Explicitly and without apology a marketing vehicle MaryMaryQuiteContrary

hi everybody,

i am officially on summer vacation and won't be posting any entries for a while. unless the mood strikes me. which i would consider a highly unlikely prospect.

i'm off to have some serious fun with the people i love most in the entire world. (you come in a close second ;-)

before i go, i wanted to sincerely thank you for my 15 mins of fame. i've thoroughly enjoyed it. by the time i come back i'm going to have lost my "top spot." and it will be somebody else's turn. which is cool because i'm big into taking turns and sharing. (my kids will vouch for me.)

so thanks bunches and bunches.

mary

p.s. it's not like i'm going to completely forget all about you. i'll blog when i get back. so don't take me off your RSS feed, or whatever it is you do to find me.

Time to play Friday Free Stuff*.

(but we gotta be quick because I need to get to the airport)

This week Friday Free Stuff* is sponsored by SDN and the lovely and talented Bao, who we see here showcasing today's prizes* .....

One of you lucky readers will win*.....

This MIDP Style Guide (signed by Bao; she's not the author but I made her sign it because I knew you guys might want to sell the book on ebay after you read it and having Bao's signature on it will seriously bring in the bids for you....)

as well as this gorgeous t-shirt that has been signed by Tim Lindholm (!!!!!) and Bao (!!!!!!!!!!)

 

and these fabulous prizes* go to the person who most correctly or in some other arbitrary way answers this:

 Which of the following Java expressions *isn't* a compile-time constant:

(a) 0
(b) false
(c) null
(d) "nada"
(e) "na" + "da"
(f) 0.0
(g) 0L
(h) 0.0f

Post your answers in the comments section of this blog entry.

Question once again courtesy of Dr. Josh of that famous Click and Hack team. (he's gotten all kinds of awards during JavaOne, you know... he wasn't really singing karaoke... he won an award for best Spec lead.... i was just being silly...)

So big things you need to know

1. *Friday Free Stuff is not a contest. It is me giving something away that I personally own to somebody I choose. I pay for shipping with stamps that I buy at the post office. Sun employees can play but are not eligible to win the prize. I am the judge. My decisions are final.

2. You need to get it on if you want to win the prize because I go on hiatus beginning next week and we're going to award Friday Free Stuff (if we have a winner before Saturday) before I leave.

3. I like it when you join SDN. Bao likes it too.

bon weekend!!

mary

*see item number 1 above.

The conference is winding down but it's never too late to do a little techno celeb watching...

You'll recall that today is Canada Day at JavaOne and how crazy is it that on the streets of San Francisco, I ran into a Canadian techno celeb...

... C'est moi avec Mario Cormier, Concepteur de logiciels senior, Miranda Technologies du Canada. (or is it "de Canada?")

Personal aside to Mario: I am seriously impressed. french on the business card. love it! you Canadians rock!

along with what could be called quorum on the Jini team. But wait there's more! See that fellow right next to me -- the guy with the Jini shirt... well, when first I spotted him I knew there was something special...call it instincts... guess what... he too is a techno celeb! That's Stephen Pietrowicz from Pervasive Technology Labs at Indiana University.

be still my beating heart.

but alas, this was my final hurrah...

JavaOne 2004 is now history....

Back at Moscone, Duke was saying his last good byes to attendees...

... including Marcy LaVoillette, from Environmental Systems Research Institute. This charming young lady (early 20s, i asked) was a speaker here. you go girl!

So as we bid Duke (and Marcy) a final farewell, please join me in thanking the many, many people who slaved tirelessly to make JavaOne 2004 such an unmitigated success, some of whom are pictured here...

Betsy, you never looked better!

big kiss everybody!

mary

I'd like to introduce you to Greece's new king!

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

You'll recall that in the days and weeks leading up to JavaOne I had been dropping hints left and right about how I was going to introduce you to Jack.

Well, attendees at Scott's keynote got to meet him first.

But I wanted to make sure everybody got a chance.

Because I'm telling you.. you're going to love Jack.

It's not often that I ask you to click. But I'm doing it now.

and you have my personal guarantee, that you will not regret it.

please click here.

mary

 It's Canada day at JavaOne!

And in celebration we're going to talk about some super-smart Canadians who have built an an extremely small (4 kb) Jini lookup service implementation. During the keynote James showed the lookup service in a tiny Bluetooth Chip.

Look... here's a picture of Cameron Roe with James...



....showing the tiny bluetooth chip (sitting on the business card) that's running the CMatos Jini lookup service:

Let me explain what all this means to the unitiaited: 

In practice, the CMatos is able to move Java byte code, and therefore objects and behavior between local devices without an intervening webservice or backend.

See... here's a picture of the app....



.... that was obtained from the bluetooth chip using the Jini protocols:

The original promise of Jini, and infact the first example in the Jini spec was that of a printer delivering a print service to a digital camera over a
local wireless network, without the digital camera having to have the printer driver pre-installed on the camera. With PsiNaptic's technology
this is no longer just a use case, but is now a reality.

The demo showed a PDA discovering services on a Bluetooth chip which was running PsiNaptic's CMatos Jini lookup service. The user interface for the application was obtained over the Bluetooth network, and instantiated on the PDA, which had no prior knowledge of the application.

So this is hot, hot hot people. Here's what you need to take-away here:

1.    Local Machine to Machine
2.    Java bytecode is moving between devices
3.   Supports Jini's leasing and clean up mechanisms for simple resource management on resource constrained devices
4.   PsiNaptics Jini lookup service is SMALL (smallest Jini lookup service implementation on the planet)

and one other take-away for you...

1.    I get by with a little help from my friends.

;-)

mary

 It's no secret that JavaOne is a very Y chromosome heavy conference...

But there were some chicks here. And as we wrap up the MaryMaryQuiteContrary blog coverage, I'd like to introduce you some of the women of JavaOne. (I'm not as sophisticated as Tony so I couldn't quite pull off a photo collage, but you get the idea...

OK, everybody... sing with me!



let's hear it for the girls!



let's give the girls a hand!



let's hear it for my baby!



oh you gotta understand!



oh, maybe you're no romeo...



but you're my gal...



... and one gal show... oh, oh, oh, oh...

(all three of you beautiful girls are my one-gal show!)

big kiss!

mary

 The Java Everywhere Express Yourself Art exhibition has concluded. You'll recall this is where emerging Bay area artists created their own expressions of the Java vision....



... on the floor of the Pavilion. The pieces were made available for purchase by JavaOne attendees ...



through a silent auction that went on during the Conference...




that concluded with...



a live auction at the JavaOne After Dark Train concert. (James Gosling had to be at keynote rehearsal at Moscone and he was bidding by phone. No kidding. Just like they do at those auctions in New York. Watch the keynote replay if you don't believe me. He talked about it during his keynote this morning.)

So let me tell you why i just loved this... not only did attendees have the opportunity to purchase their very own Java-inspired art by gallery artists, the proceeds benefited  local causes to support art and technology in Bay area schools. 


 
 

And I'd like to introduce you to my new favorite Java developer -- Cindy Song . She's seated here on the left. Cindy purchased not one -- but two -- of the pieces that went on auction.  Next to her is artist Kelly Tunstall, who was head and shoulders the nicest and most normal artist there and she created my favorite piece of the exhibition....

Java Chicks in Space.


And Cindy -- that very lucky girl -- gets to take that home with her from JavaOne. How's that for a souvenir?

mary

The performance of the Grammy award winning band Train wasn't the only locomotive action going on at JavaOne last night...

The BOF put on by Gerald, Rags and Professor Bob from Berkely featured Java running on real trains, complete with RFID.

Gerald has some info on this on his blog. And he promises to keep us up-to-date on this front. So bookmark Gerald's blog. Check early. Check often.

This was my most favorite BOF of the entire JavaOne conference. (although to be perfectly honest with you I missed the BOF entirely because I had some stuff to do realated to my day job that was in the urgent and important quadrant.)

But I managed to catch up with these guys before they disassembled the demo entirely.

And I have a picture to prove it.

mary

 

 I had the great pleasure of meeting Marie Alm yesterday....



... at least that's how her clients and friends know her... to me..



she is Java Girl! She says she's been to every signle JavaOne...



... and she had the pins and the rings to prove it!

how neat is that?

mary

 

It's gone so fast. I can't believe we're already into the last day at JavaOne.

I wish JavaOne could last all year. You do to? Get out! Well, you won't believe this... but I think I can make that happen for you.

JavaOne Online.

Check it out.

:-)

mary

 

Well, we had the big blow-out JavaOne After Dark party tonight.

It was a spectacular concert featuring the Grammy award-winning band Train.

It was at the Warfield theater in San Francisco. Which is directly next door to..

a strip club. I kid you not. I nearly got hit by a bus trying to take this picture to prove it.

so, i'm picking up on a theme this year... Scott in Playboy (you gotta watch the keynote replay to figure that out), JavaOne After Dark next door to a strip joint... what is this all about? is there some whole different kind of open source that i don't know about?

anyway.... We're talking about JavaOne After Dark here... but before we get into that i need to come clean... i am the white, suburban working mother of three kids ages 6, 3 and 1. i have not been to a rock concert in literally ten years. at least. this was a cultural experience for me...so forgive me if some of my commentary here is colored by my perspective. i sincerely do not intend to be "old." 

they were rocking...even i new that....

this guy... he had way too many tattoos... why did he have to go and get the one on his neck? i mean is it really so necessary to have a tattoo on your neck?

this guy played awesome guitar. he was dripping in sweat. totally getting into it.

and everybody was having loads of fun!

dancing, singing, having a good time!

everyone who's anyone was there... 

including some of the hardest working people at Sun Microsystems. (editor's note: i am a total champ for running pictures where i look so goofy but other people look good. it is evidence of my benevolent nature. and my supreme confidence.)

it was fun. lots of fun.

so here's the deal... lots of my pics didn't come out so good... so if anybody has any they want me to post, just send them to me using the following formula: first.last@sun.com. my firstname is mary. my lastname is smaragdis.

and one last thing... we did the big art auction at JavaOne After Dark. huge success. we're going to do big coverage on that tomorrow... so stay tuned.

check early. check often. shift. reload.

mary

 I've said it before and I'll say it again... if you haven't yet joined Inner Circle, you're missing out big time. This premium program gives you access to some serious insight, perspective as well as exclusive 1:1 engagements with Sun's A-list techno celebs.

We had one such engagement today. Our hosts: Curtis Sasaki, VP Engineering, Desktop Solutions, Sun Microsystems
Peder Ulander, Sr. Director of Marketing, Desktop Solutions, Sun Microsystems

here they are getting ready before things got started...

Peder gave a great talk (although to be totally honest I missed big chunks of it because the Project Looking Glass community meeting and the Sun Certified appreciation dinner were going on at exactly the same time and I was trying to be three places at once, running around like a chicken shot in the rear-end.)

but he kept things going without me... did a demo... whole nine yards...

your action item: check out Java Desktop System today.

mary

p.s. can you tell i'm on a mission to promote all things desktop? have you noticed?

p.p.s. Curtis Sasaki rocks. he has changed the rules of the game in the desktop. and this is the second time i have witnessed first hand how he can turn the industry on its ear. (he defined the second-generation Java platform when we went to the three versions -- EE, SE, ME. that was his idea. that was his proposal. i was in the room. i saw it first hand.) you know all this business about innovation happens elsewhere... that's all well and good... but i know for a fact that some of the smartest people on the planet work for sun microsystems. Curtis Sasaki is one of them. And it makes me really proud to work here too. (i'm hoping for a little osmosis, you know... i figure maybe with some proximity it might rub off...)

 JavaOne 2004 has a rock star. His name is Hideya Kawahara.

This guy is incredible because

1. He's a genius for inventing project Looking Glass. This technology has captures your imagination. There's just no other way to describe the affect it has on you. It's flat out unbelievably awesome and demonstrates the power of the Java platform and the innovation that it spawns. 
2. He's one of the nicest guys you will ever meet.

(he also happens to be in that exclusive and highly-sought after community of techno celebs who are my close personal friends. i'm still working on getting the picture with me and him to prove it. he's a rock star, OK. he's got a posse that follows him around. it's not exactly easy to break the perimeter. i'm working it. just give me some time.)

today we had the Project Looking Glass Community Meeting...

... people were actually waiting in line to get into the room....

which was just packed... standing room only....

As you all know by now, Project Looking Glass has been open sourced on java.net.

I just can not wait to see how this is going to evolve... this is just break-through innovation and I can't wait to be the personal beneficiary of it running on my Java Desktop System.

What's that? Want to learn more about Java Desktop System. Oh, you've come to the right place, my friend. Check out this demo-packed Net Talk. People, this package -- total desktop productivity -- costs you $50 per employee per year. I bet that's less what your company spends on you for coffee (if they're still buying you coffee.) you just gotta check it out. it would be irresponsible not to.

at least that's what i think.

and remember, this blog is about what i think.

and we make no secret about the fact that i'm a marketing girl.

so back off on the reply buttons.

mary