Explicitly and without apology a marketing vehicle MaryMaryQuiteContrary

I got a spring in my step and a song in my heart today, people.

So let's get to the fun stuff!

Please join me in congratulating D who wins our spectacular prize package that includes:

• A leather portfolio thing containing all kinds of gadget/adapter/thing-a-ma-bobs (value: a lot)
• A stainless steel mug (courtesy the Sun Training organization; they came up w/the gadgets too)
• Two Java t-shirts (courtesy Jami (lovely, talented), the MaryMaryQuiteContrary personal ambassador to Java.com)
• A Java Everywhere hat (beautifully stitched)
  
• A signed copy of JOTD the world's greatest computer joke book (author: Mary's close personal friend)
  
• A PLUSH DUKE DOLL! (value: priceless)

(I'd better not see this stuff on eBay, D.)

D came up with my favorite methodology for hurling a t-shirt through the air. I chose D because:

1. His entry involved steps that were numbered. I like that. It's just a style thing.
   
2. His entry was wildly creative. I love wildly creative.
   
3. His entry involved a cigarette being lit in the state of California, demonstrating great courage on the part of the submitter.
   

Congratulations D! (Check out D's entry and all the others here.)

But wait, there's more!!!!

The real JavaOne 2005 T-Shirt Hurling Contest has announced a Procrastinators reprieve! You have until March 22 (tomorrow) to get your submissions in. And we're talking serious booty in this one, people:


Get in while the getting is good!

mary

p.s. For friends in search of free stuff... i think the iPod is still on the table. Check out Martin's blog for more on that one.

Happy Friday Everybody!!!

(just play along, would ya?)

We've got some super spectacular action going on in Friday Free Stuff this week.

Two firsts!

1. Today we announce our very first MaryMaryQuiteContrary Premiere Strategic Valued Trusted Platinum Blogger Partner!

2. Friday Free Stuff and an iPod is the prize!

(putter, putter my heart goes a-flutter; I can hardly stand it!)

<pause button>

You'll recall that I personally love and adore all Sun Certified Professionals. Indeed I am in the midst of orchestrating a surprise visit to a training course where I will be giving away tons of fabulous prizes to the next generation techno celebs that are enrolled there.  It's going to be a cross between Candid Camera and Who Wants to be a Millionaire. Hint: It will be on the North American continent. (Get in while the getting's good.)

Now, you guys go ahead and ask anybody that knows me. I don't just talk the talk. I walk the walk.

When I say I personally love and adore Sun Certified professionals I mean it. I gave away my brand new never been worn primo leather Java bomber jacket to a Sun Certified professional. I gave away a brand new still in box Sony Playstation II to a Sun Certified professional.

</pause button>

Breaking news: Martin is in on this game.

Please join me in congratulating Martin Hardee in achieving MaryMaryQuiteContrary Premiere Strategic Valued Trusted Platinum Blogger Partner status!!

And as such, we're "outsourcing" Friday Free Stuff this week to Martin Hardee's blog where a brand-spanking-new 4GB iPod is on the table.

(new economy.)

So check out Martin's blog everybody. Won't be long till somebody's doing a little happy dance with their iPod.

:-)

mary

p.s. Personal communication to Dr. Josh and Dr. Neal: I'm hurting over here.

It is with great pleasure that I deliver this little dispatch to you using my most favourite marketing technique (and it's taken years to hone) -- copy; paste.

:-)

mary

p.s. i've been hanging out with these Irish guys.... favourite... get it... i'm trying to fit in, you know...

=====================================================================

		SUN MICROSYSTEMS LABORATORIES
	     Mountain View, CA and Burlington, MA

	     Announces THREE new technical reports

	         See the entire collection at:
	       http://research.sun.com/techrep/



======================================================================


TR-2005-128	by Bob Goldberg	
		DASL Language: Programmer's Guide & Reference Manual

TR-2005-131	by Bernard Horan
		Use of Capability Descriptions in a Wireless Transducer
		Network

TR-2005-143	by Greg Wright, Matthew L. Seidl, and Mario Wolczko
		An object-aware memory architecture

***See details, abstracts, bios, and URLs below***

=====================================================================
=====================================================================
TR-2005-128	by Bob Goldberg
		_____________________________________________________
		
		DASL Language: Programmer's Guide & Reference Manual
		_____________________________________________________

		http://research.sun.com/techrep/2005/abstract-128.html

ABSTRACT

This report provides an intuitive description of the DASL application
modeling language, followed by a formal language specification. DASL was
originally developed as part of the Ace research project at Sun
Microsystems Laboratories to bridge the gap between high level
application modeling languages, such as UML, and the current
implementation languages and middleware in which applications are
written, such as Java(tm), J2EE(tm), and evolving middleware based on
web services.

In essence, DASL technology is a practical realization of the MDA (Model
Driven Architecture) vision to "separate business or application logic
from underlying platform technology" and thus "insulate business
applications from technology evolution."

BIO

Dr. Goldberg is a Senior Computer Scientist, and the chief designer of
the DASL language. He joined Sun in 1995 to develop a database
connectivity strategy for Sun's CORBA effort, which led him to his
current work on architecture-independent application specification
languages. For more, please refer to TR-2005-128 back page.

======================================================================
======================================================================

TR-2005-131	by Bernard Horan

		______________________________________________________

		Use of Capability Descriptions in a Wireless Transducer
		Network
		______________________________________________________

		http://research.sun.com/techrep/2005/abstract-131.html

ABSTRACT

This document presents the requirements for a language to describe the
capabilities of a transducer in a wireless transducer network (WTN). It
provides a survey of existing technologies in this field and concludes
with a framework in which the capabilities of a transducer can be
employed to assist users in the configuration of a WTN. The intended
audience for this paper comprises members of academic and industrial
research groups whose focus is networked devices, such as those used in
wireless sensor networks.

BIO

Bernard Horan is a senior staff engineer at Sun Microsystems
Laboratories, where he has worked on interactive collaborative
environments and Java introspection tools. He is currently working on
projects that explore the use of small wireless transducers. Horan
represented Sun in the W3C Web Ontology Working Group.

======================================================================
======================================================================

TR-2005-143	by Greg Wright, Matthew L. Seidl, and Mario Wolczko
	
		_______________________________________________________

		An object-aware memory archtecture

		_______________________________________________________

		http://research.sun.com/techrep/2005/abstract-143.html
ABSTRACT

Despite its dominance, object-oriented computation has received scant
attention from the architecture community. We propose a novel memory
architecture that supports objects and garbage collection (GC). Our
architecture is co-designed with a Java Virtual Machine to improve the
functionality and efficiency of heap memory management. The architecture
is based on an address space for objects accessed using object IDs
mapped by a translator to physical addresses. ...Our innovations enable
various improvements such as: a novel technique for parallel and
concurrent garbage collection, without requiring any global
synchronization; an in-cache garbage collector, which never accesses
main memory; concurrent compaction of objects; and elimination of most
GC store barrier overhead...  For more, see TR-2005-143

BIO

-GREG WRIGHT is a Staff Engineer at Sun Microsystems Laboratories. His
research interests include processor and memory system architecture and
simulation, virtual machines, and garbage collection.
-MATTHEW SEIDL is a researcher at Sun Microsystems Laboratories as well.
His primary current research involves hardware/software codesign for
improving Java performance on a range of systems.
-MARIO WOLZKO is a Distinguished Engineer at Sun Microsystems
Laboratories. His current projects include computer architectures for
object-based systems and performance instrumentation hardware design and
usage. See TR-2005-143 back page for more details.

=======================================================================
========================================================================


COMING SOON --- TECH REPORTS "IN THE QUEUE":

The following reports are currently in the process of publication:

TR-2005-101	Jeanie Treichel
		The Second 50 Tech Reports: Retrospective

TR-2005-132	Ori Shalev and Nir Shavit
		Transient Blocking Synchronization

TR-2005-138	Christoph Schuba
		TBD

TR-2004-142	David Detlefs and V. Krishna Nandivada,
		Compile-Time Concurrent Marking Write Barrier Removal


===============================================================

Extra, Extra!

Martin is giving away an 4 GB iPod to his favorite Sun Certified Professional.

Calling all you Sun Certified Professionals out there (whom I personally love and adore).

Check out Martin's blog! There's a shot at a free iPod there!

mary

Excellent overview article on the IDEs we've got out there on the Java Studio Creator site.

Well worth checking out.

mary

time to do a quick round-up of my favorite things...

1. Favorite new-to-the-world-of-blogging blogger: Deepak Alur. (he also happens to be a celebrated author who's been initiated into that exclusive and tightly-knit communities of techno celebs who are my close personal friends.)

2. Favorite switch site. (It's G-rated. I promise.)

3. Favorite laptop for running state-of-the-art games built using Java technology that were all the rage at the Game Developers Conference which served as the venue where Sun Chief Gaming Officer Chris Melissinos held court last week.

4. My favorite Java Get Powered post card..


Get this... Emily's Java powered phone worked from here. She made some calls. :-)

brown paper packages tied up with string.

or should would it be more appropriate to say the hills are alive?

you get the idea.

mary

p.s. There's this guy...Bill... I think he's pretty cool.

It's Friday everybody!!

You know what that means!

Check out out spectacular prize package:

• A leather portfolio thing containing all kinds of gadget/adapter/thing-a-ma-bobs (value: a lot)
• A stainless steel mug (courtesy the Sun Training organization; they came up w/the gadgets too)
• Two Java t-shirts (courtesy Jami (lovely, talented), the MaryMaryQuiteContrary personal ambassador to Java.com)
• A Java Everywhere hat (beautifully stitched)
  
• A signed copy of JOTD the world's greatest computer joke book (author: Mary's close personal friend)
  
• A PLUSH DUKE DOLL! (value: priceless)

This week's Friday Free Stuff is in  honor and celebration of



(!)

Here's what you do to win*.

1. Think up an idea for how to hurl a t-shirt through the air before a gathering of many thousands of the world's smartest Java developers (JavaOne attendees).

2. Submit your idea as a proposal, officially entering yourself into the T-Shirt Hurling Contest¹

3. Post a comment to this entry outlining your idea.

I'll pick my favorite idea. That person will get the Free Stuff shipped directly to their doorstep free of charge. The deadline for submitting proposals in the T-Shirt Hurling Contest is Tuesday, March 15. I'll pick my favorite and award this week's Friday Free Stuff* shortly thereafter.

Editor's note: I recommend doing step 2 before step 3 to prevent somebody from stealing your idea. You don't technically have to submit your idea in the official contest to play Friday Free Stuff this week. (I'd have no way of checking.) So if you're unable/unwilling to play with the big boys by submitting your idea in the official T-Shirt Hurling contest, you can still play here. Because I'm a mother and I totally get it.

Fun, fun, fun!!

bon weekend!

mary

p.s. I'm so sick of winter I can hardly stand it. Another day below freezing temperatures today. To help me beat the winter blues, somebody who loves me (and that feeling is mutual) got me another pair of strappy sandals which I absolutely adore. Black. So cute. I'd post a picture but I'm afraid you guys might start to think I'm weird. I just CAN NOT WAIT to wear these shoes outside. Vanessa, my favorite Brazilian Java developer sent me a note telling me that I could wear them right away if I came to Tech Days in Brazil. If only. Regrettably, that's not in the cards for me. Despite my very best efforts.

* Friday Free Stuff is not a contest. It's me giving away stuff that I personally own to people I choose. Generally I'm pretty arbitrary about who wins* but sometimes my decisions have some logic behind them. I am the judge. My decisions are final.

¹ The Official T-shirt hurling contest is a bona fide contest with a purse of more than $10,000 (cash) and all kinds of other goodies.

So you know the deadline to submit proposals for the T-Shirt hurling contest is March 15.

Sun employees aren't eligible to participate.

So I figured I'd share my idea in the event any of you would like to incorporate some of this thinking into your own proposals.

1. Get cross-bow thing.


(costume optional)

2. Get yourself a server running the Sun Java Enterprise System.

3. Talk to Dan Malks about the SOA system he's building to fulfill Bono's wish. He's technical lead. See if he'll share with you.

4. Attach the crossbow to the server.

5. Tell everybody in the audience at JavaOne to text message to a short code.

6. As the text messages come in, it applies more and more pressure to the trigger on the crossbow until you get to a tipping point and the trigger is pulled, hurling a t-shirt through the air.

So the whole thing is operated by the audience.

You could get all fancy and build it so that the audience could aim the crossbow by typing in "Left" or "Right" into the body of the text message.

But I think that might be overkill. And also perceived as "show off."

So, if I were going to submit a proposal for the T-shirt hurling contest, that's what I'd do.  (except for the  show off part)

But Sun employees aren't eligible.

So I'd like to offer up this idea to you, my friends.

Please feel free to incorporate it into your own thinking.

Remember: deadline for submissions is March 15.

mary

p.s. There will be three prizes:

Grand Prize:

• $6,000.00 Cash (U.S. Dollars) (total for entire team)
• Java Series Books ($1300 for entire team)
• Java Jackets ($300/each - each team member gets one)
• Story on JavaOne site (No specific value)
• Sun Java Studio Creator Toolset (Final retail value TBD, pre-released product, each team member receives one)
• Full Conference pass to 2005 JavaOne Conference ($1995 value/pass - each team member gets one.)

Second Prize:

• $3,000.00 cash (U.S. Dollars) (total for entire team)
• Java Series Books ($1300 for entire team)
• Java Jackets ($300/each - each team member gets one)
• Story on JavaOne site (No specific value)
• Sun Java Studio Creator Toolset (Final retail value TBD, pre-released product, each team member receives one)

Third Prize:

• $1,000.00 cash (U.S. Dollars) (total for entire team)
• Java Series Books ($1300 for entire team)
• Java Jackets ($300/each - each team member gets one)
• Story on JavaOne site (No specific value)
• Sun Java Studio Creator Toolset (Final retail value TBD, pre-released product, each team member receives one)

Techno clebs and close personal friends Raquel and Bill have something hot a-cooking.

mary

The most lovely and talented Jan Heiss did an interview with Misha Dmitriev, the creator of JFluid, which is a Sun Labs  phenomena --  a profiling tool that relies on hotswapping for bytecode instrumentation to collect information on the fly.

"Code hotswapping is probably the most powerful way to address the performance
problems of profiling, while still collecting useful data." (source: Dmitriev)



 He also claims that it is "proven" that profiling  gets you better software. He says that the the traditional edit-compile-debug cycle should be replaced  with edit-compile-debug-test-profile cycle. He has a lot to say about how hotswapping can reduce the performance problems of hotswapping.

Guess what?!

JFluid is now part of NetBeans.

(and we know I've got a special place in my heart for the NetBeans team.)

:-)

mary

I should have known all this good karma was too good to last... check out what just landed in my inbox:


:-(

double :-(

I don't get to be a JavaOne speaker, despite my very best efforts

Here's the details of my submission... i really think it would have made for a great BOF. regrettably the powers that be didn't agree with me...


I feel like i did when i was applying to colleges... and I kept getting the skinny envelopes.

:-(

double :-(

tipple :-(

mary

p.s. should have known all the good karma was too good to last.

Pop quiz: how do you know when something is really, really, really special?

A: You can't say it out loud without smiling.

That's 2005 for me, so far. It's just been unbelievable. I've had so many good things happen on the personal and professional front that I can't really talk about them out loud without smiling.

Indeed as I write to you, dear reader, I am smiling.

(read Jane Eyre to my firstborn last week,  dear reader. she loved it.)

The latest in the series of unbelievable things: Danny, Crupi and I are in daily conversations with people who are putting on a certain series of performances where a certain Irishman with a four-letter name will be serenading fans.

Daily conversations.

And one of the guy's name is Smasher.

totally serious.

I got voicemail from one high ranking insider in said operation who told me I write funny emails. (at least i think that's what he said; he's got this accent...) which made my day. because an individual who makes a living in the entertainment industry thinks i am funny.

and that is starting to breathe life back into the idea that perhaps i really could be a columnist -- the working mother's answer to Dave Barry.  (personal communication to all you high-and-mighty publishing circle types: i'll give you free stuff if you talk me up at your fancy little cocktail parties.)

anyway. that's the story.

mary

You know what's been totally awesome about this whole thing.

It's the way the employee base at Sun as been responding to and supporting the initiative that we announced Friday where we're teaming with Bono to enlist one million voices to join the ONE Campaign.

So it's been nearly a  week since we announced. I've been flooded with email from my colleagues. You'd think it'd taper off by now, right?

Nope.

First thing this morning I got a note from a a gal working for Sun out of the UK. Let's call her Cynthia to protect her identity. She wants to support what we're doing; lend her voice. That's what I've been hearing all week from my colleagues around the world.

It's been universal.

There are more than 30,000 Sun Microsystems employees. People who innovate in everything they do -- from testing the limits of the movement of electrons to break-away business strategies that change the competitive landscape. They are some of the smartest people to walk the face of the planet. And they're the nicest, fun-loving, well-adjusted bunch of folks you'll ever want to meet.

Don't get me wrong. Of course we've got the compulsory curmudgeons. They like to be the skeptics in meetings and test your assumptions and make sure the stuff you're saying is bullet-proof. (From my anecdotal experience, all of these people have been engineers. ;-)

But they're super smart. And even when they're not being nice... well you still respect them.

The whole point here is that this place is special. This is a place where initiatives like the one I'm working on with Danny and Crupi and the rest of the team can take root. We have an environment that fosters innovation; that gives us the latitude to push the envelope in the work we do.

I'm very proud to be a Sun Microsystems employee. And I'm very proud to call the people that I work with my colleagues and friends.

And you know what they say about the company you keep...

OK. Gotta go. Need to go walk around in my new strappy sandals where the streets have no name.

(got a little help on that one-liner from my favorite Unix Rabbi.)

:-)

mary

p.s. you want in on this game?

Quick update on the personal front. ...

I'm sick and tired of winter. I can't wait for spring.

It's freezing outside today.



(I know you can't really tell from this picture. Had to take it with the camera on my phone because Dan Malks, technical lead on that Bono wish project we're working on, has my digital camera. I lent it to him to take pictures at the TED Conference. He was there when Bono announced his wish. I'll try to get the camera back this week and we can upgrade the quality of our digital pictures in the blog.)

Anyway.... I discovered a way to chase that winter chill away.

(This is only relevant to the ladies out there.)



Girlfriend, go out and get yourself a brand spankin' new pair of strappy sandals!

And put the zing in spring!

(just wear them around the house until it gets warm enough to wear them outside.)

mary

Two quick things...

1. You know that project with Bono that I'm working on...

check out java.com




:-)

2. You know that project with Bono that I'm working on...

Pop quiz

Q: What do I have in common with this handsome young man...



(who recently had a pretty big day)

A:


Here's me wearing mine...




Get yours.

We've got to carry each other; carry each other.

mary