This is my 1,099th blog entry.
It's also my last.
Today is my last day as a Sun Microsystems employee.
It has been a great privilege to work for this company for nearly 13 years.
It has been an enormous pleasure to share the last five of them with you in this blog.
Thanks for coming along for the ride, dear reader.
Now, I'm off to my next adventure.
I'm joining Yahoo!
And of course, I won't mind one bit if you'd like to tag along...
Mary
p.s. Thank you.
(well, not personally but.....)
The JavaOne Rock Stars have been announced!
JavaOne Rock Stars are the top speakers from JavaOne as voted by attendees.
The 2009 class of JavaOne Rock Stars joins a very elite group in the JavaOne Rock Star Hall of Fame.
I know you'll see some familiar names in the list... there also got some rookies!
Congrats to the newly inducted!
In addition to being hot shot techno celebs, you're now OFFICIALLY Rock Stars.
CONGRATS!!
Mary
As you (regular) readers know, I've been doing a bit of sprucing up on the blog front -- with the new mirror of MaryMaryQuiteContrary and all.
In that process I've had the chance to go back and look at old blog entries.
I found this:
A kid in my life recently made a list and tacked it to the refrigerator.
Here's what it said:
Things I Want to do this Summer
- Play with new things
- Have new adventures
- Decide who is a good friend
- Decide who is not a good friend
- Use my slip 'n slide
- Buy a golf club and balls
- Throw some parties
- Finish my math packet
- HAVE TONS OF F-U-N
not a bad list, eh?
I've just created a mirror of MaryMaryQuiteContrary.
Well, I didn't exactly do it.
I paid Katy Dickinson's daughter, Jessica Dickinson Goodman to help me do it. She's a junior at CMU, which is where Wanda and Dennis and the rest of the Alice.org team work, making it my #1 favorite technical university in the world. But that's another story.
Back to Jessica. The mirror. The blog....
Jessica did an outstanding job. She took 5 years of entries and migrated over with images, links and comments coming through beautifully. If you're looking for HTML/CSS help and you'd like to hire her, just connect with me and I'll make intros.
So MaryMaryQuiteContrary now has a MirrorMirrorOnTheWall.
(if you'll give me some poetic license)
(not that you can really call that poetry, but you get the idea...)
Without warning, a huge branch on a tree in the neighbor's yard came down in the middle of the night.
It missed our house by inches. Nothing (except for the patio furniture) was damaged.
The weather was perfectly clear. There was no storm. No wind. No nothing.
Just all of the sudden the tree came down.
Unbelievable.
I'm lead on Sun's corporate marketing activity in the virtual world environments.
(among other things)
A while back, we hosted an industry analyst event in Second Life. We wanted to brief the analysts on the work we've done wrt datacenter consolidation, and the innovation that has come out of it that our customers are now benefiting from.
We held the briefing in a virtual world environment because it allowed us to show a highly complex and involved timeline involving datacenter environments that would have been difficult if not impossible to replicate in a "real world" context.
Further, by doing it in a virtual world space we are able to show things that would have been impossible to demonstrate in a real world context -- for example the heat coming off of servers and how that's managed within a datacenter environment.
Dean Nelson was the technical executive counterpart for this work. He worked with us to bring the story to life in Second Life. For the record: Dean Nelson is a ROCK STAR!!!
Sun's CTO Greg Papadopoulos shared the stage with Dean as they briefed the analysts in Second Life.
Here's a replay of the event, if you'd like to watch the whole thing...
The event was also "simulcast" on the web, making it possible for analysts to participate without having to go in-world.
(Which is one of my three litmus tests for any activity that I get behind.)
The assets that were built for this event are now part of a standing exhibit in our Pavillion in Second Life.
Check it out! (You need a Second Life avitar to get there.)
I'm going to hold office hours in Sun's pavillion in Second Life.
Schedule:
Come on by! I'll give you a tour!
Mary
p.s. Here's what I look like in Second Life:
I know, I know. She's taller. And thinner. And never has bad hair days.
We just concluded the first of a series of Author Chats that are being hosted in Second Life for JavaOne.
Darryl Gove was there to chat about his newly-published book The Developer's Edge.
There's a star-studded line-up of chats planned for the rest of the week which include:
- June 3, 2009 at 12pm PT
JavaFX: Developing Rich Internet Applications book
by Jim Clarke, James Connors and Eric Bruno- June 4th at 9am PT
Core JavaServer Faces 3/E
by David Mark Geary and Cay Horstmann- June 4, 2009 at 12pm PT
Real-Time Java Programming: with the Java RTS
by Greg Bollella and Eric J. Bruno
More details on Sun's Virtual World group blog.
Check it out!
then Check it out!
:-)
Inside scoop.
Tomorrow at the JavaOne general session keynote, there will be super hot give-aways.
Kindle2.
Sony Walkman phones.
You need to be present to get a shot at them.
Just wanted to give my peeps the head's up.
Don't tell anybody you heard it here, OK? I don't want to get busted for spilling the beans.
I'm traveling today. I'm going to San Francisco to attend JavaOne.
This isn't my first JavaOne. It's something like my 10th.
And this isn't my first trip to San Francisco. I live on the East coast and my group and by boss are on the West coast, so I do this trip a lot.
Today, I'm on Virgin America flight 77 from Washington DC to San Francisco.
We're a couple hours into the journey, just north of Wichita, Kansas.
I'm in seat 9A.
And I'm blogging.
That's right, people! I'm blogging! From 30,000 feet!
(well, 34,017 feet going 523 mph, to be precise.)
Two words: Virgin America.
Two more words: Love it!!!!
It's been a very long time since I've been excited about being on an airplane for 5 hours.
(Well, to be perfectly honest with you.... I'm not exactly excited about the airplane part... or the 5 hours part...but....)
But, but, but Virgin America has now transformed the flying experience. They've just completely raised the bar.
I've been a big Virgin America fan since they started flying my route -- IAD to SFO.
From the very first time, I've loved it.
The planes feel like a W hotel lobby. The seat-back entertainment system is the best that I've ever experienced. The people who work here seem genuinely happy that you've come onboard.
I even have a #1 all time favorite airline employee. His name is George. He works for Virgin America in SFO. (He helped me out when I really needed some help one time. I don't think I'll ever forget him.) Just outstanding customer service.
And now all that comes with wifi. Virgin America has introduced wifi on all their flights in the US.
It's simply outstanding.
Wifi costs about $13. It works GREAT. In the past couple of hours I've done email, I've tweeted, I've done SKYPE video chat and iChat/AIM. I've done VOIP. And now, I'm blogging.
(I've also gotten caught up on my favorite YouTube channel and goofed off on Facebook, but don't tell the boss. :-)
I've done all this stuff and I'm in a plane!
It's all just so cool.
I had to share.
I had to tell somebody.
Thanks for induldging me.
Now it's back to our regularly scheduled programming...
:-)
Mary
Sure, the world's largest developer conference happens in San Francisco next week.
(I think I heard something about it affecting the tides in the Bay -- having all those smart people in one place at the same time...)
:-)
But you don't have to travel to the City by the Bay to rub shoulders with the hot shot techno celebs.
Oh no,
You can chat with the authors of the latest Sun Microsystems Press books in Second Life next week!
(if you'll induldge a little copy-paste action...)
Interested in the hottest Java and developer books from Sun Microsystems Press? Here is your opportunity to learn about the newest books directly from the authors and have a dynamic conversation with them in the virtual world Second Life. These sessions will take place at the Sun Microsystems Main Pavillion in Second Life.
Here is the full schedule with details below:
- June 3, 2009 at 9am PT
The Developer's Edge
by Darryl Gove- June 3, 2009 at 12pm PT
JavaFX: Developing Rich Internet Applications book
by Jim Clarke, James Connors and Eric Bruno- June 4th at 9am PT
Core JavaServer Faces 3/E
by David Mark Geary and Cay Horstmann- June 4, 2009 at 12pm PT
Real-Time Java Programming: with the Java RTS
by Greg Bollella and Eric J. Bruno
Mary
"Sun Microsystems plans to launch an App Store that could make Apple's look smaller than a 7-Eleven by comparison."
Well, actually, the full story is on Jonathan's Blog.
:-)
Mary
It's actually OTFLOL stuff.
:-)
Big news, folks!
I just found out about an an amazing Student offer for JavaOne this year - Students get in free!
Same deal on CommunityOne. (Though the CommunityOne piece of it isn't so much in the big, big news category.) :-)
Both passes are full conference passes with access to everything!
But wait, there's more.
To all those educators out there, who are shaping young minds.... you can also get in free when you bring 10 students with you to the conference. If that's not doable, educators still get a fantastic deal of $895 for a full conference pass.
What is a Full Pass?
All the benefits of a FULL conference attendee, which includes: JavaOne general and technical sessions, panel discussions, HOLs (Hands-on-labs), BOFs (Birds-of-a-feather), the Pavilion and the After Dark Bash / Networking Mixer! Not to mention a "hang space" (which includes video games, movies & more!)
But wait, there's more.
Students get admission to the CommunityOne Deep-Dives. What does this mean? FREE training by Sun's Learning Services organization on some really great topics, plus hugely discounted certification. (Vouchers will be handed out at the event - certification can even be done on-site!)
But as we all know -- it's not what you know; it's who you know. There will also be numerous parties and chances for you to network with the best and brightest in the industry, from community leaders to "Rockstars" and everyone in between.
You want in on this deal?
Get in while the getting is good.
I would imagine there's some sort of "limited time" and "while supplies last" component to this, so I'd recommend you jump all over right away.
If I were you, that is.
Just sayin'.
:-)
Mary