Wednesday Jul 01, 2009

Even though it has officially been a month since JavaOne 2009, their is still a lot of buzz surrounding the event and the student experience.

Avinash Joshi, a Sun Campus Ambassador at Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham, Kerala, attended JavaOne and recently blogged about his time at the conference.  He said: "What a learning experience...! Learning never stops." 

That definitely seemed to be the case as developers young and old came to share and learn at JavaOne. Hopefully the tradition of JavaOne will continue next year -- with the same generous offer of free entrance to students!

You can check out all the details of Avinash's time at JavaOne as well as his nearly a dozen links to photos, videos, and more.

And, just to make your day, here is a short 2-minute clip that gives a glimpse into the student experience at JavaOne:

); }" s_getdomindex="function () { return eval(instance.CallFunction("<invoke name=\""+name+"\" returntype=\"javascript\">" + __flash__argumentsToXML(arguments,0) + "</invoke>";)); }" s_gettrackclickmap="function () { return eval(instance.CallFunction("<invoke name=\""+name+"\" returntype=\"javascript\">" + __flash__argumentsToXML(arguments,0) + "</invoke>";)); }" s_getaccount="function () { return eval(instance.CallFunction("<invoke name=\""+name+"\" returntype=\"javascript\">" + __flash__argumentsToXML(arguments,0) + "</invoke>";)); }" s_getpagename="function () { return eval(instance.CallFunction("<invoke name=\""+name+"\" returntype=\"javascript\">" + __flash__argumentsToXML(arguments,0) + "</invoke>";)); }" s_getpageurl="function () { return eval(instance.CallFunction("<invoke name=\""+name+"\" returntype=\"javascript\">" + __flash__argumentsToXML(arguments,0) + "</invoke>";)); }" s_getmovieid="function () { return eval(instance.CallFunction("<invoke name=\""+name+"\" returntype=\"javascript\">" + __flash__argumentsToXML(arguments,0) + "</invoke>";)); }" s_getversion="function () { return eval(instance.CallFunction("<invoke name=\""+name+"\" returntype=\"javascript\">" + __flash__argumentsToXML(arguments,0) + "</invoke>";)); }" s_getcharset="function () { return eval(instance.CallFunction("<invoke name=\""+name+"\" returntype=\"javascript\">" + __flash__argumentsToXML(arguments,0) + "</invoke>";)); }" s_getswfurl="function () { return eval(instance.CallFunction("<invoke name=\""+name+"\" returntype=\"javascript\">" + __flash__argumentsToXML(arguments,0) + "</invoke>";)); }">

Tuesday Jun 30, 2009

The tenth FISL (Forum Internacional de Software Livre or OpenSource International Forum) took place from June 24-27 in Porto Alegre, Brazil, and hosted more than 8,000 attendees.

The event was supported by Sun Campus Ambassadors in Brazil who talked about OSUM, including how to join as well as how to create a new club if a student's university does not already have one.  Renato Porto Puccini reported that more than 1,500 students registered in FISL's club in OSUM at the event! 

Sun's Campus Ambassadors also helped with OpenSolaris installations.  One Sun Campus Ambassador estimated that they installed more than 180 OpenSolaris operating systems on Friday alone!  

The Campus Ambassadors also helped answer questions, translate, and spent some time blogging about and taking pictures of the event.  Renato has posted some pictures from the event -- you can have a look here.  Campus Ambassador Diogo has also posted a gallery here.

Make sure you click HERE to see a picture of Brazilian President Lula wearing an OpenSolaris cap, who posed for a picture with some students!

Congratulations to the Sun Campus Ambassadors for helping to make the event a success!

Monday Jun 29, 2009

Asim Munawar is a student and Sun Campus Ambassador at Hokkaido University, Japan. 

Asim recently held a SunSPOT seminar at his university -- after nearly a month of research and planning -- and reported that he had a successful turnout.  Asim stated that he wanted to "clearly explain and demonstrate the ease of use and the advantage of using SunSPOT as compared to other alternatives."

He noted that after the meeting several students approached him wanting to learn more about SunSPOT.  Some wanted to use the technology in their research and course studies while others wanted to make toys "that can do what you want them to do and not what they are programmed to do by default."

It sounds like Asim's seminar definitely piqued the interest of a number of students, which is certainly what he set out to do. Read more about Asim's seminar and check out some pictures in his blog. Congratulations on your success Asim and many thanks to sharing with all of us!

Friday Jun 26, 2009

Eze Singer, a Sun Campus Ambassador and OSUM leader blogged about a link to a GREAT resource for tips on some of the lesser known features of Solaris 10/OpenSolaris.

The PDF is a 333-page document with tutorials that describe some typical uses of OpenSolaris and describe the configuration of a feature to match.  It isn't meant to be a replacement for the Sun documentation that explains how to use the program, but rather is an addendum for tips and tricks on how to squeeze the most out of OpenSolaris. The great part is at the end of every feature there are links to more information about the feature that was just described.

Additionally, the document delves into the new project Crossbow, one of the highlights of the latest 2009.06 release.  Check out the PDF here (original Web site is here).  And thanks to Eze for passing along such a great resource!

Thursday Jun 25, 2009

Lior Kolnik, a Sun Campus Ambassador at Bar Ilan University, recently sent out some links for NetBeans shortcuts. 

Lior says the shortcuts are "absolutely awesome and make a huge difference when coding, especially the fix all imports one (ctrl+shift+i)!!" Lior also said after passing the links along to a group of students they "went off to try every single thing on the pdf I just linked," which is why he wants more people to pass them along!

Here are the links Lior provided:

Do these links help you or do you know of any others to share with everyone?  Please let me know in the comments section!

Wednesday Jun 24, 2009

Angad Singh is a Campus Ambassador Tech Lead for Sun who made his first trip to JavaOne this year.

Angad has written a series of nine blog postings that completely capture his JavaOne experience.  Between the photos and his writeup he really captures the spirit of the event. 

I highly recommend you click on the links below to read all about his experience.  For those who were unable to attend it really gives you an idea of the great sense of community to be found at Sun -- even amongst those who have never met in person. 

Plan to spend some time digging into these posts as there are lots of great links to JavaOne minutes and other multi-media events Angad participated in. 

  1. JavaOne 2009: Roundup
  2. JavaOne 2009: The Prelude and the Journey
  3. JavaOne 2009: CommunityOne
  4. JavaOne 2009: The Pavilion
  5. JavaOne 2009: The Conference Floor
  6. JavaOne 2009: Keynotes
  7. JavaOne 2009: James Gosling Q&A
  8. JavaOne 2009: The Parties and Dinners
  9. JavaOne 2009: San Francisco Sightseeing Tour

Thanks Angad for this wonderful recap of JavaOne and sharing your experience with the community! 

Tuesday Jun 23, 2009

I came across an interesting blog on OSUM today, and want to point it out to the readers of this blog as I know many of you will be able to offer suggestions.

Sethu is a student at the Sona College of Technology.  As an IT student he is looking for information on the skill set he should have as a future Computer Engineer.  His question goes beyond academics, to how he can (and should) establish and showcase his talents to make a good impression on a future employer (certificates, publications, conferences, contests, etc.).

Sethu is looking for suggestions on how to select the extra activities beyond academics to develop his skill set.  He indicates he will be graduating in 2011. 

I am sure there are plenty of students, campus ambassadors, and former IT students that are now in the work force, or about to enter that can offer Sethu some guidance, so please go here to read his blog in its entirety and offer him advice.

Monday Jun 22, 2009

Hyejin Park is a Sun Campus Ambassador from Korea who attended JavaOne 2009.  She has written a fantastic blog about her experience at JavaOne which I am re-posting here in full. Many thanks to Hyejin for sharing her experience with us.  From her pictures and this posting I can see why she is one of Sun's top Campus Ambassadors!   

My impression of JavaOne
I remember the week before leaving Korea when I couldn't go to sleep fluttering with the thoughts of my trip to San Francisco for JavaOne Conference which I was invited to. Those days seem like yesterday to me, but it's already two weeks past the event. (even though I still can't settle down from the trip. haha). It does seem a little late but I'm organizing them a little by little on Piccasa, blog, etc in order to keep these memories for a long time.

Java! Java! Java!
As I arrived at the conference, it was all about Java. Before Java was born, embodying something under one dimensional graphic on a black command window was the full extent. However, through Java, moving characters started to appear on browser windows, and this made not only Koreans but everyone in the world to drown in the Java's attractiveness, triggering continuous improvements. Nowadays, it wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that there are no IT products such as laptops, cell phone, servers, etc that does not utilize Java. I think that Sun Microsystems' quick realization of importance in 'open', 'share' and 'community', and effort to improve the technology under these environment were the greatest motivations that enabled continuous improvement of Java.

Open! Open! Open!
I could experience in firsthand that JavaOne, a place that provides thousands of seminars and large number of developers from all over the world share their opinions, was the one responsible for opening up new technology and creating a community to improve it for the better by sharing.

Share! Share! Share!
Keynote speech in the Opening Session which was given by engineers of Sun Microsystems or other famous system engineers from the industry was the best time to encounter the latest technology. Engineers explained how the systems were developed and how they are used in business through actual execution a demo.

The fact that a new programming model 'Cloud Computing' is a new infrastructure of IT at the same time as improving into a motivation of a new business model was very interesting. It was said that 'Cloud Computing' will contribute to making company management methods more efficient through reduction in construction cost of infrastructure, Virtualization technology, etc. Explanation through demonstration of how it is used in actual business in pioneer case of Amazon and Google was a beneficial session which helped in understanding not only the IT side but also the business side. It is a subject that I would definitely want to study if opportunity allows.

Community! Community! Community!
A meaningful events to create relationships with people from related business fields were provided such as meeting with fourteen Campus Ambassadors from different parts of the world, discussion session with James Gosling who is the very first developer of Java programming language and global reception party with developers of JavaFX, OpenSolaris, and engineers in charge of IT systems of prominent companies. Introducing the OSUM community, benefits of subscribing to the community and local cases from Sun Campus Ambassadors currently operating in different parts of the world at OSUM Lounge (Open Source University Meet-up Lounge) to students was a very valuable opportunity.

Furthermore, the events were provided to JavaOne students at no cost, technical session lectures beneficial to students were recommended through student scavenger activity, and helped students participate efficiently in the JavaOne event by providing the schedules ahead of time. Students could easily and more beneficially participate in the JavaOne event through specific schedule made just for students, and enjoy the glory of winning Ipod Touch or SunSpot in the raffle with stamps received in the event. You can have a look at JavaOne Minute containing the interviews with Raffle Winners at HERE.

Thanks! Thanks! Thanks!
I deeply thank Sun Microsystems for providing this amazing opportunity that I will never forget. I specially thank Lin, Gary, David, Tzel, Ganesh, Joonho, Bonghwan, Professor Lee, Keumsuk, Korean Campus Ambassadors and other Campus Ambassadors that were with me. I truly thank God father Gary for taking care of Campus Ambassadors through the program in San Francisco. Eight days in San Francisco has left valuable and unforgettable memories in my life and I would like to share this experience with my friends and members of OSUM(osum.sun.com).

I have shared pictures on Picasa at the moment, so have a look at HERE.

Written by Sun Microsystems 4th Korea Campus Ambassador Leader Hyejin Park(박혜진 from Dongguk Univ.)

Friday Jun 19, 2009

Venkat, a student and OSUM Leader at Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University, Karimnagar, India, has posted a blog in OSUM to help those that are new to the group get oriented to the site and the different opportunities that are available.

He describes:

  • How to find the OSUM group at your university and start participating in events
  • Where to get more information on open-source technologies
  • The vast amount of student resources available on OSUM (free online courses, Webinars, Tutorials, Student Discounts on certifications, and more!)
  • How to connect with other students from around the world to share ideas and get support

OSUM is truly an amazing resource for students; there is so much great content there and is a Web site EVERY STUDENT should check in on regularly. 

Thanks Venkat for your great post and helping those new to the community.  Keep up the great work!

For anyone who would like to have their Campus Ambassador, student experience with Sun technology, or OSUM-related blog featured here, e-mail me at maijaliisa.burkert(at)sun.com or leave a comment below. P.S. Follow me on Twitter @mburkert to get updates on the latest reviews of Sun's technologies!

Thursday Jun 18, 2009

Thiago Sá is a Sun Campus Ambassador and Teleinformatics Engineering undergraduate student at Universidade Federal do Ceará, Brazil.

Thiago reports in his blog that he was quite busy last week doing presentations at three different events!  The first event he wrote about was Technology Week at Faculdade Christus.

Thiago was invited to the event by Professor Adail Nunes after hearing of his performance at the Café com Tapioca event in Sobral, which Thiago blogged about here.  At the event, Thiago "talked about OSUM, the free courses offered through SAI and about each of the certifications that students and professors can take using the SAI discount vouchers." 

Thiago said while the institution already had an OSUM group, there are now more members!  Congratulations Thiago and we look forward to hearing about your other two presentations.  To see pictures from Thiago's presentation at Faculdade Christus click here

Wednesday Jun 17, 2009

 

Alper and Gökhan, Sun Campus Ambassadors to KTH (the Royal Institute of Technology) recently wrote a blog about their presence at the Swedish Game Awards 2009 on June 13, held at the KTH main campus.

Alper reports the "game awards is one of the biggest game development contests and Sun Microsystems is one of the biggest sponsors of this event."  He said at the event they spoke to at least 200 people about Java and JavaFX, encouraging both students and professional developers to use JavaFX. 

Alper reports that the JavaFX and best execution award top prize went to Robert Larsson, from Chalmers University for his Imperii game. 

Thanks to Alper and Gökhan for making the event a success and sharing with everyone.  Please check out the blog post which has a number of pictures taken at the event.  I love the Star Wars guys!

P.S. follow me on Twitter @mburkert to get links to the latest JavaFX developer articles.

Tuesday Jun 16, 2009

Those of you who attended JavaOne probably remember seeing Sun Campus Ambassador Denis Magda and his now-famous gloves in Java Utopia demonstrating his MinorityReport project.  Words cannot state how impressive the project is! Denis describes it best saying "we are using a pair of sensormotor-gloves with Sun SPOT on them to do different manipulations with JavaFX application remotely by hand movements."  

If you weren't able to make it to JavaOne, or missed the demo, don't worry -- it was captured in a few different places.

Here Denis demonstrates in a JavaOne Minute:

); }" s_getcharset="function () { return eval(instance.CallFunction("<invoke name=\""+name+"\" returntype=\"javascript\">" + __flash__argumentsToXML(arguments,0) + "</invoke>";)); }" s_getversion="function () { return eval(instance.CallFunction("<invoke name=\""+name+"\" returntype=\"javascript\">" + __flash__argumentsToXML(arguments,0) + "</invoke>";)); }" s_getmovieid="function () { return eval(instance.CallFunction("<invoke name=\""+name+"\" returntype=\"javascript\">" + __flash__argumentsToXML(arguments,0) + "</invoke>";)); }" s_getpageurl="function () { return eval(instance.CallFunction("<invoke name=\""+name+"\" returntype=\"javascript\">" + __flash__argumentsToXML(arguments,0) + "</invoke>";)); }" s_getpagename="function () { return eval(instance.CallFunction("<invoke name=\""+name+"\" returntype=\"javascript\">" + __flash__argumentsToXML(arguments,0) + "</invoke>";)); }" s_getaccount="function () { return eval(instance.CallFunction("<invoke name=\""+name+"\" returntype=\"javascript\">" + __flash__argumentsToXML(arguments,0) + "</invoke>";)); }" s_gettrackclickmap="function () { return eval(instance.CallFunction("<invoke name=\""+name+"\" returntype=\"javascript\">" + __flash__argumentsToXML(arguments,0) + "</invoke>";)); }" s_getdomindex="function () { return eval(instance.CallFunction("<invoke name=\""+name+"\" returntype=\"javascript\">" + __flash__argumentsToXML(arguments,0) + "</invoke>";)); }" callback136="function () { return eval(instance.CallFunction("<invoke name=\""+name+"\" returntype=\"javascript\">" + __flash__argumentsToXML(arguments,0) + "</invoke>";)); }" callback7487="function () { return eval(instance.CallFunction("<invoke name=\""+name+"\" returntype=\"javascript\">" + __flash__argumentsToXML(arguments,0) + "</invoke>";)); }" callback9702="function () { return eval(instance.CallFunction("<invoke name=\""+name+"\" returntype=\"javascript\">" + __flash__argumentsToXML(arguments,0) + "</invoke>";)); }">

And here Denis shows JavaOne host Chris Melissinos how his project works:

As Denis has pointed out, because the project is open source, you can build your own MinorityReport! Congratulations to Denis for being one of the real stars of JavaOne 2009! 

Monday Jun 15, 2009

Campus Ambassador Kevin Li has graciously shared the recap of his experience at JavaOne, and with his permission, I am publishing it here to share with Sun's student community.  

Hi all,

It is my greatest honor that I was there, with thousands of developers and students, participating in the 14th JavaONE conference.  As NING service is temporarily not available in China, I would like to share my experiences about JavaONE 2009 here with you.

From a simple idea many years ago and the Duke swinging his hands in the browser which made everyone in the world exciting, to today, billions of devices running Java, including personal computers, mobile phones, enterprise servers etc. it is the result of insistent innovation and the spirit of community and sharing.

In CommunityONE West, we heard from our top performance campus ambassadors, Hyejin Park from Korea, Tom Mix from Brazil, Felipe Cerda from Chile and Avinash Joshi from India, sharing their successful experiences about connecting students in universities in our OSUM community.  We also learned the open cloud platform of Sun Microsystems from David Douglas, Senior Vice President of Cloud Computing, and the latest features of OpenSolaris 2009.06 from OpenSolaris tech leads.  The OpenSolaris and Sun Cloud Party in the evening was a really cool party. The band, food, drinks and games bade everyone exciting and crazy.  It was the most impressive party I've ever seen.  (Keynote replay here).

From June 2 to June 5, over thousands of sessions were provided, I just couldn't believe that and wanna join all of the sessions!  But you know, it is impossible.  Fortunately, there was a special schedule for our students helping us to simplify the life.  Joining every proposed session, we got a stamp for the raffle every day at our OSUM Lounge in the pavilion.  The lucky ones got Sun SPOT and iPod touch in the raffle, and all of us had fun in this so called "Student Scavenger." 

The keynotes and technical sessions were amazing and unforgettable.  We learned the latest technologies from Sun Engineers, shared experiences with developers and JavaONE sponsors from all over the world.  In the pavilion, cool demos were shown everywhere and I think the most impressive demo was the Sun SPOT and JavaFX demo shown by Denis Magda, campus ambassador from Russia.

And of course, the most exciting moment, was talking with James Gosling around the table.  He shared his great experiences with us and gave many helpful suggestions to students.  Giveaway always is a traditional part and everyone gets dozens of gifts.  Ashwin told us that he got totally 20 T-shirts in JavaONE! :-)

In addition, we also helped to introduce our OSUM community to students at the OSUM Lounge, record videos with Gary for sun.com and of course the JavaONE Minutes at java.sun.com/javaone!

Thanks to Lin, Andrea, Gary, Tzel, David and other campus ambassadors being with me, I had a great time in San Francisco.  The conference was amazing, all of the dinners and parties were funny and impressive, and San Francisco is a really beautiful city.  I would like to share my great experiences in San Francisco to all of my friends and members at OSUM.

See my pictures here and part of the videos here.

Best regards,

- Kevin Li

Many thanks to Kevin for this wonderful recap of his week and experience at JavaOne! And, to any other students who attended, please e-mail me at maijaliisa.burkert(at)sun.com so I can share them with the community!

Friday Jun 12, 2009

Hey students -- there is a new contest under way where you can win $500 cash or a $25 gift certificate just by blogging about JavaFX 1.2!  

Here's the deal -- download the newest JavaFX 1.2 and write a blog about your experience with it, a tech tip, a code sample or more for a chance to win $500!  There are 10 $500 cash prizes up for grabs as well as fifty $25 Amazon gift certificates! Sounds like a great deal to me.  The entries will be judged by a panel of experts based on equally weighted judging criteria that can be found here.  

So, what do you have to do to enter?

  1. Download JavaFX 1.2 here
  2. Play around with the new features in JavaFX 1.2
  3. Write and post a blog anywhere about your experience with the new JavaFX 1.2
  4. Complete the submission form

That's it!  There are some guidelines and rules you will want to make sure you read which can be found here.

So get going!  The contest is now open and runs through July 3rd, with winners to be announced the week of July 31.  

Thursday Jun 11, 2009

Sun Campus Ambassador Renato Porto Puccini continues to test out different Sun software technologies and share his experiences with others.  Thank you Renato!

He recently published a blog that shows how to install Sun Studio on OpenSolaris.  Sun Studio software provides a C, C++, and Fortran developer toolchain for Solaris, OpenSolaris, and Linux operating systems.  As Renato notes, the Sun Studio IDE is focused on performance, and therefore "allows the creation of highly optimized programs from the viewpoint of use of system resources."

In Renato's blog he walks through the step-by-step installation process and has posted screen shots to make the installation even easier.

Again, many thanks to Renato for sharing his experiences in his blog -- please continue to do so!

And to all students that read this blog, please point me to where you have blogged about your experience with Sun's technologies or your tutorials, like Renato's.  You can ping me here on my OSUM page, or send me an e-mail at maijaliisa.burkert(at)sun.com.

This blog copyright 2009 by chhandomay