An audience of two

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Monday October 08, 2007

General Session 1
Dan Berg banging the drum for CE2.0 - it's going to be available "on the edge" - translation, outside SWAN. Good idea - looks like it's going to be useful.

Jim Baty talking about Red Shift - missed most of it talking to Atilla. The wireless is being flaky again. Thankfully it's up now; I'm logged in, but the guy sat next to me couldn't.

Mark Tremblay talking about chip multi-threading. Interesting question: would you rather have a system that burns 500W peak and 100W idle or 400W peak and 200W idle? Given that most systems are idle something like 90% of the time the former might make more sense, but when all your systems are active at the same time, how do you power and cool them? With advances in virtualization the emphasis is on reducing that 90% - keeping the systems running at peak whenever possible. So the correct answer really is, whichever one I need fewer of.

Andy Bechtolsheim - Employee #1. Why are people leaving? This is the headline act!. He's talking about the new X4450 - 16 cores, 128Gb, 8 disks, eating 1050W in a 2U box. Mark, I have my answer - I want one of those. Nice that we will continue to support both Intel and AMD CPUs.

The 6048 blade server looks awesome: 48 blades - 192 sockets, 6 terabytes of memory - in one rack. Plus some interesting sounding I/O stuff coming down the pipe next year.

Thumper with terabyte disks and redundant disk controllers? Yikes!

Damn, video issues in room Bronze 1 - I have to bail while he's talking about the TACC supercomputer.

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Tags: suncec2007

Sunday October 07, 2007

Neat new twitter feature
Apparently Twitter has added a new Tracking feature. Now you can track tweets that contain certain keywords even if you aren't following the person who is tweeting. I'm tracking cec2007 and suncec2007 to see how well it works.

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Seen on Facebook
In the CEC2007 group, under the heading Related Groups - check out the third one.

Solaris
Internet & Technology - Software

Friends of the Sun Microsystems Foundation
Business - Companies

I bet I can find 1,000,000 people who dislike George Bush!
Organizations - Political Organizations

OpenSolaris
Internet & Technology - Software

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Tags: suncec2007

No rest for the wicked
6PM is here and the Welcome reception has started in the Pavillion. I'm finally enjoying a well earned glass of Estancia cabernet when my phone goes off. It's one of the conference organisers.
Him: You know how you created accounts for the attendees?
Me: Yes. I created accounts for everyone in Sun because I didn't know who would be coming.
Him: What about Sun partners? They don't have Sun IDs
Me: (Expletive deleted)

One quick script later and I'm standing in front of the SunRay, waiting while useradd creates 323 new accounts. Then I have to propagate those accounts to the other 11 SunRay servers.

At least I got an extra drink ticket. Now all I need is someone to fetch it for me. Mike?

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The storm before the calm, or Everything I Forgot From Last Year
It's the same every year; mass panic as we try to resolve all the issues. I have a few minutes to document the solutions to the problems we hit; More than likely the only person who will benefit from this is me twelve months from now, but here goes.

Configuring an Ultra 20 so that the NVIDIA card shows the same screen on both outputs

We need one for the presenter's monitor, the other for the projector. Under Gnome, select Launch->Applications->Utilities->NVidia X Server Settings.
Select X Server Display Configuration. If the second screen doesn't show up, click Detect Displays.
Select the second screen - it should say Disabled - and click Configure.
In the popup select Twinview, then OK.
Under Position select Clones. It should now work, but will not survive a reboot.
At the bottom of the screen select Save to X Configuration File - enter a file that you can write to, such as /tmp/foo - if you try to write to /etc it may fail silently.
As root, copy the file to /etc/X11/xorg.conf - voila.

Note that if you boot the Ultra 20 with the projector connected, that causes the NVIDIA card to get confused. It thinks that the projector only supports 640x480 - or worse still, 320x240! Annoyingly, the configuration utility is too big to run on a 640x480 screen which makes life fun.

Another side effect is that the xorg.conf may get updated with the lower resolution. If this happens, edit the /etc/X11/xorg.conf file. Look towards the end for a bit that looks like this:

Section "Screen" Identifier "Screen0" Device "Videocard0" Monitor "Monitor0" DefaultDepth 24 Option "TwinView" "1" Option "metamodes" "CRT: 1024x768 +0+0, DFP: 1024x768 +0+0" SubSection "Display" Depth 24 Modes "1600x1200" "1280x1024" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480" EndSubSection EndSection Verify the parameters on the line that says "metamodes".

Configuring a network printer in Firefox

First make sure that the printer is connected to the right network. You don't want it plugged into the hub that all the SunRays are running off. Then configure the printer with an IP address on the main LAN. Double check the subnet mask and gateway because you probably fat-fingered it. Again.

If you can ping the printer, you're good to go. Add an entry to /etc/hosts and call it printer. Sure, you can use the IP address, but someone will fat-finger that too. You should be able to print using the command lp -d printer:printer

Launch Firefox and select File->Print. Under Properties get rid of that MOZ_PRINTER_NAME stuff and just put lp -d printer:printer - then print something. If you don't print something it won't save the change.

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Tags: printer punchin suncec2007 twinview

Saturday October 06, 2007

Fun things to do in Vegas
Apart from gambling, eating, drinking and going to shows, there are lots of other fun things to do in Vegas. I asked the taxi driver what he thought would be the most fun - he said to go to the Chicken Ranch, but poultry farming isn't my thing. So here are a few fun things to see that don't cost anything.

The fountains at Bellagio, by night

I could sit and watch those fountains all day, but by night they are even more spectacular. The lights add an extra dimension

The volcano at Mirage

A spectacular combination of fire and water. I'm told that when it first was constructed they set fire to some of the palm trees, which had each cost around $5,000 to install. Oops.

The Treasure Island show

This used to be a battle between a British naval frigate and a pirate ship which the British somehow lost. These days I'm told that it's been replaced by "The Sirens of Treasure Island" - a battle between pirates and bikini clad ladies, which in my view is clearly much more credible. Get there early - it gets packed.

The dragon at Excalibur

Purely for cheese factor, you have to see this. I'm sure that when it was installed it was terrific, but these days it looks sad. Much like the rest of Excalibur for that matter.

The car museum at Imperial Palace

I think the museum costs about $5 to enter, but if you get one of the books that they hand out at the entrance there's a coupon inside for free entry. If you like classic cars then it's a fun way to spend an hour on a hot day.

The Bellagio conservatory

A nice flower garden.

For more suggestions on things to do, check out the guides at CheapoVegas.com and BigEmpire.com

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Tags: attractions cheap free suncec2007 vegas

Vintage Vegas
I'm amazed at how much Las Vegas has changed since I last came here. I stayed at the Aladdin - it was brand new. Now it's called Planet Hollywood. Right opposite there's the biggest building site I've ever seen - it's going to be a new casino and resort called The Cosmopolitan. It took me a while to remember what used to be there; I'm pretty sure it was a little casino called the Boardwalk. My wife and I stopped there for breakfast at 4AM on the way back to our hotel the first time we came to Vegas, about ten years ago.

Someone has amassed an amazing online collection of photos, postcards and other ephemera showing Las Vegas over the years - be warned, there are over 1500 photos!

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Tags: casino history suncec2007 vegas

CEC Technical Video Challenge - my submission
This year CEC has reintroduced the concept of video submissions, but with a difference. Instead of humourous content they wanted a technical video. Well, since the product we are working on is technically unannounced there wasn't much I could do so I made this video showing some of the SysNet team talking in admittedly vague terms about the Coso project. Enjoy.

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Tags: suncec2007 sysnet video

Friday October 05, 2007

Worst. Logo. Ever.
I'd been wondering what the CEC logo would look like.
The official site has a simple CEC2007 motif that looks almost exactly the same as last year's polo shirt.

Turns out that's it - CEC 2007 with the 7 looking like it was added as an afterthought using masking tape. Graphic designers are such frauds.

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Tags: graphic logo suncec2007

Thursday October 04, 2007

Vegas Two Times
Arrived on time in Las Vegas. Uneventful flight, but that's fine by me. Spent half of it looking for even the tiniest hint of a headache. Thankfully none showed.

Got to the hotel planning to relax by the pool on the 88F sunshine but discovered that I'd picked up my iPod FireWire cable by mistake and the phone would not charge. So it was off to the local AT&T shop to buy a new cable. No wonder AAPL are at $156 - have you seen the price of those things?

Spent a few hours finishing the new CEC video (no jokes this year I'm afraid) but I can't upload it yet. I'm damned if I'm paying $13 a night for net access!

Dinner in Dan Marino's. Had a very tasty prime rib washed down with 2002 Cuneo Two Rivers - an interesting Bordeaux blend that's a mix of Oregon and Washington fruit. Nice fruit if a tad heavy on the oak and a little hot at 15.6%(!) but by far the best on the list and wouldn't be bad value at around $24 retail.

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Tags: suncec2007 vegas video wine

Wednesday October 03, 2007

CEC Videos: Viva!
My poor shot at a CEC video this year. What with work, baby, brain damage etc. I wasn't able to do anything more funny or Sun related, so don't expect anything great. If you want to see a good video, go watch the Apple one again.

You should also check out the busted Technorati aggregator. It's showing six, no make that seven, identical copies of Dave Levy's post from yesterday, but missing almost all my posts.

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Tags: suncec2007 vegas video viva

Tuesday October 02, 2007

Twitter@CEC
If you're going to CEC and your mobile phone provider doesn't charge you ripoff rates for text messaging, consider signing up for Twitter. This is a service that in effect merges blogging and instant messaging, optionally delivering updates (known as "tweets") to your mobile vis SMS messages. It's been called "microblogging".

Once you've signed up you look for people to follow. In each case you can decide whether to have their updates go to your aggregator on the net or to your phone. The benefit at an event like CEC is that you'll be able to send brief texts like "I just went to the Sun Update Connection breakout - you should check it out", or "Groan, this is sending me to sleep - see you at Starbucks afterwards"

It's yet another of those services that you'll either like or loathe, get addicted to or completely fail to see the point of, but when you're visiting Vegas with 3,500 other geeks it's certainly worth investigating beforehand. There's a suggestion on the CEC Facebook group that the organisers may use the service to send out updates and reminders. If you want to follow me, I'm http://twitter.com/davetong and I'll be Twittering throughout CEC.

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Let's stop now - update
Looks like YouTube finally has its act together - the videos are showing up under the tags now. Plus they are showing up on Technorati too. That makes me wonder whether Technorati is in fact innocent and it's our blog server that's hosed. It has been giving me Permission Denied almost every time I try to do anything (a refresh and repost works).

Update: Nope, looks like people on the Technorati comment board are complaining too.

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Tags: google suncec2007 tags technorati

CEC Videos: Connected
Connected is the last of my old STS/CEC videos. It was so heavily mucked around with by the A/V people that I gave up fighting, and I'm not sure if this original version was ever seen by anyone outside the immediate group. The group was called CNS which stood for Connected Network Something. I agreed to work with Kier Gombart to make the video, but timing and location issues made things difficult so he just sent me a Windows Movie Maker project file of people he'd shot in around Broomfield.

The song we decided to use was Connected by the Stereo MCs. One of the repeating lines in the song is "I ain't gonna go blind", so Kier took lots of shots of people putting on and taking off sunglasses. I must have had about 15+ minutes of that footage. Some of it ended up looking pretty good though.

The premise of the video was that an important client's system had crashed, triggering a mass panic. By using NetConnect, and in particular the SharedShell tool, the engineers were able to fix it quickly. The surprise was that the client was in fact a lingerie retailer, Frederick's of Hollywood. The tagline was a minor double entendre: "NetConnect helps keep your front end up".

I took a great deal of flak over this - more so than the previous videos. I suppose some of it was deserved (check out the names of the engineers in the chat session) but much was not. It was interpreted as suggesting that the group's director was surfing for porn (perhaps taking the "I ain't gonna go blind" line a little too far). Whatever; pretty much everyone in the movie quit or got RIF'd soon after - including the director, whose name I can't even remember. The A/V people bitched and moaned about the amount of effort it took to write over the engineer's names and put the CEC logo over the Frederick's page (and do a better job of it than I did, I must say).

I wanted Jason to really look like he was kicking and whacking the server hard, but since he was technically responsible for it he was a bit reluctant, even though it was just the rack that he was hitting, not the system in it. For those who don't speak Spanish, basura means trash.

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Tags: connected suncec2007 video