Happy Wednesday everyone! Once again its a busy week, but its busy with fun things! Later this week Eric and David (and I will be there too!) will be sitting down with the father of Java for our weekly episode of "This Ain't Your Dad's Java". You will have to tune in to Sun Total Access Network and to our podcast to see what he has to say and much more!
I will be blogging about my artist of the week as well later this week, but I wanted to direct you to a new screencast that was just produced about JavaFX. Jeff Hoffman, a User Experience Designer, introduces Project Nile, a tool that works with JavaFX. He shows you how to use the features of Project Nile, which include export plugins for Adobe products, a SVG graphics converter, a JavaFX graphics view and samples. Make sure to tune in to see what Jeff has to say.
Also, have a question about JavaFX? You have a chance *this week* to Ask The Experts! Head over here to ask your questions. The Ask the Experts program gives you the opportunity to ask questions about Java technology or Java tools from Sun and get answers from the experts on that topic. The tool does not require you to log in and allows you to submit questions when its convenient for you.
And one more thing..make sure to stop by SDNGal's page today....I hear she is going to be posting a very yummy recipe today... I can't wait to see what it is!
Hello everyone! I have been a quiet blogger this week as it has literally gotten away from me! I am knee deep in a bunch of very cool things that I can't talk about quite yet, but when I can, you will be stoked! This week was hectic, as I mentioned before, but we recorded two new podcasts for "This Ain't Your Dad's Java" and those will be up on iTunes and on our RSS Feed early next week. These two episodes are called "The One About the Twins" and "The One About Media Elitists". In any case, I wanted to introduce you to my artist of the week before the week was officially over. This week I am bringing you one of my top 10 bands of all time, if not in my top 3... from the moment I heard them in the late 90s I knew I was going to be in love with them from that point forward. This week I am featuring none other than the band Travis.
Travis was one of the most prominent British traditional rock bands in the mid- to late '90s. Following Oasis' lead of crafting down-to-earth, heartfelt songs in the vein of classic British bands from the '60s, Travis was more successful and enduring than some of their peers due to their lively, impassioned songwriting and performances. The group formed in Glasgow around 1990 as something of a lark for its members, singer/songwriter Francis Healy, guitarist Andy Dunlop, drummer Neil Primrose, and bassist Dougie Payne. After finishing their studies at art school a few years later, the foursome became more serious about Travis' potential and moved to London in 1996. Their self-released debut EP, All I Wanna Do Is Rock, came out in the fall of that year; with its earnest vocals and soaring guitars, it captured the spirit of British rock at the time, which was retreating from some of Britpop's artiness to a back-to-basics sound. Their second single, 1997's "U16 Girls," was released by Independiente Records, the new label headed by former Go! Discs director Andy MacDonald; a few months later, their critically acclaimed full-length debut, "Good Feeling", arrived. Recorded in a matter of days with top producer Steve Lillywhite, the album included hit singles like "Happy" and "Tied to the '90s" and immediately entered the Top Ten of the U.K. charts. The following year, Travis began sessions with star producer Nigel Godrich for the follow-up to Good Feeling, recording in six studios in as many months. Though it was a slower, darker affair, when "The Man Who" appeared in 1999 it eclipsed Travis' previous successes, going platinum six times in the U.K. and spawning more hit singles such as "Why Does It Always Rain on Me?" and "Writing to Reach You." Nominated Select Magazine's Album of the Year (and finishing in the Top Ten of many other publication's year-end lists), The Man Who appeared on U.S. shores in early 2000, just in time for a tour with their musical big brothers, Oasis. Debuting at the number one spot on the U.K. album chart, "The Invisible Band" was issued in June 2001 just prior to stateside summer gigs with Dido. Two years later, the band issued "12 Memories", which was followed in late 2004 with the singles collection "Singles". Travis finally returned with an album of all-new material in the spring of 2007 entitled "The Boy with No Name", whose arrival was announced by the release of the single "Closer." Chris Martin from Coldplay has said on more than one occasion that Coldplay is "the poor man's Travis" and were known to cover Travis songs early on in their career.
I was fortunate to be able to catch Travis twice last year at The Fillmore (once on their way to Coachella and once in support of their new album) and I have seen them many times before. During their last show (in November) Fran mentioned that they would be going right back into the studio to work on a new album. "Ode to J. Smith" is deemed to be their loudest, edgiest and most arresting record since their debut. Written in 5 weeks and recorded in just 14 days, its the sound of a band re-born, re-inspired and re-energized. Yesterday, Fran wrote a blog about their first single from the new album titled "Something Anything" . As promised, its rockier, its edgier and it's making me super, super excited for the album. I have already pre-ordered it and I can't wait until the single hits! Lucky for us, the boys have already made the video and I am leaving it with you hear for you viewing and hearing pleasure. Go out and invest in all of Travis' albums; I can promise you that your ears (and the boys themselves!) will thank you. Happy weekend! Enjoy your day!
Happy Friday readers! It has been a long week of getting things done, but I am happy to say that I have checked many things off of my to do list this week. My awesome team and I had a fabulous planning and brainstorming meeting yesterday and it was awesome to be able to spend the day in one room with everyone. About half of my team work remotely or in another state, so when we get together for these meetings, its always good to see the girls! And we had an awesome team dinner at one of my favorite restaurants in downtown Palo Alto called Junnoon. I have one things to say. YUMMY!
In any case, I am super excited about the Olympics starting today and even more excited about this really cool new application (ok... really, its a game!) that was launched on Facebook called myPicks Beijing 2008. What is myPicks Beijing 2008 you ask? WELL... it is a game that allows users like you and I to predict winners at the Olympics. And, if your predictions are correct, you win points. All points we accumulate are credited to the country we choose when we sign up and you can challenge your friends to competition predictions and more. Whats even more cool about this is that the game was created on Zembly - the worlds first and easiest Facebook application development environment. Zembly is built from the ground up on Sun's technology (both hardware and software...sweet!).
My partner in crime and all around fabulous friend, Heidi (aka SDNGal) and I shot a video today for Sun Total Access Network to talk about myPicks Beijing 2008. Make sure to head over to SunTAN and to Heidi's blog as well to find out just what we have to say about all the cool stuff that is happening in our worlds. Heidi, I am ready for our Olympic challenge. GAME ON! Happy weekend everyone! Enjoy your day!
Happy Wednesday everyone! With the release of the JavaFX SDK last week, I would like to say I have slowed down a bit here at work, but alas, that is not so much the case...I think I have gotten even more busy! But, I like it that way..makes the days go by fast and I am working on some very cool things! I am excited to see my whole team tomorrow as we are diving into a brain storming session offsite. That should be fun!
Since I have been so heads down with planning, making videos and presentations, I did want to introduce you to my artist of the week that will make your ears happy. This week, I want to introduce you to a Los Angeles musician by the name of Greg Laswell. Jonathan Zwickel, who works for Rhapsody, had this to say about Laswell: " Greg Laswell is already a critic's darling, and with the right marketing his second album will give him a proper shove into mainstream. 'Through Toledo' is an impressive collection of densely lyrical, deeply melodic indie pop that refuses to settle into the predictability. Laswell -- on guitar, piano, drums and production -- is clearly more than just another singer-songwriter."
The first time I heard Greg, I heard his remake of the Cyndi Lauper hit 'Girls Just Wanna Have Fun.' (you can find it on iTunes!) It is not the same upbeat tune you would think it would be...its more melancholic and his voice just drew me in with how sad he sounded as he sang it. Once I heard that, I quickly rushed out and bought up all his albums. In July, he released a new album called 'Three Flights From Alto Nido'. I highly suggest going out and getting the album as soon as possible. He is everything I love about new music... original and fresh sounding.
As I leave you with some great new music, please check out Greg's video for the song "How the Day Sounds". It is beautiful and the sound he has is truly amazing. Also, note Elijah Wood in the video. Enjoy the day!
Happy Thursday everyone! Today is an exciting day in Java land. I'm thrilled to announce that we officially launched the JavaFX Preview SDK this morning! This is a very exciting milestone for us as it marks our first official release and includes tools to enable web scripters to begin prototyping JavaFX content for use in desktop or browsers.
The JavaFX Preview release is designed to help early adopters become
familiar with JavaFX and is not yet being offered for commercial
applications. The JavaFX Preview release consists of the following
components:
JavaFX Preview SDK: Provides the JavaFX compiler
and runtime tools, 2D graphics and media libraries to create highly
interactive applications for desktop and browser, as well as tutorials,
API documentation and sample code.
NetBeans 6.1 IDE with integrated JavaFX plug-in: Provides a sophisticated development environment to build, preview, and debug JavaFX applications.
Project Nile: An easy to use tool that exports creative assets from Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator to JavaFX applications.
Java Runtime Environment 6 Update 10 Beta:
Delivers a high performance runtime with a new browser plug-in that
provides the ability to drag a live running applet out of a web browser
and dynamically transform it into an application running on the desktop.
So now its your turn... go to download the preview SDK here and get started playing around with JavaFX today!
Want some new duds to impress all your friends with? Tell us what you think about the new SDN channel redesign on the SDN Channel Blog and get a limited edition t-shirt from JavaOne 2008. They are pretty sweet! Enjoy the day!
Happy Wednesday everyone! I feel like this week is zooming by... I am heads down on our upcoming JavaFX launch, so I have been listening to lots of music to keep me going while I plug away on a never ending to do list. Instead of featuring an artist this week, I thought of I would share with you a list of songs, albums and artists that have been making my ears happy as I am working on that list:
1. Pete Yorn - Last Summer (it was a new song on his myspace page for a few weeks and its one of those songs that speaks to the soul)
2. Minibar - Road Movies (this album just makes me tap my feet and sing along to all the songs...I love Minibar!)
3. Romantica - America (enough said...I featured them last week and I can't stop listening to this album)
4. Ryan Adams and The Cardinals - Cold Roses ( a beautifully sad album that I can listen to on repeat)
5. Doves - Some Cities (I can listen to the Doves over and over again...)
10. Pixies - Wave of Mutilation - Best of Pixies (I recently saw someone's facebook status that they were listening to the Pixies and I was like, I need to bust them out again..so I have been listening to them a lot this week).
So there is my very short list of what I am listening to...this week. I highly suggest going through it and listening to all of these amazing artists. Your ears will thank you and so will they. Also, if you are hungry for something good and tasty, head over to my fabulous friend Heidi's aka SDNGal's blog and see her featured recipe of the week. It sounds super yummy! Enjoy the day!
Yesterday I sat down with Eric Klein, VP of Java Marketing and David Bryant, Sr. Director of Java Marketing and recorded our first Java podcast in our new series "This Ain't Your Dad's Java". I think we all had way too much fun doing it and make sure to look for it to be up on iTunes, sun.com, java.sun.com, our blogs, etc. in the next week. This will be a weekly podcast where Eric and David will have guests on and will be answering questions that you all have for them. Ask them anything...they are willing to answer it all. Oh, and if you want to email us your questions, send us an email to aintyourdadsjava@sun.com and we will get your questions, suggestions in the queue for one of our next shows. Their first show really gives everyone a great glimpse into who these two rockstars are and what is on their mind. We talk everything from Blu-ray, JavaFX and Java SE to the Livescribe pen to Coldplay and Remember the Milk. We go all over, but you will learn a lot. I know I did. And you will definitely laugh along the way. Once we have it uploaded everywhere, I will let you know. I hope everyone has a great weekend!
Happy Wednesday everyone! I have been on the quest to find some new music to listen to and have currently become quite intrigued with a band called Romantica. This band has blown me away with the first song I listened to. I literally stopped what I was doing and rushed to my iTunes store and quickly purchased all of their albums.
With an album on Paste Magazine's top of 2007 and comparisons popping up all over the place between lead singer/songwriter Ben Kyle and both Jeff Tweedy and Ryan Adams it probably won't be too soon before you will be able to catch them at a venue near you.
I was reading up on the band and I read an interview that S.J. Barlament had with Ben Kyle on how the band started that I thought was interesting:
"We were a group of friends in school. Luke and I first played together nearly 10 years ago, but the band didn't form until 2002. I essentially gave up music for a few years to study painting. I figured I couldn't do both seriously. I sort of told myself that once I finished my degree I could start playing music again... And that's when the band formed. We were signed really early (within a few months) to a local indie label. Our violinist quit during the first recording, so we asked Jessy Greene to come in and play the string parts and she's been with us ever since (although she's not touring with us because she's touring with a slightly bigger band called the Foo Fighters at the moment)."
"The philosophy of the band is changing, and the more we tour the more it's becoming about the 4 guys on the road (Luke Jacobs, Tony Zacccardi, James Orvis and myself), as we develop new material and arrangements during our live shows. But until now it's really been about a fluid group of musicians collaborating around the songs that I write."
This band is full of such heart and soul and I hope that you enjoy them as much as I have. And please make sure to check them out if they are ever in your neck of the woods. I am eagerly awaiting them to come to San Francisco! Enjoy the music and as always, enjoy your day!
Hello everyone! I figured if I started out with a music lyric reference, I would catch your attention. Any idea what song and group I paid homage to?SDNGal and I have officially launched our Sun Total Access Network on Flickr and we want you to join us! Its pretty easy...all you have to do is become a contact and upload your Sun/Sun Developer Network related photos (old or new..we welcome all!) to our page. Whether its a picture snapped at JavaOne, Tech Days, or a a group of you out and about together, we would love them to be part of our set. And, to make things fun for you, we will be giving away a Prize Pack to one of our new contacts. Simply upload your photos between July 14, 2008 and July 28, 2008 and tag them with SunTAN/Sun Developer Network/Event title/Event date/Persons/products shown and you will be entered into a drawing for our Prize Pack which includes a Sun SPOT Development kit, Sun t-shirt, SMI press book, and Java ipod carrier. It's pretty sweet package...but we expect your photos to be even sweeter. Become a contact and start uploading today!
Happy Thursday everyone! I just got an email from one of my favorite people and co-workers, Tabitha Scatena, about an exciting NetBeans event that is taking place next week.
On Tuesday at EuroPython 2008, Ted Leung (Dynamic Languages & Tools Architect, Sun Microsystems) and Frank Wierzbicki (Jython Project Lead, Sun Microsystems) announced that the NetBeans IDE will be supporting Python and Jython in future releases. At the core of bringing Python/Jython support to the NetBeans IDE, is the formation of the NBPython Project, led by community member Allan Davis.
For more information, visit the NBPython Project pageand request membership to the project. For developers wishing to contribute, sign up for the development mailing list.
In addition, the Sun Developer Network (SDN) is also launching the Python Developer Center and is planning to feature Python/Jython technologies in future Sun Tech Days events, a 15-city world tour designed to educate developers in local markets on various technologies. Python runtime support is already available in OpenSolaris 2008.05, via the pkg.opensolaris.org repository, as well as with Cool Stack on Solaris 10-based systems.
Sounds like a lot of fun and interesting things are coming for NetBeans!
Good morning! I saw this yesterday and I thought it was too cool not to share being that it combined two things I think are neat (Bob Dylan and typography). Turn up the volume and enjoy!
Happy Monday everyone! I hope that you all had a good weekend. Mine was spent in beautiful Lake Tahoe and I had a lovely time. I am back in full swing with lots happening in the JavaFX world that I am excited to share with all of you soon. I was browsing around this morning looking for a bit of inspiration to blog about and I stumbled upon aTunes.org. aTunes is a full-featured audio player and organizer AND it's developed in the Java programming language. How sweet is that? aTunes supports mp3s, ogg, wma, wav, flack and mp4 files and allows users to edit tags, organize music, rip audio cds and as an added bonus it also offers radio streaming. And..what's even cooler is that it is all built on open source software. For a full list of features and benefits, go here. I will definitely be playing around with this new player this week, so look for me to review more about it soon. I love new toys that involve music. Off to check it out now. Enjoy your day!
Hello everyone! I am heading off to Lake Tahoe for the holiday weekend later tonight, but I wanted to quickly leave you with my artist of the week. This will probably come as no surprise that I am going to feature the likes of the boys of Minibar. After being blessed with seeing them live and performing all my favorite songs last week, I figured I needed give them props once again and get all of you listening to them as soon as possible. I am actually going to feature one of Simon Petty's side projects, Solomon's Seal in this post because I think the song, "Sleeping In the Car" is gorgeous. Simon's voice can get you lost in a sea of beautiful lyrics, gorgeous vocals and musical prose. I hope you enjoy the song as much as I do and I am working on getting the boys up to San Francisco as soon as possible. Until they come to your neck and my neck of the woods again, enjoy the song and of course enjoy your day!
Last week while I was on my mini-vacation for my birthday, Chris Melissinos, our Chief Gaming Officer and one of the greatest people I know, launched his new radio show called "SHIFT Radio". The show is all about things that I find way cool like entertainment and the electronic lifestyle. His first show was last week and featured Hal Halpin, President of the Entertainment Consumers Association. You can check out the replay here. I can't wait to see what else and who else Chris brings on his show. I might have to give him my wish list of guests I would like him to talk with... my brain is already going.
Later this week Eric and David (and I will be there too!) will be sitting down with the father of Java for our weekly episode of "This Ain't Your Dad's Java". You will have to tune in to Sun Total Access Network and to our podcast to see what he has to say and much more! 
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Enjoy the day! 
