Oh, my beautiful, sweet, lovelies!
I'm so happy I am going to pop!
Brace yourselves. I'm going to take you for one wild ride. And it's going to last precisely 13 minutes and 31 seconds.
Just to bring you up-to-speed, (using tactics that I'm not proud of so don't ask me how I did it) I managed to get myself on the Sun Ray at Home pilot. Yesterday, the Fed Ex man delivered my Sun Ray.
This morning, my buddy Dan called. Asked me how it was going with the Sun Ray. I hadn't opened the box yet. Other stuff going on. He told me it took him 5 mins to set up his and that he was on a con call at the time.
So Dan's a lot smarter than me. But I figured, what the heck. Let me just blow off all this stuff that's sitting my desk and in my inbox...
and start unpacking the Sun Ray.
And I'm all about metrics. If I can't measure it, I don't do it. That's my motto. Let's time how long it takes me.
So I quick get the stopwatch. (Got it for free with the purchase of a bottle of household cleaner.)
(Parenting tip of the week: Use the stopwatch to get the kids to brush their teeth for two mins... not that it works... it's a constant battle... i give up half the time... if they slosh a little toothpaste for a few seconds, I consider it done. But don't tell Dr. Sophia any of this stuff, ok? We act like pious-teeth-brushers-and-flossers when we go see Dr. Sophia. She's actually none the wiser. She thinks we do a good job (or at least that's what she tells me). I'm a working mom, people. I gotta choose my battles. I figure they're baby teeth, anyway... they're going to fall out... what's the big deal .. we digress....)
the Sun Ray! the timer! Ready, Set, Go!
I start unpacking.... I get it all out of boxes and and dumped onto my desk...
Pause: let's do a quick time check:
it's been 7 mins; 54 seconds since i started. OK. Finish getting the stuff out of the packaging; start plugging things together; get rid of the bags, twist-ties and boxes. Plug in the power cord for the Sun Ray. (I was stunned to learn today that Sun Rays don't have on/off buttons... if it's plugged in, it's on.) So my quick-start guide says it will take two minutes for the Sun Ray to start up and display a log-in screen. It does that. I try to take a picture of it to prove it to you. Camera's dead again. Need more batteries. So I go ahead and log in and then quick run downstairs and get some more batteries out of the garage. (i consider myself an embedded photo journalist when it comes to the blog.) I get back to my desk (winded; gotta start exercising again...)....
it's authenticating me... quick time check: 10 minutes; 44 seconds... before I know it, I'm in! I can't believe it!!! I'm in. It was totally easy. Completely Painless. Plug and Play!! LOVE IT!!! I am so excited!!!!
So what should I do first... open up a browser... http://blogs.sun.com/mary!
and here we are... total time from messy desk to Sun Ray up and running: 13 minutes, 31 seconds.
totally unbelievable!!!!
can i just tell you people that Sun Microsystems rocks in two critical ways:
1. We've got a stellar product portfolio. As employees, we are the primary beneficiaries of it.
2. We've got an extraordinary organization that delivers it to us.
and that's the word of the day.
oh happy, happy day that it is.
:-)
mary
YEAH!!!
Well I did not get out a stop watch so it might have been more then 5 minutes but it was close. Glad you are connected and loving it. I think this speaks to priority #5... you know what that is.
dl
Posted by Dan Lacher on August 19, 2004 at 01:32 PM PDT #
Posted by Anonymous on August 19, 2004 at 09:44 PM PDT #
Posted by Bill on August 20, 2004 at 01:35 AM PDT #
I have to second what Bill stated. I have been a full time work from home employee for over three years now. Until I received my SR@H I was using an Ultra 10 and some VPN software to get connected to work, but now all I have to use is the SR@H. I am a software engineer so I don't find myself having to use a DVD/CD drive locally. In general if a unix workstation would be suitable for your everyday work then a SR@H would work for you... let's take a quick look at the apps that I use daily:
Yep, everything I need to do my job via SR@H. If you need high end graphics or something along those lines then a SunRay ™ is not going to fit the bill, but they do solve the vast majority of the workstation usage users.
dl
Posted by Dan Lacher on August 20, 2004 at 05:51 AM PDT #
Start paying attention to the rest of the world, there's quite a lot of us, you know...
Right now, I can go to dell.com or similar and order for $400 a PC that will be five times as powerful as a SunRay and will be able to run Office and the latest video games.
I mean, doesn't the absolute lack of existence and interest in SunRays and similar dumb terminals send you any kind of message? Any?
Posted by Anonymous on August 20, 2004 at 08:52 PM PDT #
so that's not so much the point.
this isn't about how cheap you can get a PC. it's about how you can re-define the technology you use to get your work done.
let's just take me for example... i work in a marketing organization... the tools that i need day-to-day to do my job are 1. email; 2. browser; 3. office productivity; 4. web-based applications we use at Sun to do expenses, check our pay checks... stuff like that.
I also happen to be remote... I live thousands of miles away from my boss. I work from my home full time. The only time I'm not in my home office is when i'm traveling for work -- either visiting a Sun office or going to a trade show or conference.
before my life changed forever with the delivery of a sun ray to my door step, i used a laptop. a laptop that i had to administer, update (with the latest patches and what-not), upgrade, blah, blah, blah. So in case you haven't noticed, i'm not your techno geek. I don't know how to be a system administrator. It's not my core skill set. It's not what I was hired at Sun to do.
So the Sun Ray disintermediates me from my role as system administrator to my PC. It lets me spend my time on the clock doing the work that Sun pays me to do.
we're going to do a whole thing on this in the blog... stay tuned..
so to address your final point... please watch the sun.com website this week. you'll see something there that takes your final point head on.
Posted by mary on August 23, 2004 at 10:28 AM PDT #