Friday February 20, 2009

Sao Paulo, Rio, and beyond...

The Emerging Markets PS team spent the past week in Brazil. A whirlwind tour of the key accounts and key opportunities in Sao Paulo and Rio. One week is definitely not enough time to spend in Brazil when you are in the office 12 hrs a day and hopping flights within the country to get from office to office.

Sao Paulo is the biggest little city I have ever seen. For a city of ~18M people, it feels like you are in a small neighborhood most of the time. There are no real "skyscraper" districts that make you feel closed in (like in New York), and no frantic hustle and bustle like Beijing or Los Angeles. The people are friendly, the account teams are eager and lively, and the work is exciting. What a cool town.

We also spent about 23 hours in Rio. Yeah. Rio definitely can not be consumed in less than one day. The atmosphere of the local office was upbeat, and the opportunities were exciting with lots of momentum. The city is amazing. The scenery (mostly from a cab) is gorgeous, with the mountains and hills, the ocean and bay, and 1930's and 1940's Spanish/Portuguese architecture. The view from the hotel at 5:30 AM as we were heading back to the airport was breathtaking, with the early morning water traffic and beach in the foreground and the hills and cityscape in the background.

Off to Mexico City Sunday. They have alot to live up to if they want to compare favorably with my Brazil experience. Down side is that Carnivale starts this weekend, and I will miss most of it flying out Sunday. I'll upload some pics when I get a chance to shuffle them off of my Fuze.

bill.

Monday December 22, 2008

Back from Beijing (and Shanghai)...

I just returned from a week long trip to our Beijing and Shanghai sales offices. I hadn't visited China since about 2001, and much has definitely changed. I suppose I should rewind a few weeks though for context.

Sun's new office in Beijing:

My blahg has been pretty much off-topic for a few months, as I have been transitioning into a new role. I am now the lead for Systems and Storage Professional Services for "Emerging Markets Region". EMR consists of China, Russia and the rest of CIS, India, Latin America, much of the middle east, and any country without a Sun office. Well, it seems that way. Tons of opportunities, tons of great people, tons of great customers.

Beijing's famous hub of "retail negotiations", the Silk Market:

This trip was awesome! The teams in Beijing and Shanghai are definitely on a roll. Lots of complex identity management work, portal integrations, and storage management projects underway. Huge thanks to Dowson for hosting us in both cities, Andy for helping to set everything up, Winston (and Jimmy via mobile phone) for helping with our social activities, Hammer, Jimmy, Arthur, and all the delivery architects for your time and for sharing the information.

Next comes Moscow and Brazil. For now, time to spend the holidays with family and friends. More to come later...

bill.

Friday September 19, 2008

What's in a name...

Yeah, we all get tons of SPAM in our Inbox folders. I, for one, and definitely numb to the constant offers for medical assistance with my naughty tingly parts, offers to refinance my mortgage, and work from home and make millions in my spare time. I definitely am convinced that apricots and magic herbs from the Brazilian rain forests hold the keys to stopping aging, fixing my sore and aching joints, and removing those laugh lines and wrinkles that are appearing as I age. Numerous bankers in foreign lands would love to have my help in extricating some funds orphaned in their troubled country by a western national's untimely demise with no apparent heirs. I am flypaper for all of this helpful information.

This one, however, made me laugh, and coffee squirted out of my nose. Someone should tell "scruffy", oops, Mr. William Gill that using a gmail account for the "Reply-to", and having a sender address of "scruffy@zoom-dsl.com" makes me doubt the value to me, as a consumer, of this offer from "Barclays Wealth Home". Perhaps someone should also suggest a spell checker and/or grammar checker. I think that "United Kingdom" is spelled with a capital "K".

I needed a good laugh today. Thanks Scruffy.

bill.

Saturday July 05, 2008

Happy 4th Everyone!!

Great to have a weekend off with the family.

Guess how we spent our time?

bill.

Friday June 27, 2008

Strawberry Fields Forever...

I took the family down to Delaplane, VA for the local "Strawberry Festival". It was actually held at the Sky Meadows State Park about 7 miles north of Delaplane. There were plenty of food vendors and kitschy craft stuff there to keep us emptying our wallets. One booth had a ton of tie-dye goodies including t-shirts, hats, handbags, diaper bags, and just about anything else that is made of cotton and can be tied and dipped. I got a couple cool shirts there.

Definitely a fun place for the kids, as they had hay rides, obstacle courses made of hay bales, and tons of crafts that the kids could do for a couple bucks. My kids all made sand art bottles with lots of neon colored sand. It was definitely a blast for them, and not too expensive. The food choices were plentiful, from fish and chips to hot dogs and italian sausage, to funnel cakes. There were even a couple ice cream vendors making hand dipped strawberry sundaes on shortcake, or a choice of dozens of flavors on a cone.

My personal favorite vendor brought back some fond memories of my past. I attended Penn State Mont Alto back in the mid 80's. A couple miles up the road was this really cool place called "Mr. Ed's" (more info on Mr Ed's here). Mr Ed's is a peanut lover's heaven, a candy lover's heaven, has great fudge, and tons of cool toys and stuffed animals for kids. Mr. Ed's had a stand at the festival and was roasting peanuts fresh on site. The smell brought back fond memories for me, and I had to buy a couple pounds of peanuts and some old-school candy for the kids. We even made a road trip to Mr Ed's store on US Rt 30 (Lincoln Highway) with the kids a couple weeks later.

Of course, any town fair, carnival, or rural strawberry festival isn't complete for my children until they get to ride a pony. This one was no exception. In addition to the 4-H sponsored petting zoo, they had pony rides for a couple bucks, with a bad Polaroid picture included.

Samantha the Princess:

Shelby the other Princess:

Mr Cole (AKA Monkey Boy):

My little monsters...

bill.

Friday June 20, 2008

Leaving on a JET plane...

Wow. I finally get to leave sunny and baking hot (108F today) Phoenix. The 60 day project has reached a finale. We are all taking some time for the July 4 holiday, and leaving the systems to "soak" for a couple weeks in test. I don't really know if my children will remember me at this point. I have been home for a grand total of 11 days in the past 2 months, and those days were mostly spent running around doing house maintenance, laundry, re-packing a suitcase, and mowing grass.

Phoenix is a great town, though I highly recommend avoiding the summer months. Great restaurants and tons of things to do. I highly recommend Flo's, Earl's, Jason's Deli (great salads), Mastro's and Fleming's for keeping the body nourished. Definitely take a drive east and check out the old gold mining town near Superstition Mountain (a neat thing to see if you are middle aged and watched old Disney films). Canyon Lake is alot of fun, worth spending a day if you are here for a weekend. Of course, Sedona, the Grand Canyon, the huge meteor crater, and lots of other tree-hugger and tourist shopper attractions can keep you entertained as well.

I got the chance to hop the border one weekend, and did some tourist wandering in Nogales Mexico. Fun place once you get past the "cheap perscriptions, MD on site" pharmacies and grungy border businesses. Lots of local crafts and shopping within walking distance of the border crossing (which was easy, painless, and not crowded at all).

Great working with you folks (Sun and non-Sun), travel safe! Thanks Mr. and Ms. customer, it was a fun project! Special thanks to Debbie for keeping us nourished with fresh backyard grapefruit, apple brownies, and homemade cookies, Tony for the good questions and challenges, and Chris and Ryan for the local knowledge and operational viewpoints. Tim and Steve, if this thing breaks after I'm gone, it will be all your fault!

bill.

Saturday May 17, 2008

The world's coolest customer...

My project manager brings in homemade cookies and muffins several times a week. The customer buys lunch, pizza on Tuesdays, and Jason's Deli sandwiches on Thursdays. The whole team (about 30 people) are invited out for a happy hour once a week, including dinner at one of the local eateries. Very cool customer, very cool work. Oh yeah, I'm here doing work.

I'm doing a provisioning project, using Jumpstart and the JET toolkit to model and test the provisioning of dozens of the new T52x0 CMT servers, implemented and provisioned on-demand through the N1 Service Provisioning System. This is a tight schedule project, so ZFS, LDOMs, and some other new functionality and features are being left until the next update to the environment. We are using Solaris Containers and the N1 Service Provisioning System though. In fact, each server on the application side will have 36 full root zones running the Sun Glassfish Enterprise Server and Sun Java System Web Server.

There, enough links to make any shareholder happy.

This project has been full of interesting challenges. Try deploying around 100 servers along with the deployment architecture in 60 days. Of course, there were some standards and policies in place, but the customer wanted to streamline things, and increase efficiencies in patching and systems management. Now throw in 36 full root zones (containers) in each system, with 6 filesystems each, all running on the internal disk drives with no external storage. Hmmm... This is getting complicated (and very snug). Oh yeah, we need to implement Live Upgrade, and make sure that the whole project is well documented, easy to manage, flexible and modular so that the next revision of the provisioning and systems infrastructure can evolve in a simpler and more organized set of projects.

I'll post some of the more interesting challenges, issues, resolutions, and creative solutions as this project develops. Never a dull moment, or an end to the opportunities to be creative with this project!

cheers!
bill.

Wednesday April 23, 2008

Through the revolving door...

Well, here I am again. After 18 months away from Sun, I decided to return to the fold. A lot has changed, and a lot has stayed the same. Lots of really cool people, lots of fun geeky products and technologies, some new faces, and really great customer challenges coming through the door to keep us on our toes.

So where was I for the past year and a half? The Mitre Corporation, a very cool non-profit company that runs three federally funded research and development centers (FFRDCs) for the US Government. Check them out, they do some very cool stuff (NORAD, AWACS, Whirlwind, and lots of other things in the past). Some very cool unmanned aviation work over there, along with whacky remote vehicle research and work managing airspace. My work was in the Center for Enterprise Modernization, where I did some fun consolidation, capacity, and performance work for civilian agencies. Learned alot, saved the American taxpayers some money, and definitely helped improve the service levels provided by the agencies back to the taxpayers.

So what am I doing now? I am working in the datacenter space, in Professional Services Delivery. I will be working on consolidation, virtualization, capacity management, and other eco-friendly and fiscally expedient projects for our customers, mostly within the US. This is definitely an exciting time in IT, with power costs soaring, the dot-com bubble long gone, and the economy plodding down in the sludge. There are enough changes in technology, priorities, and business drivers to really allow some great architectural and operational changes and innovation to drive success. Green-IT isn't just about saving trees and millions of tons of carbon footprint anymore. At $100+ a barrel for crude oil and KWHs of electricity doubling in price, being green can also mean saving lots of green (USD). More on that topic on another day...

bill.

Saturday September 23, 2006

Family fun...

Took the family to the town fair up in New Market, MD today. New Market is a quiet little historic town about 50 miles northwest of the DC beltway. My daughter Shelby got a nifty straw cowgirl hat, and got to ride a pony. Definitely the highpoint of her week! Sometimes I wish that adult life and happiness were this simple.

bill.

Wednesday September 20, 2006

New geek toy...

Just received this little goodie last week. I have been eyeing the XM Radio handheld units for a while, but none tickled my fancy enough to shell out hard earned greenbacks until now.

The Pioneer INNO records XM, by time or by song. It can either store a gig of XM, or a 50/50 split of XM and your own MP3s. The reception, even without the external antenna (little dock thing required) is decent around the yard at home, and even in my office. Very cool.

I was replacing a Roady XT in my Navigator, and the Inno car kit uses the same antenna and power connectors, so installation was a breeze (as was the original install). Definitely a "two thumbs up" geek toy in my book. Shop the prices with your favorite price comparison tool, and check out the prices (being very cautious as always) on eBay, you can find decent deals out there way below the $350 USD retail price.

bill.

Tuesday September 19, 2006

My very own celebrity sighting!

So I was actually in the office last friday, scrubbing laptop hard drives, getting a couple machines prepped to go back out into the field, doing the random meeting shuffle... You know, typical friday "I have to go into the office" drudgery. Oh yeah, and there was this little town hall meeting with Hal.

Near the back of the room, I spot none other than MaryMary, goddess of marketing. So when they swapped glasses for a blooging photo opportunity (a much better move for Mary than for Hal), I grabbed my camera phone and snapped a quick pic for my own amusement (and posting on this blahg). MaryMary and Hal even stopped by my humble abode of an office / toy store to grab one of my infamous t-shirts. I'm so proud, one of my little fashion statements will be adorning the marketing diva...

cheers
bill.

Saturday September 02, 2006

Wishing for Kablamo...

Wow. Now I'm really hoping for a "Kablamo" moment. These guys over at Turn Key Engine Supply make some very cool stuff. They have taken GM performance engines and crate motors from Corvettes and Hummers, and converted them to run in restoration and hotrod project cars. They even have a series of engines for sandrails and off-road use. I'd love to try out one of their LS1 or LS7 engines in the old Vette, or an LS2 for the Bricklin (oil sump on that one is "Ford style", in the front of the motor). Looking at prices, I might have to settle for the LQ series though. After all, in street driving, there is such a thing as too much torque and horsepower.

bill.

Friday September 01, 2006

The summer project, almost done...

Vacations and rainy days mean that my "honey do" list and my "to do" lists have grown exponentially. The current project car is very close to finished, and is awaiting a couple key pieces before being ready for paint. This beast is a 1981 Corvette that I bought on Ebay with over 200,000 miles (322,000 or so km) on it. It should probably have been on its way to the scrap yard, but that would have been too easy.

I added an "Astrotop" one piece plexiglass top to replace the old leaky fiberglass T-tops. The seats and carpet inside are new, and I didn't want to take a chance on ruining them.

The previous owner had really tried to maintain it well, but made a few key mistakes, like changing the differential fluid without adding in the positraction additive. This made the rear end squeal and thump going around corners. Very annoying, but at least that one was a $10 fix (and an hour in 100 degree heat under the car out on my driveway).

I started by replacing all of the front suspension. From the frame to the wheels, everything had to go. The car still had the original front control arms, without the "offset" that allows camber to be adjusted properly. Some bad bushings, bad ball joints, and general wear from 25 years of hard driving helped me to decide to just replace everything as a single unit. Turns out you can buy new front end assemblies with bushings, ball joints, bearings, spindles, and all those other time-consuming parts already installed. Bolt it on, align it, and drive it away. Oops, maybe the whole problem wasn't worn parts and a wrong control arm, turns out the frame was also a bit bent (sagging) from some previous owner doing some "hill hopping". These cars are light and fast, but not really vertically strong.

While we were under there anyway, new rotors, calipers, and brake pads are just a logical jump. Why tear it all apart and then mix old parts in with your new parts?

So at this point, it is decent enough to drive, and *way* fun. The carburetor started acting up a bit, probably varnish and gunk in the jets and inner workings. I noticed that I had a brand new Holley Street Avenger carb sitting on the shelf from a previous project vehicle, so I decided to put it to good use. Of course, these little things are never easy, and I ended up tearing out all of the EGR and other emissions hardware to get it to work, along with converting the vacuum choke to electric in the process, adapting the Rochester style intake to Holley style, and splitting the fuel line from the pump to the carb. It is pretty though.

Wow, glad that piece is done. Now we try to close the hood. Oops. The new carb's inlet flange sticks up about a half inch too high. The adapter plate for the Q-jet to Holley conversion takes about 3/4 of an inch. Even without the air cleaner on, the carb is hitting the underside of the hood. You know, Joe Average might go back and put the old parts back on the engine to lower the requirements, but not me. I order a new hood. The Stinger hood for the 1977-1981 Corvettes is available through Ecklers (as is almost everything you could possibly imagine wanting or needing when fixing an old Corvette), and is styled after some of the older Corvettes with the 427ci big block engine. It provides a couple of inches of additional clearance above the carburetor (and looks way cool).

So now I'm waiting for new air conditioning and heater hardware from Hot Rod Air to modernize the climate control system without using 25 yr old parts. Their kits include new compressors and evaporators that use more eco-friendly R134a coolant instead of the old R12 freon based stuff. The techie guy at Hot Rod Air, and a friend at a local speed shop both tell me that I can install this thing and have it ready to charge in a few hours. Well, as long as I have the old hood off of the car, it shouldn't be too bad of a job.

Of course, you know that the minute that I have everything assembled, looking and running just the way I want it, something will definitely go majorly Kablamo (to quote the profound David Hobbs and Steve Matchett). That's what makes these beasts fun though.

More updates and pics as the project moves forward...

bill.

Thursday August 31, 2006

Very cool fridge magnet...

A little elf (well, really just the every day postman) delivered a little package of these goodies to my doorstep. If you feel that you are worthy, find me at CEC (for those attending), or drop me a note and convince me that you really are worthy. I might share my stash.

Little hint here... Signing up on the OpenSolaris website is a good start, as is downloading and installing one of the distributions. Bonus points for building OpenSolaris from the source, and for posting in the discussion forums. A sure winner would be to contribute some useful code to the projects, of course.

Leftovers will probably go to MaryMary to distribute at her leisure.

bill.

Thursday June 22, 2006

Dude... You're gonna burn a Dell...

Wow.

This article at The Inquirer made me laugh so hard that coffee squirted out of my nose.

Now think about how many times you hold your laptop on your lap, and how many laptops are powered up when you are on an airplane. Scary... With the new high output, high amp-hour batteries, and the smoking hot CPU's that laptop vendors are packing into smaller and smaller boxes, it is a wonder that these kind of "thermal events" don't happen more often.

Really funny is the guy in the lower left of the picture, sitting 10 feet from the flaming wreckage, still hammering away on his laptop. Probably scrambling to upload pictures of the carnage to his blog...

bill.