here in the UK (7AM to 7PM for me!).

So for those of you taking the time to read this, especially if you're working, Merry Christmas, Wesołych Świąt, geseënde Kersfees, 圣诞快乐, veselé Vánoce, glædelig jul, vrolijk Kerstfeest, hyvää joulua, joyeux Noël, frohe Weihnachten, kala christougenna, Krismas ki subhkamna, gleðileg jól, Nollaig shona, buon Natale, meri kurisumasu, Noela we pîroz be, sreken Bozik, god jul, C Pождеством, Nollaig chridheil, Chrismas joon wadhayoon, feliz Navidad, สุขสันต์วันคริสตร์มาส, Nadolig llawen, or just insert your winter holiday greeting of choice!

Hmm... wonder if Jonathan's blog is covering quite so many languages yet?

Are you wondering who the dodgy looking chap in the picture is? It's me. I'm probably not as high profile as Jonathan so here's a little background:

I joined Sun nearly 9 years ago, having previously worked at MSSL , part of University College London a software developer/sysadmin in the Climate Physics Group (actually that was a worryingly long time ago!).

I'm a support engineer working in Sun's Systems Technology Service Centre organisation, which means when there's an issue on a high-end Sun box (older or newer) as well as lots of other products, there's a chance that you'll end up speaking to me (online or on the phone).

I first wrote this entry on 23rd November 2004, but it only appeared on my internal blog, and I really don't think anyone actually read it!

It's all change for me again at Sun; today I start on my 12th manager in just under 9 years. I don't really think this is a bad thing, working in Sun you'd be hard pushed to find anyone who'd never had a change of boss, like in Scotland where they're say "If you don't like the weather just wait a little while and it'll soon change!".

So it's Richard's turn to take on the role of sitting above me in namefinder following in the footsteps of (most recent first) Richard, Andy, Ray, John, Gary, Alison, Sean, Thierry, Rob, Kimberley and Ray (the same).

Today I start under Richard for a second time (basically we've changed teams however Richard is still on my case!).

Good Luck, Richard! -- Loving your work!