Is This Thing Still On?

Hello?  Anyone there?

OK, it's been too long since I've blogged.  Things have been busy here at Sun these last months (which you all know if you've been reading the papers).  Equally so, things have been very busy here in engineering, and we've continued to put out several new virtualization and systems management products.  It's time to catch up on this.  Later this week I'll be posting a blog updating on everything that's been happening the last few months and giving some insight into where we're headed.

Stay tuned!

BTW, if you want to catch up on more frequent news, feel free to follow me on twitter.

Posted at 09:42AM Apr 29, 2009 by Stephen Wilson in Personal  |  Comments[4]

Happy Independence Day from Hawaii

I've been spending the week in Maui with my family.  On July 4th (the Independence Day holiday in the US) they shut down Front Street on the water front in the town of Lahaina and put on quite a party.  A barge in the harbor launches a great fireworks display.  I captured a bit of the evening on my pocket camera.  Here are some highlights.

Posted at 12:24PM Jul 05, 2007 by Stephen Wilson in Personal  | 

I Feel Like a Secret Agent

I just got my Clear Card!  After applying over six months ago, and giving them more personal information than you can possibly imagine (everthing from next-of-kin to finger prints to a retinal scan -- yes, a retinal scan) I am now authorized to zip past security lines at a range of airports around the US.  I can't wait to try this on my next trip out of SJC.

Posted at 05:54PM Jun 10, 2007 by Stephen Wilson in Personal  | 

See Steve Bungy Jump (video)

A few of us took the opportunity to do something a little unusual during the Asia-Pacific Executive Advisory Council in New Zealand a couple weeks back.  Mark Tremblay (Sun's Chief Chip Designer), the CIO of a large Indian Bank, and I went Bungy Jumping at Kawarau Bridge.  Bungy jumping (or Bungee depending on your spelling) originated in New Zealand, and Kawarau was the first bungy site.  Jumping was a blast.  For a few extra bucks they give you a DVD of your jump.  I ripped the video off the DVD and re-edited it to just keep the interesting parts.  Check it out.

Posted at 05:00AM Mar 26, 2007 by Stephen Wilson in Personal  | 

Arriving in Queenstown, NZ (Video)

I just arrived in Queenstown where I'll be staying the next few days for a Sun customer event.  The scenery just walking off the plane is impressive.  Here's a quick sample via video.

Posted at 02:00AM Mar 13, 2007 by Stephen Wilson in Personal  |  Comments[1]

Five Things (with Video!)

Rich Green tagged me in the Five Things meme game.  I thought about replying immediately, but so many people are playing this that the responses have all started to look alike.  I thought I'd be a little different and reply with a video.  I figured I'd crank it out quickly, but these things always seem to take time.  So, three weeks later, here are my five things in two-and-a-half minutes.

Now that I've done that, it's my turn.  I tag:

1. My video blogging buddy: Ken Wallich
2. My fellow virtualization watcher: Ken Oesterich
3. Software's co-Chief Tallness Officer: Bob Brewin
4. My good friend in Prague: Pavel Suk
5. The not-yet-blogging business model master: Daniel Raskin
   

Posted at 02:00AM Feb 21, 2007 by Stephen Wilson in Personal  |  Comments[1]

Sights and Sounds of Bangalore (video)

After arriving very early Sunday morning (think 1 am) I got to head out today and see some of the sights.  I'm glad I got a day to find my way around a bit before I dive into two days of meetings at Sun's offices here in Bangalore.  Here is some video of what I saw and heard today.

This city really is a study in contrast.  Thanks to Avinash and Harish (and our driver Mani) for showing me around.

Posted at 09:10AM Jan 21, 2007 by Stephen Wilson in Personal  |  Comments[3]

Arriving in Bangalore (video)

I made it from San Francisco to Bangalore.  Here are some initial thoughts on video.

It sure is cool to have a whole TV studio, including camera and editing equipment, that weighs less than 5 pounds. 

Posted at 07:43PM Jan 20, 2007 by Stephen Wilson in Personal  |  Comments[1]

On My Way to India

Friday I'm leaving on my first trip to India.  My team has about 30 engineers there from the N1 group and it's my first time to get over and meet them.  I'm really looking forward to it.  The only part I'm not looking forward to is the plane flight.  I'm flying through Frankfurt.  It's 10 hours to Germany, and then another 10 or so to Bangalore!

It's going to be a pretty quick trip and I'm coming back Wednesday.  I don't know if I'll be blogging at all between now and when I get back, but I'm bringing my camera and I'll be posting some pictures or videos from the trip at some point.
 

Posted at 10:20PM Jan 18, 2007 by Stephen Wilson in Personal  | 

An Interesting Trip (Video Blog)

Wednesday and Thursday I made a quick cross-country trip.  I flew from my home in San Jose to Dulles (near D.C.) so I could attend a meeting at Sun's office in Ashburn, Virginia.  Sun's Ashburn office is an unassuming building in a smallish office park -- not at all like Sun's sprawling campuses in Menlo Park, Santa Clara or Broomfield.  There's good reason for this.  It came along with the acquisition of a small company Sun made a couple years back.  The company, called SevenSpace, brought the technology for Sun's Managed Operations service.  The ultimate in connected service, it allows Sun to completely run a customer's data center remotely.

My meeting on Thursday was very successful, but only lasted half the day.  I decided I'd drive back to the airport early and just camp out in United's club lounge -- they have good Wi-Fi and comfy chairs.  Just before I turned into the airport exit off the expressway I saw a sign that said the Udvar-Hazy Museum was just a couple miles further up the road.  I'd read about it when it opened, but never had the chance to check it out.  I made a split-second decision and merged back onto the freeway (using an almost legal maneuver).  I'm sure glad I did.

It took only a few minutes to get to the museum, which is an extension to the Smithsonian Air & Space Museum (one of my favorite places).  The museum has a striking modern architecture, and is cavernous on the inside.  It needs to be big to hold all the cool airplanes and spaceships!

My wife bought me my Cannon Elph for Christmas so I'd have a small camera I could carry on trips when I stumbled across interesting things.  I was sure glad I had it.  I even threw it into Movie mode and took some short movies.  Over the holiday break I'd threatened (half jokingly) that I should start video blogging.  Well, why not give it a try?

I spent about an hour at the museum and then headed to the airport.  At the airport I popped the SD card from  my camera into my laptop and downloaded the movie clips.  Then I grabbed some "open source" classical music off a site I found on Google (that good wi-fi comes in handy).  On the plane I finished assembling a short collection of neat things from the museum and put the sound track with it.  Here's what I manged to pull together.  I hope you enjoy it.

Posted at 11:56PM Jan 04, 2007 by Stephen Wilson in Personal  |  Comments[1]