Musings of an OpenSolaris Technical Writing Intern Mark Settle's Mighty Pen

Alas! My internship concludes tomorrow. And on Saturday, I graduate from Colorado State University. At the risk of being overly sentimental, I thought I'd share a few thoughts for the world wide web.

First, I ought to thank everyone for their help and friendship over the last four months. Diane, thanks for trusting me from the outset and always pointing me to the right people. Clay and Owen, thanks for indulging my nerdy alter-ego. Sarah, thanks for your good company. Ginnie, thanks for always finding the time to answer my questions. Plenty of other folks also deserve mention, but writing an exhaustive list would be, well, exhausting. Just know that it's been an absolute pleasure to work with such a fine group of people.

For those of you who have been with Sun for a long time, it's probably easy to lose sight of just how remarkable this company's culture is. The people here possess remarkable goodwill, talent and passion. These are self-reinforcing things, and make it easy to enjoy a day at work.

I don't know where I'll be next year, or even next month. But wherever I go, I'll take the Sun culture with me.

My current charge is to explain how to dual-boot OpenSolaris with a second operating system. Leave it to me to accidentally delete my section on Backups, and not have another copy.

Microsoft has a long way to go until it can wear the interoperability mantle. To wit, its DreamSpark blog features a video post entitled “Imagine Cup and the Interoperability Challenge. There are now more reasons to compete.” But watching the video requires installing Microsoft Silverlight, its proprietary Flash competitor.

Last week, Google and SlashDot were abuzz about a new program from Microsoft, called DreamSpark. It allows students from eleven countries, including the United States, to download some of Microsoft's core proprietary developer tools. They range from Microsoft Expression Studio, the company's upstart Dreamweaver competitor, to Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Developer Edition.

In Microsoft's own words,

DreamSpark is simple, it's all about giving students Microsoft professional-level developer and design tools at no charge so you can chase your dreams and create the next big breakthrough in technology - or just get a head start on your career.

Sun, of course, has been at the leading edge of this free software thing. And then some. Its commitment to open source software is motivated by the recognition that companies that are able to harness communities to drive development will set the next generation of technology standards.

Microsoft hasn't yet made the leap, but is clearly feeling pressure from the OSS community to put its products in the hands of tomorrow's thought leaders. Now if only textbooks were free.

Search engines tend to do an exceptionally good job of finding technical information. According to Clay, who sits a couple of sliding glass doors away, this is not a coincidence. He sees it as a product of the fact that Google's algorithms are developed by technically-minded people. Engineers might be expected to optimize – either consciously or not – their work for projects that mesh with their own interests. Thus Google's ostensibly deft handling of technical queries.

Clay's observation is a fresh reminder to focus on the customer experience. I hope to lend SMI a pair of fresh eyes, helping us give things a second or third look, as needed.

Last week, I discussed how SMI makes a good deal of educational resources available to its employees at learning.sun.com. There's some really exceptional material out there, if you can just find the time.

But I'd give up a day's paycheck for a simple cheat sheet listing the most common UNIX commands.

Or not. I've taken to keeping a notebook of new commands, so this actually isn't too big of a deal. This post is my reminder to find someone from Sun Learning Services, and provide feedback.

With names like SunRay and SunWeb, Sun Microsystems betrays an affinity for its own brand. This must make being in marketing a little confusing, but let's take it one more step.

“SunThis, an extension of SunThat, leverages SunSomeOtherThing to preserve network resources and speed time-to-market.”

Pure poetry. I'm just glad that “Sun” is monosyllabic.

Welcome to the blog of Mark Settle. You're reading my first post, and the last one - I promise - in which I'll refer to myself in the third person. This is my second day on the job, and I'm excited to be here.

Observations:

1. I went to the cafeteria at 3:30. It closes at 1:30 and I will not soon forget.
2. My chair is infinitely adjustable, so it's a good thing that I don't have OCD.
3. I look much more handsome in my Sun ID than in my driver's license.

Happy Valentine's Day.

-Mark