Explicitly and without apology a marketing vehicle MaryMaryQuiteContrary

I got big-time email inbox excitement going on over here today, people. Check this out... sent directly to me from Sir  Bob Geldof...

	Hello, By being part of the Make Poverty History campaign you've done a lot over the last six months to create the golden opportunity to change the world that is in our grasp now. That's why I wanted to tell you about Live 8 myself. Let me start by saying, this is not Live Aid 2 - this time its not people's money we need, it's themselves. The five concerts taking place around the world are the starting point for The Long Walk To Justice, an event that will see hundreds of thousands of people heading to Edinburgh to tell the G8 leaders that the whole world is expecting them to deliver. By doubling aid, fully cancelling debt, and delivering trade justice for Africa, the G8 have it within their power to change the future for millions of men, women and children. What we need to do is show them in our millions that we care and that we're watching. Whether you're starting things off in Edinburgh on the Saturday at the vitally important Make Poverty History rally, or planning to head to the Scottish capital later in the week, the really vital thing is that you see your good work through and send a message loud and clear to those 8 men - now is the time, this is the year, you can make poverty history. Thanks and good luck, Bob

I miss Dr. Josh and Dr. Neal so much it hurts. It literally hurts.

It's been 25 weeks since we've had a puzzler. (not that we're counting, or anything.)

I've been flying solo for what seems like forever  It's been so long that even God is tired of being my co-pilot. (I think it's because I talk so much.)

Even CrazyBob has forgotten about me. (so much for promises not to forget the little people.)

So here's what we're going to do. ...

Haiku.

I'll give




Java t-shirt(s) to the author(s) of a Haiku that captures the ache and despair that one has to cope with when they've been abandoned for more than 25 weeks (not that anybody's counting).

Five t-shirts; five winners; totally free; postage included.

Just to remind you:

• Haiku is only three lines.
• The first line is five syllables.
• The second line is seven syllables.
• The last line is back to five syllables.
• No rhyming is required.

Here's one:

Don't your eyeballs hurt?
You think so fast that you must
Get dizzy a lot.

here's another one:

I mourn the time I
Chose to watch TV instead
Of reading a book.

(That's actually not mine. Somebody else wrote that one -- sort of; the first one's mine though.)

So even though neither of these Haikus deal with the bitter pain of abandonment, I would have awarded prizes to those because I like them. So we're actually not going to get "technical" about enforcing the rules on this one. (not that we ever do, really.)

Enter to win by posting a comment to this blog entry containing your Haiku.

And please feel free to go ahead and pre-order Java Puzzlers. I find that does wonders when it comes to lifting the spirits, actually.

:-)

bon weekend, people!

bon Memorial Day weekend!

mary

Hey you guys!!

So I'm almost done with this crazy, crazy travel schedule. I'm passing the business lead baton on the whole Bono thing we've been doing to my buddy/colleague Fiona, who lives/works (for Sun) in UK. So, as the tour moves to Europe, she's going to be doing what I've been doing here. So cool..

Relatedly, there's been a bunch of coverage, but my favorite piece was one that came out this week in Information Week as a result of an interview that Danny did with them. Danny is chief architect and technical lead on the Bono initiative. He's also one of the nicest guys you'll ever meet. (We happen to live about a mile from each other, by sheer coincidence, btw. Sun's a global company with 30,000+ employees all around the world, and the business lead (me) and the technical lead (Danny) on the Bono initiative live within a stone's throw of one another. How crazy is that?

Did I mention that Danny is a celebrated author and world-ranking techno-celeb extraordinaire? His book has been translated into 16 languages.

So while we're on the topic (and you know I have a propensity to go on and on) of Danny, he recently celebrated a huge big birthday. I didn't ask/receive permission to tell you which one so I'll give you a hint....


get it?

I'll be celebrating that birthday myself in approximately 16 years. It's a big one. And it deserves a tribute -- a photo tribute...  Please join me in savoring this little collage .. these pictures represent the entirety of all the pictures that I could (easily) find of Danny...



took this one at JavaOne last year... that's (co-author) Deepak right next to him... Deepak is also high-ranking techno celeb who has been initiated into that tightly-knit and exclusive community of techno celebs who are my close personal friends. Crupi completes the troika. But I don't have a picture of the three of them together. Kinda like how it's next to impossible to get a picture of all the Baldwin brothers. Same idea.



this picture is from his book...  that whole "about the author" thingy...



here's one with Gage... this was at the U2 concert.... I think it was in San Diego but I don't quite remember which city...



here's a picture of Danny's chin. Photo credit on this one is Morning Snowman.



Here's my all time favorite -- Danny with Bono at the press conference in LA.

Alert readers will notice...



... well, let's just say that Danny is the envy of many-a-fan.

OK. So that's the big birthday tribute. Happy, happy (belated) birthday Danny!

Gotta jam. Running downtown for a quick meeting with my buddies at DATA.

We got Friday Free Stuff coming later today, you guys. I'll do it when I get back to my office this afternoon. Stay tuned.

mary

I'm absolutely delighted to introduce you (with great fanfare) to my new favourite blogger:

Roumen Strobl

Awesome blog. Check it out.

The fanfare?

Post a comment to this blog entry and tell me your favorite thing about Roumen's blog... winning comment gets a ...



... really cool t-shirt...



shipped directly to you free of charge.

Happy Monday!

mary

I am delighted to inform you that one of my all-time favorite Techno Celebs extraordinaries ...



Hideya Kawahara, the father of Project Looking Glass, is featured in an interview with John Gage (who's in a category of Techno Celebs that's all his own).

(Both have been initiated into that exclusive and tightly-knit community of  Techno Celebs who are my close personal friends, btw. Not to name drop all the time.. i know it gets annoying... sorry... )

Project Looking Glass is the Java-based 3D UI that takes the desktop to an entirely new level.

mary

p.s. through Hideya I found out about EitaroSoft, an innovative bunch of folks who really knock my socks off.

p.p.s. There has been significant upgrade to the ukulele since the picture above was taken at JavaOne last year. Check out the Dukelele!


Close personal friends that I haven't met yet  Kazuhiro Kazama and Naoki Ishihara collaborated w/ Hideya  on this one and I get the sense that we're going to be seeing some Dukelele action at JavaOne this year.

Ten years ago, almost to the day, Java was born.

It makes me giggle to think of James and company going into labor and pushing.

but alas, Java didn't come out of the chute like my three kids did...

Nope...

Just as Athena sprang from the head of Zeus...

Let's just say that we celebrate the birth of a love child -- a love brain child.

won't you join me in doing a little happy dance?


Created by EitaroSoft
Check out java.com - hot games, cool apps



(Created by EitaroSoft)

Duke did.

:-)

mary

p.s. sound familiar? what's a girl to do... just super busy.. don't come down on me for it.

Deja vu all over again, people.

On Friday, May 13 Sun and Microsoft sat together to talk to the world about the next phase of our collaboration.



So as you might recall (and as we reported extensively in this blog), On April 2 of last year, Sun and Microsoft announced a broad technology collaboration agreement which ended all litigation, resulted in patent sharing and all kinds of good stuff.

(Urban legend has it that The Big Boss and Mr. Balmer held hands and sang Koom-Ba-Ya, but I tend not to believe this.)

Editor's note: Just a little humor there, people. Let's not go shooting off the email: "Mary said..." OK? We're safe because this blog doesn't boast these two giants of corporate America as readers. So we're safe as long as you don't go blabbing.

We digress.

As a result of last year's collaboration the following things have happened (no particular order):

1.  I passed a note across the aisle to Scoble, a big time blogger at Microsoft. We were both mentioned in a Fortune magazine piece on blogging and I figured I should introduce myself. He hit the reply button, triggering all kinds of email inbox excitement over here. (full story.)
2. The two companies are collaborating on customer driven priorities especially work on security, digital rights management and Web Services.
3. I have personally, with my own ears, heard The Big Boss say that Sun CTO Greg Papadopoulos (with whom I share a heritage and a passion for blogging) spends more time with Bill Gates than he does with him. (Which some alert readers might consider a proof point to #2; there's an interesting Q&A on the whole topic here. )
4. Sun and Microsoft are working to improve interoperability between Java and .Net through web services standards development and support. (more proof points for alert readers.)
5. I have personally spent time with -- and participate in regular dialogue with -- some of the hottest of hot-shots in the ranks of Techno Celeb Extraordinaries who earn their living from Microsoft. I'm throughouly impressed by their talents and passion. I love working with them. I respect and admire them. I get along with them great.
   

So the story here, people, is that today the Big Boss and Mr. Balmer gave an update of what's going on. They talked about the fact that everything  we're doing together is revolving around customer requirements and the customers are setting the priorities for our technical collaborations.

Beyond that, some of our key partners (and Microsoft's) including system integrators such as Accenture, EDS and NEC are delivering Sun/Microsoft interoperability products that simply didn't even exist a year ago. (That one's for free for all those alert readers out there.)

that's the story.

And speaking of free...

Time for Friday Free Stuff!! (as if that all-you-can-eat buffet weren't enough for you ;-)

While supplies last, I'm going to give every single person who posts what their favorite thing about the McNealy/Balmer webcast this...



.. genuine leather case containing all kinds of USB/Gadgets/Thing-a-ma-bobs.

That's right. Every single person who posts (while supplies last).

You gotta watch the webcast to play. And you gotta give me enough detail to make be believe that you really did watch it. No repeats. So if somebody posts a comment containing a detail to prove they really watched it, you can't repeat that one.

Get it?

Enter* to win* by posting a comment to this blog entry.

Kiss, kiss!

mary

*This is not a contest. I'm just having a little fun giving away stuff that I personally own to people who play along with me.

		Live Event
Online Chat with Jonathan Schwartz, Sun President and C0O May 12, 2005 9:00 a.m. PT/12:00 noon ET Jonathan Schwartz and other Sun executives will be standing by to answer your questions about enterprise computing, our latest products and solutions, and anything else that comes to mind. Sign up for Email reminder

(tell him  MaryMary sent you ;-)

mary

I can see them when you smile...

I know a magic maker.

His name has four letters.

He has a funny accent.

He goes from city to city and makes magic -- magic that makes your insides go wobbly, your heart pound and your spirit soar.

He's a regular Mr. Show Biz.

I'm going to try to get him to come over to my house for dinner when his travels across the world bring him to my city.

Because I have to introduce the love of my life and my children to the magic man.

And they, like me, will remember him forever.

:-)

mary

Nearly half a million people have joined the ONE Campaign in the past six weeks.

Check out what just landed in my inbox:

Dear Friend, Thanks to you, another 200,000 supporters have signed the ONE declaration since our last update, bringing our collective voices to well over half a million! The momentum behind ONE is both contagious and historic - let's encourage all our friends and family to sign the ONE declaration today and help recruit another 500,000 in the next month!                 Click here to email your friends! In April, Brad Pitt and ONE returned to Africa to check on progress made since our last visit in November, 2004. In Ethiopia, we visited hospitals that six months ago did not have lifesaving AIDS drugs but now do thanks to the President's Emergency AIDS plan and other efforts. There is an encouraging sense throughout Ethiopia that efforts to combat AIDS are beginning to work. American help is supporting African efforts to fight back against AIDS and extreme poverty. But we need to do much more, and quickly. In Ethiopia and South Africa, we met many AIDS patients who desperately need these drugs and are stuck on wait-lists to begin treatment. Every day another 6,300 people die in Africa of AIDS - and everyday another 8,500 Africans contract the disease. These people need more than just medicines. They need clean water, food, primary education, and, above all, ways to earn a living. What we saw on the trip demonstrates how urgent assistance delivered from the U.S. can change lives around the world. However, in the last few days, Congress has drastically reduced funds requested by the President to fight global AIDS and extreme poverty in the poorest countries. Over the next several months, it will be up to all of us, acting together as ONE, to raise our voices and show support for more and better assistance in the fight against global AIDS and poverty. To learn more, click here to view an open letter to Congressional leaders from ONE in support of these lifesaving programs. Again, thank you for continuing to make ONE such a success. ONE by ONE you are making a difference. Together, as ONE, we will change the world. Sincerely, The ONE Team P.S. If you haven't had a chance to view the ONE.ORG spot featuring Jamie Foxx, Cameron Diaz, Tom Hanks, Benicio Del Toro and many others, watch view the video now.

And you thought he only changed the world with his music...

Lend your voice.

mary

... on his whisper-ma-phone
... with a secret he's saving
... for your ears alone.....



Hal Stern is Software CTO!

(won't you join me in doing a little happy dance?)

:-) (ear to ear)

mary

p.s.: e.g. Mitch Fatel on Morning Snowman; Dr. Seuss on MaryMary... It's on purpose. I do this stuff on purpose. I only get a little worried when I'm dealing with SMX eyeballs. SMX is not the MaryMary target demographic. Which means I got shtick delta to manage. :-/

No worries. I got The Big Boss onboard (via private email communication (!).

Chop, chop, chop, people. We gotta jam. You gotta run fast if you want to keep up with me.

I am absolutely delighted to introduce you to my new favorite blogger:



Mr. Bill.

I laughed at something I found here. Something that my mother would have scolded me for laughing at...

Check it out.

mary

You're not going to believe this but I swear to you it is true.

So I'm sitting here, waiting for the Network Computing event presentation to begin. Totally scored a seat in the second row next to Danny Malks. I'm snapping quick photos on the sly as final preparations are made and we're about to begin.

Then here's what happens next: The Big Boss says looks over in my general direction -- "You want to get the good pictures, come with me."

(or something like that; I was kind of stunned so I can't remember exactly what he said..)

I  look over my shoulder to see who he's talking to.

And I realize he's talking to me.

Holy you-know-what! The Big Boss is talking to me.

Can you even believe this, people?

I meet the guy for the first time in my adult life minutes earlier and now he's telling me that I get to go backstage and take pictures. It's a MaryMaryQuiteContrary  exclusive!

We're talking about the CEO of a Fortune 173 company who Nicholas Carr has said "has seen the future."

(I was thinking of asking him if he'd seen six lucky numbers, but I wisely refrained.)

This is my bossⁿ boss

(!!!)

So as we head backstage (!!!!), we pause to take a quick snapshot...



 with Jose Jiminez (CSC) and Paul Kilmartin (eBay), who are going to be participating with us as part of the presentation today.

I couldn't believe this was happening to me. I almost did a little happy dance, but I again wisely refrained (until he was onstage and couldn't see me).

So check this out... they did this gag (that's what Jake calls these kinds of things), where he wore a Washington Nationals jersey and he was going to hit baseballs (soft kind) into the crowd.

It is with great pleasure that I deliver to MaryMaryQuiteContrary readers world exclusive photographs of what happened backstage right before he went on...

:-)

Check it out:



Here's a picture of The Big Boss putting on the jersey...



... as he's about to go on stage...



... and is greeted very warmly by the crowd...



... Then he did this thing where he hit balls into the audience. (Nobody got hurt. Except JohnnyL. wink, wink.)



You guys, he hit one into the upper deck of the theater... up there in the balcony! It was awesome.

:-)

So, can you even believe this? I don't think I'd believe it if somebody was telling me. Thankfully, I've got pictures to prove it.

I'm over here living in La-La land. In recent days I have been:

1. On the road with U2 going to concert after concert. (We've delivered a technology infrastructure that's helping Bono enlist his fans into the ONE Campaign within the time and space constraints of a rock concert. I'm the business lead on the intiative.)
2. Participating in a press conference w/Bono and Brad Pitt where Brad (we're on first name basis) puts his hand on my shoulder and says "you come here."
3. Engaged in private email dialogue with Dr. Josh the very same day as the Brad Pitt interaction that's got me all excited about what's ahead. (hint, hint.)
4. Hosted Hal Stern and Danny Malks for breakfast at my house
5. Gone backstage with the Big Boss at the NC Event where I secured (and delivered) a MaryMaryQuiteContrary exclusive.

I am living the vida loca (wrong artist but you get the idea).

:-)

mary

p.s. I just knew it was going to be a good day. I could feel it in my bones.

p.p.s. here's a picture my new best friend Kim took of me blogging from the venue and sent to me

Some of the smartest, most talented, absolutely extraordinary professionals you'll ever meet work for Sun Microsystems.

I have the good fortune to call these spectacuar individuals not just my colleagues, they're also my friends.

Here's a picture of Maria and Christina.



These gals are awesome. I've known them both and worked with them both for many, many, many years. They're in charge of putting on this show. We're about to get started....



Real quick before we do...

So, you guys might have noticed we've got a whole new look going on.

Check out the home page and you'll see what I'm talking about. So that whole new look was physically instantiated here at the launch event.

IT'S BEAUTIFUL.

(Maria and Christina are in charge.)

It's so beautiful. Entering the auditorium is an immersive experience. I love it.

And I am not the only one.

I was talking to this guy from the Dept. of Labor (who I didn't ask/receive permission to name) and he just told me he loved it too. I talked to lots of people. Tons of positive feedback. People are loving it.

(!!!!)

So it's really fun. It's really fun to see the whole thing roll out when you know how much work went into it.

OK. Showtime. I'm so excited. They're going to get started in just a few mins.

mary

I'm coming to you live from nation's capital where Sun is hosting the Network Computing launch event today. We are playing host to more than 400 customers and partners on the ground here in Washington, DC and many thousands more on the web.

(Not to worry, it's not too late to get in on this action. Check out the Network Computing launch event and get clued in to the Smarter Enterprise.)

Big, big day for me and the my buddies (Dan Malks and John Crupi -- we're the troika working on the ONE campaign initative we've got going on with Bono).

<pause button>

get ready people; here comes the exciting part

</pause button>

We got to meet Scott McNealy today!! I've worked for Sun for the better part of a decade and I've never got to meet the guy that we refer to in the blog (with respect and great reverence) as the Big Boss (note, initial cap)

He was nice. He was gracious. It was nice. He seemed mildly interested in what we've been up to. Either that or he was just being polite. I like to think the former. It was very nice.

Proof. Check it out:



So how exciting is that?!

It's going to be a good day. I can just feel it.

:-)

double :-)

mary