TEERA 2.0: Vancouver Sun

Another interesting day at JavaOne. I arrived at Moscone around 9.15am and missed the breakfast (didn't know that the breakfast hall closes at 9!). So, I went straight to hands-on lab on Sun SPOT (AKA 2007 ultimate geek toy). The lab was run by Eric Arseneau from Sun lab. I was also in Eric's SPOT introduction session yesterday too. And, once again, Eric delivered another awesome session, it was the best session I've attended so far! 

In learning technology, nothing beats the hands-on coding. It's my first time trying out SPOT (I'm pretty much broke after JavaOne, so getting a SPOT probably have to wait until next year..). Following the lab instruction, I found that programming SPOT is quite simple. Netbeans's SPOT extension that comes with the SDK provided a lot of APIs. After writing Java classes, these classes can be built, deployed to the device, and run using simple Ant command.   

above: The lab equipment - SPOT kit, Trackbot, booklet, CDs, Solaris machine with Netbeans IDE



above: Eric led another awesome session. Thanks for your hard work!


above: programming SPOT devices for motion aware and sync them together. The LEDs change blinking patterns by the direction of my holding movement.


above: coordinating SPOT with Desktop Swing application. You can see that the movement of SPOT device I'm holding are being simulated and analyzed on the screen real-time.

above: me and the programmed trackbot, after the session

After the two hours lab, it was lunch time. It took me a while to fight my way through hungry geeks to get my food.

above: today's lunch was Lasagna, Salad, and chocolate mousse

Then I went on to other session. Another one worth nothing was another lab on .NET 3 - Java interoperability with WSIT. It was run by Martin Grebac, WSIT Netbeans plug-in developer. The exercises themselves were simple. I've been testing WSIT plug-in for quite a while until recently. The latest release of WSIT have a lot of improvement and bug fixed.

In the evening, I went to the campus ambassadors dinner. I met a lot of cool people there. The other ambassadors: Alex, Trevor, Kira, Rodrigo, Martin Morissette, and Linh.

Our special guests are Gary Serda (Education Marketing Manager), Jordan Slott (our technical lead), Marc Hamilton (Sun Vice president of Solaris marketing), Mechelle Torre (Sun Java Brand Marketing), Luis Sanchez (Director, Education Solutions and Strategic Programs), and Dinesh Bahal (Director of Sales & Strategic Programs). Don't let their titles scare you, these people are very open, friendly, and approachable. Our conversation weren't just about technology, Sun, or work. I was actually spent quite an amount of time chatting with Luis about college students life and their interests.

Let us also congratulate Martin Morisset who has just won a Duke Choice Award from his SONIA AUV. I will be attending his session on Friday and doing a detail touring on his project tomorrow, should be interesting.

above: Gary, Linh, Kira

above: Linh, Kira, me, Trevor, Rodrigo (and that's the pope in the middle of the table)

above: Back row: Alex, me, Gary, Linh, Marc, Rodrigo, Mechelle, Martin. Front row: Jordan, Kira, Trevor

above: Martin, Dinesh Bahal, Luis Sanchez, and me

above: Martin, Alex, Michele, me, Kira

above: me with Gary, my leader, my mentor, my friend =)