Meeting at TJ on a foggy and misty December 26th, the first SysAdmin Alumni Association event consisted of Jefferson graduates of the classes of 1991 up until 2011. The ‘new’ SAAA group briefly met up with the group of Sysadmins that have been meeting at the Annandale Fuddruckers since around 2000, and introductions were made. Members of SAAA trickled in over time after 2pm, and story sharing between the two groups took over much of the talking (with an obligatory Emacs/Vim discussion). Bodies from the “older” admin group included Mr. Don Hyatt, the first Syslab faculty director, Ilia Mirkin (01), and Brent Metz (98). Several members of the older group left early, as they had already met at Fuddruckers slightly earlier in the day and ate there.
After being kicked of the school building, the admins stood in the Senior parking lot for about an hour, and then moved over to Fuddruckers to order food and talk some more. The meeting ended at 6:48pm, and people left shortly thereafter. Plans were made to make this event annual, combining both groups into one as to allow for a large reunion. Others voiced interest in having smaller events throughout the year held near/in the school.
Saturday, December 26, 2009
Sunday, December 13, 2009
Creative Sun Blog Sign-Off
As Sun Microsystems experiences these hard times while negotiations with the EU take place, it seems a fair number of Sun bloggers have left in order to pursue jobs elsewhere, or for retirement. The other day I saw a really creative farewell notice on a Sun employee's blog, that was based on the Dr. Seuss book . The book, a popular gift for students graduating from high school and college (my high school once made a video montage of teachers and faculty reading parts of the book), carries some themes applicable to all aspects of life. This Sun employee took the book (or at least a condensed version) and made it relate to the ups and downs of working at Sun, and posted it here. Best of luck for the future!
Monday, December 7, 2009
EPA to Limit Carbon Emissions?
Well, maybe not just quite yet, but a study to be released in the near future is expected to report that greenhouse gases "pose a danger to human health and the environment", which would be the first step to limiting emissions, and lead to a (hopefully) more fruitful climate summit in Copenhagen.
'Fourteen days to seal history's judgment on this generation'
An article at The Guardian caught my eye earlier. On December 7th, an editorial about the upcoming Copenhagen Climate Council meeting will be published by "56 newspapers in 45 countries", and urge the leaders at the summit to set goals for greenhouse gas emissions. The goals of the editorial are noble, and I sincerely hope action is taken, and quickly. Having (hopefully) many years left on this Earth, being left with an inhabitable Earth that isn't being overrun with floods, tornadoes, and earthquakes would be just a small gesture of hope in our generation by those currently in power.
Leaving us with an economy that isn't on the brink of failing (see the U.S. Debt Clock and the country's current debt, not to mention the unfunded liabilities) would also be nice. I'm not sure about other Americans, but I would be more than willing to raise taxes in order to help pay down our enormous debts to other countries, as well as to ourselves. I'm not keen on our economic situation being able to be dictated by other nations that may not have our best interests at heart.
Update 2009-12-06 2244 - A Wall Street Journal article published today fits in very nicely with the Guardian article. Some preliminary numbers published by the World Bank detail how much the adaptation of nations to the increased sea levels and other global warming effects might cost, and suggests that these help nations to determine a starting point for fixing the problem.
Leaving us with an economy that isn't on the brink of failing (see the U.S. Debt Clock and the country's current debt, not to mention the unfunded liabilities) would also be nice. I'm not sure about other Americans, but I would be more than willing to raise taxes in order to help pay down our enormous debts to other countries, as well as to ourselves. I'm not keen on our economic situation being able to be dictated by other nations that may not have our best interests at heart.
Update 2009-12-06 2244 - A Wall Street Journal article published today fits in very nicely with the Guardian article. Some preliminary numbers published by the World Bank detail how much the adaptation of nations to the increased sea levels and other global warming effects might cost, and suggests that these help nations to determine a starting point for fixing the problem.
Sunday, December 6, 2009
Boeing 787 Dreamliner Finally Taking Off?
Well, it seems the Boeing 787 Dreamliner is finally about ready to be put to testing for flight conditions. The Wall Street Journal reports that the airliner "could make its first test flight as early as next week." With the Airbus A380 seeming to be getting the upper hand in the race for the next generation of high-capacity jets, this looks to be fairly good news for Boeing. The road ahead is still rocky, however. The tests need to show good results, and airlines that have put in orders for the plane need to not back out!
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Sunday, November 8, 2009
Connecting to TJ E-Mail via Desktop Client
TJHSST provides a free email service for all students and faculty. A former student, William Yang, wrote up directions to access TJ e-mail from a desktop client a few years back, but the mail system has changed since then, so the mail settings are a bit different. Should these directions not work, please feel free to contact me and we’ll try to get your problem sorted out.
TJ email uses IMAP to access email, and you can use the following directions to use either Thunderbird of Outlook.
-IMAP server: imap.tjhsst.edu
-SMTP server: your Internet Service Provider’s (ISP) outgoing mail client. For example, this is smtp.[east/west].cox.net for Cox Communications, but may be different depending on who your internet is provided by.
-Username: TJ Intranet/Windows username
-Password: TJ Intranet/Windows password
-SSL should be enabled for the IMAP connection to TJ’s mail servers.
Thunderbird
Outlook
TJ email uses IMAP to access email, and you can use the following directions to use either Thunderbird of Outlook.
-IMAP server: imap.tjhsst.edu
-SMTP server: your Internet Service Provider’s (ISP) outgoing mail client. For example, this is smtp.[east/west].cox.net for Cox Communications, but may be different depending on who your internet is provided by.
-Username: TJ Intranet/Windows username
-Password: TJ Intranet/Windows password
-SSL should be enabled for the IMAP connection to TJ’s mail servers.
Thunderbird
- Open Thunderbird and go to Tools to Account Settings
- Click Next here, as the default setting is correct.
- Put your name and TJ email address here, and click Next.
- Select IMAP instead of POP, and put in imap.tjhsst.edu as the Incoming Server.
- Input your username, and click Next. Accept the rest of the notifications.
- Afterwards, go into the Account Settings menu again, and select ‘SSL’ for where it says “Use secure connection:”; your mail will not work without this. This will tell Thunderbird to use port 993, which is required to access TJ mail.
- For your outgoing mail server, you can use TJ or your Internet Service Provider (ISP). TJ’s mail server is smtp.tjhsst.edu, and you should use TLS on port 25 with authentication. Use your TJ username without the ‘@tjhsst.edu’ for the authentication.
Outlook
- Open Outlook and go to Tools to Account Settings
- Choose the ‘Manual configuration’ for this step
- Just click next here
- Put in your account information here. Incoming mail server is imap.tjhsst.edu, and outgoing mail server is smtp.tjhsst.edu. Afterwards, click the ‘More settings’ button
- Check the box that says ‘My outgoing server (SMTP) requires authentication’. Your mail should not work without this
- On the Advanced tab, make sure your incoming server uses SSL, and your outgoing server uses TLS. Click OK here, and you should be done!
Friday, November 6, 2009
Wednesday, November 4, 2009
Links, 2009-11-03
- Democrats' Quiet Changes Pile Up – I guess some of these are changes in the right direction?
- Ford Posts an Unexpected Profit of $997 Million
- Brian Sack Engineers Big Moves at Fed – yes please, I’d like any sort of retirement in 50-60-some years :)
- Colbert Nation to sponsor US speedskating – it’s a great publicity stunt, but I hope it’s successful for the speedskating team
- African Desert Rift Confirmed as New Ocean in the Making – neat story that hit Slashdot from the U of R about a new ocean forming
Monday, November 2, 2009
Links, 2009-11-01
- Top Democrats Push for Plans to Trim Deficit – The title of the article is sort of misleading, since Ms. Pelosi does not support the commission spoken about here.
- Inspiration for a New Crop of U.S. Runners
- Britain Sets Tough Laws for Texting While Driving – good to see this happening
Sunday, November 1, 2009
JavaScript, and why it matters
Depending on your involvement with web development, you know of a thing called JavaScript. According to Wikipedia, “JavaScript is an object-oriented scripting language used to enable programmatic access to objects within both the client application and other applications.” In other words, it’s a programming language that lets you do fancy things. It’s used on pretty much every web page on the Internet, including Facebook, Google, Microsoft, and Twitter. Back in the old days before JavaScript, most pages were static HTML, and looked their age (see Geocities). Since around 1996 or whenever JavaScript was implemented, sites have dealt with people who have JavaScript enabled as well as disabled.
Well, the day that JavaScript-lacking browsers must be dead is here! The new http://tjhsst.edu website, the site of my high school, has apparently proclaimed that JavaScript is required to view the Internet correctly, and is the first one to remove support for non-JS’ed browsers. There is no notice saying that it needs to be enabled, just a nice, broken page. As shown in the images below, with the JavaScript-enabled browser on the left and the browser without JavaScript on the right, the appearance is pretty much horribly broken for the main website, and navigation to the secondary pages is completely broken, as those menus are done through JS. The secondary pages aren’t quite as bad, though. Just a bit of rendering difficulties, while the content (thankfully just text) displays fine.
Webmasters: please keep in mind that not everybody is the same as you. Not everyone wants to use JavaScript, and there are even some that don’t have access to it.
TJ webmasters: your site has a little work needed
Well, the day that JavaScript-lacking browsers must be dead is here! The new http://tjhsst.edu website, the site of my high school, has apparently proclaimed that JavaScript is required to view the Internet correctly, and is the first one to remove support for non-JS’ed browsers. There is no notice saying that it needs to be enabled, just a nice, broken page. As shown in the images below, with the JavaScript-enabled browser on the left and the browser without JavaScript on the right, the appearance is pretty much horribly broken for the main website, and navigation to the secondary pages is completely broken, as those menus are done through JS. The secondary pages aren’t quite as bad, though. Just a bit of rendering difficulties, while the content (thankfully just text) displays fine.
 |
| http://tjhsst.edu with JavaScript enabled |
 |
| http://tjhsst.edu with JavaScript disabled |
 |
| http://tjhsst.edu/abouttj with JavaScript enabled |
 |
| http://tjhsst.edu/abouttj with JavaScript disabled |
Webmasters: please keep in mind that not everybody is the same as you. Not everyone wants to use JavaScript, and there are even some that don’t have access to it.
TJ webmasters: your site has a little work needed
Friday, October 30, 2009
Links, 2009-10-30
- College Enrollment Set Record in 2008
- Root zone changes may shake up Net in Africa
- Things not going so well for Sun... but still makin' out
- Wal-Mart starts selling coffins – um…what? I’m not sure I’d ever feel comfortable buying a coffin from Wal-Mart or Costco…
- Strange things in Russia – well that’s an interesting approach to things
- Obama Says Aptera’s 3-Wheeler Is a Car – strange looking car, but looks like a nice step forwards in usage of renewable energies
- We Drive the Aptera, and It’s a Real Car – more information about the car previously mentioned
Thursday, October 29, 2009
Blackadder in iTunes
I reinstalled Firefox today and hadn’t gotten to installing the AdBlock extension yet, when I stumbled across an ad for Black Adder on the BBC website. For those that don’t know what I’m talking about, Blackadder was a 4-season show on the BBC One network, which was re-broadcast by PBS usually on Saturday nights around 11pm here in the US. The series stars Rowan Atkinson and Tony Robinson as Edmund and Baldrick Blackadder, respectively. (You may alternatively know Rowan Atkinson as Mr. Bean from the British series that also spawned several movies.) Anyway, each season of Blackadder is set in a different historical period , with Blackadder and Baldrick as the main characters. With Atkinson, anything can and is made funny
Thanks, PBS, for airing this in the States and introducing me to outside comedy including Blackadder, Red Dwarf, Fawlty Towers, and The Red Green Show!
Thanks, PBS, for airing this in the States and introducing me to outside comedy including Blackadder, Red Dwarf, Fawlty Towers, and The Red Green Show!
Links, 2009-10-28
- Obama Signs $680 Billion Military Bill, a Victory Over Lobbyists – Now if only we weren’t spending $130 billion dollars on two wars and $550 billion for defense…
- Screaming Monkey with Woot Cape – because everyone wants it!
- Verizon, Motorola unveil the Droid – I think if I were to buy a phone that actually cost me money, this would definitely be one of the top choices. It has an actual built-in keyboard, camera phone (standard now, I guess), but also has a GPS, 550MHz processor and a nice 1400mAh battery for plenty of talk time. At least for me the physical keyboard would be a reason to buy it right there, but on top of that they add the Android operating system which is much more open than the one Apple provides on the iPhone (since this is the “iPhone killer”, you know?).
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Science Fiction for All
I saw an article from the Technology Review published by MIT about the collection of science fiction material in the MIT Student Center earlier today. What must stem from years of collecting, there are roughly 60,000 books and thousands of magazines on the 4th floor of the building. The article is linked here, and if you’re interested in the ways people have saved documents over the years, it’s worth a look. Also if you like science fiction in general.
Monday, October 26, 2009
XKCD Geocities Tribute
In tribute of the end of Geocities, the XKCD website has been re-written to look like a typical Geocities page. While this will not last forever, I have made an archival backup of the page here. Major props to Randall for doing this! :)
P.S. Check out the page’s source code for some laughs
P.S. Check out the page’s source code for some laughs
Sunday, October 25, 2009
RIP Geocities
As we enter the final hours of October 26th, 2009, we celebrate and mourn the life and soon-to-be death of Geocities, one of the web’s top three most-visited websites at it’s heyday. It went public in 1998, and its IPO price started at $17. It rose quickly to over $100 by 1999 in the dot com era, showing its dominance. Bought in January of 1999 by Yahoo for $3.57 billion, it was wildly popular. Now fifteen years after it’s inception and launch, it is finally closing, signaling the end of an era on the Internet where you could create something wildly popular, and not worry about making money from it. Yet still, the content on Geocities is far from being obsolete; the website has received over 11.5 million hits/month even within the past few. I remember Geocities as my first website, providing a space for free hosting, even if I had no skills or knowledge of what a proper website should look like. :)
The closing of Geocities has been a call to action for some groups on the Internet. The content hosted on it is estimated between8 and 12 1-2 terabytes of data (an accurate number is not known), and with Yahoo not backing up data after Geocities’ closing, it is a race to index and cache everything, The Internet Archive, Internet Archaeology, and the Archive Team are three of the groups that are looking to cache as much from Geocities as they can before the closing tonight.
Before the end, a look at the internals of the Geocities empire is warranted, especially due to storage and equipment used. A tour of one of (or the only) Geocities datacenter in 1999 turns up racks and racks of equipment, which has been dwarfed by current technology. The article linked here is a fun read back in time to how the “cloud” before the term became known was created, and the ways of hosting content on the Internet. I have to congratulate the network administrators at this Exodus Communications facility, though. The cabling shown lower on the page is masterfully done, and is what every datacenter should look like.
Geocities: Your contributions to the Internet are greatly appreciated, and we will miss you dearly. Rest well.
The closing of Geocities has been a call to action for some groups on the Internet. The content hosted on it is estimated between
Before the end, a look at the internals of the Geocities empire is warranted, especially due to storage and equipment used. A tour of one of (or the only) Geocities datacenter in 1999 turns up racks and racks of equipment, which has been dwarfed by current technology. The article linked here is a fun read back in time to how the “cloud” before the term became known was created, and the ways of hosting content on the Internet. I have to congratulate the network administrators at this Exodus Communications facility, though. The cabling shown lower on the page is masterfully done, and is what every datacenter should look like.
Geocities: Your contributions to the Internet are greatly appreciated, and we will miss you dearly. Rest well.
Thursday, October 1, 2009
Solaris 10: Removing Solaris Data Management WBEM/CIM API
A while back I saw a discussion about the usefulness of WBEM/CIM – Web Based Enterprise Management - on Solaris 10 servers, and I finally got around this summer to start doing some testing with these packages removed. It would seem that these packages are not needed at TJ due to the lack of use of even SNMP, which is really only used for UPS monitoring, and that these packages take up space in our ‘distribution’, which is approximately 14GB for our ‘frontend’ machines – those that users directly interact with. The packages that I was interested in started with SUNWdmgtr and SUNWdmgtu, and all associated with these. Assuming my calculations are correct, removing these packages (starting with mostly a full Solaris install, so removing the software packages of all languages), gets rid of about 70 from our system. With 2090 packages in our frontend distribution, this makes a small – but noticeable – dent. I hope to do some more testing with all these removed to make sure that nothing of ours breaks, but it seems that this just makes Solaris a bit more lean, and probably a bit faster.
Friday, August 28, 2009
Transitioning Blogs
Well I'm transitioning back to this blog, now that I'm no longer at Sun. I'll try and update this periodically, but I probably won't do as good of a job as I did at Sun since I'll be at school and at least sort of trying to study my school work.
Thursday, July 16, 2009
Little River Hit With Water Main Break
This entry has been migrated from my Sun Microsystems blog. Srepetsk.net is the only blog of mine that is being updated at the current time.
Little River Hit With Water Main Break
Little River Hit With Water Main Break
Little River Turnpike in Northern Virginia turned into a little river today – literally. A water main break was reported, and two eastbound and one westbound lane are now closed in order to work on the problem. First River Road, now Little River Turnpike, what’s next?[127.0.0.1 blogs.sun.com/skr]
Links, 2009-07-15
This entry has been migrated from my Sun Microsystems blog. Srepetsk.net is the only blog of mine that is being updated at the current time.
Links, 2009-07-15
Future clouds for Sun Ray in WA schools – Having administered Sun Rays at my high school, I can see where they’re coming from as far as the multimedia perspective goes. As far as general administration, I found it fairly simple
IBM Power servers most reliable in new survey
Opinion: Windows 7, FUD and slow news days
Using Windows Previous Versions to access ZFS Snapshots – a nice blog entry talking about ZFS and Windows integration. Looks promising :)
Indian tiger park 'has no tigers'
Price of Habit Chokes US Smoker – this was a very humorous article, showing that computers and/or human errors still occur in this computer-laden digital world :)
[127.0.0.1 blogs.sun.com/skr]
Links, 2009-07-15
Future clouds for Sun Ray in WA schools – Having administered Sun Rays at my high school, I can see where they’re coming from as far as the multimedia perspective goes. As far as general administration, I found it fairly simple
IBM Power servers most reliable in new survey
Opinion: Windows 7, FUD and slow news days
Using Windows Previous Versions to access ZFS Snapshots – a nice blog entry talking about ZFS and Windows integration. Looks promising :)
Indian tiger park 'has no tigers'
Price of Habit Chokes US Smoker – this was a very humorous article, showing that computers and/or human errors still occur in this computer-laden digital world :)
[127.0.0.1 blogs.sun.com/skr]
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
Links, 2009-07-14
This entry has been migrated from my Sun Microsystems blog. Srepetsk.net is the only blog of mine that is being updated at the current time.
Links, 2009-07-14
Web site brings 40-year-old Apollo 11 NASA mission to life
"Is Oracle getting ready to kill OpenSolaris?" FUD
C.I.A. Had Plan to Assassinate Qaeda Leaders
Windows Could Be Kool Again? – Ben Rockwood? Saying windows could be cool? *gasp* No way! :)
U.K., not North Korea, source of DDOS attacks, researcher says
[127.0.0.1 blogs.sun.com/skr]
Links, 2009-07-14
Web site brings 40-year-old Apollo 11 NASA mission to life
"Is Oracle getting ready to kill OpenSolaris?" FUD
C.I.A. Had Plan to Assassinate Qaeda Leaders
Windows Could Be Kool Again? – Ben Rockwood? Saying windows could be cool? *gasp* No way! :)
U.K., not North Korea, source of DDOS attacks, researcher says
[127.0.0.1 blogs.sun.com/skr]
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
Links, 2009-07-13
This entry has been migrated from my Sun Microsystems blog. Srepetsk.net is the only blog of mine that is being updated at the current time.
Links, 2009-07-13
'Secure' Wyse thin clients vulnerable to remote exploit bugs – interesting article, but doesn’t actually say much of anything factual
Frentic Pace, Packed Agenda Put West Wing Staffers Through Wringer
Iran's Invisible Nicaragua Embassy
UK Afghan mission support 'rises' – see next two articles, there seems to be a bit of a contradiction here…?
XKCD 609: Tab Explosion
Approval by a Blogger May Please a Sponsor
Image Gallery: Office 2010 Technical Preview
D.C. Students Make Gains in Reading, Math – This is good to see, but we can only hope that it becomes a trend and keeps continuing
US budget deficit at $1 trillion
[127.0.0.1 blogs.sun.com/skr]
Links, 2009-07-13
'Secure' Wyse thin clients vulnerable to remote exploit bugs – interesting article, but doesn’t actually say much of anything factual
Frentic Pace, Packed Agenda Put West Wing Staffers Through Wringer
Iran's Invisible Nicaragua Embassy
UK Afghan mission support 'rises' – see next two articles, there seems to be a bit of a contradiction here…?
XKCD 609: Tab Explosion
Approval by a Blogger May Please a Sponsor
Image Gallery: Office 2010 Technical Preview
D.C. Students Make Gains in Reading, Math – This is good to see, but we can only hope that it becomes a trend and keeps continuing
US budget deficit at $1 trillion
[127.0.0.1 blogs.sun.com/skr]
Monday, July 13, 2009
Links, 2009-07-12
This entry has been migrated from my Sun Microsystems blog. Srepetsk.net is the only blog of mine that is being updated at the current time.
Links, 2009-07-12
Outlook Separation Anxiety Holds Back Google Apps – I’m interested to see how this turns out in the long run. Personally, I really like integration with Outlook or Thunderbird, and the way Google’s IMAP is set up means a few of the folders don’t get mapped correctly. I’m also actually a fan of Outlook Web Access. There are so few integrated solutions on the market that can do the job well. Supporting the system may be an issue, but I’ve heard fewer complaints about Exchange 2007
Olympic hopeful opens NZ brothel – I found this an amusing link to include here
Robotic Glider Set To Break Autonomous Flight Records – There are many technical obstacles that would need to be dealt with before using these wide-spread, but it’s good to see progress, especially from young college students
Texting Teen Falls Down Open NYC Manhole – No explanation needed
The Legacy of Colorism Reflects Wounds of Racism That Are More Than Skin-Deep – Interesting discussion about racism/colorism in the modern world
[127.0.0.1 blogs.sun.com/skr]
Links, 2009-07-12
Outlook Separation Anxiety Holds Back Google Apps – I’m interested to see how this turns out in the long run. Personally, I really like integration with Outlook or Thunderbird, and the way Google’s IMAP is set up means a few of the folders don’t get mapped correctly. I’m also actually a fan of Outlook Web Access. There are so few integrated solutions on the market that can do the job well. Supporting the system may be an issue, but I’ve heard fewer complaints about Exchange 2007
Olympic hopeful opens NZ brothel – I found this an amusing link to include here
Robotic Glider Set To Break Autonomous Flight Records – There are many technical obstacles that would need to be dealt with before using these wide-spread, but it’s good to see progress, especially from young college students
Texting Teen Falls Down Open NYC Manhole – No explanation needed
The Legacy of Colorism Reflects Wounds of Racism That Are More Than Skin-Deep – Interesting discussion about racism/colorism in the modern world
[127.0.0.1 blogs.sun.com/skr]
Sunday, July 12, 2009
Links, 2009-07-11
This entry has been migrated from my Sun Microsystems blog. Srepetsk.net is the only blog of mine that is being updated at the current time.
Links, 2009-07-11
NPR Podcast: Tour of SuperNAP Datacenter
Bletchley Park WWII Staff Finally Recognized
[127.0.0.1 blogs.sun.com/skr]
Links, 2009-07-11
NPR Podcast: Tour of SuperNAP Datacenter
Bletchley Park WWII Staff Finally Recognized
[127.0.0.1 blogs.sun.com/skr]
Saturday, July 11, 2009
Sun Ray Silliness
Meta-comment: I have no idea where the four pictures referenced in this blog have ended up. Ah well.
This entry has been migrated from my Sun Microsystems blog. Srepetsk.net is the only blog of mine that is being updated at the current time.
Sun Ray Silliness
I’ve been meaning to post these for a while so we could submit a service request about it, but the XScreenSaver software in Solaris occasionally messes up the text on the unlock screen, including changing the text’s size and/or font. Here are two examples of the strange behavior:
DSCF7732 DSCF7733
Another behavior that I noticed that I’ve only seen once is green lines appearing on the screen of the Sun Ray. Note that the Sun Ray is currently running Sun Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) software, which is why it looks like a Windows desktop:
DSCF7843 DSCF7844
Update 2009-07-11, 1628: The two images on the bottom are most likely caused due to interference from the KVM that the ray was using at the time; the model of KVM being used had a history of poor quality.
[127.0.0.1 blogs.sun.com/skr]
This entry has been migrated from my Sun Microsystems blog. Srepetsk.net is the only blog of mine that is being updated at the current time.
Sun Ray Silliness
I’ve been meaning to post these for a while so we could submit a service request about it, but the XScreenSaver software in Solaris occasionally messes up the text on the unlock screen, including changing the text’s size and/or font. Here are two examples of the strange behavior:
DSCF7732 DSCF7733
Another behavior that I noticed that I’ve only seen once is green lines appearing on the screen of the Sun Ray. Note that the Sun Ray is currently running Sun Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) software, which is why it looks like a Windows desktop:
DSCF7843 DSCF7844
Update 2009-07-11, 1628: The two images on the bottom are most likely caused due to interference from the KVM that the ray was using at the time; the model of KVM being used had a history of poor quality.
[127.0.0.1 blogs.sun.com/skr]
Sun Ray Soft Client
This entry has been migrated from my Sun Microsystems blog. Srepetsk.net is the only blog of mine that is being updated at the current time.
Sun Ray Soft Client
I downloaded the Sun Ray soft client last night, and I have to say it looks pretty darned neat. The setup I have is sort of unusual, but the program adapts well. I’m running Windows 7 – a supported platform for the soft client – on my laptop, and have it’s VGA output connected up to my Sun Ray 270, which is connected to the Sun Ray servers at TJHSST. I have the soft client running on my laptop’s secondary monitor, and I can just use the “Source” button on the 270 to switch between the two inputs.
From what I can tell, there’s only a slightly noticeable difference between speed on the soft client and the native firmware. I haven’t tried any hard-core video playing like William has, but it seems like it would be more than satisfactory for most of computer users. One thing I’ve noticed when using it on the secondary output is that it doesn’t use the bottom 10-20% of the monitor for the login screen. Once you login it rescales to use the full monitor, but that’s only a minor complaint.
Can’t wait for SRS 5 EA2!
Check out this link for more information on Sun Ray, Sun Ray Server 5, and the Soft Client solution
[127.0.0.1 blogs.sun.com/skr]
Sun Ray Soft Client
I downloaded the Sun Ray soft client last night, and I have to say it looks pretty darned neat. The setup I have is sort of unusual, but the program adapts well. I’m running Windows 7 – a supported platform for the soft client – on my laptop, and have it’s VGA output connected up to my Sun Ray 270, which is connected to the Sun Ray servers at TJHSST. I have the soft client running on my laptop’s secondary monitor, and I can just use the “Source” button on the 270 to switch between the two inputs.
From what I can tell, there’s only a slightly noticeable difference between speed on the soft client and the native firmware. I haven’t tried any hard-core video playing like William has, but it seems like it would be more than satisfactory for most of computer users. One thing I’ve noticed when using it on the secondary output is that it doesn’t use the bottom 10-20% of the monitor for the login screen. Once you login it rescales to use the full monitor, but that’s only a minor complaint.
Can’t wait for SRS 5 EA2!
Check out this link for more information on Sun Ray, Sun Ray Server 5, and the Soft Client solution
[127.0.0.1 blogs.sun.com/skr]
Moving Blogs
At the current time I’m not updating this blog! My posts are being updated on my blog on Sun Microsystem’s blog site, which you can get to from here
Search Engines Find the Darndest Things
This entry has been migrated from my Sun Microsystems blog. Srepetsk.net is the only blog of mine that is being updated at the current time.
Search Engines Find the Darndest Things
A friend of mine (William) was playing with Google one of the other days, and managed to find a partially-used jewel of mine. It appears that in 10th grade I attempted to start a blog, which I subsequently failed to update after two posts. Check it out here (if you dare). While I use this blog provided by Sun, I'll probably switch back to the Blogspot one, at least until I find something better or more professional looking. It's possible I'll just abandon it and instead use my website, but we'll decide that when it gets to that point.
[127.0.0.1 blogs.sun.com/skr]
Search Engines Find the Darndest Things
A friend of mine (William) was playing with Google one of the other days, and managed to find a partially-used jewel of mine. It appears that in 10th grade I attempted to start a blog, which I subsequently failed to update after two posts. Check it out here (if you dare). While I use this blog provided by Sun, I'll probably switch back to the Blogspot one, at least until I find something better or more professional looking. It's possible I'll just abandon it and instead use my website, but we'll decide that when it gets to that point.
[127.0.0.1 blogs.sun.com/skr]
Friday, July 10, 2009
New Director Nominated for USGS
This entry has been migrated from my Sun Microsystems blog. Srepetsk.net is the only blog of mine that is being updated at the current time.
New Director Nominated for USGS
I was sent an article from the San Jose Mercury News about President Obama appointing a new director for the US Geological Survey (USGS) where I spent some time working last summer and the one before.
Link to the article
If confirmed, this seems like good news for the USGS, which as the article points out, has had a director in controversy about reviewing scientific research by political appointees.
[127.0.0.1 blogs.sun.com/skr]
New Director Nominated for USGS
I was sent an article from the San Jose Mercury News about President Obama appointing a new director for the US Geological Survey (USGS) where I spent some time working last summer and the one before.
Link to the article
If confirmed, this seems like good news for the USGS, which as the article points out, has had a director in controversy about reviewing scientific research by political appointees.
[127.0.0.1 blogs.sun.com/skr]
News for the Day
This entry has been migrated from my Sun Microsystems blog. Srepetsk.net is the only blog of mine that is being updated at the current time.
News for the Day
[127.0.0.1 blogs.sun.com/skr]
News for the Day
The Washington Post is running an article in tomorrow’s paper about the F-22 development for the Air Force through Lockheed Martin and other contractors. While it’s mostly an article that has people pointing fingers at other parties, it has some interesting stats on the costs of the plane, and the types of problems going on behind the scenes. Catch the article here, before tomorrow’s paper:http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/09/AR2009070903020.html
[127.0.0.1 blogs.sun.com/skr]
Thursday, July 9, 2009
VirtualBox 3.0
This entry has been migrated from my Sun Microsystems blog. Srepetsk.net is the only blog of mine that is being updated at the current time.
VirtualBox 3.0
Computerworld published a review about VirtualBox 3.0 earlier today – check it out here
On another note, there’s a piece of interesting news out of Oracle. A datacenter they were planning on building in Utah (and had already started working on) is now on hold. Speculation says this has to do with the purchase of Sun Microsystems, who has a datacenter in Colorado. This article is more speculation and less information, but it does bring up an interesting point.
Here at Sun, my focus has shifted away from cloud computing more to some of the current projects that are going on here in the lab. On top of some of the every-day things that you would get to do in a lab/server room – i.e. cut & crimp cables, rack mount switches, servers, etc. – the lab has a certain focus about getting some of the newest hardware available, which is a great plus :) I’ve been benchmarking one of these products, and some of the numbers are fairly fantastic compared to what I’ve had to experiment with before coming here to Sun.
Not only is there the capability of getting awesome new hardware, there’s some hardware in here to suit practically everybody. Due to support and availability, there’s usually at least one or two of most of Sun’s products in the lab, dating back for a few years.
After two and a half weeks, it’s been a really great, fun, hectic, but informational experience to be able to work with the people and equipment here. I couldn’t imagine a more fun summer (although I could see a more relaxed one)!
[127.0.0.1 blogs.sun.com/skr]
VirtualBox 3.0
Computerworld published a review about VirtualBox 3.0 earlier today – check it out here
On another note, there’s a piece of interesting news out of Oracle. A datacenter they were planning on building in Utah (and had already started working on) is now on hold. Speculation says this has to do with the purchase of Sun Microsystems, who has a datacenter in Colorado. This article is more speculation and less information, but it does bring up an interesting point.
Here at Sun, my focus has shifted away from cloud computing more to some of the current projects that are going on here in the lab. On top of some of the every-day things that you would get to do in a lab/server room – i.e. cut & crimp cables, rack mount switches, servers, etc. – the lab has a certain focus about getting some of the newest hardware available, which is a great plus :) I’ve been benchmarking one of these products, and some of the numbers are fairly fantastic compared to what I’ve had to experiment with before coming here to Sun.
Not only is there the capability of getting awesome new hardware, there’s some hardware in here to suit practically everybody. Due to support and availability, there’s usually at least one or two of most of Sun’s products in the lab, dating back for a few years.
After two and a half weeks, it’s been a really great, fun, hectic, but informational experience to be able to work with the people and equipment here. I couldn’t imagine a more fun summer (although I could see a more relaxed one)!
[127.0.0.1 blogs.sun.com/skr]
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
Small (?) But Effective Botnets
This entry has been migrated from my Sun Microsystems blog. Srepetsk.net is the only blog of mine that is being updated at the current time.
Small (?) But Effective Botnets
[127.0.0.1 blogs.sun.com/skr]
Small (?) But Effective Botnets
Computerworld is running an interesting article about DDoS attacks against “relatively low-profile government Web sites” being attacked by a 30,000-60,000-computer botnet. They corrected themselves from their original article yesterday, which said the FTC website had only been offline since mid-Monday, although the problem originated on Friday or Saturday – I had been alerted by a source that the website was down before Computerworld picked it up, otherwise I wouldn’t have been aware (see the ‘low-profile’ part). I was relatively surprised there was very little on social networking sites that the websites were down, but this was probably for a reason.The article is available here – Online Attack Hits US Government Web Sites; www.computerworld.com
[127.0.0.1 blogs.sun.com/skr]
Tuesday, July 7, 2009
Lost, But Now Found
This entry has been migrated from my Sun Microsystems blog. Srepetsk.net is the only blog of mine that is being updated at the current time.
Lost, But Now Found
It’s really nice to see stories like this one in the news these days. It seems everything is about bad or tragic events, so when a story about something good happening comes along, it makes it all that more heart warming. CNN has a story up today about a lost wallet being found after more than 27 years:
[127.0.0.1 blogs.sun.com/skr]
Lost, But Now Found
It’s really nice to see stories like this one in the news these days. It seems everything is about bad or tragic events, so when a story about something good happening comes along, it makes it all that more heart warming. CNN has a story up today about a lost wallet being found after more than 27 years:
“NEW YORK (CNN) -- Nearly 27 years ago, amid a crowd of people in Central Park, Ruth Bendik's wallet was stolen. The culprit is still at large, but the wallet has been found -- in the hollow trunk of a cherry tree.”Click here to follow the rest of the story
[127.0.0.1 blogs.sun.com/skr]
Monday, July 6, 2009
DTV Transition Setting In
This entry has been migrated from my Sun Microsystems blog. Srepetsk.net is the only blog of mine that is being updated at the current time.
DTV Transition Setting In
Well the transition to Digital TV is setting at the Repetski household now. I got a chance to surf the channels today after the men’s Wimbledon championships, and I found myself somewhat confused. For some background knowledge, we don’t have have a set-top box; the coax cable from the wall goes directly into our TV, unlike most Cox customers. We really don’t watch TV enough to care about getting some of the higher channels, only the expanded basic – which is still about 200 channels, according to our TV. It detected 78 analog stations and 99 digital ones.
So when I was surfing the channels, I noticed decimal places in many of the TV stations. For me, I still remember our old TV predating widely-used remotes with the dial that had a total of 32-some channels, so this was quite a change.
So now I have to re-do the TV station guide I made for my family – my brother really likes lists and my parents find it more convenient in that form – which sets me up to watch plenty of TV. Because of course it would be too convenient for Cox to publish the TV listings for those without set-top boxes. So here I go, publishing them for myself and for others who may find themselves in the same situation. It’s far from being complete at this point, but I’ll update it as I get more of the information.
Cox Communications – Fairfax, Virginia – TV Channel Listings
Channel Station
2 Telefutura
3 Jewelry TV
4 Home Shopping Network (HSN)
4.1 NBC HD
4.2 NBC
4.3 NBC - Universal Sports
5.1 FOX
7.1 WJLA
7.2 WJLA - WTOP
7.3 WJLA - RTV
8 ABC News
9.1 WUSA - CBS
9.2 WUSA - CBS
12
14 Telemundo
15 WPXW - Ion Television
15.1 WPXW - Ion Television
16
17 TBS
18 GMU - TV
19 NVCC - TV
20 My 20
20.1 My 20
21
22.1 WMPT - PBS
26.3 WETA - Kids
31 WGN
32.1 WHUT
34 NBC
35 FOX
37 WJLA
39 CBS
41 C-SPAN
42.1
42.810
42.830
42.837 WEBR - Fairfax Radio
43
57
[127.0.0.1 blogs.oracle.com/skr]
DTV Transition Setting In
Well the transition to Digital TV is setting at the Repetski household now. I got a chance to surf the channels today after the men’s Wimbledon championships, and I found myself somewhat confused. For some background knowledge, we don’t have have a set-top box; the coax cable from the wall goes directly into our TV, unlike most Cox customers. We really don’t watch TV enough to care about getting some of the higher channels, only the expanded basic – which is still about 200 channels, according to our TV. It detected 78 analog stations and 99 digital ones.
So when I was surfing the channels, I noticed decimal places in many of the TV stations. For me, I still remember our old TV predating widely-used remotes with the dial that had a total of 32-some channels, so this was quite a change.
So now I have to re-do the TV station guide I made for my family – my brother really likes lists and my parents find it more convenient in that form – which sets me up to watch plenty of TV. Because of course it would be too convenient for Cox to publish the TV listings for those without set-top boxes. So here I go, publishing them for myself and for others who may find themselves in the same situation. It’s far from being complete at this point, but I’ll update it as I get more of the information.
Cox Communications – Fairfax, Virginia – TV Channel Listings
Channel Station
2 Telefutura
3 Jewelry TV
4 Home Shopping Network (HSN)
4.1 NBC HD
4.2 NBC
4.3 NBC - Universal Sports
5.1 FOX
7.1 WJLA
7.2 WJLA - WTOP
7.3 WJLA - RTV
8 ABC News
9.1 WUSA - CBS
9.2 WUSA - CBS
12
14 Telemundo
15 WPXW - Ion Television
15.1 WPXW - Ion Television
16
17 TBS
18 GMU - TV
19 NVCC - TV
20 My 20
20.1 My 20
21
22.1 WMPT - PBS
26.3 WETA - Kids
31 WGN
32.1 WHUT
34 NBC
35 FOX
37 WJLA
39 CBS
41 C-SPAN
42.1
42.810
42.830
42.837 WEBR - Fairfax Radio
43
57
[127.0.0.1 blogs.oracle.com/skr]
Saturday, July 4, 2009
Another Old Internet Service Bites the Dust
This entry has been migrated from my Sun Microsystems blog. Srepetsk.net is the only blog of mine that is being updated at the current time.
Another Old Internet Service Bites the Dust
I seem to be too young to remember it, but CompuServe, a dial-up internet service provider, is closing this week.
http://paperpc.blogspot.com/2009/06/compuserve-classic-so-long-old-friend.html
‘No, your monitor won't blank out, your Internet connection won't stall and your PC won't crash, but a major event is about to ripple across the Internet today: CompuServe Classic is closing.
After 30 years the plug will be pulled on what was once the finest online service on the globe. (CompuServe 2000, a newer iteration of CompuServe will continue.)
And the saddest part is that it ends not with a bang, but with a whimper. Ask anyone about CompuServe today and the response will probably be "Are they still around?"’
There seem to be many comments about this on Slashdot, from many perspectives. I personally had no experience with them, but it’s always sad to hear an early Internet company closing it’s doors, whether their service was wanted or not.
[127.0.0.1 blogs.sun.com/skr]
Another Old Internet Service Bites the Dust
I seem to be too young to remember it, but CompuServe, a dial-up internet service provider, is closing this week.
http://paperpc.blogspot.com/2009/06/compuserve-classic-so-long-old-friend.html
‘No, your monitor won't blank out, your Internet connection won't stall and your PC won't crash, but a major event is about to ripple across the Internet today: CompuServe Classic is closing.
After 30 years the plug will be pulled on what was once the finest online service on the globe. (CompuServe 2000, a newer iteration of CompuServe will continue.)
And the saddest part is that it ends not with a bang, but with a whimper. Ask anyone about CompuServe today and the response will probably be "Are they still around?"’
There seem to be many comments about this on Slashdot, from many perspectives. I personally had no experience with them, but it’s always sad to hear an early Internet company closing it’s doors, whether their service was wanted or not.
[127.0.0.1 blogs.sun.com/skr]
Thursday, July 2, 2009
Fourth of July Weekend
This entry has been migrated from my Sun blog. Srepetsk.net is the only blog of mine that is being updated at the current time.
Fourth of July Weekend
Well I’ll be celebrating the 4th of July with some friends tomorrow. I’ve noticed that as time gets closer to the holiday, as well as it being the end of the quarter/FY, fewer and fewer people are in the office. It’s actually really nice, because it’s very quiet these days – less people to distract you :)
Also, installed a 10gig fiber switch today, extracted a few SAS cards from one server and put them in another for some testing. Overall a quiet day, but good for the “to-do” list.
[127.0.0.1 blogs.sun.com/skr]
Fourth of July Weekend
Well I’ll be celebrating the 4th of July with some friends tomorrow. I’ve noticed that as time gets closer to the holiday, as well as it being the end of the quarter/FY, fewer and fewer people are in the office. It’s actually really nice, because it’s very quiet these days – less people to distract you :)
Also, installed a 10gig fiber switch today, extracted a few SAS cards from one server and put them in another for some testing. Overall a quiet day, but good for the “to-do” list.
[127.0.0.1 blogs.sun.com/skr]
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
New VA Driving Rules
This entry has been migrated from my Sun blog. Srepetsk.net is the only blog of mine that is being updated at the current time.
New VA Driving Rules
Good news (in my opinion) for driving in Virginia – texting and reading email is now illegal for all drivers, not just us under 18. Frankly I wish they’d make talking on a cell phone illegal – it’s just another distraction that can lead to a crash. A total of 879 laws were enacted in the Virginia General Assembly’s 45-day meeting, most of which come into effect today.
Here’s the Washington Post article detailing the subject:
Prohibition On Texting By Drivers Starts in Va.
[127.0.0.1 blogs.sun.com/skr]
New VA Driving Rules
Good news (in my opinion) for driving in Virginia – texting and reading email is now illegal for all drivers, not just us under 18. Frankly I wish they’d make talking on a cell phone illegal – it’s just another distraction that can lead to a crash. A total of 879 laws were enacted in the Virginia General Assembly’s 45-day meeting, most of which come into effect today.
Here’s the Washington Post article detailing the subject:
Prohibition On Texting By Drivers Starts in Va.
[127.0.0.1 blogs.sun.com/skr]
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Private Clouds
This entry has been migrated from my Sun blog. Srepetsk.net is the only blog of mine that is being updated at the current time.
Private Clouds
[127.0.0.1 blogs.sun.com/skr]
Private Clouds
CIO has a rather interesting article out about private clouds and what they require to be successful. The article comes in two parts, of which the second is more related to what I’m specifically working with.http://www.cio.com/article/492695/Defining_Private_Clouds_Part_One
http://www.cio.com/article/493218/Defining_Private_Clouds_Part_Two
[127.0.0.1 blogs.sun.com/skr]
Saturday, June 13, 2009
TJHSST Students Raise $56K for Installation of Solar Panels
Congrats guys! Hope this helps to lower solar panel prices for all, and shows other schools and businesses that solar power can be done. The solar power information from the panels at TJ can be found here. FCPS article after the break:
TJHSST Students Raise $56K for Installation of Solar Panels
TJHSST Students Raise $56K for Installation of Solar Panels
Students at Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology (TJHSST) have raised $56,000 to fund the installation of 22 high-efficiency solar panels on the school's roof, which are estimated to prevent nearly 10,000 pounds of carbon dioxide from being emitted into the atmosphere each year.[FCPS News Releases]
Monday, May 25, 2009
Northern Region Meet Results
Results from the Northern Region Track Championships – both days
2009 Outdoor Northern Region Track Championships
2009 Outdoor Northern Region Track Championships
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
Thursday, April 30, 2009
Hello Old Friend
I realize I haven’t updated this in a while, but I wanted to provide a brief post on what’s been up. I officially accepted admission to Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) two days ago, and I’m getting my computer account set up, as well as straightening out housing, financial stuff, transportation, and scheduling. I’ve also been discerning what my summer will be looking like. Hopefully if everything turns out right, I’ll be working at Sun Microsystems building a stand-alone “cloud computing” service, consisting of the software and hardware needed to provide centralized services to companies, educational facilities, governmental organizations, etc.
Hopefully I’ll be typing up my notes from the Russia trip that we took over spring break. I have a few pages that are in note form, so I should have plenty to write about for a bit. When those are done, I’ll probably already be half way through the summer and blogging from Sun!
Hopefully I’ll be typing up my notes from the Russia trip that we took over spring break. I have a few pages that are in note form, so I should have plenty to write about for a bit. When those are done, I’ll probably already be half way through the summer and blogging from Sun!
Sunday, April 26, 2009
Sunday, March 29, 2009
Sunday, March 22, 2009
Fairfax County School Board Votes on School Start and Dismissal Times
*Sigh*, and the saga continues...
Fairfax County School Board Votes on School Start and Dismissal Times
Fairfax County School Board Votes on School Start and Dismissal Times
The Fairfax County School Board has voted to confirm the existing school start time structure for Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS). Generally, under this existing structure, high schools open first, then middle and elementary schools.[FCPS News Releases]
Saturday, March 21, 2009
Sun & IBM: Speculation
I found this interesting blog post from Ben Rockwood’s site (http://www.cuddletech.com/blog/pivot/entry.php?id=1024) about the possible IBM/Sun buyout.
Sun & IBM: Speculation
20 Mar '09 - 21:31 by benr
The UNIX world is ablaze with speculation about the news that IBM wants to acquire Sun. Rumors of acquisition have been floating around for a long time, but the fact that institutional investors help almost double JAVA shares means we should take this one very seriously.
To be frank, I'm not sure how to feel about it. I'll try and play both sides therefore.
On one hand, IBM's hardware business has a great many advantages over Sun's. Pairing the hardware lines of the two companies, especially if it potentially meant bringing Solaris to POWER, could be a very big win. One of the things I miss about Sun is the big and beefy midrange systems of yesteryear... running Solaris on an IBM 595 would be amazing. However, IBM is a company that knows how to manage multiple independent product lines, such as it has with OS/400 and the z/OS lines running along with the Windows and AIX lines. They may simply slot SPARC as another parallel line and not bother replacing AIX with Solaris.
IBM certainly would be happy to not just get its hands on Sun's in-house engineering but also on the variety of acquisitions its made, such as MySQL, Lustre, etc. Obviously Java is the great prize and probly more interesting to IBM than the hardware. As for middleware, I'd think they'd gut the stack, taking gems such as Directory Server and Glassfish, then tossing other bits aside.
On the other hand, the corporate cultures couldn't be more different. Sun's internal management has systemic problems that no RIF can seem to shake loose but I don't know the management structure at IBM and it may get worse not better. Would IBM continue to embrace the liberal try-and-buy model Sun is using or honor all its various communities? Given so many diverse efforts there are a lot of people bound to get crunched as the two giants collide.
Sun and IBM have simply competed too long for there not to be pain. NetBeans vs Eclipse. Solaris vs AIX. SPARC vs POWER. There is a very long list of competing technologies and just because we (as Sun enthusiasts) prefer one technology over another doesn't mean IBM will agree on all counts.
Besides... from Sun purple to IBM blue? Ick.
Somewhat naturally, I'm not happy with the proposition, but as I alluded to, I can't rule it out entirely. On one extreme I see Sun ending up like SGI, on a long slow death march... but frankly, Sun has way too much going for it, if they really had to get super lean and mean they would be a stronger player than ever, so thats out. On the other extreme is Sun being acquired and being raped in the way that Cray was by (ironically) SGI.... IBM takes everything good and useful and then discards the corpse. But, again, Sun has too much of value in too many areas, I don't see that happening either.
I think the most interesting potential outcome is that of Sun becoming a wholly owned subsidiary of IBM. So Sun stays Sun but under the wings of IBM. That is not such a bad future, especially because it wouldn't necessarily lead to the technology conflicts... IBM could play the game from both sides of the table. Whats more true is that Sun is a valuable brand... the Sun brand plus the Java business alone are worth more than they are offering. If they were to re-brand everything IBM it would really be a huge mistake. Sun could be the hip and edgy side of IBM.
The single most concerning aspect for me would be OpenSolaris's status as open source. Our board members have continuously shrugged off authority and placed our fate into Sun's trusting hands... but this raises the question, what if Sun wasn't in charge anymore? Many of the original leaders in the OpenSolaris effort were interested not just in including the community in Solaris, but also ensuring their own access to Solaris regardless of what Sun did in the future.
So... we'll see. Please add your own thoughts so we can build up a time-capsule of opinions while we're all in the dark.
Sun & IBM: Speculation
20 Mar '09 - 21:31 by benr
The UNIX world is ablaze with speculation about the news that IBM wants to acquire Sun. Rumors of acquisition have been floating around for a long time, but the fact that institutional investors help almost double JAVA shares means we should take this one very seriously.
To be frank, I'm not sure how to feel about it. I'll try and play both sides therefore.
On one hand, IBM's hardware business has a great many advantages over Sun's. Pairing the hardware lines of the two companies, especially if it potentially meant bringing Solaris to POWER, could be a very big win. One of the things I miss about Sun is the big and beefy midrange systems of yesteryear... running Solaris on an IBM 595 would be amazing. However, IBM is a company that knows how to manage multiple independent product lines, such as it has with OS/400 and the z/OS lines running along with the Windows and AIX lines. They may simply slot SPARC as another parallel line and not bother replacing AIX with Solaris.
IBM certainly would be happy to not just get its hands on Sun's in-house engineering but also on the variety of acquisitions its made, such as MySQL, Lustre, etc. Obviously Java is the great prize and probly more interesting to IBM than the hardware. As for middleware, I'd think they'd gut the stack, taking gems such as Directory Server and Glassfish, then tossing other bits aside.
On the other hand, the corporate cultures couldn't be more different. Sun's internal management has systemic problems that no RIF can seem to shake loose but I don't know the management structure at IBM and it may get worse not better. Would IBM continue to embrace the liberal try-and-buy model Sun is using or honor all its various communities? Given so many diverse efforts there are a lot of people bound to get crunched as the two giants collide.
Sun and IBM have simply competed too long for there not to be pain. NetBeans vs Eclipse. Solaris vs AIX. SPARC vs POWER. There is a very long list of competing technologies and just because we (as Sun enthusiasts) prefer one technology over another doesn't mean IBM will agree on all counts.
Besides... from Sun purple to IBM blue? Ick.
Somewhat naturally, I'm not happy with the proposition, but as I alluded to, I can't rule it out entirely. On one extreme I see Sun ending up like SGI, on a long slow death march... but frankly, Sun has way too much going for it, if they really had to get super lean and mean they would be a stronger player than ever, so thats out. On the other extreme is Sun being acquired and being raped in the way that Cray was by (ironically) SGI.... IBM takes everything good and useful and then discards the corpse. But, again, Sun has too much of value in too many areas, I don't see that happening either.
I think the most interesting potential outcome is that of Sun becoming a wholly owned subsidiary of IBM. So Sun stays Sun but under the wings of IBM. That is not such a bad future, especially because it wouldn't necessarily lead to the technology conflicts... IBM could play the game from both sides of the table. Whats more true is that Sun is a valuable brand... the Sun brand plus the Java business alone are worth more than they are offering. If they were to re-brand everything IBM it would really be a huge mistake. Sun could be the hip and edgy side of IBM.
The single most concerning aspect for me would be OpenSolaris's status as open source. Our board members have continuously shrugged off authority and placed our fate into Sun's trusting hands... but this raises the question, what if Sun wasn't in charge anymore? Many of the original leaders in the OpenSolaris effort were interested not just in including the community in Solaris, but also ensuring their own access to Solaris regardless of what Sun did in the future.
So... we'll see. Please add your own thoughts so we can build up a time-capsule of opinions while we're all in the dark.
Thursday, March 19, 2009
Russian Olympiada
Good luck to all the students from Thomas Jefferson, around the Northern Virginia area, and around the United States at the Russian Olympiada tomorrow morning! Hopefully everyone does well, but at least you are going (unlike me)! At the very least you get a cool-looking T-shirt with text that normal people can’t read :)
Good luck!
Good luck!
Sun's Cloud (4 of 4)
This entry has been cross-posted from Jonathan Schwartz's Sun blog.
Sun's Cloud (4 of 4) - In the last three updates to this blog, I've tried to set out a clear direction of where Sun's headed. I've talked about our three basic priorities:
I'm hoping you've got a clear picture surrounding the first of these two priorities - how and where we drive software adoption, and focus our commercial efforts.
So now I'd like to talk about the linkages - while also addressing one of our biggest strategic challenges, our scale.
Selling Scale
First, why is scale a challenge for Sun? To be clear, I'm not talking about purchasing scale. As I've said before, we use innovation to drive product profitability, not simply bulk purchasing leverage. The scale to which I'm referring is selling and marketing scale. With Sun's current products, we could be selling to twice the number of customers we currently serve - our products appeal to an audience far greater than our customer base. But we're limited by our size - our sales and partner force has a tenth the resources of our biggest peers.
This is a particularly tough problem to solve in the midst of an economic downturn. Growing customers while reducing employees is an obvious challenge.
But it's also a huge opportunity. We have fewer than 100,000 customers worldwide. Using just one example, there are more than 10,000,000 MySQL users globally - reaching an additional 1% of them could more than double our customer base. The question is obviously how - we know we're relevant to those users, but we and our partners can't very well put sales reps on airplanes to visit all 10,000,000.
To answer that question, I'd like to examine what may seem like a tangential topic... the search business.
Discovering Intent
Now, why is the search business so valuable? Because it's an exceptionally efficient means of harvesting intentionality - if a consumer is searching for "flights to Cairo," the odds are good she's in the market for a trip to Egypt. That intent represents a ton of value for the airlines, hotel chains and car rental companies that serve travelers to Egypt. Whoever first recognizes that intent can broker a relationship between the traveler and those businesses, and charge a healthy toll for the privilege (that's the heart of on-line advertising). A discount airfare to Cairo, presented alongside the results of a "flights to Cairo" search, has a far higher likelihood of generating a ticket purchase than an unqualified billboard or ad in a newspaper. It's easier to find needles in haystacks when the haystacks are sorted by needle count.
Now I want you to think about the model I've described in these last few entries - Sun's business starts with exceptionally high volume free software adoption, literally millions of assets each day. What does that have to do with search?
Well, what is a customer telling us when they download software? Depending upon what they're downloading, they're telling us about what they value. If you're downloading MySQL or ZFS, you're more than likely storing data. If you're downloading OpenOffice.org, you're likely to create, save and maybe print documents. If you download VirtualBox, our virtualization software, you're telling us you work with multiple operating systems. An enormous stream of this kind of data funnels into Sun every day - signaling intent from customers spanning every corner of the world's technology market. That's the foundation of our analytical marketing activities.
Individuals and organizations opt-in to tell Sun, by what they download, what they're intending to do - which gives Sun a unique vantage point surrounding what comes next. If your company is downloading Lustre, the leading parallel file system for supercomputing, the odds are good you're on your way to building a supercomputing facility. Sun uniquely optimizes our solutions around Lustre, and we target those offers to an obviously interested user community. This is one reason we've been growing in the supercomputing market. We use software innovation to drive preference for Lustre - the majority of top supercomputing sites now use it. We target our product and service development to optimize for facilities using Lustre. And we target our selling and marketing activities around users that identify themselves to us - by downloading Lustre, or whitepapers and content related to it.
But as I've said, the majority of free software users aren't going to be building million dollar supercomputers, nor will they be issuing million dollar software purchase orders. And therein lies a new opportunity - one that helps us address our scaling challenges, as well.
Introducing Sun's Cloud
That opportunity is for Sun's Cloud - which we just announced today - to deliver commercial network services to the entire free software community.
Let's start with what we announced today.
This morning, Dave Douglas, the SVP of our Cloud Computing business, announced we're building the Sun Cloud, atop open source platforms - from ZFS and Crossbow, to MySQL and Glassfish. With more than 4,000 developers hard at work on these enabling elements, and a twenty year history of network scale software innovation, we're very comfortable with our technology lead. By building on open source, we're also able to radically reduce our costs by avoiding proprietary storage and networking products.
Second, we announced the API's and file formats for Sun's Cloud will all be open, delivered under a Creative Commons License. That means developers can freely stitch our and their cloud services into mass market products, without fear of lock-in or litigation from the emerging proprietary cloud vendors.
Third, unlike our peers, we also announced our cloud will be available for deployment behind corporate firewalls - that we'll commercialize our public cloud by instantiating it in private datacenters for those customers who can't, due to regulation, security or business constraints, use a public cloud. We recognize that workloads subject to fiduciary duty or regulatory scrutiny won't move to public clouds - if you can't move to the cloud, we'll move the cloud to you.
The Developing Cloud
How will developers use the cloud? Let me give you a very basic example - inside Sun, we're just now rolling out a version of OpenOffice extended for the cloud. If you take a look at the File menu in this picture, you'll see menu items that don't exist in your version -
but will exist in Sun's distribution. "Save to Cloud," and "Open From Cloud..." will enable OpenOffice users to use our public cloud to store and retrieve documents from the network, rather than their PC. We're in beta deployment inside Sun as we speak, and with around 3,000,000 new users joining the OpenOffice community every week, the opportunity to deliver this as a public service, to nearly 200,000,000 users, adn their employers, is really exciting.
The same applies to, say, VirtualBox - our desktop virtualization product, used by millions of users across the world. VB users will see a new feature later this year, offering an upload service to those wishing to archive or run multiple OS/application stacks - in Sun's Cloud. Those users have already told us they run multiple OS's - now that we know their intent, delivering a cloud to add value is a simple step forward. The same will apply to Glassfish and NetBeans, whose adoption helps us discover and recruit application developers - who might have a similar interest in running and/or storing apps in the cloud.
So in addition to offering the basic infrastructure services developers have come to expect (storage, compute, bandwidth), we'll be bringing tens of millions of free software users a library of cloud services and design patterns - designed to enhance the value they derive from the underlying software, while encouraging community development around open clouds. And all this will be based on what users have already told us they're interested in.
The Network is the Computer
To me, this is the embodiment of Sun's vision statement, the Network is the Computer. The breadth and quality of Sun's open source software is well known, and has created a user community that numbers in the hundreds of millions across the globe. The evolution of Sun's cloud and cloud services, from remote storage to remote execution, will allow us to grow our market, and the value we deliver to customers - even in, and perhaps amplified by the economic downturn. Clouds are just as interesting to students and startups as they are to Fortune 500 customers. If you're interested in Sun's Cloud, just head over to sun.com/cloud.
The network is the computer has always been one of the most powerful statements describing the future of the technology we build. For the first time, we expect to translate that mission statement to our business model, investing in the free software community to grow our market, and leveraging the network to grow the value we deliver - to a market, and partner community, far larger than Sun.
And in that connection between adoption and commercial opportunity, we see near limitless opportunity, measured only by the scale of adoption we can achieve in a world where bandwidth is as pervasive as electricity, and free software adoption continues to accelerate.
With that said, this brings to a close this discussion of who Sun is, and where we're headed. I hope it's been useful. We're a very simple business, we strive to do three basic things. To drive free software across the world, both because it's good for the planet and innovation, and it's good for our business. Second, to deliver the world's most compelling technologies to captivate developers and deployers, alike. And finally, to put those assets to work in creating opportunities in the cloud, for our customers, our partners and for Sun, as well.
Thank you for your time and attention, I'll see you next time.
[Jonathan Schwartz's Blog]
Sun's Cloud (4 of 4) - In the last three updates to this blog, I've tried to set out a clear direction of where Sun's headed. I've talked about our three basic priorities:
- Technology Adoption
- Commercial Innovation
- Efficiently Connecting Adoption and Commercial Opportunity.
So now I'd like to talk about the linkages - while also addressing one of our biggest strategic challenges, our scale.
Selling Scale
First, why is scale a challenge for Sun? To be clear, I'm not talking about purchasing scale. As I've said before, we use innovation to drive product profitability, not simply bulk purchasing leverage. The scale to which I'm referring is selling and marketing scale. With Sun's current products, we could be selling to twice the number of customers we currently serve - our products appeal to an audience far greater than our customer base. But we're limited by our size - our sales and partner force has a tenth the resources of our biggest peers.
This is a particularly tough problem to solve in the midst of an economic downturn. Growing customers while reducing employees is an obvious challenge.
But it's also a huge opportunity. We have fewer than 100,000 customers worldwide. Using just one example, there are more than 10,000,000 MySQL users globally - reaching an additional 1% of them could more than double our customer base. The question is obviously how - we know we're relevant to those users, but we and our partners can't very well put sales reps on airplanes to visit all 10,000,000.
To answer that question, I'd like to examine what may seem like a tangential topic... the search business.
Discovering Intent
Now I want you to think about the model I've described in these last few entries - Sun's business starts with exceptionally high volume free software adoption, literally millions of assets each day. What does that have to do with search?
Well, what is a customer telling us when they download software? Depending upon what they're downloading, they're telling us about what they value. If you're downloading MySQL or ZFS, you're more than likely storing data. If you're downloading OpenOffice.org, you're likely to create, save and maybe print documents. If you download VirtualBox, our virtualization software, you're telling us you work with multiple operating systems. An enormous stream of this kind of data funnels into Sun every day - signaling intent from customers spanning every corner of the world's technology market. That's the foundation of our analytical marketing activities.
Individuals and organizations opt-in to tell Sun, by what they download, what they're intending to do - which gives Sun a unique vantage point surrounding what comes next. If your company is downloading Lustre, the leading parallel file system for supercomputing, the odds are good you're on your way to building a supercomputing facility. Sun uniquely optimizes our solutions around Lustre, and we target those offers to an obviously interested user community. This is one reason we've been growing in the supercomputing market. We use software innovation to drive preference for Lustre - the majority of top supercomputing sites now use it. We target our product and service development to optimize for facilities using Lustre. And we target our selling and marketing activities around users that identify themselves to us - by downloading Lustre, or whitepapers and content related to it.But as I've said, the majority of free software users aren't going to be building million dollar supercomputers, nor will they be issuing million dollar software purchase orders. And therein lies a new opportunity - one that helps us address our scaling challenges, as well.
Introducing Sun's Cloud
That opportunity is for Sun's Cloud - which we just announced today - to deliver commercial network services to the entire free software community.
Let's start with what we announced today.
This morning, Dave Douglas, the SVP of our Cloud Computing business, announced we're building the Sun Cloud, atop open source platforms - from ZFS and Crossbow, to MySQL and Glassfish. With more than 4,000 developers hard at work on these enabling elements, and a twenty year history of network scale software innovation, we're very comfortable with our technology lead. By building on open source, we're also able to radically reduce our costs by avoiding proprietary storage and networking products.
Second, we announced the API's and file formats for Sun's Cloud will all be open, delivered under a Creative Commons License. That means developers can freely stitch our and their cloud services into mass market products, without fear of lock-in or litigation from the emerging proprietary cloud vendors.
Third, unlike our peers, we also announced our cloud will be available for deployment behind corporate firewalls - that we'll commercialize our public cloud by instantiating it in private datacenters for those customers who can't, due to regulation, security or business constraints, use a public cloud. We recognize that workloads subject to fiduciary duty or regulatory scrutiny won't move to public clouds - if you can't move to the cloud, we'll move the cloud to you.
The Developing Cloud
How will developers use the cloud? Let me give you a very basic example - inside Sun, we're just now rolling out a version of OpenOffice extended for the cloud. If you take a look at the File menu in this picture, you'll see menu items that don't exist in your version -
but will exist in Sun's distribution. "Save to Cloud," and "Open From Cloud..." will enable OpenOffice users to use our public cloud to store and retrieve documents from the network, rather than their PC. We're in beta deployment inside Sun as we speak, and with around 3,000,000 new users joining the OpenOffice community every week, the opportunity to deliver this as a public service, to nearly 200,000,000 users, adn their employers, is really exciting.The same applies to, say, VirtualBox - our desktop virtualization product, used by millions of users across the world. VB users will see a new feature later this year, offering an upload service to those wishing to archive or run multiple OS/application stacks - in Sun's Cloud. Those users have already told us they run multiple OS's - now that we know their intent, delivering a cloud to add value is a simple step forward. The same will apply to Glassfish and NetBeans, whose adoption helps us discover and recruit application developers - who might have a similar interest in running and/or storing apps in the cloud.
So in addition to offering the basic infrastructure services developers have come to expect (storage, compute, bandwidth), we'll be bringing tens of millions of free software users a library of cloud services and design patterns - designed to enhance the value they derive from the underlying software, while encouraging community development around open clouds. And all this will be based on what users have already told us they're interested in.
The Network is the Computer
To me, this is the embodiment of Sun's vision statement, the Network is the Computer. The breadth and quality of Sun's open source software is well known, and has created a user community that numbers in the hundreds of millions across the globe. The evolution of Sun's cloud and cloud services, from remote storage to remote execution, will allow us to grow our market, and the value we deliver to customers - even in, and perhaps amplified by the economic downturn. Clouds are just as interesting to students and startups as they are to Fortune 500 customers. If you're interested in Sun's Cloud, just head over to sun.com/cloud.
The network is the computer has always been one of the most powerful statements describing the future of the technology we build. For the first time, we expect to translate that mission statement to our business model, investing in the free software community to grow our market, and leveraging the network to grow the value we deliver - to a market, and partner community, far larger than Sun.
And in that connection between adoption and commercial opportunity, we see near limitless opportunity, measured only by the scale of adoption we can achieve in a world where bandwidth is as pervasive as electricity, and free software adoption continues to accelerate.
With that said, this brings to a close this discussion of who Sun is, and where we're headed. I hope it's been useful. We're a very simple business, we strive to do three basic things. To drive free software across the world, both because it's good for the planet and innovation, and it's good for our business. Second, to deliver the world's most compelling technologies to captivate developers and deployers, alike. And finally, to put those assets to work in creating opportunities in the cloud, for our customers, our partners and for Sun, as well.
Thank you for your time and attention, I'll see you next time.
[Jonathan Schwartz's Blog]
Monday, March 16, 2009
Windows Live Writer Plugins
I’m experimenting with using Windows Live Writer to update my website (based on Drupal – see below for my post on how to get WLR working with Drupal websites). For this post I’ve been evaluating several of the plugins that are available from the Microsoft website, mainly for usability. I’m less concerned with setup or configuration, since one that’s done, it’s done for good (assuming you keep documentation – I’m trying to do this by use of this website).
Here are the first few plugins that I’m going to be testing over the next few days:
Plugin
Here are the first few plugins that I’m going to be testing over the next few days:
Plugin
- Insert Amazon Details
- Requires an Amazon Affiliate ID
- Insert Files Setup
- Insert File Plugin
- Attach File Plugin
Saturday, March 14, 2009
Two TJHSST Students Finish in Top Ten in Intel Science Talent Search
Two TJHSST Students Finish in Top Ten in Intel Science Talent Search -
Two students from Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology (TJHSST) finished in the top ten in the country in the 2009 Intel Science Talent Search. TJHSST is a Fairfax County public school.[FCPS News Releases]
Sun's Network Innovations (3 of 4)
Cross-posted from Jonathan Schwartz's former blog. The original blog has since been taken down, so here is an archived version.
Sun's Network Innovations (3 of 4) - As I referenced in my prior entry, I'm reviewing Sun's three major strategic imperatives, and our progress going in to next fiscal year. Our strategic imperatives, in order, are:
1. Technology Adoption
2. Commercial Innovation
3. Efficiently Connecting 1. and 2.
This entry focuses on the second, Commercial Innovation, and reviews our core revenue products, services and strategies.
By now, you understand Sun's approach to growing the market - driving adoption of key technologies drives Sun's addressable market. Once you're using one of our fundamental technologies, Sun's innovations focused on those technologies are relevant to you. The beauty of free distribution is you don't have to pick customers, they pick you.
Three very valuable markets emerge from this adoption. I'll focus on the first two here, the products and services we sell.
The first market is obvious. Software isn't downloaded onto air.
Systems Innovations
There's always some system platform underneath software - sure, it might be a laptop in a dorm room*, but it's just as likely to be into a Fortune 500 company, attached to servers, storage and networking equipment. All told, this datacenter systems market is more than $150b annually.
And in this datacenter market we build exceptional systems - screaming fast entry level servers, all the way up to the most efficient mainframe class systems. We build super fast storage, from our new flash based platforms to eco-efficient tape and archive solutions. We also build the world's fastest networking switches, powering the planet's largest supercomputers. We cover the entire spectrum, and work with the smartest partners in the industry to serve customers across the globe. Although we focus on our own technologies, like Java, MySQL and Lustre, we also optimize for VMware, Microsoft's Windows and we're generally recognized to run Oracle better than anyone on the planet.
Now, you heard me call these our Systems products, not just hardware products. These systems are obviously more than just naked components, they're engineered with remote management and monitoring, component redundancy, integrated virtualization, and on board storage and networking. That's why our margins are higher than the industry's***. I'm very proud of our Systems team, they are the most talented platform engineers on earth, and they earn consistently stellar reviews.But where's this first market headed? Here's where it's going to get interesting.
Datacenter Systems Convergence - Who Plays? Wins?
As I've said before, general purpose microprocessors and operating systems are now fast enough to eliminate the need for special purpose devices. That means you can build a router out of a server - notice you cannot build a server out of a router, try as hard as you like. The same applies to storage devices.
To demonstrate this point, we now build our entire line of storage systems from general purpose server parts, including Solaris and ZFS, our open source file system. This allows us to innovate in software, where others have to build custom silicon or add cost. We are planning a similar line of networking platforms, based around the silicon and software you can already find in our portfolio.
We believe both the storage and networking industry's proprietary approach, and their gross profit streams, are now open to those us with general purpose platforms. That's good news for customers, and for Sun.
At the heart of this convergence is Solaris - enabled by technologies such as ZFS (around which we're building our entire storage line), and Crossbow (around which you'll see us build some very compelling networking products). Technologists interested in ZFS and Crossbow can visit OpenSolaris.org, or request an OpenSolaris CD (click the CD image).
I've provided a picture here to make the point - these three industries (servers, storage and networking), are converging, driven by the raw performance of the underlying server operating system and microprocessor.
That means these adjacent markets are all open to Sun and the Solaris community. Leveraging inexpensive, general purpose components is one big advantage for us, but there are others - using a general purpose OS allows us to easily embrace specialized components (from flash memory to GPU's), or adapt to new storage or networking protocols entirely in software. The underlying OS and server are so fast, these extensions and enhancements are simple feature updates, and ones we can leverage across servers, and storage and networking.
This isn't to say the networking or storage companies don't have their own operating systems. They do, but in both instances, they're proprietary, have tiny volumes, and despite paying lip service to open standards and the Linux community, their core operating software is unavailable to developers, it's truly proprietary. Their niche OS's also lack cross industry support, which is why our Solaris OEM agreements with IBM, Dell, Intel, Fujitsu and HP are so important to our end customers - they know they'll never be locked in. Today's storage and networking vendors remind me of the server vendors in the late 1990's - with expensive software bolted to expensive hardware. Ultimately forced open by innovation.
At Sun, open source isn't for servers. Open source is for datacenters.
Where's the Money?
Let's also look at the financial backdrop to this convergence. For these networking and storage vendors, entering the server market means suffering profit degradation - the server industry is vastly more competitive than the storage and networking marketplace.
On the other hand, as Sun grows into the storage and networking markets, we're thrilled with higher profit margins. We're unique among platform vendors in being able to deliver Servers, Storage, Networking and Virtualization on our own terms, very well integrated and at our own prices. How will we differentiate against our peers?
Simple. Integration, innovation, and as a result of building atop open source and commodity components, we are the low cost supplier. They, on the other hand, will be forced into all kinds of contorted partnerships and complex reselling arrangements. They may ship the boxes, but they won't control the platform software - or profit streams.How is our Systems business doing? The portions of this business sensitive to software adoption, primarily the low end of all these products, is doing quite well, growing double digits**. The weakness in our Systems business is really focused on the high end. This reflects really two things - the first is the deferrability of high end system purchases. Our high end business was up 20% a little over a year ago, it was down more than 20% in the December quarter of 2008 - across the industry, customers are holding off on big ticket purchases.
The second, and arguably more important headwind was a decision made back in the 1990's to cancel Solaris on Intel, in the belief it would protect Sun's SPARC hardware business. Conversely, that mistake destroyed a generation of Solaris developers, and accelerated the rise of alternatives to traditional SPARC hardware. And now you understand why we prioritize developers - they are the seeds from which great forests grow. If you don't water the roots, the trees wither.
But how do you make money giving software away to developers? Well, let's switch gears, and talk about Software and Services.
When Free is Too Expensive
One of my favorite customer stories relates to an American company that did nearly 30% of its yearly revenue on Christmas Day. They were a mobile phone company, whose handsets appeared under Christmas trees, opened en masse and provisioned on the internet within about a 48 hour period. When we won the bid to supply their datacenter, their CIO gave me the purchase order on the condition I gave him my home phone number. He said, "If I have any issues on Christmas, I want you on the phone making sure every resource available is solving the problem." I happily provided it (and then made sure I had my direct staff's home numbers). Christmas came and went, no problems at all.
A year later, he was issuing a purchase order to Sun for several of our software products. To have a little fun with him (and the Sun sales rep), I told him before he passed me the purchase order that the products were all open source, freely available for download.
Numerically, most developers and technology users have more time than money. Most readers of this blog are happy to run unsupported software, and we are very happy to supply it. For a far smaller population, the price of downtime radically exceeds the price of a license or support - for some, the cost of downtime is measured in millions per minute. If you're tracking packages or fleets of aircraft, running an emergency response network or a trading floor, you almost always have more money than time. And that's our business model, we offer utterly exceptional service, support and enterprise technologies to those that have more money than time. It's a good business.
All in/all up, our Software business is among the fastest growing businesses at Sun. I've attached our latest financial summary at the end of this blog. We span network identity (built with the OpenDS community), application infrastructure (biult with Glassfish and OpenESB), data management (built with MySQL, ZFS and Lustre), embedded software (such as Java, and the emerging JavaFX), alongside our core operating system and virtualization software (Solaris, OpenSolaris and VirtualBox). These open source platforms generate, alongside the services attached to them, over a billion dollars a year, making Sun by far and away the world's largest open source software company. (For those that continue to ask if we make money with Java, the answer is yes, it's on a ramp to hit about $250m this year - one of our best businesses - and that's just Java on consumer devices, excluding servers).
Every day, these products are being adopted globally, driving university curriculum, corporate trials and design wins, influencing skills, even supporting Presidential campaigns. We know not every download yields revenue or users, but they do yield awareness and trials - a small, but intensely valuable portion of which yields revenue and profit. Our sales reps see the purchase orders at the point of value, not at the point of download. The revenue's recognized over the period of the Service contract - a business model the rest of the industry, at least for mass market products, will inevitably adopt. Fighting free and open software, like fighting free news or free search, is like fighting gravity - and btw, gravity gets a lot stronger during economic downturns.
Conclusion
And in a nutshell, that's how we monetize adoption - with targeted, high value innovations.
We call all these products network innovations. I know that defies industry categorization, but that's what innovation's all about, defying categorization.
I've only touched on two of the three opportunities opened by mass adoption. And with that as a teaser, I invite you to return for the final blog entry, talking about what might be the most valuable of them all - a market enabled by the innovations described above, and set to transform the entire marketplace. Embodying the phrase, The Network is the Computer.
See you then.
-----------------------
* and before you dismiss those users, some of the world's biggest internet companies/datacenters were started on laptops in dorm rooms... a trend I expect to accelerate.
** Sun's x86 systems business, for example, grew over 11% last quarter, when both HP and IBM's comparable businesses shrank in double digits. For those wondering "how do you differentiate?", just ask our customers.
*** Compared to other industry standard server vendors.
[Jonathan Schwartz's Blog]
Friday, March 13, 2009
Monday, March 9, 2009
Install XP on an Acer Aspire 5520
Update 03/16/2009: Here is the link for all Acer drivers, not just specifically for the Acer Aspire
At this point in time, I do not have the webcam fully working. I installed all three drivers, but I think they're now conflicting with each other. I don't use it that much, so I haven't bothered to diagnose why it isn't working (Skype says that the camera is already in use by another application)
Warning: prepare for a mass load of reboots! Each driver will require at least one reboot. For all drivers listed below, do not use the "Found New Driver" prompt from Windows! Each driver can be installed through a zip file from Acer.
At this point in time, I do not have the webcam fully working. I installed all three drivers, but I think they're now conflicting with each other. I don't use it that much, so I haven't bothered to diagnose why it isn't working (Skype says that the camera is already in use by another application)
Warning: prepare for a mass load of reboots! Each driver will require at least one reboot. For all drivers listed below, do not use the "Found New Driver" prompt from Windows! Each driver can be installed through a zip file from Acer.
- Install XP
- Update to SP2
- Install 1. NVIDIA Chipset Driver
- Install 2. AMD CPU
- Install 3. NVIDIA VGA - make sure the path is short enough, or some files will fail
- Install 4. Realtek Audio driver (if desired)
- Install 5. Card reader driver
- Install 6. Modem driver
- Install 7. Touchpad driver: ALPS
- Install 8. Atheros wireless driver
- Install 9. Bison webcam driver or Chicony webcam driver or Suyin webcam driver
- Install 10. Webcam application (if desired)
- Update to SP3
- Use Microsoft Update (not Windows Update) to install any drivers you might have missed and/or update existing drivers
Sunday, March 8, 2009
Button gaffe embarrasses Clinton
Here’s one great reason to learn Russian
Russian media have been poking fun at the US secretary of state over a translation error on a gift she presented to her Russian counterpart.
Friday, March 6, 2009
FCPS - News Releases
FCPS - News Releases
Thirty one Fairfax County public schools have earned the 2009 Governor's Award for Educational Excellence, and 45 Fairfax County public schools have also been recognized by the state Board of Education for 2009 Board of Education (BOE) Excellence Awards.
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Hamlet Paper Preparation
Due Thursday, February 26th
Draft of Hamlet paper due – 3 copies: Due Monday, March 3
For your Hamlet paper, I encourage you to think small. The examination of a single speech may provide enough material for your 5-6 page paper. What does the speech reveal about the characters? The situation? The themes of the play? How do the poetic devices used in the speech enhance the meaning? You’ll probably want to steer away from the speeches we’ve covered intensively in class, unless you’re confident you can add something new to what we’ve already discovered. Alternatively, you may develop your own question about the play. For Thursday, bring some evidence that you’ve done some thinking about what your paper will be about and that you’ve reread some of the relevant sections.
In a short paragraph, identify the topic/question/idea you hope to pursue, and then do two of the three items below. (You may substitute an activity of your own design of equal effort for one of the items below:
Draft of Hamlet paper due – 3 copies: Due Monday, March 3
For your Hamlet paper, I encourage you to think small. The examination of a single speech may provide enough material for your 5-6 page paper. What does the speech reveal about the characters? The situation? The themes of the play? How do the poetic devices used in the speech enhance the meaning? You’ll probably want to steer away from the speeches we’ve covered intensively in class, unless you’re confident you can add something new to what we’ve already discovered. Alternatively, you may develop your own question about the play. For Thursday, bring some evidence that you’ve done some thinking about what your paper will be about and that you’ve reread some of the relevant sections.
In a short paragraph, identify the topic/question/idea you hope to pursue, and then do two of the three items below. (You may substitute an activity of your own design of equal effort for one of the items below:
- List and briefly annotate the scenes (including Act/Scene/Line numbers) that you think are most relevant to your idea or question.
- Write a careful analysis of a passage (15-30 lines): Download the lines, translate them into clear, modern English, and write your analysis. In your analysis, you will explain the context of the lines within the play (when and where they occur), the significance of the context (who is listening, who might be listening, the speakers’ goals, etc.), the significance of the lines to your topic, the significance of particular words, and the like.
- A substantial log entry in which you discuss your topic and how you might develop it. You can type this up and print it out rather than writing it in your log.
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Link Aggregation/iSCSI on OpenSolaris
Setting up iSCSI on a 2008.11 OpenSolaris box. Link aggregation doesn’t play well with NWAM, so NWAM has to be disabled (svcadm disable nwam). Make sure to `svcadm enable network:physical`after NWAM is disabled, so you still have networking!
Helpful Links:
Helpful Commands
Helpful Links:
- http://www.tjhsst.edu/admin/livedoc/index.php/ISCSI – general iSCSI setup
- http://wikis.sun.com/display/OpenSolarisInfo/How+to+Change+From+Automatic+to+Manual+Network+Configuration – automatic to manual networking
Helpful Commands
- tail –f /var/adm/messages (for debugging)
- devfsadm –Cv – clean up the /dev/[r]dsk directory to correctly reflect all connected disks
Monday, February 16, 2009
AP Literature (Green): Third Quarter Calendar
Important dates coming up soon:
19 February – Hamlet, Act III due
23 February – copy-ready poems for Poetry Seminar due, poetry timed writing
24 February – Hamlet, Act IV due
Edit, 5 April 2012 - I've taken down the link for the calendar since that doesn't exist here anymore.
19 February – Hamlet, Act III due
23 February – copy-ready poems for Poetry Seminar due, poetry timed writing
24 February – Hamlet, Act IV due
Edit, 5 April 2012 - I've taken down the link for the calendar since that doesn't exist here anymore.
Sunday, February 15, 2009
Taylor Swift Contest
Texting prices are a whole different story. There are plenty of complaints elsewhere on the Internet, so I will not touch on them today.
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