Sharing another experience…

I had two Tech Demos at my university. After having a session weeks before explaining the idea of the Project of Sun Community. This project is open to any student of the university who wants to be involved with Sun and with its technologies. Having the opportunity to learn, participate and have fun! They also will get the benefits of discounts for certifications. They are encouraged to enroll to the courses at Sun Academic Initiative. In this session topics such as OpenSolaris and Java gaming were explained to the assistants. Inviting them to install OpenSolaris on their computers and develop a game with Java.

Topics were Netbeans Desktop Application and Web Application, these are some of my favorites topics to give since they are really easy to use and explain. Students are always surprised about how easy it is and how useful can be.
For both demos I arranged with the catering services of the university to get a pass to have a meal at the cafeteria. This means students use its pass to have a meal whenever they want.

I recommend to the campus ambassadors to give their demos at a lab. This is because they can follow you doing the exercise at the same time. Make sure the software you will be using for your presentation is correctly installed at the lab. The other option is to ask to assistants to bring their own laptops with the software previously installed.

Good luck to all my fellow campus ambassadors.

Sun Tech Days 2007 in Mexico City.

This month during 3 exciting days Mexico City had the pleasure to be part of the Sun Tech Days.

My main roll during this event was to promote Temple of the Sun www.sun.com/templeofthesun, as all of you know it has great prizes.
(1st Place : $5,000USD, 2nd Place : $2,500USD and 3rd Place : $1,000USD check official rules)

Lots of people were interested on it, for those I explained what the game was about and gave them away the DVD and flyers talking about Sun Studio.

It was a great event. Most of the talks were in english but staff gave headphones translating what speakeres were saying. There were also some hands on labs where assistants could put their skills to work.

I share some pictures got during the event.

Sun is shining at ITESM-CEM, Mexico.

I held a Day of Sun Technologies at my university.

Let me tell you that it was a long journey for me and for my attendees. Since there was a mix of 4 Demos in one day. Including Java Studio Creator (JSC), Introduction to Solaris, How to install Solaris and Sun Studio Temple of the Sun.

Most of my attendees were freshman and sophomore. Before the event, none of them have used JSC before. So, we did a simple example about uploading files that I took from the tutorials (great source for examples) http://developers.sun.com/jscreator/learning/tutorials/2/index.jsp
, after that showed them some videos from the web site about what they can do with JSC.(http://developers.sun.com/jscreator/)

In the Solaris Demo, I pretty much introduced the OS rather than explaining complex topics. Gave Solaris kit to them. After that I explained the ways to install it, and what would the be the best option according to their computer, in my opinion I recommended partitioning their disks.

In Temple of the Sun, they asked me to play a little the game. I was glad playing in front of my audience hehe. They started playing as well and realized after some levels you have to register. So, this was the opportunity to distribute the dvd's of Temple of the Sun to install Sun Studio.I also gave them some informative flyers about Sun Studio and got the questionnaires.

After finished, students came to me asking if there would be more demos next semester. It was not easy to get attendees since all the students are working on their final projects and preparing for final exams. Gave them a ticket to have a free lunch at the cafeteria, after having a good deal with Catering Services.

It was a long and fun journey!

Good luck to my fellow CA's.

Eduardo Ibanez

Dejénme informarles que el Instituto Great Place to Work® y Mundo Ejecutivo reconocen este año 2007 que Sun Microsystems es una de las Mejores Empresas para trabajar en México.

Esto fue publicado en los medios de comunicación más importantes de México y Latinoamérica.

Felicidades Sun!

Compartiendo mi experiencia para los Campus Ambassadors.

Hola

Les platico de mi evento de "Netbeans 5.5 Project Matisse Gui Builder". Hice unos cambios respecto a mi evento pasado. En esta ocasión solicité que los alumnos interesados en el evento tenían que confirmar su asistencia por e-mail, ayudandome a saber cuántos alumnos iban a asistir desde tiempo antes, también ésto me ayudo para saber cuántos paquetes de comida se iban a ordenar. Teniendo ya el número de posibles asistentes, unos días antes del evento solicité a la cafetería de la universidad realizar un servicio de "2 Hot Dogs and Drinks" por persona. Sin embargo, ordené un par de paquetes extras por si alguien más confirmaba su asistencia, y dicho y hecho, hubo alumnos que confirmaron unas horas antes.
En el evento se presentaron alumnos que no habían confirmado, y un par que confirmaron no asistieron, entonces vino dando el mismo número.

El evento lo realice en el laboratorio donde se instaló Netbeans. La fecha fue sábado por la mañana, y la verdad no la recomiendo mucho. Pues muchos alumnos prefieren descansar el fin de semana y no saber de la escuela, es preferible hacerla durante un día de la semana.

Estuvieron muy interesados en todo lo que se puede hacer con Netbeans. Fueron invitados nuevamente a que se unieran a las comunidades de Sun y a los próximos eventos.

Mucha suerte con sus eventos y los invito a compartir sus experiencias con los demás compañeros para así aprender de nosotros mismos quienes estamos en el mismo barco.

Saludos,

Eduardo Ibanez
Sun Campus Ambassador
Tecnologico de Monterrey
Campus Estado de Mexico

Hi all ambassadors from all over the world

Let me share my experience of my 1st Demo!!.

After promoting the event and preparing the presentation. The day had come and it was time to give my first Demo. In this demo I did not ask the students to sign up for the event, just come to it and that's it. However, this left me an uncertainty of how many students would come to the event, so I was not able to ask for food for the exact people. It was too late to start signing up people to the event to know exactly how many, so I did an approximation. I was planning to order pizza, but there was a problem ordering it for the lab. So, I made an arrangement with the cafeteria of the university and asked for a service of drinks and snacks for the event. This worked really good.

The event was at 4pm, people start arrving few minutes before. And suddenly the lab was completely full. We took chairs from another room because there was not enough. Even people were sitting on the floor. First, I gave a brief presentation, encourage them to join SAI and Sun communities, and then I started the presentation using the screen and the blackboard. I asked my brother and a friend to help me out, in case some people were getting stuck. I finished few minutes later as planned. At the end I gave some giveaways and invited them to the drinks and lunch.

It was a great experience!

I have some pics would like to share as well.

Good luck to all my fellow ambassadors,

Eduardo Ibanez
Sun Campus Ambassador
Tecnológico de Monterrey - Campus Estado de México

Pictures

How Will Java Technology Change My Life?

We can't promise you fame, fortune, or even a job if you learn the Java programming language. Still, it is likely to make your programs better and requires less effort than other languages. We believe that Java technology will help you do the following:
Get started quickly: Although the Java programming language is a powerful object-oriented language, it's easy to learn, especially for programmers already familiar with C or C++.

Write less code: Comparisons of program metrics (class counts, method counts, and so on) suggest that a program written in the Java programming language can be four times smaller than the same program written in C++.

Write better code: The Java programming language encourages good coding practices, and automatic garbage collection helps you avoid memory leaks. Its object orientation, its JavaBeansTM component architecture, and its wide-ranging, easily extendible API let you reuse existing, tested code and introduce fewer bugs.

Develop programs more quickly: The Java programming language is simpler than C++, and as such, your development time could be up to twice as fast when writing in it. Your programs will also require fewer lines of code.

Avoid platform dependencies: You can keep your program portable by avoiding the use of libraries written in other languages.

Write once, run anywhere: Because applications written in the Java programming language are compiled into machine-independent bytecodes, they run consistently on any Java platform.

Distribute software more easily: With Java Web Start software, users will be able to launch your applications with a single click of the mouse. An automatic version check at startup ensures that users are always up to date with the latest version of your software. If an update is available, the Java Web Start software will automatically update their installation.

http://java.sun.com/docs/books/tutorial/getStarted/intro/changemylife.html