Using Sun tech at Strathclyde Sun@Strathclyde

Today saw the second Sun@Strathclyde tech demo, this time a talk about the innovative Sun SPOT wireless sensor technology. There's a fair bit of interest in using these at the university, especially within the EEE department, but sadly since that department still hasn't gotten back to me about arrangements to promote my events I wasn't able to get anyone from EEE along.

That, combined with the fact that it's the end of term, meant I only welcomed along 12 CS students and lecturers to the demo today - not a great turnout given last week's attendance, but those who did come seemed to be quite interested in using the technology - not to mention earning themselves some Sun T-shirts by getting involved (thanks guys!).

Below you can see a short video clip from one of the live demo sections. Sadly the 'Air text' effect doesn't show up very well on video (it works by 'tricking' the naked eye), but you can get a decent idea of what it looks like here.

---

---

Since tomorrow's the last day of term, that pretty much wraps up the tech demos for this semester, but I'm still going to be watching the forums and checking my email, so if any readers need to know anything about Sun@Strathclyde, please just give me a shout!

One thing I think Sun is really getting right with its 'Campus Ambassador' program is the way they've cottoned on to the fact that students love free stuff. Giving things away is a really good way to get people aware of and interested in Sun technology, which is the whole aim of the scheme.

One really good example of this is the training offer which I've been pushing lately while I wait for the university to get back to me about participating in the more comprehensive SAI program. The offer is basically this: for every 10 Strathclyde students who complete a short online training course about Solaris, the university gets a free SunSPOT kit. It's one of these situations where everybody wins:

• The students win, because they get access to free training material and earn a Sun certificate which they can put on their CV.
• The university wins, because it gets free hardware which it can then use for research or for student projects.
• Sun wins, because it gets people to try out their new training scheme and it raises awareness of both Solaris and SunSPOTs.

This all ties in nicely with my next tech demo which, conveniently enough, is all about SunSPOTs. It's happening this Thursday and you can find out more, as always, on the Sun@Strathclyde website :-)

Today saw the presentation of my first tech demo as part of the Sun@Strathclyde program :-)

The demo was based around the various open-source technologies that Sun produces, in particular the Solaris operating system and the NetBeans IDE. We got a really good turnout, 51 people - that's a fair bit more than I expected, so many thanks to everyone who came along!

I was pleased to welcome along Rod McAllister from Sun, who came to introduce the Sun@Strathclyde program, and there seems to be a fair bit of genuine interest from attendees about using some of the technology presented during the talk. That, of course, is what Sun@Strathclyde is all about - raising awareness of the cool and powerful technologies that Sun gives away for free.

Speaking of giving stuff away for free, the post-talk freebies proved very popular:

Note to self: don't lay out freebies on a table in front of a horde of students, as trampling may ensue and your stock of freebies will be exhausted very quickly (guess I'll just have to strategically hand out t-shirts at the next demo, thankfully I kept those back!).

So, once again, many thanks to everyone who attended and I look forward to seeing everyone again at the next Sun@Strathclyde presentation, which will be next week - same time, same day, same place. We'll be showcasing SunSPOTs, Sun's Java-enabled wireless sensor technology - pretty cool stuff.

For more info about Sun@Strathclyde and what it can do for you, please check out the website at http://cis.strath.ac.uk/~lmcbrien.

Well, it's been a long time coming, but today I was able to officially confirm the dates for my first two tech demos in this program :-D. After several months of waiting for meetings and emails, the next two weeks are going to be pretty busy!

Because there's not much time left in the semester, I'm only going to have time for two demos. Because of that, my first talk will be a very broad-ranging one, taking in all sorts of aspects of Sun open-source tech. Hopefully I'll get some good attendance (helped by the fact that there will be plenty of free swag on offer), but with only two days until the event, I'm not sure.

My second talk next week will be on the topic of SunSPOTs, which are versatile wireless sensor devices with all sorts of interesting applications. I'm hoping to get some help from the EEE department on this one as they're quite interested in using them. They'll be glad to know that they can also score some free SunSPOT kits if they can get some students to do a bit of online Solaris training!

Today I've spent a fair bit of time fleshing out the informational website I've made for the Sun@Strathclyde program, which can be found here. Hopefully this will be a good starting point for students who are wondering what on earth I'm going on about!

What to write in the first entry of a new blog? Well, some introductions would make sense, so here's who I am and what this blog is all about...

I'm Liam McBrien, though I often go by the moniker 'Lamsey'. I'm in the fourth year of an MEng degree course in Computer Science at Strathclyde University in Glasgow, Scotland. I can often be found lurking in one of the CIS department's computer labs or, more likely, in the Union schooling n00bs at pool :-D

So what's a Strathclyde student doing with a Sun Microsystems corporate blog, then? Well, the simple answer is that I'm going to be a Sun Campus Ambassador at Strathclyde for the remainder of my course - essentially, this means that I'll be responsible for promoting and demonstrating Sun's technology within the university.

For a more complete answer, we need to look back eighteen months to the summer of 2006, when I started what turned out to be an eighteen-month industrial placement with Sun at their Guillemont Park location in Surrey. Below you can see me with Sun's "Project Blackbox" during a short working trip to Germany.

 

During my time at Sun I learned about all kinds of Sun's coolest technologies, from the powerful Solaris operating system to trend-breaking 'Coolthreads' high-throughput servers right through to networked ultra-thin clients - the low-power desktop replacements known as Sunrays. My job over the coming months will be to show off some of these technologies to fellow students at my university, and get them using some of the free open-source technology made available by the company.

Watch this space for more info about what's going to be happening with my new role!