A Must Watch Security Segment "Sabotaging The Systems" on 60 Minutes

This was an excellent segment that 60 Minutes produced and showed on security issues around the globe ranging from Brazil's blackouts, to ATM hacking to hacking into CENTCOM.

Very Detailed iPhone vs. Droid Review

This is a very detailed review comparing the iPhone versus the Droid by Motorola at MobileCrunch.

The bottom line of the review is that both are very nice for any sane person :-)

Neil Groundwater's Computer History

Checkout Neil Groundwater's very historic and cool pictures of him in front of an  80 megabyte disk drive the size of a washing machine.  As Neil states, he had the opportunity to work with some of the legendary Unix engineers at Bell Laboratories and UC Berkeley.

Greg Papadopoulos, Sun CTO, Warning on Cloud Computing

                            "It's proprietary systems all over again."

I could not agree more with Greg - I think he is exactly right on with his concern.

SCAP: Important Protocol - Security Content Automation Protocol

Security Content Automation Protocol (SCAP - pronounced "ess CAP" ) is a very important security protocol that is being embraced by a number of government agencies.

Wikipedia has a nice overview I would encourage everyone to check out:

SCAP Components

• Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVE)
• Common Configuration Enumeration (CCE)
• Common Platform Enumeration (CPE)
• Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS)
• Extensible Configuration Checklist Description Format (XCCDF)
• Open Vulnerability and Assessment Language (OVAL)

These components can be used to build products that have SCAP Capabilities:

Bending Light and Catching Photons

David Brown of the Washington Post wrote a great article titled:

Optical Inventions That Fueled the Information Age

The article discusses Charles K. Kao, Willard S. Boyle and George E. Smith, who won the 2009 Nobel Prize in Physics for the work they did that led to fiber-optic data transmission and digital photography. 

The article hits on the main point that Kao achieved when it states:

 "While light normally passes through glass and does not go around corners, Kao's work -- aided by that of many other scientists and engineers -- is proof that under the right conditions, those generalities do not hold true. Sometimes light can be kept inside a strand of glass, like water in a pipe.  

It seemed hopeless until Kao and a theoretician colleague, George A. Hockham, made some measurements and calculations. They determined that if the impurities scattering the light rays could be removed from the glass, and if they used a wavelength that the glass molecules could not absorb, then much, much more light would stay inside the fiber."

The other winners, Willard S. Boyle and George E. Smith, in the article  won for their work on Charge-Coupled Devices (CCD).

The article hits on the main point that Willard S. Boyle and George E. Smith achieved when it states:

"In the late 1960s, at Bell Laboratories in New Jersey, they were working on ways to improve memory devices -- a way of storing information acquired over time. The ultimate goal was to eliminate the annoying echo that sometimes occurred in very-long-distance telephone calls. 

They used an array of small squares made from silicon-based semiconductor material. "Semiconductors" are capable of generating an electrical charge, although not as readily as metals and other conductors (hence their name). Electrodes placed nearby can then be used to hold the charges in place and keep them from dispersing. 

Like a row of dominoes of different face value, a line of small semiconductor squares called "pixels" outfitted with electrodes were able to hold a row of different charges. If a voltage was then applied to the array in the right fashion, the charges could be moved off the pixels and "read out." 

After some pondering, they realized that light falling onto the semiconductor chips was being transformed into electrical energy. (Explaining that phenomenon, called the "photoelectric effect," is what won Albert Einstein his own Nobel Prize in Physics in 1921.) With the lab lights off, that interference disappeared.

 "They put two and two together and they realized they had made an imaging device," said J. Anthony Tyson, who was at Bell Labs with the two men and is now a professor of physics at the University California at Davis.

 By combining the photoelectric effect -- light's tendency to kick electrons out of atoms, creating a charge -- and the ability to hold and move an entire array of charges in an organized fashion, they created the basis for digital photography."

The article is a must read because of the tremendous benefit that all of us have seen in our lives from the Internet to digital cameras - to just name a few.

Veterans Day - Thanks to My Father, My Cousin Chris Edstrom, Dr. Harry Foxwell and Brad Kirley

Thanks to my father John Kenneth Edstrom who did two tours of duty in Vietnam as an officer in the Air Force.  My father is also in the very unique category in that he was awarded TWO BRONZE STARS for the two tours of duty for his countless acts of bravery in his two years in Vietnam.  The Bronze Star Medal is a United States Armed Forces military decoration that may be awarded for bravery, acts of merit, or meritorious service.  

 

Thanks to my cousin Chris Edstrom who has done three tours of duty in Iraq and one (so far) in Afghanistan.  Thanks to Dr. Harry Foxwell and Brad Kirley for their service to our country.

History of Veterans Day as stated at TimeAndDate.com

On the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918 an armistice between Germany and the Allied nations came into effect. On November 11, 1919, Armistice Day was commemorated for the first time. In 1919, President Wilson proclaimed the day should be "filled with solemn pride in the heroism of those who died in the country’s service and with gratitude for the victory". There were plans for parades, public meetings and a brief suspension of business activities at 11am.


In 1926, the United States Congress officially recognized the end of World War I and declared that the anniversary of the armistice should be commemorated with prayer and thanksgiving. The Congress also requested that the president should "issue a proclamation calling upon the officials to display the flag of the United States on all Government buildings on November 11 and inviting the people of the United States to observe the day in schools and churches, or other suitable places, with appropriate ceremonies of friendly relations with all other peoples."

An Act (52 Stat. 351; 5 U. S. Code, Sec. 87a) was approved on May 13, 1938, which made November 11 in each year a legal holiday, known as Armistice Day. This day was originally intended to honor veterans of World War I. A few years later, World War II required the largest mobilization of service men in the history of the United States and the American forces fought in Korea. In 1954, the veterans service organizations urged Congress to change the word "Armistice" to "Veterans". Congress approved this change and on June 1, 1954, November 11 became a day to honor all American veterans, where ever and whenever they had served.

In 1968 the Uniforms Holiday Bill (Public Law 90-363 (82 Stat. 250)) made an attempt to move Veterans Day to the fourth Monday of October. The bill took effect in 1971. However, this caused a lot of confusion as many states disagreed with this decision and continued to hold Veterans Day activities on November 11. In 1975, President Gerald R. Ford signed Public Law 94-97 (89 Stat. 479), which stated that Veterans Day would again be observed on November 11 from 1978 onwards. Veterans Day is still observed on November 11.

Harry Foxwell always sends out a nice email to Sun employees (and I imagine others).  Today he asked the question: Do you know where your veterans are?

Tomb of the Unknowns at Arlington National Cemetery:
http://www.arlingtoncemetery.org/visitor_information/tomb_of_the_unknowns.html
National World War II Memorial: http://www.wwiimemorial.com/
Marine Corps Memorial: http://www.nps.gov/archive/gwmp/usmc.htm
US Navy Memorial: http://www.navymemorial.org/
Air Force Memorial: http://www.airforcememorial.org/
Korean War Veterans Memorial: http://www.nps.gov/kowa//index.htm
Vietnam Veterans Memorial: http://www.nps.gov/vive/index.htm
Vietnam Women's Memorial: http://www.visitingdc.com/memorial/vietnam-women%27s-memorial.htm
Iraq Veterans Memorial: http://iraqmemorial.org/

Department of Veterans Affairs: http://www.va.gov/

Motorola's Droid Looks Very Nice

Motorola's Droid could be a very hot smartphone.

A long time friend picked up one of the first Droids and absolutley loves it.  Look out iPhone....

NYC 311 - Very Cool Service For Citizens

When I was in New York City giving a keynote at the NYS Forum.  I put together a proposal for a keynote at the following event and  was introduced by Department of Information Technology and Telecommunications (DoITT) Commissioner Paul J. Cosgrave at the following event:




                            NYS Forum IT Corporate Roundtable
                                   MetroNY Program Launch
                                      September 30, 2009


I spoke on the following topic:

                            Open Government: Lessons Learned


Open Government: Lessons Learned - NYS Forum Presentatation
 
Mr. Cosgrave told me about a very cool app for the iPhone called 311 

The 311 system was designed to simplify the lives of New York City residents by having a single number for the of city residents  — questions, complaints, requests for service — through a single phone number, a Web site and an iPhone app that I put on my phone immediately.

Why can't all cities have this type of system?


                       

Electronic Medical Record Article Misses Main Point

The Washington Post has an article on October 25, 2009 called:

Electronic medical records not seen as a cure-all

The sub title is:

As White House pushes expansion, critics cite errors, drop-off in care

By Alexi Mostrous

Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, October 25, 2009 


Four of the points made in the article were:


"Anonymous reports sent to the Joint Commission, the body charged with certifying 17,000 health-care organizations; Grassley's staff; and the Food and Drug Administration disclose problems, including:
-- Faulty software that miscalculated intracranial pressures and mixed up kilograms and pounds.
-- A computer system that systematically gave adult doses of medications to children.
-- An IT program designed to warn physicians about wrong dosages that was disconnected when the vendor updated the system, leading to incorrect dosing.

This Story

• 
  
  Electronic medical records not seen as a cure-all
  
  
  
• 
  
  Letter from Sen. Grassley (pdf)
  
  
  

-- A software bug that misdiagnosed five people with herpes" 

This article misses the entire point in my opinion.  

The article fails to compare Health Care prior to electronic records and specifically the total number of deaths because electronic records did not exist.  The author digs down into low level examples of computer systems that made mistakes on a wrong dosage and then paints a broad brush that electronic records are inherently bad.   This begs the question, "so having manual paper records are better?"  Of course not.  The author misses the big picture....

My Cloud Computing Presentation at VT's ACM

Above is a photo of me (hard to see me) presenting to Virginia Tech's Association of Computing Machinery (ACM) Meeting on cloud computing.    My oldest son John is the President.   I spoke Wednesday night the 4th of November at VT for one hour and 45 minutes.   Sun Microsystems provided pizza, soft drinks and gave away very nice Java/Sun Microsystems/VT t-shirts in the school color of "Chicago Maroon".

This is the abstract that was used for my presentation:

Cloud Computing is the hottest topic in the IT industry today.  Cloud Computing is also most over loaded buzz word in the IT industry as well.  Come learn:

                What is cloud computing and what is not?
                Where cloud computing is being used and how?
                When cloud computing makes sense and when it does not?
                Why cloud computing is important for a VT student?
                What are the technical challenges of cloud computing?
                Most importantly, how cloud computing can help you at VT
                and in your career after VT?


My slides can be downloaded at VT's ACM site here.

Above is a photo that my son John took of the students and Professors who attended the ACM meeting where I presented.  I received some very nice comments from the students and professors in attendance which I greatly appreciated.

This is the first time that I presented to the VT ACM and the sixth time that Sun Microsystems provided a speaker to the ACM and picked up food and drink.  Previously, I have helped John by bringing down some real thought leaders in the computer industry:

• Chris Melissinos - Sun's Chief Gaming Officer to speak on gaming
• Dr. Bruce Haddon to speak on Java and software development
• Dr. Harry Foxwell to speak on Open Solaris and Solaris
• Curt Harpold to speak on grid computing
  
• Jim Fiori to speak on Software Perfrormance

With Oracle purchasing Sun, this may be the last time that Sun Microsystems provides a speaker.   If this turns out to be the case, I am very proud of Sun Microsystems and how it has helped VT's ACM over the past couple of years.

John is a Senior with 141 credits finishing up his BS in CS/Math and BA in Business as well as working on his Masters in CS as well this year.  I could not be more proud of him.

Edstrom's Law of Computing

Open Source Monetization: Follow the Money

• W. Mark Felt (Deep Throat) never said, “follow the money”, BUT, when it comes to open source, YOU BETTER FOLLOW THE MONEY.   
• You must know how the software is funded today and how it is funded tomorrow. 
• Open Source Monetization is an evolving with a community building source and enterprise binary model with horizontal/vertical non-open components  – understand what the open source software monetization strategy is.
  

More on My Open Government: Lessons Learned

• Users, abusers and losers.
  
  
  1. /usr/local/src
  2. /usr/local/bin
  • The 3,000 page open source guidelines document.
  • If the average person can not lift the document, then they will never read it.
  • “We're Open”.  The most over-loaded and abused sentence in computing today.  
  • Open source is a mandlebrot continuum.
  • Open source software 101
  • Make sure your data is open first
  
  

The Good, Bad and Ugly of Open Source in Government

I gave a talk in NYC called "Open Government:  Lessons Learned" and I am going to share some slides over the next few days.

•  The first motivation with open source software is typically about saving money.
• If saving money is higher than #3 on your list you likely have the wrong motivation.  Choice and  Flexibility, Security, Standards and building on a platform all should rank higher than saving money.
• You're not NSA, don't try to be.
• Unless you measure your Data Center in acres and you have floors of world class Ph.D.s , then don't fork your own OS or major application.
• There is a fine line between clever and stupid. 
• A room and/or software library full of new piece parts will end up being a history bin full of old piece parts.  Think governance.

5th Annual IT Security Automation Conference

This last week I attended The 5th Annual IT Security Automation Conference will be held on October 26-29, 2009.

I sat on a couple of panels:

• OS Vendor Panel with Microsoft and Red Hat
• Security Content Automation Protocol (SCAP - pronounced "ess CAP" )Panel
  

It was a great conference and below is the framework and the agenda.

Sponsors:	National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), National Security Agency, Defense Information Systems Agency, Department of Homeland Security.
Audience:	Public and Private Sector. Executives, Security Managers and staff, Information Technology (IT) professionals, and Developers and Integrators of Software Products and Services.
Format:	Conference, Tutorials, and Workshop.
Purpose:	Provide a common understanding for using specific open standards and new security technologies across various domains of interest including Cloud Computing, Health Information Technology (IT)/Health Information Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA), Federal Information Processing Standards (FIPS) 140, and Security Content Automation Protocol (SCAP) implementations. This conference will also provide tutorials and workshop regarding Department of Commerce, Department of Defense, and Department of Homeland Security technologies and initiatives..
Topics:	Cloud Computing (Security and Trust) DoD Data Pilot/Strategy/Architecture Health IT/Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act ( HIPAA) Crypto/FIPS140 Compliance Frameworks/800-53 Security Content Automation Protocol (SCAP)

In my opinion, the key points from this conference were:

• This conference is growing at a tremendous rate.
• SCAP is very real and very important.
• The quality of the attendees were very impressive.
• The vendor exhibits were very informative.
• There is a genuine outreach to vendors from the community and from the vendors to the community.
• It was great seeing so many long time friends at this conference.
• The food in Baltimore is always great :-)
  

Encryption Standard: Inception Until Full Implementation

When I attended The 5th Annual IT Security Automation Conference will be held on October 26-29, 2009, I learned an interesting fact regarding the time it takes for a new encryption standard to reach full maturity. 

This is from the initial point when NIST advertises they are considering a new standard, it has been advertised for admissions, the winner has been selected and finally when it has been fully implemented in the community and industry.

The time it takes?  Nine years.

GREAT Book: Advice Written on the Back of a Business Card by Roger Smith

This summer, Dr. Roger Smith, CTO for PEO STRI, asked me a very thought provoking question:

"What one piece of career advice would you write on the back of your business card?  Imagine that you are about to give your business card to a young person entering your profession. But first, you turned that card over and wrote a short piece of advice to help them get started in their career. What would you write on the back of your own business card to help this person? "

Roger turned this into a GREAT book that I highly recommend and is called:

Advice Written on the Back of a Business Card

This book provides fantastic advice from a variety of industry thought leaders that is succinct and to the point for anyone who wants to improve their career or life.  This book accomplishes a very rare feat  - it provides clear, concise and compelling advice for anyone.

The book can be purchased at Amazon.com here. 

The book can be purchased at Barnes and Noble here. 

The book can be purchase at Roger's site here as well.

My personal response was captured in the book as well :-)
     
I do have three things that I tell any young person, four things if I think they will listen and five things if I know them.

For any young person, my career advice is:

1) Life is short.
2) Death is certain.
3) If you do not make your own decisions now, time will make them for you.

If I think they are listening to me:

4) Always pay yourself first.  I tell the story about the importance of compound interest using the twins story on my blog.

NOTE: The entry above is from the presentation that I give to Colleges and Unviversities.

Best Halloween EVER 1991 Sunrise in Vienna Austria - SuperSPARC Chip and Socket :-)

Above is a photo from a 1991 Sunrise in Vienna, Austria on Halloween night.  Julie and I were attending Sunrise, which is Sun's highest honor it could give an individual employee, as part of a large group.  I went as a SuperSPARC processor and Julie went as the socket :-)

Brazil's National Health Care System

Brazil is an amazing country.  I would love to visit there some time to learn how they can be so forward thinking and progressive.  Here are some interesting statistics about Brazil and Health Care System:

• The Brazilian National Health Care System treats about 1.2 million inpatients and 100 million outpatients per month, providing everything from immunization to heart transplants.
• Complex, diverse computing systems that can effectively exchange huge amounts of patient data are a central requirement of a seamless health care system
• One of the main goals of the BNHCP was to avoid vendor lock-in or proprietary technology.  
• Two technologies -- Java technology and the XML data format -- were chosen to achieve this goal.  
• The nature of the project called for multiple vendors and system integrators to implement the system, and it was necessary to ease integration without hampering the different implementations.  
• XML, Java technology, and HTTP were used as the "glue" to bring these diverse implementations together relatively quickly.
  

40th Anniversary of the First Internet Message

Yesterday, October 29th, 2009 was the 40th anniversary of the first message sent on the Internet.

The two letter sent were "lo"  as in "lo and behold", but they were trying to get "login".

As CNN reported when speaking with Leonard Kleinrock:

"But there was no other computer to talk to. So a month later, Stanford Research Institute received its interface message processor, or IMP, connected it to their host computer, and we created the first piece of the backbone network when a 50-kilobit-per-second line was connected between UCLA and SRI.

What we wanted to do was send a message essentially from UCLA to SRI's host. And frankly, all we wanted to do was log in -- to type an l-o-g, and the remote time-sharing system knows what you're trying to do."

The systems crashed after the second letter was sent.  Leonard Kleinrock of UCLA sent the message from UCLA to Stanford Research Institute (SRI).  The two letters traveled about 400 miles.

As National Geograpic reports, "Packet-switching was the original transmission mechanism [for our network] in 1969 and is still the underlying technology of the Internet today," said Kleinrock.

Here is a great picture of the Interface Message Processor (IMP) that sent the first message.

Checkout this cool video on the start of the Internet. It also shows the last video game I played from beginning to end - Pong :-)

What Is SOA?

• First, SOA IS NOT A PRODUCT
• SOA is a common sense approach that is both time and road/track tested software development style for building applications using services available in a network (think Sun Microsystems “The Network is the Computer”)
• These software services are relatively large-grained:
  (like: Fraud Detection, Address Change, Payment Management, Trade Execution) 
• Implementations are shielded by a public interfaces aka services  
• The change to an underlying implementation, should not change the existing interface.
• Services form building blocks of  SOA applications 
• Applications that use these services are called Composite Applications
  

SOA Basics To Think About

Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) Basics To Think About...

Common Services are defined for all developers to use

The perfect program would simply call existing services SOA is about being pragmatic:

• Iterative and incremental adoption and build out “Wrap and Reuse” instead of “Rip and Replace”
• Going back into legacy code that is running fine, rip it apart, insert new functionality is typically not a good idea
• Sometimes a rewrite in a more open and scalable language is the correct answer
• The rules to use create and use these services is called governance
  Governance is the BOTH the definition and enforcement of these rules aka policies
  

Brazil and Java

• A Java application sent and received 25 million income tax filings in two months.  That was 100% of all income tax filings.  
• The main news organization stated that the number of submissions had surpassed all of their estimates, there were no problems reported, no last minute issues and they were “without words” in their analysis :-) 
• Java is the language that is used to control 100% of all external commerce of Brazil Java is used in all the government owned banks for the ATMs 
• A Java application manages the education system for all students in all public schools in Brazil.
• Java and the LWUIT (Light Weight UI Toolkit) will be the Brazilian Digital TV Standard.
  

Thanks Mark Hapner - Distinguished Engineer at Sun Microsystems

This past Friday was Mark Hapner's last day at Sun Microsystems.  Mark was a Distinguished Engineer at Sun Microsystems.

Mark has been a real friend and mentor.  I was very fortunate to be able
to learn from Mark over the years.  This included not only software at Sun Microsystems but in our private lives as well.  Mark is a real Corvette and automotive expert.  We went to Corvettes at Carlisle last year which was a lot of fun.

Mark was hired as a member of Sun's object technology group to work on the specs Sun was preparing for submission to OMG.   Mark later joined JavaSoft in early '96 to work with Graham Hamilton and Rick Cattell on JDBC which lead to the creation of J2EE.

Mark is a real thought leader and just a great guy.  Mark can not be replaced and will be sorely missed.  I wish Mark nothing but the best and hope we will remain in contact.  

Thanks Mark.

The Two Things You Need To Know

Glen Whitman, Economist( (his Two Things You Need To Know is here), was asked the following at a diner:

“What are the two things you need to know about Economics?  Glen replied with:
         
                  1) Incentives matter.
                  2) There is no such thing as a free lunch.

He then came to the conclusion that:  "For every subject, there are really only two things you really need to know. Everything else is the application of those two things, or just not important.”

I think Glen Whitman is brilliant in his clear, concise and compelling summary of topics.


“I would have written a shorter letter, but I did not have the time.”  Mark Twain ended in a letter to a friend

Droid Does Advertisements/Commercials

I love the new Android 2.0 "Droid Does" commercials.

• iDon't customize
• iDon't have interchangeable batteries
• iDon't run simultaneous apps
• iDon't allow open development   

      Everything iDon't

Have I mentioned that I want Android to kick the iPhone's butt in the market place (even though I currently own an iPhone as do two of my sons) ?

Successful SOA in the Enterprise

I am in Moncton today to give a keynote on SOA in the Enterprise.  I am going to share some of the data over the next week regarding successful SOA in the enterprise.  This is an extremely strong area for Sun.  Below is just one example of Java being used for a variety of applications in Brazil.

• The Brazilian National Health Care System treats about 1.2 million inpatients and 100 million outpatients per month, providing everything from immunization to heart transplants. 
• Complex, diverse computing systems that can effectively exchange huge amounts of patient data are a central requirement of a seamless health care system 
• One of the main goals of the BNHCS was to avoid vendor lock-in or proprietary technology.   Two technologies -- Java technology and the XML data format -- were chosen to achieve this goal.  
• The nature of the project called for multiple vendors and system integrators to implement the system, and it was necessary to ease integration without hampering the different implementations.
• XML, Java technology, and HTTP were used as the "glue" to bring these diverse implementations together relatively quickly. 
• A Java application sent and received 25 million income tax filings in two months.  That was 100% of all income tax filings.   The main news organization stated that the number of submissions had surpassed all of their estimates, there were no problems reported, no last minute issues and they were “without words” in their analysis :-)
• Java is the language that is used to control 100% of all external commerce of Brazil Java is used in all the government owned banks for the ATMs
• A Java application manages the education system for all students in all public schools in Brazil.
• Java and the LWUIT (Light Weight UI Toolkit) will be the Brazilian Digital TV Standard.
  

Scott McNealy's Keynote at Oracle World - Top 10 Innovations at Sun

If you are a fan of Sun Microsystems, a fan of Scott McNealy or just a student of computer history, this video of Scott McNealy at Oracle World is a must watch. 

Scott listed his Top 10 Innovations at Sun:

1. NFS/PC-NFS Technology
2. SPARC
3. Open Source Technology
4. BSD + UNIX System 5 = Solaris
5. Java (Java Card, Java SE/ME/EE and JavaFX)
6. E10K Starfire (came from a Cray acquisition)
7. ZFS/Open StorateFlash (Exadata)
8. Project BlackBox
9. Sun Ray
10. CMT (Chip Multi-Threading)

I agree with this list except for Project Black Box.  I think DTrace should be in its place.  I am biased, but I don't think there is a company that has been a better steward of technology and innovation than Sun Microsystems.

James Gosling, the father of Java, also came on to speak about what he sees happening with Oracle and Java.

Neil Groundwater Wearing Virginia Tech Solaris Shirt in Africa :-)

Above is Neil Groundwater wearing the Virginia Tech Solaris shirt I designed for my son John when he was a Sun Campus Ambassador and President of the ACM.

Thanks Neil for having Beth take this very cool photo!

My Global Chief Technologist Role for Software At Sun

I was in Milan, Italy this past week meeting with lots of customers from all around the globe.  On the way home, I had lots of time :-) to think about how much I enjoy my role as Global Chief Technologist (CT) for Global Systems Engineering in the Software Line of Business.   This was very exciting for me as I was named the CT for North America's Software Practice in the summer of 2004 and a couple of years later I was the CT for America's Software Practice which included both North and South America.

It was on June 4th, 2009 I was announced as the Chief Technologist (CT) for Global Systems Engineering in the Software Line of Business reporting to James Hollingshead.

This Earth Rise Photo reminds me of my role :-)

This position of being the CT for Global Systems Engineering Line Of Business has allowed me to further  emphasize the global nature of my job and here is just a list of some of the functions I have greatly enjoyed:

Working with Sun's global customers, global partners and global employees is something that I truly enjoy doing on a daily basis.

Providing input to Sun's Software Business Units (BU) via the Product/Technology Leads Group that I lead was a key factor for Sun's Software direction.  We would gather global input from Sun's customers, Partners and employees in a very organized fashion.


The SoftWare Technical Roundtable (SWTR) is a weekly technology show that I initially hosted from a North America, then an America's perspectice and a few years ago I took it global for both Sun employees and Sun's Partners.

I am very proud of the work I have done with MTConnect, MTAG and being on the MTConnect Institute Board of Directors - all of which is global in nature.

I have greatly enjoyed being Principal Field Technologist (PFT) Guide for SEs around the globe.
Attending the World Congress for Information Technology was a tremendous experience.

It was a real pleasure to lead the creation of Software Genius University (SGU) with some of our top SEs in the Software Practice and across Sun that delivered 760 hours of content and to see that be embraced globally as well.

I was the "father" of the Mid Atlantic Area Technology Center for Sun.  This multi-million dollar Center had over 300 customers from around the globe through it in just over seven years and has posted world class industry leading benchmarks.  The Center won the 1996 World Wide System Engineering Creativity Award.

Just selecting one global trip of note is hard, but when a small group of us went to Bangalore to meet with Sun's Engineering group and spending a week there it was very educational and interesting.

Going to Puerto Rico to speak in front of 200 Presidents of companies from around the globe was a trip to remember as well.

Working Java One every year is always very education and interesting to talk technology with folks from around the globe.

Attending seven of Sun's prestigious Sunrise trips that were recognized globally was always a thrill.

These are just a small fraction of the global activities I have had, but I thought it was worth capture at least some of these...

Google's Android - I Hope and Expect it to beat the iPhone

I have an iPhone and like it for most of the stuff that is not that important.  What I mean is that after getting an iPhone it became quite clear why business people will carry both an iPhone and a Blackberry.   The reason is that Apple has a choke hold on creative business apps such as email.  There is an article I just read in the New York Times about Android where there is much great emphasis on the developer.


I would absolutely love to see Android kick the iPhone's rear in the market place. I do not have anything against Apple or my iPhone 3GS, I just want to see open systems win.  Also, don't get me started on Google Voice and the iPhone :-)

SPARCstation IPC Can Be Still Be Useful :-)

This is someone's actual urn - a SPARCstation IPC:

Personally, I would like to think my "forever after" is worth more than 15.8
MIPS, but an IPC is about the right physical size.  Check out the caption as
well on the IPC - priceless :-)

Reminder That The Open Source Tipping Point HAS ALREADY Occurred

It is worth reminding everyone that it has been almost a year and a half since Gartner stated that the tipping point in Open Source has already occurred.   

Gartner stated that 2/3 of clients are using open source software in Mission Critical Applications!

Open Government: Lessons Learned - NYS Forum Presentatation

Last week I was in New York City giving a keynote at the NYS Forum.  I put together a proposal for a keynote at the following event:

                            NYS Forum IT Corporate Roundtable
                                   MetroNY Program Launch
                                      September 30, 2009
There were only two proposals accepted and mine was one of them, which I felt great about:

                            Open Government: Lessons Learned

Dave Edstrom has worked in the computer industry for 31+ years in the Washington, DC area. Dave meets with countless government agencies who are implementing open source with the goal of increasing the quality of services while reducing costs.   Dave will share the good, the bad and the ugly of open source initiatives in the government with an emphasis on applying these lessons learned not only today, but also into the future of the cloud.

The talk went exceptionally well and I received a number of very positive comments and discussions for follow up.  I am looking forward to working with the great folks of NYS Forum.  Below is the overall agenda of the day:
Below is the agenda that  I created for this talk:

• First, Some Common Vocabulary
• The Good, The Bad and The Ugly of Open Source Software in Government
       We'll get Bad and Ugly out of the way first :-) 
• How To Create A Open Source Revolution 
• Clearing Up The Clouds 
• The BIG Picture Points To Remember
  

As one of my slides points out:

• The first motivation with open source software is typically about saving money.
• If saving money is higher than #3 on your list you likely have the wrong motivation.  Choice and  Flexibility, Security, Standards and building on a platform all should rank higher than saving money.
• You're not NSA, don't try to be. Unless you measure your Data Center in acres and you have floors of world class Ph.D.s , then don't fork your own OS or major application.
• There is a fine line between clever and stupid. (great Spinal Tap line :-)
  
• A room and/or software library full of new piece parts will end up being a history bin full of old piece parts.  Think governance. 

Thanks to Chris Hankin and Mike Dergurahian of Sun Microsystems for their great pointers and suggestions!
I will include more specifics and photos in later postings when I get back from Milan, Italy next week.

In Milan, Italy Attending EMO MILANO 2009 - Machine Tool Conference - MTConnect Intro

I am in Milan, Italy this week week attending EMO MILANO 2009.  I am attending for Sun Microsystems and working the MTConnect Institute demonstration booth meeting with customers, OEMs, vendors and Partners.    EMO MILANO is a HUGE machine tool conference.  What is a machine tool?  

I will meet with Sun's customers later this week to discuss cloud computing as well as MTConnect.   

What is MTConnect?

By far the most fun and most satisfaction that I have had in my 29+ years in the computer industry and my 20 1/2 years at Sun Microsystems has been working with the Association for Manufacturing Technology (AMT).
AMT's membership includes machine tool and software companies used in the CAD/CAM industry. Machine tools are the large machines that are used to create a variety of parts such as engine blocks out of raw materials typically by using a variety of cutting devices. AMT's membership also includes software companies used in the CAD/CAM industry. This is a classic American industry. This industry employees many of my relatives who live in Minnesota and Wisconsin.
Back to the beginning of the story. I was ask to line up a Sun Manufacturing Executive to speak at AMT's Annual Member Meeting in October 2006. When my third contact at Sun was no longer available to speak, I called the President of AMT, John Byrd, to apologize that we had let AMT down. After finishing the half-hour long conversation with Mr. Byrd, Peter Eelman, VP of Marketing for AMT, called me and asked if I would like to do the keynote. While I was flattered that I would be asked to give this keynote, I explained I would Need to get up to speed on the machine tool industry.

To prepare for the Annual Meeting, I spent two days in Chicago at the International Manufacturing Technology Show (IMTS) meeting with a number of companies in mid September. IMTS is the world's largest trade show of machine tool companies. I was very fortunate to have Paul Warndorf, ATM's CTO, taking me through IMTS introducing me to the largest as well as the most influential hardware and software machine tool-CAD/CAM companies.

At the end of the second day I met with John Byrd, along with a number of his VPs, to discuss what he learned. I told them I felt the machine tool industry did not have a manufacturing problem, but a computer science collaboration problem. When I inquired on the economics of our industry, I was told that the American machine tool companies have seen their domestic market share go from 70% in 1986 to 15% in 2006.

I made two suggestions for the machine tool industry:

1) They needed a wakeup call to start a revolution.
2) They needed to hear from someone who has led technology revolutions.

I said that I could, with proper preparation, do the wakeup call. The real challenge was that I knew of only one person who had the credentials to discuss the technology revolution that our machine tool industry CEOs would be able to relate to. That person was Dr. Dave Patterson of University California at Berkeley. I told AMT about Dr. Patterson's leadership with RISC and RAID. I said I would reach out to Dr. Patterson, but I felt the odds that Dr. Patterson would be available to do this, in a little over five weeks time, would be a long shot at best.

Fortunately for the American machine tool industry, Dr. Patterson agreed to change his busy schedule to come to speak at our member meeting.

There were numerous emails, con calls and meetings during that brief five week period to bring both Dr. Patterson and me up to speed as well as to collaborate on the wake up call and the revolution or "moon shot" as I called it.

The title of my talk was, "How The Internet's Participation Age Will Drive Dramatic Changes In The Machine Tool Industry".





Historically, the Machine Tool industry has been very Microsoft centric from the developer tools to the systems running the actual machine tools on the shop floor. I drove home the importance of open systems and open standards to AMT's members. I discussed the importance of taking advantage of the grid to reduce costs. Embracing standards has been a huge problem for our industry. In 2005, the manufacturing industry lost $90 billion dollars in data incompatibility costs. I discussed Sun's NFS Connectathons as a viable mechanism we could model to take standards from theory to reality.
The title of Dr. Patterson's talk was "Creating a Thriving Manufacturing Base in 21st Century America".




Dr. Patterson explained the "miracle" of university research. Dr. Patterson pointed to one example after another of university research efforts that turned into multi-billion dollar a year companies and industries. As he summarized his presentation, Dr. Patterson issued a set of challenges to the CEOs in attendance to start the revolution. There was a lengthy Q&A session after Dr. Patterson's talk.

The meeting was a tremendous success. Dr. Patterson were brilliant and I was not too bad myself in providing a wakeup call and issuing a set of challenges to our industry with a clear framework to accomplish these very important goals.

MTConnect is now being officially introduced to Europe via EMO MILANO 2009!

Key Java Stats

Key Java Stats
Java has become an integral part of our daily lives...
 
2.6 billion Java enabled mobile devices

850+ million Java desktop computers, 91% of worldwide desktops

5.5 billion Java cards

40+ million Java powered TV devices (Blu-ray players, Set top boxes)

6.5 billion total Java enabled devices

And a vibrant environment with a growing developer community:

6.5+ million Java developers worldwide

850,000 GlassFish downloads a month

33,000 GlassFish registrations a month

7,000 GlassFish developer community members

250+ million downloads of the JavaFX runtime and 400+ thousand downloads of the JavaFX SDK

Great Calendar App on iPhone - Informant

I have been using this calendar app called Informant for a few months now and
with the recent upgrade it now falls in the category of one of the best
calendaring apps I have ever used on any smart phone.  It has tons of very
useful features.

The other thing that really impressed me was how quickly I got answers back to
my questions and could put in RFEs.  I would send an email late at night or on
a weekend and get an answer back in minutes.  Maybe it is just one person on
the other end :-) but it was certainly very responsive in my case.

The only gotcha to be aware of is Apple's control of the SDK that does
not allow for any background processing.  As they state:

         "We do not sync directly with the iPhone Calendar or support off-line
         alarms due to lack of access to that functionality by the legal iPhone
         SDK."

The simple workaround is that you simply sync back to the iPhone's calendar
and/or get remote push alarms.  I use Informant to sync to Google's Calendar
and then sync to iPhone's calendar.  Yes, it sounds like too many steps, but it
just works.

Just as an FYI I have no financial or other interest in Informant - I just like
the product and thought I would pass it on  :-)

Fifth Annual IT Security Conference in Baltimore October 26th-29th

I am attending an IT Security Conference in Baltimore the end of October.  The details and agenda look quite interesting.


There are a number of sessions discussing Secure Content Automation Protocol (SCAP).

The net/net is that this looks like a great conference and I will report back after attending.

Very Interesting Larry Ellison Interview by Ed Zander

The Churchill Club had an 1 1/2 hour interview with Ed Zander interviewing Larry Ellison.  Definitely worth checking out.

SunCLONE Sun April Fools Prank 2001

As I mentioned, I will point you to some of the contributions to Sun that a few of us made over the years that made it to this site, specifically some April Fool's Pranks :-)
  
This was the same team that was responsible for Govassic Park: John Meyer, Neil Pierson and Dave Edstrom. 

SunCLONE

John Meyer wrote this up as well for TheNetworkIsTheComputer.COM.


Pulling an April Fool’s Day prank on your Area Vice President is a tricky thing, but one that the Southern Area pulled off marvelously in 2001. The team of renegade engineers responsible for Govassic Park did it again, this time to Sun VP Gary Grimes.
The prank involved Java, cloning, a spit-and-polish mint-condition Corvette engine, and robots, and must be seen to be believed.

Oddly, we put the web page on my external site, where an industry analyst stumbled upon it some days later.   I immediately received a frantic phone call from a worried Sun Analyst Relations person who said the analyst was speculating that the joke was in some way related to discontent within the Sun employee community around Sun’s then-newly-announed SunONE software initiative. Gimme a break, it was an April Fool’s joke!

Govassic Park - Sun April Fools Prank 1997

As I mentioned, I will point you to some of the contributions to Sun that a few of us made over the years that made it to this site, specifically some April Fool's Pranks :-)
  

Govassic Park

John Meyer wrote the text below for TheNetworkIsTheComputer.COM:

Dr. Dennis Govoni was the Sun Southern Area’s senior network engineer (later Chief Technologist for Sun Federal) and one of the most satisfying people in the world to torture. Dave Edstrom, Southern Area Systems Engineer, Neil Pierson, Federal Region systems engineer and multimedia ambassador, and yours truly, John Meyer, Federal Region systems engineer and technical systems ambassador, hatched a plan for April Fool’s Day 1997 when we found out Dennis would be in California for two weeks starting March 31st.

Dennis has his Ph.D. in Botany and our first thought was to turn his office into a miniature rain forest, complete with flora, fauna, waterfalls, and so forth. But the expense and difficulty in locating appropriate materials for the goof ruled this out. Then we hit on the idea: let’s use a Jurassic Park theme. This was just what we wanted. It was cheap, easy, and fun. Dave and Neil had five boys under the age of eight between them, so stocking the office with dinosaurs, Jurassic Park paraphernalia, and toys was certainly no problem.  I spent most of Easter Sunday preparing a “Govassic Park” logo and web page, while Dave collected toy dinosaurs and Neil set up two live video feeds on Sun’s world-wide internal network that would tie into our web page. This meant that anyone in Sun could see a real-time picture of Dennis’ office and anyone who walked into it for two whole weeks and there was nothing Dennis could do about it. Remember, this was 1997: real-time video on the Internet (let alone Sun’s wide-area network) was unheard of at the time.

When all was in place around 9 AM on the 1st, we sent out an e-mail to just about every Sun employee in the world, inviting each and every one of them to visit our web page.    Meanwhile, Neil collected some very interesting statistics on who visited, when they saw the page, and where they were from.


See the pictures and reminisce at http://www.wspot.net/sun/goofs/govassic/fool.html

The Network Is The Computer - Sun History Site

As Sun winds down and is likely completed absorbed by Oracle, there is a tendancy of the long time employees to reminisce.  A sign of getting old I guess :-)   A very cool site is Sun's The Network Is The Computer

I blogged about this history of the phrase, "The Network is the Computer" a few weeks ago.

Next few days I will point you to some of the contributions to Sun that a few of us made over the years that made it to this site, specifically some April Fool's Pranks :-)

Humans Do NOT Have Not Multiprocessing, Multithreaded Brains Stanford Study Says....

While having lunch with my long time and good friend Brian Raymor in Seattle, the topic of human multitasking came up.  Brian was kind enough to send me the Multitasking Stanford Study done by study conducted by Stanford researchers Eyal Ophir, Clifford Nass and Anthony Wagner.  The article written by Adam Gorlick and Jack Hubbard.

It is a GREAT study!   The link above also has a video with it.  This is a must read article in my opinion.  There is a great statement made in the video, "multitaskers are lousy at multitasking."

Here  are a couple of points from the article: 
                  
"High-tech jugglers are everywhere – keeping up several e-mail and instant message conversations at once, text messaging while watching television and jumping from one website to another while plowing through homework assignments. But after putting about 100 students through a series of three tests, the researchers realized those heavy media multitaskers are paying a big mental price.
"They're suckers for irrelevancy," said communication Professor Clifford Nass, one of the researchers whose findings are published in the Aug. 24 edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. "Everything distracts them.""

This backs up several, ok many, conversations that I have had with my sons about multitasking:

                        "Sorry, you're not multi-threaded with multiple CPUs in your skull,
                         *no* humans are - turn off the damn TV, iPod,
                          video game and concentrate on ONE TASK AT A TIME!"



 

Apple, Let Google Voice in the App Store!

The Washington Post has an article today stating the "FCC is looking into Apple's block on Google Voice App as part of a bigger investigation into how wireless industry practices affect consumers."

Good!  

While I like my iPhone, I can not stand that some of the best apps out there are either blocked by Apple or that some software vendors simply do not even port to the iPhone because they know Apple will either not allow their app in or worse, Apple has such a hold on multi-tasking in their SDK that it makes true business apps almost a joke.  This is why you see businessmen carry a Blackberry and an iPhone.  There is no reason that the iPhone could not be a serious business tool.  I had better calendar and email on my old beatup Treo 650 than I do on my iPhone.  That is just ridiculous.  Yes, my Apple fanboy friends (not npg BTW)  like to say things like, "but Dave, while all the business apps are lousy individually, together they are fantastic and beat anything out there."  OK, I was never great at math, but a bunch of  "C-" apps do not add up to an "A+" smart phone.   


I want my google phone number and it should not take the FCC to get involved to get it for me on my iPhone.  I really hope Android takes off in a huge way.  We need an open source alternative in the mega-proprietary Apple iPhone world....

NYS Forum IT Corporate Roundtable on September 30th

I am speaking at the following event:

NYS Forum IT Corporate Roundtable
MetroNY Program Launch
September 30, 2009
8:30am  10:30am

NYC Human Resources Administration
180 Water Street, 12th Floor
New York, NY 10038

Below is the description of what I will speaking on:


Dave Edstrom has worked in the computer industry for 31+ years in the Washington, DC area.   Dave meets with countless government agencies who are implementing open source with the goal of increasing the quality of services while reducing costs.  Dave will share the good, the bad and the ugly of open source initiatives in the government with an emphasis on applying these lessons learned not only today, but also into the future of the cloud.

Alan Turing Receives a Posthumous Apology from Prime Minister Gordon Brown

A week ago, Alan Turing received an apology (posthumously) from Prime Minister Gordon Brown.   Below is the final part of Brown's apology:

"It is thanks to men and women who were totally committed to fighting fascism, people like Alan Turing, that the horrors of the Holocaust and of total war are part of Europe's history and not Europe's present. So on behalf of the British government, and all those who live freely thanks to Alan's work, I am very proud to say: we're sorry. You deserved so much better" 

Alan Turing is recognized as true genius whose works during the war can not be overstated.  It is nice to see this apology and I hope that the next step of knighthood for Alan Turing will happen.  It is not an overstatement to say that without Alan Turing, the world could be a very, very different place today.


The Turing Test is still the canonical human intelligence test today and probably for a long, long time.


 While the human race has progressed, we are still a long ways off in terms of some of our stupid biases.  If Alan Turing was born 45 years later, he would have been a multi-millionaire today as his genius would have been recognized and he would have his pick of companies to work for.  However, if Alan Turing was born 45 years later, the number of free countries on planet earth would likely be much, much less than today....

My $1Million 1994 Ford Taurus Is Gone....

In April 1995 I exercised 4,000 options at $4.45 a share (split adjusted) to purchase a fully loaded 1994 Ford Taurus.  Those 4,000 options gave me $17,800 to purchase the car and I took a little money out for some other minor things.  Most of the money went for the 1994 Ford Taurus.

Below is a picture of the Taurus before it was put on the trailer.  I gave it to Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) and they sell it. I guess they let me know how much they sold it for and it is a tax break or something like that.  I really don't care since I doubt I could have gotten $300 for it.   It failed only one test by .10% for CO% at 15mph.   I tried BG44K and that helped some, but not quite enough.  It would have required too much diagnostics and electrical work as well as fuel work that simply did not make sense with John and Mike at VT and Tim not yet driving.

It was a good car, good tires, good brakes, but no A/C, ripped interior and I had this cable you had to pull to get a better connection from the battery to the starter.  Both John and Michael (my sons) learned how to drive on the Taurus.  I once pulled a deer head out of my neighbor's trash and mounted it to the Taurus before John left for school his Senior year during the Holiday Season.  He was not as thrilled as I was :-)   When the A/C went Michael asked what he would do when it got hot out with no A/C.  I told Michael that growing up we had 455 A/C.  I told Michael that 455 A/C is open four windows and drive 55mph :-)

 Below is my custom tag that no one ever figured out, including Neil Groundwater :-)  My wife Julie said, "NO ONE WILL EVER GET YOUR LICENSE PLATE!".  I said, "you're wrong, Neil Groundwater will get it first try."  Neil is brilliant, but Julie was right about this one :-)   John and Michael HATED the fact that the Taurus had custom tags.  I remember John came home one day after driving the Taurus home as a Junior and said some Senior girl said to him, "hey John, the only custom tags you should have on your car is POS!"  I felt it was important for my boys to appreciate cars by starting out at the bottom - plus it was cheaper to insure :-)

Anyway, back to the story.  On August 28th, 2000 SUNW was trading for $255.62 a share (adjusted for splits).   Sooooo, my 1994 Ford Taurus was worth $1,022,480  (which was 4,000 * $255.62)

I told the story back at a Sun meeting and the funny part of it was  once (years later) I was at a large Sun meeting and this Sun VP gets up there and tells MY STORY.  I raise my hand and say, "I'm the guy.  I STILL OWN that Ford Taurus."


The Taurus was still worth $36,880 when I gave it away.  Do you think I can write it off on my taxes this year? :-)

The Reality of Data Transfer - Pigeons :-)

There is a great example of data transfer challenges done in a humorous way:

As Engadget stated:   "Unlimited IT, so exasperated by South Africa's leading supplier of slow internet connectivity that it pitted a Telkom ADSL line against a real-live homing pigeon in a 60-mile data transmission race. The pigeon arrived with the 4GB memory stick in just over an hour with another hour required to load the data onto the computer. As for Telkom? Well, after 2 hours it had barely reached 4%."

The canonical example of moving lots of data is the truckload of DVDs or the 747 full of DVDs is faster than wirelines.

MTConnect Institute and MTConnect Technical Advisory Group Meetings

I am on the Board of Directors for the MTConnect Institute and I am a member of the MTConnect Technical Advisory Group (MTAG).  Last week we held meetings for both groups in Latrobe, PA at NCDMM.    The meetings were very successful and the MTConnect open and royalty free standard continues to gain momentum.


The National Center for Defense Manufacturing and Machining (NCDMM) was established in 2003 to address and support the broad manufacturing and machining needs of the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) and its Suppliers.  NCDMM's Headquarters in the same complex with Kennametal.   As stated on Kennametal's homepage, Kennametal has engineered innovative metal-cutting products and techniques for nearly 70 years using complex metallurgy and materials science in tungsten carbide, ceramics, high-speed steels and other materials.

One of the great things about staying involved with MTConnect is that opportunity to visit such great organizations such as NCDMM and great companies such as Kennametal.   The President of NCDMM, John VanKirk, was kind enough to take us to the Latrobe Golf Course that Arnie Palmer owns and where Arnie learned how to play golf.   It was Arnie's 80th birthday the second day of our MTConnect Meetings which was September 10th, 2009.

Mr. VanKirk was kind enough to arrange for a tour of Kennametal and allowed us to take some pictures that were in the public area.  Below is a photo that I took:

What you are looking at above is the classic V twin from Harley Davidson.  What Kennametal does for Harley Davidson is an extrude honing process to clean up the interior passages.  Extrude honing is essentially forcing a liquid that has abrasives in it that is forced through passages to clean up internal passages.

PC Control Irritrol Software and Support ROCKS!

I am using a young person's term for great software and support because I think it most accurately reflects how a top notch piece of software and support should work.

The definition of a great software, great hardware, a great car or just great technology is if you appreciate or like it better after having used it the first six months. A great piece of software is PC Control's Irritrol sprinkler control software.


When I was looking at a sprinkler system three years ago I realized that I wanted a nice interface and not the typical box of dials in my garage.  I found exactly what I was looking for with PC Control's Irritrol sprinkler control software.

Below are some of the features I find very useful from PC Control's Irritrol homepage:

Software provides simple, drag-and-drop zone scheduling from a home computer Two-way handheld remote allows system checks and manual operation of zones from up to 1,000' line of sight

Photos of the homeowner’s actual home and yard make zone identification simple Web connectivity allows schedules to be sent over the Internet to and from the contractor or Irritrol for suggestions or changes

Scheduling Advisor™ saves water by adjusting zones according to online weather forecasts Scheduling simplicity makes it easy to customize a schedule to comply with local watering restrictions Rain Sensor compatibility means system can shut off automatically when it rains

This sprinkler control software makes life so much easier because you make
all of your changes on the computer screen as opposed to going to the garage and turning some dials.  I really like how they architected the system that has the two way remote that allows you to walk around the yard and control your sprinklers directly if you choose to.  Your changes on the screen are tranmitted from the two-way hand held remote to the controller in the garage.  The controller in the garage has a 9V battery as backup in case you lose power.  This way you do not lose your sprinkler schedules.

The support is FANTASTIC as well.  Whenever I had a question, I was always amazed how quickly and thoroughly my questions were answered.  My questions had nothing to do with the great user interface or software, but rather how I could more easily move all the data from one PC to another after I have created sprinkler configuration files.

I would strongly recommend anyone who is buying a sprinkler systems to check out PC Control's Irritrol software.

Microsoft's Great Intern Program

I would be remiss if I did not thank Microsoft for a fantastic intern program that my oldest son John participated in this summer.

John spent the summer in Redmond working on the next version of Windows.  Microsoft provided a fantastic experience both during the work day as well as nights and weekends.  As a parent and someone who has been in the computer industry for 31 years, this is the best intern program that I have ever heard of.

As theodp wrote yesterday on Slashdot    "Despite layoffs and a blip in earnings, the Chicago Trib reports that Microsoft's summer interns still enjoy the VIP treatment. Although there were 20% fewer of them this year than last, still 85% of the interns are offered full-time jobs. In addition to being paid $4,600-$6,000 a month, a housing stipend, and relocation costs for the summer, the 600 or so Microsoft apprentices enjoyed other perks — such as a police escort to speed their way to a private museum party where they screened the most recent Harry Potter movie and were given a free Xbox 360. 'You feel like royalty to be escorted by police,' said Joriz De Guzman, an intern working toward his MBA at Wharton. BTW, before he got mixed up with those MBA-types, De Guzman earned some fame as the Doogie Howser of computer science."

 

Julie, Michael, Tim and I visited John and we spent time with my wife's relatives. Julie's relatives live on Lake Washington not to far from Bill Gates house.   They have done well :-)  It went so well at Microsoft that John is considering doing it again next year after he graduates from VT and before he enters the Masters Program at VT in Computer Science.

Thanks Microsoft!

Remembering September 11th - 9/11

My thoughts and prayers go out to those families and friends who endured loss on this day eight years ago. Living five minutes from Dulles Airport, I will never forget watching two military fighter jets making large circles around Dulles with no commercial flights in the skies. I also remember driving buy The Pentagon the next day to see the damage done there as well.

I just read in the Washington Post that they still have not started construction at ground zero. According to the Washington Post:

"Eight years later, the site known as Ground Zero remains mostly a giant hole in the ground. A projected completion date has been pushed back years, if not decades. The project has been beset by repeated delays, changing designs, billions of dollars in cost overruns, and feuding among the various parties involved in the complex undertaking.

"It's just one big political nightmare," said Jim Riches, a retired New York deputy fire chief, who lost his firefighter son, Jimmy, on 9/11 and who has attended meetings on the progress of the construction. "I think it's a national disgrace," he said. "I really think it's horrible. We can put a man on the moon, but we can't get all the politicians in New York . . . to build the World Trade Center back up again."

Corvettes at Carlisle 2009 with Mike Geldner

This year was another fascinating Corvettes at Carlisle. It was fascinating for a number of reasons.


I went with another Corvette fan - Mike Geldner. Mike and I used to work together and share a common interest in Corvettes. Mike owns multiple Corvettes and is a huge ZR-1 fan and expert. Mike took a lot of great pictures.

Mike Geldner and I had a chance to spend some time with Tadge Juechter, Corvette Chief Engineer. Tadge is just brilliant and it was a real pleasure to speak to him for about a half an hour. That is me above with Tadge on the right.

• That is me above in a new ZR1 that my wife wants me to trade up to. It is only $117,000 :-) The ZR1 is tremendous bang for the buck. My first house was $89,000, so this is still a chunk of change in my mind, but it relative to the other super sports cars, this is a steal.

That is Mike Geldner in the ZR1 above. Mike looks more at home in the ZR1 than I do since he has had three of them.

Mike and Stever Ferry were also at Carlisle this year. Steve is who first told me about Corvettes at Carlisle. It is always interesting to talking to two real experts on Corvettes such as Steve and Mike.



We found the most amazing Corvette I have ever seen. It is a 1963 Z06 that was completely restored with current Z06 parts and customized. Above is the interior that was just perfect. The owner used nine cow hydes of leather just for the interior.



Above is the under carriage of the 1963 Z06 - simply amazing amount of work went into this Corvette.

Checkout all of Mike's photos here.