Friday, November 16, 2007

Sun xVM

I like Sun so much right now I'm thinking of writing a song. OK, never mind. I won't punish you with my lyrical inability. But this is really cool. If there was any doubt in your mind whether Sun is serious about open source, this announcement should clear that up.

Let's go down the list of the hottest technology and where Sun stands on it:
  • OS - Open Source
  • Middleware - Open Source
  • Systems Management - Open Source
  • Virtualization - Open Source
  • File System - Open Source
Yeah boyeeeeeee!!

Update - Tuesday, December 11, 2007 - 2:39 PM

Check out the eWeek article about Sun's interaction with the OpenDS project. This is really interesting, and maybe I should temper my enthusiasm for Sun's Open Source announcements. Truth be told, my own experience kind of validates the sentiment expressed in the eWeek article that Sun tends to keep an iron grip on project control. The day I saw Sun's xVM announcement, I expressed interest in becoming a member of the project team on the wiki - that was like 2-3 weeks ago - still haven't received a reply.

Update - Tuesday, December 11, 2007 - 2:40 PM

OK - this is just too wierd. Guess who I just got an email from? webmaster@dev.java.net
saying: "You (gtewallace) earlier requested the Content Developer role in the openxvm project. Congratulations! The role has been granted."

yummmmmy - this sneaker is tasty!!

Tuesday, November 13, 2007

Bush Veto

Well, I warned you that I might let slip a little politics into this blog, and reading the headline just now about Bush's veto of a bill because it was laden with pork and too expensive just tipped me over the edge. Not that I'm for pork, or that the President is necessarily wrong - he's probably right - it probably is laden with pork. But what did he think all the bills were like for the first 6 years of his presidency which he never - I repeat NEVER - saw fit to veto?

It all comes down to party politics. This country doesn't need a third party - we need a third, a fourth and a fifth and a sixth.

Saturday, November 10, 2007

What's harder: Parenting or Barca Getting a Win on the Road?

That's my question today.

Barca's record on the road is terrible - zero wins in 6 outings, and today was the latest lame attempt at Getafe, which is a cellar dweller. It's sad to see a team with as much talent as Barca perform so poorly.

They did get a couple bad calls, like the first Yellow card to Toure, which was a total dive. And then when Henry was in on goal and they called offside, but his shot went wide anyway.

Speaking of Yellow cards, I think of that a lot in terms of parenting. Yellow card is a warning, Red card and you're out. Usually it goes in that order - a player gets a Yellow and, usually, they shape up and play nice the rest of the game. If they get a second Yellow, that amounts to a Red, and they're out. Rarely does the ref give a player a straight Red. There are a couple things that will draw it, like going in hard on the keeper when he has the ball, but if it's play out on the pitch, you've got to do something really blatant and dangerous to get a straight red.

So, I sort of gave my daughter a straight Red today - it's hard to know when being firm crosses the line into heavy handedness. Here's the sit. She had just come back from a nice time with her Mom, Grandma and little brother looking at Gingerbread houses, and they'd gone to Krispy Kreme afterwords. And earlier, I took her for ice cream cuz she had done a really good job being a gracious hostess to little girl about 1-2 yrs her junior that lives in our cul de sac.

After they got back, she wanted to go play with that little girl at her house - I said ok and took her down. Her parents said that she was having a friend over to play in a bit, but that Sarah could stay and play for a little bit.

The guy was building a ramp for his dogs from their back deck to their back yard, and he had a long 2X4 leaning on their side fence and coming down into their side yard. Their little girl started to walk up it, which looked pretty dangerous, and her mom told her to stop, and she did. Sarah saw her doing it and started to walk over to te board and I said "don't walk up that board," and what did she do? Of course, she took two steps up the board and then hopped off.

That drew a straight Red. I said, ok, that's it, we're going home. To which my daughter started balling and carrying on. I felt like kind of a jerk, and I immediately started to wonder if I had been too hasty. But, I thought it would be worse to reward her tantrum by letting her stay.

What'cha think?

Thursday, November 8, 2007

Captain Underpants

No, this blog hasn't taken a raunchy turn. This is a funny story. My daughter is in Kindergarten at a magnet school in Raleigh, NC. The nice thing about it is that it has a really great curriculum, and she gets 45 minutes of Spanish instruction every day. Which is awesome in its own right, IMO, and its especially cool since I've got friends in Spain and Chile. On the downside, the school's a pretty good hike from the house - about 20 minutes door to door in car. But we just started putting Sarah on an express bus - o Joy!

So, my daughter is a really sweet girl, but, as her teacher put it recently in our parent teacher conference this week, she's a worrier. She gets a little up tight especially when she does new stuff. But it's weird, 'cuz she's really social and adventuresome, but whenever she has to do something new by herself, she gets a little worried.

So, taking the bus was a big leap for her - but she totally loves it now. After her first day when my wife picked her up at the bus stop after school, Sarah says "I heard a bad word." My wife was like "uh oh" so she told her, well, that's ok, that might happen, but if you repeat those words, you won't be able to ride the bus anymore. But she didn't ask her what word it was for fear of finding out. Finally, a couple days later, my wife gets up the courage to ask Sarah what the bad word was that she heard on the bus, to which Sarah said "Captain Underpants." LOL

Wednesday, November 7, 2007

Facebook Ads- smart strategy, questionable execution

Zuckerman unveiled Facebook's anticipated ad strategy yesterday. I was pretty skeptical, I have to say, but upon reading about it, it looks like a really smart idea. In a nutshell, the strategy is to allow advertisers to leverage what Facebook is good at, and what makes it popular - namely, relationships and endorsements. So, if you and I are friends in Facebook, and I say I like some product, then this will be treated the same way as if I told my friends that I like some type of music.

My problem with this, though, is not about how smart the idea is, but rather with the execution. Let me explain. The New York Times describes the strategy this way:

"The ads expand what has been one of the most powerful features of Facebook, the news feed, where members see a list of what their friends are doing — photos from their parties, new friends, favorite bands and so on.

Facebook now will give advertisers the ability to create their own profile pages on its system that will let users identify themselves as fans of a product. Each user’s news feed will contain items like “Bobby Smith is now a fan of Toyota Prius.”

Sounds great - but here's my issue - I've been using Facebook for a few months now - granted, I'm no power user and I have a limited number of friends, but I'm a user nonetheless - and I've only once had someone say they're a fan of mine, and I've never seen this so-called news feed, which the Times calls one of Facebook's most powerful features.

So, in the interest of thoroughness, I did what any self-respecting pseudo-journalist would do - I logged into Facebook and looked for the news feed. I couldn't find it. I used the search feature and I looked for something called news feed in all the tabs - no luck.

While performing my search, I was reminded why I don't really like Facebook - the interface sucks! It is so cluttered and confused, it repels me. Compared to the social networking site that I think sets the benchmark - LinkedIn - Facebook is completely amateurish.

Now, you might be thinking that the difference is explained by the target audience and use - LinkedIn is for professionals and for business use, where Facebook is for friends and social use. Two problems with this explanation - businesspeople and friends are all people and we all have basic user interface needs and, two, business is a social activity, so basically I don't buy it.

Bold prediction: I think Facebook is going to get their lunch eaten by the company that knows how to design interfaces and organize information as well as anyone - Google. Wouldn't it be funny if Google just ran up the price tag on Facebook to stick it to Microsoft? Seems to me like Google's own social networking announcement came too quickly on the heels of their supposed loss to Microsoft in the Facebook deal for Facebook to have been anything other than a decoy. Oh, and btw, there's nothing about the good part of Facebook's ad plan that can't be copied. To borrow a term from P&G - I think Google is a PFE (proudly found elsewhere) kind of company...

Monday, November 5, 2007

Linus Torvalds on Open Source: 'A Much Better Way to Do Things'

Linus Torvalds was only 22 in 1991 when he decided to share with friends and colleagues the code of Linux, the new operating system he had created. The University of Helsinki computer science student couldn't have imagined the revolution his decision was about to ignite.

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