music ... technology ... society ... power!

the following is a little recap, a day in the life of me and my small contribution to helping make a wish.

i love socially enabling technology. i love tunes. i find creative environments extremely enabling. when these interests intersect there is nothing quite like it, except for when they cummulate for a societal cause, where individual goals are set aside for the greater good. that is when something rare and magical happens. something i recently got to experience first hand.

a month or so back, during the holiday break, i received what looked to be an interesting spam email. to my company address no less which suprised me as those folks who manage the email services do a stellar job at keeping the noise out of my box. thank you a thousand times over. the email subject, bono's wish. intrigued, i gave it a once over. the message was from folks i knew. ok. short and to the point. hmmmmmm. ponder. close email and play with my son for a bit, priorities after all. after coming back and reading the email again, hours later, it started to sink in. this is real and could be fun, unique and of immense personal interest, long term. in a word, an amazing opportunity.

after dispatching a reply email ensuring the request was indeed intended for me i proceeded to contact the players, bob, chris and seth ... all great folks that i hope to meet in person one day. the objective, help bono with a wish. what an amazing opportunity. utterly cool.

a couple of weeks passed by where "we four" hashed out ideas with no literal barriers. good times. the objective, provide a societal good by melding technology with culture and artistry. the venue, concerts. the ultimate brew for a maximumal creative outlet. yeah baby! my perspective throughout this stage of the project was purely that of a concert goer and wanting to participating in something that was organic, natural and, well, cool. something i have actually thought about whilst sitting (not smoking) on the grass at shoreline waiting for the starting act to hit the stage. how could i be a part of the event.

after itterating through a round of hand waving and the like and formulating a clear goal in mind taking into consideration the associated dates, et al we needed to "make it real, make it happen." i knew we had all the necessary assets and the overall alignment was spot on mutually beneficial. having worked at sun for awhile i've seen and have participated in these types of impossible tasks before so i "wasn't afraid of what i didn't know." i've been called a "stress junkie" in the past which is a label i will not shun. different is good. status quo sucks.

at this point life is pretty good. now it is time to pony up. we need to connect the dots. having zero salesman (which is a field i respect) genes in my blood i take it quite personal regarding my commitment to projects i am involved with, be it personal or professional. my word is my word. thx mom! this one, though, i couldn't do it alone. feeling optimistic knowing there was no way we would let this one slip us by. not from a corporate perspective. not from a technology perspective. not from a humanitarian perspective. but, we still needed to "make it real." the dream needed to take root, grow and create new dreams in return. it needed to be planted. in just the right way. in just the right sunny spot. and time is running out which, btw, never bothers me as for most projects i work on there are 2 givens: there is never enough time and not enough people. small teams rock! ok. who can help? who can work it? dispatch emails. call. call people i have never met. walk the hall. folks are jazzed but everyone is understandably busy but the opportunity is right there. i can feel it. we can do this. ok, you get the idea, i sweated a bit towards the end till one day when i was chatting with my blog sista mary about a little idea i've been playing through when she mentioned something to the effect "hey, i'm going to help you with the ted project." i was floored! huge smile. it is going to happen. yes!

mary dove in hard and drove it even harder. bird-dogged it as one colleague puts it to which i whole heartedly and affectionately concur. she rallied together just the right team of folks. it began to take shape. it is happening. it is real. all the while quite rewarding on many dimensions.

it is amazing to work with creative folks regardless of how long or what the surroundings. i always learn from the experience and learning is what makes life worth living. creative people always do what's right and welcome nothing less. for me, it is the journey that makes the experience not the destination. as such, i always strive to travel with creative types when possible. makes the journey all the more interesting. this little journey of late, well, was quite unlike any other and very memorable. now, how about a 2.0? let's really push the envelope. what do you say :)

MyJXTA :: use it - learn it - do it

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

Secure End-to-End Computing

in my ears: U2/Achtung Baby/One

i'm a huge fan of xp. i would've loved to have seen ron jeffries presentation the other day on the topic but in all honesty i've pretty much given up talking about xp these days in favor of instead, just doing it. folks are typically so binary about concepts like xp that i'm not really sure people can be won over via debate alone. they need to live it. i know i did. i needed to feel the pain of doing without. xp need not be taken in whole or not at all. not in the slightest. instead of getting all worked up about (the optional) pair programming why not talk about the painfully obvious gains of continual integration? such an enabler. there's more, test first and all. gems just waiting to be applied for teams of all sizes as i see it. if i had written the book it would've been called "duh" ... but then again it wouldn't have likely sold as well as more often then not, books are judged by the cover.

oh well. one piece that was new to me, thanks to tbray's writeup was the notion that

It’s all about discipline and progress one small, deterministic step at a time; there’s not much room for heroism or cowboy behavior in general.

i'm all for heros. i like good movies and all. but, in the real world, i prefer to reserve the heroism for truly focussed needs vs the what would otherwise be mundane process. that is what i like about xp, in general, is that it is discplined enough to provide project and process scale yet flexible enough to allow for adoption and change as needed.

MyJXTA :: use it - learn it - do it

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

Secure End-to-End Computing

in my ears: Gravity Kills/Gravity Kills/Forward

i have yet to write my trip report to linux world, boston edition. it rocked and don't just take it from me, see what jamoore has to say about it. yeah! what he said.

MyJXTA :: use it - learn it - do it

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

Secure End-to-End Computing

in my ears: Link Park/Hybrid Theory/Points of Authority

got home l8 last night post an excellent jxta@boston run. good times. met a ton of great folks and all but 2 of the discussions were quite engaging, thought provking and, heck, FUN. even the 2 "interesting" discussions had merit so it was all worth the price of admission. contrast that w/ my past experiences w/ linux world@san francisco and, well, i'll take the east coast any day. i really don't get it. what is up w/ that? something in the water? strangeness.

tall cans in the air to my east coast compadres!

i'll write up a trip report in a bit. till then, i am glad to be home.

MyJXTA :: use it - learn it - do it

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

Secure End-to-End Computing

in my ears: Placebo/Black Market Music/Special K

on my way to the airport enroute to linux world, boston edition.

i'll miss valentine's day w/ my fam this go around, which is a bummer since as of late we have gone to a nice little local restraunt to celebrate family style.

i'll have a shiny new ipod in hand this go around. i relax much more readily with a steady infusion of tune'age. that should help.

MyJXTA :: use it - learn it - do it

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

Secure End-to-End Computing

in my ears: Clinic/Walking With Thee/Come Into Our Room

We'll be on the road next week, participating in the LinuxWorld Boston edition. It should be fun. It is always nice to hit the streets and talk w/ folks doing real world applications face-to-face, with beers in hand. Further, polo, a fellow MyJXTA code slinger will be in da howzs so it will be cool to hash out ideas whilst we are in the same timezone.

MyJXTA :: use it - learn it - do it

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

Secure End-to-End Computing

in my ears: Paul Oakenfold/Ibiza/Waiting

the recent MyJXTA PenLUG presentaion was fun. good people. good times. a cool scenario would be to try out a pure hands on session. that would rock.

2 questions arose to which i took the time to chalk a java.net blog entry. that being, how to deploy MyJXTA on a private network. ie how to make "my MyJXTA." it is actually relatively trivial to do this, with no code involved.

MyJXTA :: use it - learn it - do it

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

Secure End-to-End Computing

in my ears: Paul Oakenfold/Ibiza/AB

ok, the last 2 weeks have not been, well, optimal. these things happen and more often then not good things surface ... or so my mom taught me.

what did i learn:

• traceroute and snoop are quite the enablers when net snafus happen
• jconsole and jdb are quite swag (thx tbell, jrtodd)
• do!
  

    data = null;
    while (! done) {
      ask(data);
      if (! answer) {
        data = do();
      } else {
        done = true;
      }
    }
  

i liked jconsole and jdb so much i added support in the myjxta ant file. mmmmmm, tasty!

i guess the "do" item is obvious in hindsight. it is just that things should be easier at times. no use dwelling.

MyJXTA :: use it - learn it - do it

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

Secure End-to-End Computing

in my ears: Smashing Pumpkins/Adore/Daphne Descends