Kicking (out) the (information) bucket?

For many years, we have delivered books to our customers. Whether those books are printed or delivered online, they still follow a very traditional, sequential information flow. We separate information into various "buckets" that define how those books are put together. Is that still what our customers need or is it time to "kick (out) the (information) bucket?"

You might consider this to be a follow-on to a blog that I posted a few months ago To blog (or wiki) or not to blog.... that is the question. Once again, I am seeking input on what our customers really need in their "information products." Several Sun product teams have put some product information, such as troubleshooting and best practices, on wikis.sun.com. For some of those products, we are also putting more formal information on the wiki to make it easier for customers to comment and to collaborate with us about that information. At present, though, the general expectation seems to be that we would then take that information and put it into a "traditional book" on docs.sun.com (or something very similar).

This approach implies that we still believe customers want and need information to be presented in a sequential flow. Is that a valid assumption? We often separate our information into books according to audience. For example, see the Sun Grid Engine 6.1 collection on docs.sun.com. This information approach is based on years of experience as has really changed in only minor ways as our industry has evolved. However, I have to wonder if technology changes shouldn't have caused us to consider more significant information structure changes too. For technical information about a given product, does the book concept still meet your needs or would you rather have information presented in much smaller "chunks" (or topics, if you prefer) that you can access more directly? Do you want (or need) to be able to print topics in a defined sequence or is the ability to print individual topics sufficient? Your thoughts (and those of your friends) on this topic would be greatly appreciated.

Posted at 10:31AM Mar 10, 2008 by jcinfoblog in General  |  Comments[1]

A Managed and Virtualized Holiday .... (with apologies to Clement Clarke Moore)

Some of you know that I have made a habit over many years now of being slightly creative at this time of year. So, here is this year's installment.

'Twas the Night Before a Virtually Managed Christmas

'Twas the night before Christmas and all through the data center
Not a server was working; Did we need to hit Enter?

The Blades were all nestled, quite snug in their racks
While various Grid clusters were on the attack.

And Ray in his tevas, and Sue in her jeans
Had just settled down with some nice Java(TM) Beans.

When all through the enterprise there arose some alarms
We sprang to our dashboards to check all our farms.

To xVM Ops Center, we pointed our links
Which Channel? Perhaps in Management, we think.

The views on the screen of the current team state
Gave us a heart attack; it looked like a dire fate.

When what to my wondering eyes should appear
But a nicely dressed man, with a hat and some gear.

With a vision of truth and a blog that he'd done,
I knew in a moment, it must be Steve Wilson.

More rapid than Jonathan he came down the hall
And he whistled and shouted to not one, but all.

"Now Management, and Provisioning, and Updates, and Gear,
Have unified to virtualize the data center; it's here."

From the top of your enterprise to the individual file
Now use one UI to manage in style."

As I logged off Firefox and shut down with a beep
Through the doorway Steve Wilson came with a leap.

He was dressed in some slacks and a nicely pressed shirt
And his grin indicated the solution wouldn't hurt.

He spoke not a word but went straight to his work
Loaded all the agents then turned with a jerk.

And gripping the hands of my coworkers near
Then, giving a nod went to find some more gear.

But I heard him exclaim as he left in his car
"Use xVM Ops Center, and it will take you far!"

Posted at 09:29AM Dec 17, 2007 by jcinfoblog in General  |  Comments[1]

Happy Thanksgiving (or Turkey Day, if you prefer)

Here in the United States, we are about to have our national day of giving thanks. Regardless of your religious beliefs, it's a day to take stock of what is best about your life and our world.

Personally, I have a lot for which to be thankful. Here are just a few:

• For friends and family, who brighten my life every day.
• For surviving yet-another-move to a place where I never expected to live. And, in so doing, to have re-met old friends, made new friends, and learned new things. Having to move every few years teaches you an appreciation for where you are. There is always something good that you can find.
• For Sun Microsystems, not just a "job," but a philosophy. I've been at Sun for over 12 years, and every year I get new opportunties to learn and grow. Sun's appreciation for innovation and drive to live on the "bleeding edge" makes every day an adventure.

Okay, enough of the serious stuff, now for a little fun.

---

Q. What exactly are the origins of Thanksgiving? A. Thanksgiving is, of course, a holiday invented by grocers and farmers to allow them to sell huge quantities of disgusting "traditional" foods that no one in his right mind would eat otherwise, such as squash.

The average squash is a triumph of minimalism wherein Nature manages to convert mud into a plant without bothering to change its taste and texture. Attempts to improve the mud-like flavor of squash by the addition of delicate seasonings and spices have produced dishes that taste, at best, like delicately seasoned and spiced mud. A master chef, faced with the necessity of making a palatable squash dish, would throw in his funny hat and become a short-order cook at Denny's.

Q. That's quite a conspiracy theory. Where do the Black Helicopters fit in?

A. They transport the squash.

Posted at 12:33PM Nov 21, 2007 by jcinfoblog in General  |  Comments[0]

Dinner Conversation about xVM, Virtualization and Management

In another one of these odd instances in which someone in this little town in the middle of North Dakota has heard about Sun, I had an interesting conversation at dinner this weekend. We went to dinner with some local folks here that we're only just getting to know. During the course of conversation, Mark (local person extraordinaire) mentioned that he had heard Jonathan's speech at Oracle World. Mark asked "So, what is Sun doing with virtualization and management? Is it really anything new?" I replied, "Interesting that you should ask, since I work on xVM." And, off we were to the races.

I won't recreate the entire conversation in detail, but will mention just a few high points in summary. I talked about the fact that Sun has had solutions in both the virutalization and management spaces for many years. What we are doing now is bringing together a lot of disparate pieces into a unified whole, with a unified user experience. Mark was intrigued. From his perspective, this is an area where a unified solution would be useful. I mentioned to him that an early access version of the product should be available within a few months, and I think he might want to take a look.

At some point in the conversation, Mark also asked about Sun working in the open. He seemed to think this was a very new behavior for Sun. I gently straightened him out on that issue, mentioning that Sun has been working in the open for many years (for example, Grid Engine) but we hadn't made a big deal out of telling everyone until more recently.

Now, maybe at this point, I should mention to you that Mark mainly handles products from that "little place" up in Washington state. He has really never considered moving his work (or his clients' work) to a Unix-based environment. However, I begin to think he might be changing his mind.

Afterward, my husband said "All of a sudden, you were like Jan from Sun marketing." I don't know if that's a good thing; I certainly would not be a good marketing person in the general sense. But, maybe I can educate just a few people during casual, dinner conversations.

Posted at 08:17AM Nov 19, 2007 by jcinfoblog in General  |  Comments[0]

To blog (or wiki) or not to blog.... that is the question

Can information on blogs and wikis replace officially-sanctioned information sources, such as docs.sun.com and support web sites? If so, how do customers know where to find the most accurate and most current information? We've been having an interesting discussion on one of the Sun internal aliases about these questions. Rather than continuing to have Sun employees talk about this issue, it seems obvious that we really need to find out from our customers. I'll give you a few of my thoughts, but really I want to know what y'all think about this issue.

From my personal experience, it seems as though one of the main issues is how to let people know that information on a given site (whether a regular web site, a wiki, or a blog) is "valid." We've talked about this issue off-and-on for years (at Sun and elsewhere). If a given site is part of an official domain (blogs.sun.com, wikis.sun.com), does that automatically mean that all information on that site is guaranteed by the company to be valid? There is undoubtably a legal answer to that question, but I'm not looking at the legal question right now. From a customer (reader, user) perspective, do you assume that all information within a given company domain is always correct? I would think that the realistic answer is "no, , but it's more likely to be correct than information that comes from a location outside of that domain."

Okay, so if information from a given domain (sun.com, in this case) is more likely to be valid than information from outside the domain, are there certain kinds of sites that you trust more than others? Again, looking at the sun.com domain, we have docs.sun.com, Sun's documentation web site. That site is where we publish our official, branded Sun documentation. Information that is provided on that site has been through technical review, editorial review, and quality review. Our customers have learned that this site is a great place to go to find accurate information. However, that is not the only site that Sun has on which you can find answers to your problems. Sometimes, answers are on technical supports sites or contained in blogs or on wikis. Does the fact that information is not on docs.sun.com make it less valid? Are there certain key indicators that a given piece of information is more likely to be correct and current? How do you decide whom to trust?

We (Sun) are trying to find the most efficient and effective ways to get you information. If you like the flexibility of wikis and blogs, let us know that. If you prefer that all information be "official and branded," let us know that too. If you have ideas as to how we can better identify information that is "Sun-approved," those ideas would be nice to hear too. Thanks for your thoughts.

Posted at 10:04AM Oct 11, 2007 by jcinfoblog in General  |  Comments[6]

Sun being mentioned in places that I never expected....

I almost dropped my tea this morning. As I was watching the early morning news here in Minot, ND, I heard mention of Sun and specifically a conversation with Greg Papadopoulos. Because I hadn't finished that "cuppa" yet, I didn't catch the whole story, but I heard them mention "green computing." I tried to see if I could link to the actual news story, but our local TV web sites aren't terribly complete. I was so amazed and pleased. If Sun is being mentioned in little towns like Minot where technology is still largely in the 1990s, we really are "going mainstream."

Posted at 10:35AM Sep 13, 2007 by jcinfoblog in General  |  Comments[0]

Six years ago today - Never forget

Six years ago today, we were attacked. "We" is more than just the United States. "We" includes people of every nationality and every age. The questions that we continue to ask are:

• Why did "they" choose to attack "us?"
• How can we prevent it from happening again?

We might never know the real answer to the first question, but the general answer is simply: "They" don't like "us." Whether it is simply a case of envy (we have more than they have) or a case of religious extremism (kill those who don't agree with our faith), the basic issue is that they don't like us. A very recent video claimed that they would stop attacks if we all converted to Islam. Many countries have very strict rules about what their people believe, who can hold what kind of jobs, or how their people can worship. The US, and many of our allies, strive to be more tolerant, to allow people to choose their lives and their God(s). These religious and cultural differences might be at the core of the attacks on September 11, 2001.

However, although historically religion is often cited as the cause of war, sometimes it is simply a convenience. You can make up a religious argument for almost anything (for-or-against abortion, for-or-against homosexuality, for-or-against racial or gender equality, and so on). Maybe the root cause is really just one of envy - they envy our "global domination." They envy the country whose poor is richer than many countries rich. Or, maybe they have a personal axe to grind (got kicked out of school or something). We might never know. And, maybe it doesn't really matter why they attacked us initially except that knowing why they attacked us might help us to prevent them from doing so again.

How, then, do we prevent another attack? It is worth noting that no additional attacks have occurred on US soil (I pray that continues to be true today). This results from the efforts of many thousands of people. Our active-duty (including those from the Reserves who have been called to active duty) service personnel are willing to give up their lives to prevent another such attack. They guard our freedoms at home and abroad, often giving up any semblence of a normal life to do so. There are many people who work behind the scenes as well, in homeland defense, intelligence gathering, and other supporting roles to make sure that we have the most current data possible on our enemies. All those people (and many more who are too numerous to mention) work together every day to prevent further attacks.

Unfortunately, the rest of the world is not quite so safe. Whether specifically related to the group that claimed responsibility for the September 11th attacks or not, terrorism is a daily fact of life in many parts of the world. The "war on terror" has been going on for many years, but we really only joined it in 2001. Whether you agree with sending troops to Afghanistan or Iraq, the fact of life is that we are involved in a global war on terror. That war will not end soon, nor will it be easy. However, it is necessary, as we are the defenders of freedom.

Remember September 11, 2001 - We will not falter, and we will not fail.

Posted at 11:58AM Sep 11, 2007 by jcinfoblog in General  |  Comments[2]

What I (and Sun) Have Been Doing Lately

You're probably wondering why you haven't heard from me in a few months. Well, it's just been one of those Summers. Moving always takes more time to recover from than you might expect, and I've been busy at Sun.

In May, Sun released Grid Engine 6.1. I enjoyed working on this project, in part because the project team includes people whose native languages are Russian and German. Those two languages just happen to be the languages other than English with which I have passing familiarity. But, the product itself is also a great product for managing a collection of computing resources that perform tasks (aka, a grid). The Sun Grid Engine product is based on an open source effort that has been around for several years. Every day, community members interact with the Sun project team to enhance the Grid Engine solution. Take a look at the open source site and help us to improve this product for you.

In July, Sun released N1 Service Provisioning System 6.0. This was a major redesign of the SPS product, including a new user interface that is similar to other Sun products and a new NetBeans-based tool for plug-in development. Of course, we enhanced other features, too. I enjoyed helping with the redesign of the user interface, owning most of the on-screen text and putting in place a real online help system for SPS. Sure, it can always be better, but I think this release is a vast improvement in the user experience over the previous versions of the product.

Of course, I'm working on a couple of other projects too, but I can't tell you about them just yet. Meanwhile, the sunflowers are in full bloom in North Dakota. In fact, the picture that Sun is using to promote our Eco-initiative on our home page looks suspiciously like some of the fields here.

Posted at 09:11AM Aug 24, 2007 by jcinfoblog in General  |  Comments[0]

Moving - Day 5 (arrived at new home)

Yesterday, we arrived safely at our new home. I did not have Internet access, though, so I couldn't let you know.  Now, I have access for a brief time to send an update.

The drive between Fargo and Minot was uneventful, and surprisingly pretty. I think that we had a mental picture of the Great Plains as being rather, well, plain. However, that picture is not entirely correct. The terrain is not completely flat, but rather has a lot of large, rolling "hills." Because there has been a lot of rain recently, it was also very green. Along the way, we saw thousands of birds of various types, including pheasant, turkey, grouse, and a lot of white pelicans. It turns out that Lake Audobon and the accompanying wildlife refuge is just a few hours away. 

North of Bismark, there is a Lewis and Clark center and scenic drive along the Missouri river. We also saw a biplane that appeared to be dusting crops and a large mining operation. So, it seems as though there are plenty of interesting things to see in North Dakota after all -- at least enough for a couple of years. Of course, I might not like it here as well come February, when it's bitterly cold for several weeks. On the other hand, I like cold weather and own a set of cross-country skis.

Tomorrow, the moving truck arrives with all our household goods. We hope that everything that went onto the truck in Virginia comes off the truck in North Dakota in one piece. We shall see.

 

Posted at 10:40PM Jun 04, 2007 by jcinfoblog in General  |  Comments[0]

Moving - Day 4 (almost there....)

Well, we're finally in our new state, although not the whole way across to our new home. We left Minneapolis this morning and came into North Dakota mid-afternoon. There was some rain along the way, so we stopped in Fargo for the night.

Minneapolis is a pretty large city. We were surprised at how spread out it is. One could easily spend a week (or more) finding what there is to find. Since I'll have to fly through Minneapolis, perhaps I'll get the opportunity to discover more over time.

Minnesota really is the state of 10,000 lakes. Of course, it was difficult to tell if all the water that we saw laying in pools were really "lakes" or just seasonal ponds as a result of recent rains. On one of the lakes, we saw several snowy Egrets, and saw other water fowl flying here-and-there.

Our cat tried to "escape" when we arrived at our hotel for the night. We had put him in the hotel room, and went to the car to bring up a few things. When I opened the door to the room, he ran quickly out the door and down the hallway. Fortunately, he stopped after going about 50 feet. He's a large cat, and very fast. If he really wanted to run away, we wouldn't be able to stop him (but we assume he would eventually return). I guess he's tired of spending all that time in the car (as are we).

Well, we should arrive at our new home tomorrow.  Then, it's unpacking and figuring out how to fit everything in the new house. Stay tuned...

Posted at 09:08PM Jun 02, 2007 by jcinfoblog in General  |  Comments[0]

Moving - Day 3

We're now in Minneapolis (hi, Paul). You're probably wondering what happened to days 1 and 2? Well, because they were just going through various parts of the country that we've seen before, there wasn't much worth reporting. To recap quickly - the Eastern cities were as usual, Chicago was not as bad as we remembered, and it rained just a little bit yesterday. Today, though, we entered parts of the United States that we'd not previously visited, and it was wonderful.

Wisconsin is very pretty. At least the part of it that we drove through (along I-90/39/94 through Madison, and over through Eau Claire to the Minnesota state line). We had a brief lunch stop in Wisconsin Dells, which looks like a place where we might want to visit further at some point. You might well ask, "Was there a farmer in the Dell?" :-)

The view of the Black River Valley was not great - it was hazy, and storms were coming. We hit some driving rain for about an hour, but we've had much worse on previous trips around the country.  We found a gas station that specifically mentioned "no ethanol." True story - we paid less per gallon for that fuel than others, and we got significantly better gas mileage. On the "ecomony" car, it went from 33.2 to 35.7 MPG. On the "gas-guzzling SUV," it went from 22.1 to 24.2.  Interesting, no?

So, we stopped for tonight in Minneapolis-St. Paul (actually on the St. Paul side).  We were told that we should visit Mall of America (http://www.mallofamerica.com/), which is a very large mall and amusement park, all under roof so that people can enjoy it regardless of the weather. I don't know if we'll have enough time to really visit, but we hope to spend a few hours there tomorrow before continuing on our journey. From what we've seen so far of the Twin Cities, it looks like a place to spend more time later. I'll try to provide more details tomorrow or Sunday.

That's the update for now. More to come.

Posted at 08:19PM Jun 01, 2007 by jcinfoblog in General  |  Comments[1]

Niagara Falls, Maps, and Information

For the last part of our "vacation" (before starting the long driving part of the moving experience), we went to Niagara Falls. (I'll post pictures when I have a system that can talk to my camera.) We stayed on the US side, but maybe we'll go back in a few years to see everything from the Canadian side. The Falls were beautiful (as I suspect they always are). There was a lot of water going over the Falls, and we were told that there is more water now (Spring) because of the ice melting from Winter. It was quite warm there, but the cold spray from the Falls felt very nice.

When you stay on the US side, there are some very nice walking paths from the American Falls to the Horseshoe Falls. Those paths have maps along them that show you where you are, and the paths between the various viewpoints and other interesting locations. Of course, the maps do not explicitly say "go left to see the American Rapids" (for example). Instead, the maps assume that, if you know where you are ("You are here") and you can see the end point on the map, then you can determine your own path to get there. This, of course, got me to thinking about how we write information products. Shouldn't we be able to do the same thing? Instead of having to write in a very elementary fashion "Step 1: Do this. Step 2: Do that. Step 3: Do another thing." and so on, wouldn't it be nice if the user could, given a map, follow his own path through the various steps to get to the end point? Sure, there are some issues that we would need to resolve (dependencies, for example), but this could be an interesting approach.

Posted at 07:34PM May 30, 2007 by jcinfoblog in General  |  Comments[0]

Fallingwater (Frank Lloyd Wright Architecture)

Yesterday, we went to visit Fallingwater, which is a really interesting work of architecture. If you aren't familiar with Fallingwater, it is a Frank Lloyd Wright house that was built in 1937 in the Laurel Highlands of Pennsylvania for the Kaufmann family (see http://www.paconserve.org/index-fw1.asp). The Kaufmanns were a Pittsburgh family that owned a local chain of deparment stores that were very popular (and recently became part of the Macy's chain). The Kaufmanns wanted somewhere that they could "get away" from the city, which at that time was very dirty with pollution from the coal plants and steel mills.

The area around Fallingwater is beautiful. Fallingwater reminds you of what it is like to be away from the "hustle and bustle" of city life. The house itself shows some remarkable innovations that Mr Wright made and also shows that the Kaufmanns were willing to try new and different things. It also helps to serve as an incredible example of what is possible to build a home that lives in harmony with nature.

Posted at 08:12PM May 21, 2007 by jcinfoblog in General  |  Comments[0]

Interfaces and ... voting

On Tuesday, I voted in our primary election. It was the first time that we used the "new" computerized machines to cast our votes. The interface was fairly simple, which it needs to be when you have thousands of people trying to spend a short amount of time to do the appropriate tasks. However, the system could use some improvements. For example, there was no candidate for one of the positions ("dog catcher" isn't exactly what it was, but some relatively unimportant job). So, of course, unless you had a "write-in" candidate for that particular spot, you had no selections to make in that section of the ballot. Unfortunately, then, when you tried to actually cast your votes, it complained that you hadn't answered all the questions. It should be really easy to make the system ignore those sections when it takes your final answer.

 Overall, it was an okay experience. I watched several older people (not watched the specific choices, but just observed whether they had problems) and they seemed to find it easy to use also. I wonder how much longer it will be until you can simply cast your vote entirely by Internet rather than going to a physical location? I know that the technology exists. I also know that a lot of people are concerned about a lack of security if using a completely Internet-based voting solution. However, given some of the issues with more traditional approaches to voting, it might actually be a better choice.

Back to my vacation.....
 

Posted at 10:08AM May 18, 2007 by jcinfoblog in General  |  Comments[0]

More Meanderings....

I'm now "homeless." In other words, all our household goods are packed on a truck and we have moved out of our (current? old?) house. We spent the weekend pretending to be tourists in Washington, DC one last time. One of the great things about the US capitol is that a lot of the museums are free (paid for by taxpayers, of course). Although we had been to some parts of the Smithsonian museums previously, we chose to go see more of them this past weekend. It was, as always, interesting. And, as usual, there were other thousands of people doing the same thing. 

On Sunday, then, we visited Mount Vernon, the home of George Washington, the first President of the United States. If you have never visited Mount Vernon, do so the next time you are in the Washington DC area. The mansion itself is nice, but not outrageous. However, the view from the mansion across the Potomac river is spectacular. Even 200+ years later, you still see very little of the surrounding cities from that vantage point. Of course, Mount Vernon has a lot of historical memorabilia from the early days of our country also. And, it is interesting to see how much has changed since the late 1700s.

More to come as we go to visit relatives and enjoy a few weeks of actual "vacation."

Posted at 09:56AM May 16, 2007 by jcinfoblog in General  |  Comments[0]