It's officially fall, aka my favorite time of year, and that means the
leaves are changing, the air is cooler, and the days are shorter. Since
becoming a mom, I realize that the day is shorter part of fall is my
least favorite thing about the season. Having two active little ones
means that the more time you can spend running around outside, the
better. But when fall and winter hits, you have to get creative. You
have to get serious. You have to make peanut butter playdough. I don't
have the source for this recipe...just the photocopy that was given to
me. It's super fun to make with the kids...and it truly is
"non-toxic"... they can eat it if they want!

We've got some video from our adventures at Web 2.0 yesterday. First, we strolled around the expo floor and talked to a few folks. More on that later. ;) We stopped by the Sun booth, aka, home away from home, to talk to the guys about Project Kenai. Launched just last week, this beta is already providing developers what they need to work in a truly connected, collaborative way. Check out what Sharat has to say about Project Kenai here. 

We also had the good luck to run into Christopher Lynn of socialTNT who had some interesting things to say about East vs West Coast Web 2.0 events. Check out our interview with him here.

More updates to come in the near future!

-Heidi

The sessions just keep getting better. Jonah Peretti of BuzzFeed and
The Huffington Post presented Viral Marketing 2.0 this morning. Loved
it. From the Bored at Work Network (BWN) to the Power of the Mullet,
this session rocked my world. Let's break it down, shall we?

First session of the day, "Customer Service is the New Marketing"

Lane Becker, of Get Satisfaction,
which seems at first glance very cool,  is the speaker. Lane's pitch: 
Foster more satisfied, loyal customers by working less and spending
less money. Sweet!

Jenn (aka maybeimright) and I are at the Javits Center waiting for today's Web 2.0 festivities to kick off. We've been pouring over the conference guide and schedule, debating which sessions to attend and realizing there are more sessions on our list than time we have in the day. This seems to happen a lot. I'll be blogging the sessions, we'll both be tweeting over at Team_SDN and you should keep your eyes peeled for an update over at SunTAN as well. And of course, if you are here at the Expo and you are free tomorrow at 7pm and are interested in social media marketing, head on over to our BoF: Social Butterflies: Using Social Media to Grow Developer Communities. Okay....time to find our first session!

There is a lot of stuff shakin' in SDN land.  A lot. So we are going to do a little wrap-up here at the SDN'sider. Check it out:

Read the NetBeans Q and A.

Watch the Case Study: USDA Maximizing Collaboration with NetBeans and Codebeamer.

Join OpenOffice.org.

Create with Zembly.

And come back here later today when I post the next installment of Cooking with SDNGal!

:)

hd

Ok, so this week's recipe is another dessert. Do you see a pattern? ;)
It's a family recipe for Apricot Bars and they are very, very yummy. So
proceed at your own risk!

Read and play along with our adventurer as he quests for the Ruby of Destiny in our choose-your-own-adventure style minibook. As our brave hero faces different thrills and adventures, you control his actions and ultimately decide his fate.
Should he fool the witch or kill her? Can you make it to the end? Or is failure your destiny...

So what are you waiting for? Come on in...if you dare.

Just wanted to give a shout out to my internet peeps and let you know that I'm back in blogging action. I'll update with something better later today. I was on vacation and then I couldn't access my blog, hence my two week absence. But I've got a lot to say (shocker!) and I'll start blogging again this afternoon.

Missed ya!

-hd

I love the Olympics. Love 'em. Ever since I was a little girl watching Mary Lou Retton flip and vault her way to gold in L.A. I've looked forward to the summer games. And tonight they begin! (Ok, technically, the opening ceremony is over, but for us out here on the west coast, it hasn't been televised). I'll be DVR'ing all of the games, but I'll also be playing MyPicks Beijing 2008.

MyPicks Beijing 2008 is a Facebook application allows players to predict Gold, Silver, and Bronze medal winners throughout the games. When a player (ME!) predicts correctly (Which, um, I WILL), points are added to the players' home country's score and the country with the highest point total at the conclusion of the Summer Olympics is the winner. The app was built using Sun's social application development environment, known as zembly.  Zembly has been in private beta since June and enables folks to quickly develop social apps for platforms lik Facebook, Meebo, OpenSocial and iPhone.

So add MyPicks Beijing 2008 to your Facebook page and play along! Maybeimright and I have challenged each other to make the most correct predictions. I'm totally going to win. Not that it matters. But I am.

-Heidi

ps- I'm on vacation next week so no updates from me in this space. Have fun!

Another great interview by Janice Heiss. Check out  "Teaching Mobile Computing to Generation C: A Conversation with Java Champion Qusay Mahmoud." In this article Qusay discusses ways to integrate mobile devices into computer science curriculum.

Be sure to check check check it out!

Back at JavaOne 2008 Sun unveiled some super sweet demos of JavaFX (hence the "Clueless" reference above, m'kay?). And now, the JavaFX SDK Preview has been released. Download it, play with it, tell us what you think about it. The preview release isn't the only new thing in the JavaFX world. I'm happy to welcome the JavaFX Blog to our blogosphere! Check out what the JavaFX team has to say about this release on their new, sure to be cool, blog.  Last, but never least, my partner in crime and all around kick ass marketing gal, Jenn Winger, aka maybeimright, recorded the first podcast of the new series "This Ain't Your Dad's Java" with Eric Klein, VP of Java Marketing and David Bryant, Sr. Director, Java Marketing at Sun where whey talk all things Java including, ta da!, JavaFX. Check it out here.

Now get playing! ;)

-Heidi

Hot off the presses! In, "From the Trenches at Sun Identity, Part 5: Support for OpenSSO," senior product manager Nick Wooler describes the background, the support model, and the gains for developers as Sun offers full support and indemnification for its open Web access management and federation project.

Check it out!

-Heidi 

It's time for our weekly installment of Cookin' with SDNGal. Today I bring you Thai Shrimp Soup. It's a family favorite. Hope you enjoy it!

Thai Shrimp Soup

2 TBSP canola oil 

1 TBSP minced fresh ginger

3 gloves garlic, minced

1 TBSP hot chili paste 

4 C. Chicken Stock 

1 - 14oz can of creamed corn

1/2 lb. frozen shrimp, defrosted

1 TBSP water

1 TBSP cornstarch

1 tsp sugar 

1 egg, slightly beaten 

1/2 bunch cilantro, chopped

In a large dutch oven or saucepan heat the canola oil over medium heat. Add ginger, garlic, and chili paste and stir for 1 minute. Add the chicken stock, corn, and shrimp. Cook for 10 minutes. Whisk together the water, cornstarch and sugar and add into soup. Stir until slightly thicker, about 3 minutes. Add the beaten egg and stir for one minute more. Add the chopped cilantro and serve. A word to the wise: this is best served fresh. It isn't the tastiest as leftovers. The shrimp get a little tough in reheating. This recipe will serve four folks. ;)

Enjoy!

There are some great interviews with Java Champions out right now. Here's a quick snapshot:
Java Performance Tuning: A Conversation With Java Champion Kirk Pepperdine

Java Champion and Java performance expert Kirk Pepperdine shares ways to identify and solve Java performance bottlenecks.

Enterprise Java Expert Adam Bien Makes Java EE Programming Easier
Janice J. Heiss interviews Java Champion Adam Bien, who discusses some
common fallacies about Java EE and takes the mystery out of distributed
computing.