Mon, 16 Nov 2009 9:34:41 PST
Moules Frites @ Devoxx
 I'm back in lovely Antwerp for Devoxx. The purgatory we're in over the situation with Oracle has it's pluses and minuses. On the plus side, I don't have to do a keynote.... Steve Harris from Oracle get's that job. I will be doing a talk, but I'll be concentrating on the store we're in the process of launching. The hard part is that the only questions that anyone will be asking are the ones that neither Steve nor I can answer: until the acquisition clears the EC competition commission and closes, we're required to be mostly silent about the future. We're pretty much limited to the official statements.
I'll be spending the end of the week at Cartes, talking with the SmartCard crowd. Between the 10th anniversary of GlobalPlatform (12 years of JavaCard!) and the release of JavaCard 3, it's a big year for us in the SmartCard world.
Mon, 16 Nov 2009 9:34:41 PST
Java Store β: payment and a new client
Put an accountant, a lawyer, an MBA and a software engineer together into a room... Sounds like the lead-in to a bad joke, but it's the exercise that the Java Store team has been living through for the past several months.
At the PayPal conference today
Eric Klein
did an
announcement and demo of the next phase in the Java Store's development. We've been working with PayPal on this for some time, using their new PayPal X platform. It always amazes me how complex it is to deal with all the details of global finance. And even so, the store today only handles US issues. But the framework is in place to go global as fast as the lawyers and accountants can work through the details — but it'll take a while. There's a new client application for shopping in the store, and a new
warehouse site for developers to upload products.
Even with the current US-only restriction, that's about 65 million desktops for a target market. Please check it out, kick the tires, let us know what you think: we'd like to get it out of beta and do a real large scale consumer launch as soon as we can.
Mon, 16 Nov 2009 9:34:41 PST
The Network Is
 Yet Another Happy Birthday Intertubes!! Today marks 40 years of the internet, although there's some debate as to the actual date. I consider myself a latecomer: I didn't get my first real internet email address until 1977, C410JG40@CMUA. I was "jag" on various Unix systems before then, but it wasn't until 1977 that the ARPAnet and email really took over my life. I soon realized that the only real-world friendships I kept up with were folks that I could send email to. I disappeared from my brother and sister's lives until they got email addresses 20 years later. Of course now it's gotten to the point where restaurants don't exist unless they're on
OpenTable :-) I wrote the original Unix Emacs in 1978 and because of that by sometime in 1980 I had the unusual distinction of having login IDs on every non-military host on the ARPAnet (I kept track - it had become sport).
When I joined Sun in 1984 (yikes! Has it been that long?) one of the big attractions was Sun's position on networking: every machine had a network connection. At the time, that was considered pretty weird. I had known Bill and Andy for years. They had both tried to get me to join Sun at the beginning in 82, but I foolishly didn't. "The Network is the Computer" was a pretty odd tagline at the time, and it didn't make sense to most people, but it had geeky appeal. A lot could be done when you tied machines together: from harnessing the compute power of clusters of machines, accessing filesystems remotely via NFS, remote graphics access, and a whole lot more.
But the network had more than mere geek appeal for me. It felt important in a world-changing kind of way. This crystalized when I read
Robert Axelrod's 1984 book The Evolution of Cooperation.
This is a reasonably accessible game theory book that discusses experiments involving
the Prisoners Dilemma. I won't repeat what you can find by
reading the
Wikipedia article (which I urge you to do; read the book too). But by the end of the book, there is a strong conclusion that as the frequency of interaction increases, the optimal strategy shifts from hostility to cooperation. This really appealed to my 60's peacenik leanings because it suggested that all you needed to do was to get people communicating, and inevitably peace would break out. It doesn't matter much the form the communication takes, all is good.
At that point in my life, the network went from a geeky toy to a moral good. I don't know how to express how thrilled I am at how it has all played out. From the effects of the network in keeping the news flowing during the
1991 Soviet coup d'état attempt, to FaceBook, Twitter, Blogging and all of todays social media.
These days I think that Sun should shorten its tagline from "The Network is the Computer" to simply "The Network Is".
My biggest disappointment with the internet is that it seems that the "killer app" that makes the economics of the Internet work is advertising...
Tue, 24 Nov 2009 4:8:52 PST
☞ Flaws In The System
-
From Forbes, no less: "In 2009, 30 million people sit unemployed in America. Yet, the speculators have managed to lift the stock market up, and the media pretends that we're having a recovery." -- As I have said in every keynote for many years, when you create a system, you create the game that plays it and if the system remains unchanged it becomes the game.
-
"It consists almost entirely of penalties for people who do things that upset the entertainment industry ... as well as a plan to beat the hell out of the video-game industry with a new, even dumber rating system. ... What isn't in there? Anything about stimulating the actual digital economy." -- Awful, shameful stuff. And the fact the Tories aren't speaking against it means we can expect no better from them.
-
As if Europe's men needed more encouragement.
Tue, 24 Nov 2009 4:8:52 PST
☞ Time for Questions
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Until the end of January instead of the middle. At this point it's all just more blows to a bruised body.
-
These are great questions which deserve (but won't receive) honest answers. By the way, I hate the name of this party and will not join or support it until it chooses a name which does not demean the victims of crimes at sea and give the pro-big-media lobby a perfect talking point with which to discredit these great arguments.
Tue, 24 Nov 2009 4:8:52 PST
☞ Mistakes That Can't Be Admitted
-
Paul Graham gets it spot on again. Apple's attitude is Google's biggest asset in the battle for the mobile market.
-
Looks like non-US developers can now submit software for the Java Store, although they can't charge for it. Glacial, but the destination is worth heading for I think.
-
This fits in with the populism-over-wisdom approach characterise by UK politics at the moment. Sugar is not the worst possible role model for today's connected society, but he has to come close. Another Mandelson decision, I am sure.
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I agree with (the ever remarkable) Quinn here. My children are now old enough to tell me if I lived up to this ideal, which is a bit scary.
Prêmio Univesitário Java 2009
Já está aberta a disputa para a maior competição universitária de Java do Ceará e uma das maiores do Brasil. O Prêmio Universitário Java estimula alunos de universidades e faculdades do estado a submeterem trabalhos acadêmicos envolvendo tecnologias Java e premia os primeiros colocados com uma viagem, uma vaga de estágio, vouchers de certificação da Sun Microsystems, entre outros prêmios. Veja a lista completa de premiação:
1º colocado: Uma viagem com tudo pago para uma conferência internacional (JavaOne, Jazoon ou outra de igual relevância) e vaga de estágio garantida na USIX.
2º colocado: Dois livros de Java, um voucher de certificação da Sun Microsystems, uma assinatura de revista impressa e um voucher para assistir ao InfoBrasil 2010.
3º colocado: Um livro de Java, um voucher de certificação da Sun Microsystems,
uma assinatura de revista digital e um voucher para assistir ao
InfoBrasil 2010.
4º colocado: Uma assinatura de revista digital.
5º colocado: Uma assinatura de revista digital.
Nesta edição do PUJ, foi criada a categoria Mobile, direcionada para trabalhos que utilizam JME (Java Micro Edition). A premiação desta nova categoria será:
1º colocado: Um celular Nokia E62.
2º colocado: Um voucher de certificação da Sun Microsystems.
Os alunos devem apresentar seus trabalhos acompanhados de professores orientadores da instituição de ensino.
O PUJ'09 é organizado pelo CEJUG, patrocinado por empresas locais e conta com apoiadores dentro e fora do estado. Acesse o regulamento da competição para mais detalhes sobre os deadlines e como submeter seus trabalhos.
Não perca esta oportunidade. Participe!
Oracle OpenWorld - A Guide for JavaOne Folks
I've gone to many
JavaOne
conferences at the
Moscone Center
but today was my first experience of a
Oracle OpenWorld.
I was very curious and I found the experience very interesting.
Although the two conferences are in the same physical space, the two experiences
are very different.
I only have an "exhibitor" pass, so I've not been able to attend any of the technical sessions
but, with those caveats, below are some observations; feel free to add
additional observations as comments to this entry.
Also check my
Flickr set.
•
OOW is significantly larger in attendance.
I've heard about 40K-45K; J1 was, at its peak, 20-25K (afair).
•
OOW uses not just Moscone North and South, but also West, and they close Howard street.
•
The tent is an integral part of the event, used for lunches, drinks and as a lounge.
•
The dress code at OOW are suits...
and very few body piercings :-)
•
Most attendees at OOW
seem to use (smart)phones to stay connected (to their admin assistants?).
•
The (internet cafe-like) area with stations to check email / browse at OOW is much smaller
than at J1
•
The expo and keynote areas are reversed between Moscone South and North.
•
The Expo at OOW is very busy, with all the big names in SIs, hardware, software, etc.
•
No more bean bags at the bottom of the stairs.
•
The developer track is 6 blocks away, at the San Francisco Hilton.
Really, the two conferences can't be more different.
Also check out
some pictures I took.
Virtual Box y VDI para ofrecer un nuevo nivel de productividad y seguridad - al igual que Sun hizo para 21.000 escritorios virtuales en la JavaOne de este año.
La gestión de IT constantemente le
pide que haga más con menos. Tradicionalmente, la atención se ha
centrado en el hardware: retorciendo más productividad de los
servidores, la consolidación de sistemas para reducir costos, y así
sucesivamente. Pero también hay oportunidades para ahorrar dinero y
mejorar la eficiencia permitiendo a la gente hacer más con menos -
en particular cuando se trata de la gestión de entornos de
escritorio.
Visualizar un entorno virtualizado
En
el servidor de la misma manera y sistemas de almacenamiento pueden
ser virtualizados para aunar recursos y mejorar las tasas de
utilización, los entornos de escritorio puede ser virtualizado para
mejorar la productividad del usuario final, manejabilidad y
seguridad.
A través de productos de virtualización como el
software VirtualBox, un único escritorio puede alojar múltiples
sistemas operativos y realizar diferentes tipos de puestos de
trabajo. Así, un PC con Windows ya no es sólo un PC - También
puede ejecutar el sistema operativo de Macintosh en una ventana, en
otra Linux, OpenSolaris, y en otro.
Por otra parte, con VirtualBox el
dispositivo de escritorio ya no se limita al número de CPU físicas.
Puede ser configurado con CPUs virtuales (hasta 32 CPUs virtuales en
un único sistema) o puede aprovechar la potencia de procesamiento de
grandes servidores.
Y con VirtualBox el dispositivo de
escritorio ya no está sujeto a las amenazas a la seguridad lo mismo
que un ordenador, porque los entornos virtuales están aislados del
medio natural y pueden ser desechados en cualquier momento. Así, los
usuarios pueden sentirse libres para probar un nuevo software o
descargar programas en un entorno virtual sin correr el riesgo de
contaminación de la máquina anfitriona.
Puedes incluso
probar un nuevo sistema operativo, como Windows 7 o la última
versión de OpenSolaris, o iniciar una instancia de un sistema
operativo heredado, como OS / 2, sin alterar nada o de poner los
recursos en riesgo.
Piense en el dispositivo de escritorio
como una casa con habitaciones diferentes para propósitos
diferentes: una "oficina" donde el trabajo se mantenga
separado del material de origen; "habitaciones familiares",
donde cada miembro de la familia tiene su propio espacio y pueden
hacer / romper cosas a voluntad zonas (ideal para los adolescentes);
"segura" donde se pueden hacer transacciones financieras
con total seguridad, incluso un "gabinete de limpieza" que
limpia los otros espacios en el fondo.
Igualmente importante,
a través de la capacidad de gestión de productos como Virtual
Desktop Infrastructure (VDI), la administración de los entornos de
escritorio virtual puede ser centralizado y racionalizado, ahorrando
tiempo y gastos administrativos. Desde equipos de sobremesa son el
centro anfitrión, sólo la pantalla, se envía al dispositivo
cliente, los datos críticos nunca sale de la red de la empresa y
puede ser administrado y respaldado por IT.
Ejemplo: Sun VirtualBox y Sun VDI en
JavaOne
Para comprender mejor el real potencial mundial de
VirtualBox de Sun y Sun VDI, miremos el ejemplo en cómo Sun
gestionó 21.000 escritorios virtuales para los asistentes de la
conferencia JavaOne de este año en San Francisco.
Sun instaló cientos de Sun Ray en
todas las zonas del Centro Moscone, donde se celebró la conferencia
JavaOne.Cada asistente se le dio una tarjeta
inteligente, como parte de su registro kit de bienvenida. Para
acceder a su casa o escritorios de trabajo de las Sun Rays, todo lo
que tenía que hacer era insertar la tarjeta inteligente en el más
próximo Sun Ray y elegir el tipo de escritorio virtual que querían:
Windows 7, Ubuntu Linux, o de OpenSolaris.
La primera vez que el usuario hizo la
elección, y elegió la máquina virtual de escritorio (VM) se ha
creado sobre la base de una plantilla de Sun VDI. La configuración
de máquina virtual se almacena en una base de datos MySQL, y la
imagen de disco virtual fue rápidamente clonado a partir de la
plantilla. Luego, Sun VDI eligió un servidor VirtualBox, puso en
marcha la nueva máquina virtual en el servidor, y autenticado en el
disco virtual. Cuando el usuario retira su tarjeta inteligente, la
máquina virtual se suspende después de un corto período de tiempo,
liberando recursos para otros usuarios. Re-inserción de la tarjeta
inteligente re-lanzado el escritorio virtual creado previamente, y la
máquina virtual fue restaurado desde el disco.
Como muchos
administradores están obligados a gestionar estos 21.000 escritorios
virtuales? Un gran total de dos.
Y el hardware de cuánto de alta
potencia se necesita para ejecutar todo? Un solo rack, con cuatro
servidores VDI (servidores Sun Fire X4450, cada uno con cuatro CPUs y
64 GB de memoria), cinco servidores VirtualBox (servidores Sun Fire
X4450, cada uno con cuatro CPUs, seis núcleos por CPU y 64 GB de
memoria). Esta configuración, por cierto, resultó ser excesiva para
las necesidades!
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