we'll be at linux world this next week. don't be shy. drop by and say hi if you are in the neighborhood.

the demos this go round are:

• brevient connect (ed note)
• vista portal
• JXTA C (JXTA 2.0 compliant C implementation ... devices anyone?)
• PicShare
• MyJXTA

Java == platform independence
XML == application independence
JXTA == network independence

Secure End-to-End Computing

in my ears: UnderWorld/Second Toughest In The Infants/Confusion The Waitress

can p2p networks be monetized? h3ll yes! witness brevient's connect product. how? jxta but of course.

Java == platform independence
XML == application independence
JXTA == network independence

Secure End-to-End Computing

in my ears: UnderWorld/Second Toughest In The Infants/Kiteless

vanessa just launched JXTASpaces, which is:

Java == platform independence
XML == application independence
JXTA == network independence

Secure End-to-End Computing

in my ears: UnderWorld/Dirty Epic:CowGirl/Dirty Epic(Dirty Guitar Mix)

just upgraded to freetts 1.2b2 in order to incorporate the ultra-lean and cool code example as posted by plamere. couldn't be easier and i was able to remove earlier implementation kruft in the process. less is more. i like that! I'll spin out a new jnlp build shortly.

now, to find the analogous sphinx exemplary code and inline it as well ... picking up where i left of pre j1.

Java == platform independence
XML == application independence
JXTA == network independence

Secure End-to-End Computing

in my ears: Tricky/Maxinquaye/Ponderosa

i agree with my compadre jclingan. very much so in fact. theft is plain and simply theft. i hate it as well and the fundamentals are so obvious ... a penny saved here is a penny filched elsewhere. what comes around goes around. just what did your mother teach you during your formulative years?

integration, business integration or otherwise, is upon us. this is a good thing and it is nothing new that nefarious types bend good things into dark shapes, at times. anyways, back to integration in it's simplest form. pervasive transports are a good thing(tm). no doubt. identity is both enabling and a "mischief maker" deterrent. multi-leveled identity is an interesting concept. i mean, that is how we interoperate in the world at large everyday. saying hi to strangers equates to presence and a protocol handshake. no more need be done. buying groceries involves a bit more credentials (eg credit card) or not (cold hard greenbacks). buying a licensed controlled product involves more disclosure. ok, with multi-levelled identity at play in the real world the logical conclusion is that objects, in the ether world, perform in a like manner vs the generic all-or-none type approach we are exposed to day in and day out. to do so context needs to be established, shared, built upon and credentialed at the lowest level possible and when two (or more) widgets cross paths on the ether sidewalk say hi they can, assuredly, engage in an entirely appropriate and meaningful exchange ... or not.

a flexible and pervasive transport is absolutely fundamental for this to, well, work in the real world, on the street, outside those caged systems that run the few but significantly large systems. upon this transport we have, to a significant degree, the necessary pieces to construct "object rapport" in an organic and scalable fashion regardless as to the system domain. objects with personality so to speak.

p2p is such a general term that i use it less and less as it has taken on the baggage of the behaviour of the bad vs a moniker for the purist opportunity that is still very much attainable ... that being to bestow contextual meaning upon every object in varying degrees unleashing a structured micro-economy (*lots* of little things) just as real, vibrant, multi-dimensional and accountable as the world we live in, for better or worse. i choose better.

Java == platform independence
XML == application independence
JXTA == network independence

Secure End-to-End Computing

in my ears: Tricky/Maxinquaye/Black Steel

life is good

Java == platform independence
XML == application independence
JXTA == network independence

Secure End-to-End Computing

in my ears: Gang of Four/A Brief History of the Twentieth Century/It's Her Factory

newly minted projects are intersting to watch in that each usually have their supporters and detractors alike, the later of which are usually most active at the onset. in this case, jdnc is a "new old" project in that it is trusty swing with a shiny new coat of paint.

anyways, one indivual has been rather expressive in his concerns to the point of stating some rather odd comments re an open source project, specifically:

amazing. i remind you this is an open source project. intrigued, i respond:

Discussing designs/features/bugs/et al on an open source project, licensing issues aside for the moment, regardless as to one's motiviations be it personal or sponsorred is (part of the process). It is about collaboration, for the betterment of all ... so that we can build better/richer apps. If you contribute code/ideas/etc then defending your work and incorporating feedback is all part of the process ... a "good" process by all measures. This project is a good thing. It sets precedents on a number of fronts. I very much want (and plan) to use the derivatives. I see no reason to stand in the way of progress regardless as to the reasons individuals are contributing code here, be it Sun sponsored or otherwise. This is no different then any number of other open projects Sun employees contribute to. As a company we are collectively quite good at this process, bar none, and this project is no different. Feel free to talk and share ideas. People listen. Be prepared to recieve feedback. It is part of the process ... I repeat ... a good process.

no reply. no suprise.

he evidently has a (6)itch about the project name and couldn't resist dragging out a laundry list of other sun sponsorred technologies that shared the ever so facinating similiarity in that they all have (three or) four letter acronyms for names ... including jxta:

ahhhhh ... wrong'o. re jxta, we get self acclaimed "newbies" literally everyday on the lists and/or discovering myjxta for the first time. never once have i seen folks lingering at the door, daring to enter and whine at the door simply because of the sign over the archway. i mean honestly now. further, i always appreciate new eyes on my projects runtime, code, process and docs so that we can continually tune it making it more palatable in the process. if four letter acronyms are filters that keep anal retentive types at bay ... i need to break out my scrabble board and score big with 4's.

i encouraged him to consider shifting his thoughts to a thought provoking blog ... somewhere in the ether ... out there, yes ... on the distant, oh so far, horizon. yes, out there. now *run* ... fast.

newsflash. this message just came in on channel myjxta:

'nuff said.

get real. go big or go home!

Java == platform independence
XML == application independence
JXTA == network independence

Secure End-to-End Computing

in my ears: Gang of Four/A Brief History of the Twentieth Century/WomenTown

back from an excellent vacation and digging in. made significant headway on a number of fronts in that the nightlies are cron'ing away, we scavenged a number of spare parts to double up our memory capacity on the public jxta network and i've installed jds on one of our lab systems in addition to our demo notebooks.

with our process activities up-leveled and well in hand i'm eager to get back to some gear-head work next week. very eager and i have got some fun items queued up.

the jxta pub net systems u/g should dramatically help the ever increasing traffic on commodity hardware. wish we had this resolved a couple of weeks ago. oh well. cool exercise. i've learned a ton in the process. re systems thought obsolete, there is no reason at all to toss 'em simply to install "dancing pigs" ... just put something light'n lean on it and jxta will sing along merrily. hmmmm, breathing life into banks of commoditity h/w thought to be relegated to paper weight'dom. k3wl.

the jds install was easy. no. beyond easy. excellent job folks. i like it given i run suse at home although i trend towards decked out windowing systems with the likes of kde, aqua themes and super karamba (mmmmmmmmm, tasty karamba eye candy) there is something refreshing about a pared down ui. crisp is a completely fair description.

i'm the worst movie critic. as such, my wife rented cold mountain ... ok, we haven't had a chance to get out and see movies for awhile. i was blown away. epic. an american epic. excellent flick. and jack black was in the pic too boot. gnarly.

Java == platform independence
XML == application independence
JXTA == network independence

Secure End-to-End Computing

in my ears: Gang of Four/A Brief History of the Twentieth Century/Anthrax

i've had trouble with the nvidia drivers on my home system for 2+ years. early on things worked fine but as i moved to a different distro (from debian/enlightenment to suse/kde ... considering gentoo) and my card, a GeForce2 Ti200, aging along the way the drivers nvidia churned out something broke ... a rev or two before the "unified" driver. i'm sure it doesn't help that i am still using my orginal card but hey, i paid serious bucks for the card back in the day. as a result, only an older driver worked so i stuck with it which was fine except for when i performed a YaST u/d afterwhich i had to effectively uninstall/re-install/twiddle-with-lib-links in order to get the graphics working with nice resolution, etc. well, it looks like things have finally changed for the better, even for aged card holders like me. the *6106* driver installed as expected and sax(2) processed it happily the results of which is a way crisper 1280x1024 screen then i have had to date. i'm sure there are other factors such as x/kde anti -aliasing, etc. but from a process perspective this is good ... really good!

next up: re-enable those weekly auto-updates :]

Java == platform independence
XML == application independence
JXTA == network independence

Secure End-to-End Computing

in my ears: Death Cab for Cutie/Transatlanticism/Expo '86

just got back from a 2w vacation. good times.

going through a YaST u/g at the moment post a 2m lag. still fighting some nvidia issues on my home system running suse 9.0 thusly i have to go in and tweak the nv/gl libs by hand post yast. no joy.

in preparing for our roadtrip down to southern cali i needed to buy some new batteries for our 3+ yr old sony 2.1Mp cybershot camera. ran into some trouble given the camera is old and the batteries have to be special orderred so ... i bought the new sony 5.1Mp camera. i really like this model. i should've shopped around but i happen to like the sony brand and i do like buying from bestbuy (vs frys) so i opted for the u/g. the extras package with this camera is really nice as well that includes a slick docking station that recharges the batteries, a usb connection, a nice neoprene case and tv a/v cables as well. the s/w on the system is intuitive/rich/responsive. the battery life was amazing in comparison to my old camera. i picked up a couple of 128M sticks. given i u/g from a 2.1Mp to 5.1Mp camera i was a bit shocked as to how quickly we chewed up the sticks ... good thing the prices are reasonable ... noting that there is a very expensive 1G stick out now. wow! i almost picked up the ultra sexy cyber-shot dsc-t1 ... i have a friend with this camera ... but i opted for the dsc-p100.

i'm working out issue now on how to get the usb hotplug to accept the camera's memory stick. /var/log/messages reports the event but the disk is reported as "not ready" and thusly i can't mount it. bummed as i'd *really* like to not to have to go back to our other household system ... that i'm trying to kill ... long/sad story.

we camped one night at san simeon. it was nice although we didn't get a chance to dig into the local history as much as we usually do on such outings as we had a boat to catch the next day. we got caught in la commute traffic and missed our first boat out to catalina island to which my wife negotiated with the ticketing folks a plan for us to catch the next boat at the long beach pier. long story short, we made it with only 5 minutes to spare, literally. i really don't like pushing things that close ... but we made it.

we camped on catalina about a 1.5 mile hike from the dock through the town of avalon. nice island. way too many golf carts (you'd have to see it to believe it) but i guess they are preferrable to monster cars on a small island. i think i'd go nuts staying on that island for too long. on the way out the next day we ran into a high school buddy and one of my groomsman for our wedding. it is a small world after all.

next up, we strolled into disneyland for a 3 night stay at the grand hotel. in a word ... *posh*. we opted for 2 days in disneyland and 1 day in disney's california adventures which was just right for a family of 3 with a 3.5yr old son. we saw/experienced all we could imagine and were thoroughly exhausted at the end of it all. given we couldn't go on a number of the rides given trey is under the magic 42" demarcator by a hair (or two) i suspect we might need an extra day when he grows more. we'll be back. the temp was scortching compounded with abnormally high humidity. the local weather reported stated it was monsoon weather ... perhaps that was a local joke, not sure. once you get use to standing in line, sweating with strangers it's "all good." we packed in tons of water each day and purchased pleanty more along the way.

trey was absolutely terrified of the 3d movies. i felt bad but he didn't want to take the glasses off or look away, even when we covered his eyes. my wife thinks it was because he wanted to keep his eyes squarely fixed on the snakes/bugs/lions. i imagine she is right. i suspect he had fun once it all sunk in and we talked about it quite a bit. he really enjoyed the kids water amusements. i was envious ... and sweltering. he dodged in and out of the streaming water for the longest time. it was great fun to watch. he always has enjoyed driving the mini cars and the disneyland ride was great fun for him.

he really like winnie the pooh so when we happened upon the life-size character he was astonished. and eeyor and tigger as well. we got great photos. that made the trip all worth it.

he enjoyed alot of the rides ... as long as we were sitting close together. he really liked tarzan's tree house and the jungle boat ride. pirates of the caribbean and the haunted house took some getting used to though. the small world boatride was fun to which we have a family joke ... "what is it about the world" ... to which he replies "it is bigger ... ahhhhh, no ... small world after all" ... he's a wise-guy. love that sense of humor.

i was amazed at how much the parked has remained unchanged from when i visited as a kid modulus the character upgrades, etc. amazing place.

trey enjoyed the train ride around the park. i remember liking it as well when i first visited disneyland.

the tiki hut drove us nuts.

the firework shows were amazing. truly. the parades were nice as well.

the day we checked out we opted to take it easy. we had breakfast at goofy's kitched in the disneyland hotel. this is well worth it for kids. i think we'll stay in that hotel next time. trey really liked pluto and goofy but the "real" characters, princesses and such, he shied away from to which snow white retored on queue ... "i found bashful." perfect. trey put his little white crocheted blanket over his head and posed for pictures. classic. i'll hold this one over his head in the years to come.

we swam in the pool a bit. i need to do much more of this with trey given i was a lifeguard/swim instructor for 15y. great job while going through school, etc.

on the way back home we stopped and had lunch at juliano's raw restaurant. tammy got a picture with juliano himself which made her day. too bad she didn't have her cookbook along to get an autograph. the food was tasty.

we then went to the beach and played a bit in the water. amazing beaches in santa monica. trey was getting a bit bold to the extent that at one point a wave took him to the ground and rolled him around. i anticipated this and wanted to see if we could establish a healthy dose of fear/respect for the ocean in the process. when i scoopped him up he was quite shocked and ran to tammy. then he realized he was soaked/cold/embarassed/etc and got really mad at the world. quite cute honestly. we wrapped him up in a blanket after which he started laughing about the experience. i need to go to the beach with him more and do it all again ... over and over and over.

on the trip back home we were going to wing it ... my style ... but found out that all the campgrounds were booked well in advanced. so where many of the hotels but we found a best western up the road.

Java == platform independence
XML == application independence
JXTA == network independence

Secure End-to-End Computing

in my ears: Death Cab for Cutie/Transatlanticism/Title and Registration

delayed javaOne recap as i have either been under the weather (as in sick) or under the ground (as in installing a sprinkler system) for the last couple of days. this is mondo brief, almost in word association format just highlighting highlights without repeated redundancy (funny ehhhh). on with the show ...

• worked my ar$e off to get the demos pulled together (note to self ... there has to be a better way)
• rode caltrain ... was nice
• set up shop 06.25 with my partner in crime lauren ... amazed how order comes about with so much chaos from the onset
• jxta booth discussions where great/contextual/lengthy this year ... extremely fun stuff
• lots of folks gladly left contact info to which i want to follow up with them regarding some open questions, etc.
• hung out at the bloggers @ thirsty bear and met and hashed jxta with jclingan (gud tymz), said props to blog czar mary, talked bloged smack with beuchelt, got disneyland pointers and caught on life in general with MartinHardee, threw back beers with webmink (man, what a journey ... and i'd do it all again) and tbray and, lastly, saw the man. go big! go fast! go mean!
• saw that the hands on labs were extremely popular ... 200 seats with a queue ... those folks did an amazing job pulling that labs together
• attended a jdnc session and was blown away by the productivity stats ... and i believe it all because i feel the pain everyday. this stuff is only going to get better and better. great work!
• learned about (un)pack200 which blew me away. being i am already a huge java webstart fan/user/addict i was amazed that (un)pack200 can compress jar file to 1/9 the original size thereby profoundly increasing the webstart transfer time. excellent work!
• updated myself with the forthcoming concurrency utilities ... can't way to try it out
• attended jonathan's keynote ... a system, a complete system, on ebay with a starting price of $.01 ... man. the tiger rocked! p2p is here. rich/thin clients are everywhere and java is the glue.
• watched scott's keynote via webcast ... i want a phantom box now! sun does/leverages open source. always has. always will. what is the confusion? it is spot on simple. jack rocked! hilarious. way to go scott!
• watched jag's keynote via webcast ... that java realtime demo completely ruled! and that big question" session was plain sad. seriously, wtf is the problem? i don't get it. i wish folks would step up and contribute to the overall solution openly, honestly and with acknowledge thought leadership reconginition vs continual detracting dribble. i know there are issues to address (there always are) but i believe the true kernel of the problem is addressible without all the noisy hand-waving bull$hit. don't we all have more important "big picture" endeavors to persue? openly and collectively? i wonder how much of this noise is based on envy. give me a break. jag, you rule!
• attended tra's "webjxta" bof ... that stuff is the bomb
• attended the "community meeting." chatted with my tomcat buddies a bit. hung out with my nokia and orkut compadres and hashed "ext:config" a bit ... gotta fix that bug. schmoozed with mary again (spiderman ... tooooo funny). had a great time talking with ted kosan and appreciated his time hanging out in the booth. fun times. too bad i couldn't make it up the last day of j1 to talk jxta smack more ... but it looks like i was on the verge of a flu that i am just now recovering from. met daniel brookshier. saw brad neuberg and neglected to ask how his presentation went. sorry about that. chatted with marla and martin a bit more. met helen chen ... should've talked more about myjxta issues here husband ran into awhile back. daniel steinberg and talked blog smack. saw emily again ... my home state compadre who happens to know one of my brothers who doesn't work at sun. got a chance to congratulate josh bloch on becoming a much deserved de ... only to find out he's, well ... sadness. best of luck to you and yours.
• saw my "vacationing" manager three times. that guy doesn't stop. it's infectious.
• saw my manager's manager. i'm going to miss working in his organization as the environment is bar none. there is literally nothing we can not achieve in such an environment.
• the "community session" was informal ... too informal. next time i think the mixer and the awards/presentations should occur sequentially.
• ate at a nearby diner ... to which i was pleasantly suprised
• nearly missed the last train home
• gearing up to do it all again bigger and better
• smiled

go big or go home!

Java == platform independence
XML == application independence
JXTA == network independence

Secure End-to-End Computing

in my ears: Placebo/Sleeping with Ghosts/Bulletproof Cupid

mike mcangus is now a myjxta project co-owner along with myself and dorothea wiarda. mike has added some excellent features as of late and is a diligent project sponsor/advocate. i really like working with the lad as we work to realize a viable reference application that is, at the same time, a kick in the pants to use. this is gonna be fun!

welcome aboard mcangus.

Java == platform independence
XML == application independence
JXTA == network independence

Secure End-to-End Computing

in my ears: Placebo/Sleeping with Ghosts/English Summer Rain

got a couple of nice myjxta notes of appeciation today:

[pepnku @ 01:28:57] It's more goodthing jxta chat than MSN mssenger
...
[afiskxp @ 11:17:55] Nice, clean code in myJXTA2 by the way gonzo -- i hadn't looked at it until today. It's an excellent reference for newbies like me.

note: pepnku does not speak english as a first language which is cool as i'm meeting a ton of international folks via myjxta.

it's all good!

Java == platform independence
XML == application independence
JXTA == network independence

Secure End-to-End Computing

in my ears: Placebo/Sleeping with Ghosts/Plasticine

layed the last of 400' of sprinkler pipe and 50' of conduit. had to bury the later 18" deep to meet code ... and we didn't rent a trencher. quite a humbling experience. tomorrow we'll inline the manifold and let the water rip ... optimally through the sprinkler heads. i'm fairly certian i'll go for the trencher when take on the other half of the yard.

the 24hr flu i thought i kicked looks to be something that lingers for a week or so. just today, 5 days after the first symptom, my ears finally equalized. i can hear again! i hope we all shake this one for our trip down south next week.

Java == platform independence
XML == application independence
JXTA == network independence

Secure End-to-End Computing

in my ears: Placebo/Sleeping with Ghosts/Centrefolds

pulled together a new myjxta build. this rev includes drag and drop file sharing and hyper-linked chat content. i've started signing the webstart distribution with the jxta keystore which will dramatically reduce the number of click-throughs. to reduce the dialogs to one i will need to swing through the entire jxta jnlp distribution tree. to reduce the dialogs to 0 we'll either need to get our keystore signed by a CA or provide an easy means for folks to import our certificate into thier webstart application. worth the effort either way

Java == platform independence
XML == application independence
JXTA == network independence

Secure End-to-End Computing

in my ears: Placebo/Sleeping with Ghosts/Special Needs