Great Unix Buttons by npg

The great part of Unix lore can be captured in the buttons.

I am not sure the 1983 USENIX button would be allowed today :-)

Privacy, Domestic Intelligence, and Information Sharing on CSPAN

This is a CSPAN captured video titled "The Way Forward: Privacy, Domestic Intelligence, and Information Sharing" on CSPAN is absolutely worth watching. As was stated at CSPAN: "The Majority Staff of the House Committee on Homeland Security hosted this series of roundtable discussions on the future of privacy, civil rights, and civil liberties at the Department of Homeland Security in Cannon House Office Building."

The balance between privacy and security is an ongoing balancing act. A good point brought out is that we need not only a CTO for the United States, (John Doerr suggested Bill Joy) but we need a Chief Security Czar as well.

Sun Microsystems has the absolute best Identity Management solution that is being open sourced with Sun's Open SSO Enterprise being a great recent example. As I have often said, look at the Intelligence Agencies for the right way to think about security, look at Telcos for the right way to think about availability and look at manufacturing and NASA for realtime and look at Wall Street regarding putting all three together.

Look for Sun Microsystems to continue to show leadership in all of these very important markets.

Unix turns 0x28 or 40 (decimal) this month...

Gary Anthes, writes a great article in Computerworld about Unix turning 40 this month.

I have been working with Unix since 1981 on a Microsoft Xenix system. Yes, for you young kids out there, Microsoft was a leader in Unix with its Xenix software. As Wikipedia states:

"Xenix is a version of the Unix operating system, licensed by Microsoft from AT&T in the late 1970s. The Santa Cruz Operation (SCO) later acquired exclusive rights to the software, and eventually began distributing it as SCO UNIX."

As Mr. Anthes states:

Forty years ago this summer, a programmer sat down and knocked out in one month what would become one of the most important pieces of software ever created.

I would disagree. Unix is THE most important piece of software ever written.

Thanks to Neil P. Groundwater (npg) for sending this on and introducing me to Dennis Ritchie many, many years ago. Ken Thompson and Dennis Ritchie are gods in the computer industry and they deserve to be....

Identity Managment In A World WIthout Fences

In 2008, I gave a talk at The Fairmont at The Open Group's Conference in San Francisco.

The title of the talk was

"Identity Management In A World Without Fences."

As noted above, in 45 minutes, I discussed three topics.

The above slide barely touches the numerous standards that become involved with Identity Management when the fences start coming down. These fences started to come down in a significant way when Sun Microsystems led the Liberty Alliance effort.

The vision statement on the Liberty Alliance Project firmly set the stage for the network identity on the web:

"The vision of Liberty Alliance is to enable a networked world based on open standards where consumers, citizens, businesses and governments can more easily conduct online transactions while protecting the privacy and security of identity information. This world, where devices and identities of all kinds are linked by federation and protected by universal strong authentication, is being built today with Liberty’s open identity standards, business and deployment guidelines and best practices for managing privacy."

XACML is and will be a very important standard and why you see that I highlighted on the slide above.

Since my good friend Dr. Scott Radeztsky was attending the conference I felt the need to tie in Quantum Mechanics to this talk since Scott's Ph.D. is in particle physics. I also felt the need to create a corollary to Werner Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle

The first bullet above is my attempt to create this corollary what I stated:

"It is impossible to predict both the method a developer will take in solving a problem and the many different ways that end users will want to use software. "

The slide above is my summary slide. The slide is self explanatory except possibly for the ABAC. ABAC is Attribute Based Access Control. The real key point for this talk is that security is in the message and the context/security level of the message can change while in transit with today's composite applications.

The final four bullets are beliefs that I have had that have stood the test of time.

Oh yea, after I totally customized my talk around Quantum Mechanics and Identity Managment, Scott Radeztsky blows off my talk :-)

Apps on my new iPhone 3GS

Here is the list the apps I have as of Wednesday April 28th, 2010 on my iPhone 3GS:

1. Informant
2. Evernote
3. Whitepages
4. GoogleCalendar
5. Shazam
6. Call Google 411
7. Units
8. Stocks
9. Planets
10. Dictionary
11. Urbanspoon
12. pic2ship
13. YP.ca
14. Trapster
15. Translator
16. PhoneFlicks
17. Google Earth
18. Huffington Post
19. Facebook
20. TideApp
21. YouTube
    
22. WorldView
23. Seadragon
24. DocsToGo
25. Mover
26. AP Mobile
27. Heads Tails
28. Sleepmaker
29. BargainBin
30. TouchCalc
31. Voice4Mail
32. GuitarTuner
33. VIN
34. WifiFofum
35. WiFinder
36. Free Wi-Fi
37. TripIt
38. LinkedIn
39. LIVESTRONG
40. FreeBooks
41. Movies - Flixster
42. LDAP Directory
43. LDAPeople
44. Air Sharing
45. OpenTable
46. Panorama
47. The Weather Channel
48. Bump
49. USAA
50. iSSH
51. Constitution
52. AroundMe
53. Skype
54. myWireless
55. zippo
56. CNN Money
57. AppBox Pro
58. PhotoMap
59. Appsaurus
60. Time Mobile
61. OperaMini
62. Yelp
63. C-SPAN Radio
64. Trails
65. Spending Lite
66. Alarm Clock
67. Mover
68. Dragon Diction
69. Washington Post
70. Constitution
71. FactBook
72. myWireless
73. Spinal Tap
    

GREAT MTConnect Student Competition - Trip to Milan, Italy!

There is a GREAT Student Competition for MTConnect with the winner going to EMO Milano 2009!

Develop a novel application for MTConnect^SM , and you may win a trip to the EMO Fair (Europe’s premier manufacturing show) in Milan, Italy next October 2009!

Below are the Contest Details from the MTConnect site. After you read the contest details you can click through to the MTConnect student competition site with lots and lots of details that can get you started!

Contest Details

Use MTConnect to develop and report on a novel application for intercommunication between manufacturing systems, machine tools, devices, sensors, software and have a chance to win a grand prize of a trip for your and your team to attend the EMO Fair in Milan, Italy, October, 2009 and display your work to the international manufacturing community.

Simply:

1. Go to MTConnect.org, and become a member of MTConnect^SM community (free) by following the login procedure.

2. Go to the student competition area of the website for competition and entry procedures. Sign in and download information/resources including:

· MTConnectSM Draft Standard (0.9.11) (Final),

· MTConnectSM Simple Client Application,

· XML Schema,

· MTConnectSM White Paper and

· watch the Student Competition Video at YouTube (follow link) to get familiar with MTConnect.

Sample project applications are also available on the MTConnectSM Student Competition Website.

3. Develop a cool MTConnect^SM application for manufacturing using MTConnect^SM.

4. Write a report documenting the details of your application (motivation, approach/procedure, results, future potential, etc.) of your application and send it in. See Judging Criteria below.

5. Do it before May 15, 2009. (See details below about concept paper submission by March 13th, 2009 – approved concepts will be able to submit a final competition entry).

6. Winners will be announced on June 1, 2009.

7. Winning entry team members will be invited to EMO Milano 2009 in Milan, Italy October 2009 to display their project at the MTConnect^SM Booth.

CLICK on this link to learn more about this GREAT Student Competition for MTConnect with the winner going to EMO Milano 2009!

Sunset.... This was my last post at Sun Microsystems

The vote by the stockholders was approved to sell Sun Microsystems in July 2009.

This will be my last blog at Sun Microsystems. I do not know what the future holds at this point. I imagine that I will be told along with everyone else when/if the Oracle acquisition of Sun occurs. I am ending my blogging at Sun because it just feels like the right time to do this and I want greater flexibility in expressing my personal views. I do clearly understand and respect the legal requirements when a company is being acquired.

I chose the photo above because my best memories of Sun were at Sun's Club for High Achievers and that was called Sunrise Club. I was fortunate in that I was selected to go to 7 of them in my career.

Sun Microsystems will be just a memory, but a GREAT memory for those of us who put in a lot of blood, sweat, hard smart work, and fun all while creating lifelong friendships. I came here as a true believer in "Open Systems for Open Minds" and that has been part of my DNA. I will always bleed Sun purple :-)

What was the most fun I had at Sun? That's really easy. Working with Dave Patterson at Berkeley to reinvent the machine tool industry with MTConnect.

What was I the most proud of? My oldest son, John, being selected Sun's Campus Ambassador of the Month out of over 500 Sun Campus Ambassadors.

What team effort at Sun am I most proud of? That is much harder for me. I would say it would be a three way tie:

• The East Coast Technology Center (ECTC) that was an all SE volunteer group that created a Technology Center that held over 400 benchmarks and POCs in the Dunn Loring and McLean, VA Sun Microsystems offices.
• Software Genius University (SGU) This was also an SE led effort working with a variety of groups around Sun that put together over 740 hours of content.
• A little background history...
  
  Sun SGU grew out of the extremely successful Software Genius Program (SGP). The
  genesis of SGP was a conversation that Scott Radeztsky and I had in the fall of
  2005 when we asked the basic question, "what can we do to help the SEs to
  embrace the developer and Sun's software stack?" In January 2006, we kicked
  off the Software Genius Program Council (SGPC) where the SEs in Americas
  Software Practice created ten courses, or twenty hours, of software training.
  This program had one goal - to ensure Sun's Systems Engineers were properly
  equipped with the necessary software knowledge and skills to be successful.
  
  Sun SGU served a very important need when it was announced globally on July 1st
  2007. SGU now has 740 hours of course work in it and the best of that content
  will be transitioned to Software University. There are countless individuals
  who should be thanked for the (literally) 1,000s of hours that went into Sun SGU.
  We will continue to make the necessary student competence mappings transitions
  from the Sun SGU's University certifications levels to Software University's
  Accreditations much like we did with the global Solaris training that came out
  of Dan Berg's organization last FY. We will make it very clear regarding the
  how, when, where, why and what as we go through this effort.
• Last but not least, was the High Performance Workstations opportunity that put $2BILLION (Billion with a B) into Sun Microsystems over the years.

• A little background history...

  When I first spoke with Sun Microsystems, it was the summer of 1984 and Betsy MacLean (later Ferry) and Steve Ferry had recently went over to Sun Microsystems from Systems Development Corporation (SDC) a Division of Burroughs Corporation. I met Betsy and Steve while we were all at SDC. It is interesting to note that SDC based in Santa Monica, California, was arguably the world's first computer software company as noted by Wikipedia. I was not smart enough to go over to Sun in 1984 :-)

  Sun was founded in 1982 with Sun standing for Stanford University Network (SUN).

  In 1986, I was an SE for SDC and technical lead for a HUGE and extremely challenging opportunity for High Performance Workstations opportunity where Sun Microsystems was the digital workstation and Masscomp was the analog workstation of choice. At the end of 1986 and long after the completion of the bid and benchmarks, I started talking to Sun Microsystems about working there. I started on May 4th, 1987.

  Betsy hired me and was a great manager and leader. My mentor was Neil Groundwater who was clearly the smartest person in computers that I had ever met. In the summer of 1987 we found out we won the HPW business that has since been worth at least $2 BILLION to Sun Microsystems over the years - yes that is B as in BILLION. Steve Ferry was THE Sales Rep on this opportunity and to this day is far and away the best Sales Rep I have ever seen/worked with and a great friend to this day.
  

I already thanked Scott, Bill, Andy, Vinod and John previously, but you can check it again here.

For everyone else, there are way too many people to thank from fellow employees to customers to partners and most importantly - family and friends.

Most importantly, I must thank my beautiful wife - Julie - for all her support through thick and thin.

If you are interested in following Dave Edstrom's blog, my private blog is at:

Dave Edstrom's private blog

I will definitely keep blogging on software, technology, life and of course Corvettes :-)

You can also reach me here via LinkedIn:

My private email is edstromvette@yahoo.com

I would be a liar if I did NOT state that I am bummed that Sun Microsystems had to end this way. As the often quoted old poem by John Greenleaf Whittier. (1807–1892) goes:

"Of all sad songs of tongue and and pen, the saddest are these, what might have been....."

Stay in touch, take care and remember the three things that I, Dave Edstrom Sun employee #3705, always tells people:

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

MTConnect HUGE Success At IMTS 2008

MTConnect at IMTS 2008 was a HUGE SUCCESS. Above is the sign describing the approach to MTConnect based on open, royalty-free standards.

IMTS is an amazing show to attend. As the good folks at AMT like to say, machine tools are the "things that make the things". What you see above is an engine block that is approximately 16 FEET in length and made with a machine tool. Machine tools are just one example of the manufacturing technology that is shown at ITMS.

Above is Dr. Dave Patterson (second from the left) and three members of the AMT Board of Directors watching the MTConnect video at the MTConnect display at the Emerging Technology Center.

Above Dr. Armando Fox and Dr. Dave Patterson discuss MTConnect during the private executive tour.

Andy Dugenske of Georgia Institute of Technology, sent me this photo when we were watching one of the MTConnect videos when I happened to be on the video stating that "MTConnect will be a revolution and not an evolution in the manufacturing technology sector".

Above was the most popular screen at the MTConnect area at the Emerging Technology Center where you could select one of the 25 companies listed and get real time data on what the machine tool was dolng at the exact second. A great example of how easy MTConnect can be to implement is the lower right LNS selection. LNS asked if they could be part of MTConnect on a Tuesday evening. Will Sobel, Consultant and Adjunct Professor at UCB pointed them at the MTConnect homepage where the MTConnect SDK lives. They spent that evening writing the adapter. The next morning Will Sobel went to their display and had them up and running in less than a 1/2 an hour.

Above John Turner of GE FANUC shows of GE FANUC's MTConnect GE FANUC PC8 (that is a black box that makes it extremely easy to plug multiple types of machine tools on one side and ethernet ports on the other) to Dr. Dave Patterson of UCB. We believe it was the PC8 first MTConnect sale EVER and it happened at IMTS 2008.

Above is the close up of GE FANUC's PC8 MTConnect device.

MTConnect and specifically AMT is sponsoring an MTConnect Student Competition where the winner(s) will receive a trip to Milan, Italy to attend EMO MILANO!

You can see that all of us are extremely happy that MTConnect was such a huge success. From left to right, Dave Edstrom, Dr. Armando Fox of UCB, Dr. Dave Patterson of UCB, Dr. Dave Dornfield of UCB, Will Sobel, Consultant and Adjunct Professor of UCB, Andy Dugenske of Georgia Institute of Technology and Athulan Vijayaraghavan, Ph.D. student at UCB. This is the most fun and most technically satisfying experience I have had in my 30 years in the computer industry....

Honoring Dr. David A. Patterson MTConnect Dinner in Chicago

Above is the invitation to Dr. David A. Patterson's Dinner in Chicago honoring Dave for his tremendous contributions to MTConnect.

Above, Armando is making a point to Dave Patterson while I concentrate on feeding my face :-)

Above John Byrd is presenting Dave Patterson with a special MTConnect gift.

Above is Dr. Dave Patterson, Will Sobel (Consultant and Adjunct Professor at UCB, John Byrd (President of AMT), Dr. Armando Fox of UCB, Dave Edstrom and Paul Warndorf (CTO of AMT) after Dave Patterson's Dinner.

MTConnect at IMTS was a HUGE success and the dinner was fantastic. Leaders in the manufacturing industry also attended this dinner in Chicago.

Coming up -- specifics on the huge success of MTConnect at IMTS in Chicago.....

MTConnect in Manufacturing Business Technology Magazine

Manufacturing Business Technology discusses Sun and MTConnect. Below are the first few paragraphs:

Sun Microsystems joins the MTConnect Technical Advisory Group (MTAG) to further define the open communication protocol standard it helped create for the manufacturing technology industry a year ago.

MTConnect is an open manufacturing technology standard that uses Internet communications technologies as its basis to allow manufacturing technology vendors and customers to safely and easily communicate.

"Sun Microsystems has a long history of working with the industry and academia to create and promote open technology standards that drive genuine innovation,” says Dave Edstrom, Chief Technologist of the Americas Software Practice for Sun Microsystems. “Open source and open standards are the keys to unlocking manufacturing innovation and efficiency around the world, particularly in growing emerging markets."

The rest of the article can be found here.

Best Month Of My Entire Life - 25th Anniversary

My wife Julie and I celebrated our 25th Wedding Anniversary

by spending a month in Europe. NO EMAIL OR VOICE MAIL :-)

We flew First Class and our three sons - John, Michael and Tim flew Business
Class. The retail cost would have been almost $50,000. THANK YOU United
Airlines - I used 480,000 miles from my Frequent Flyer account.

Best month of my life. EVERY DAY WAS SUNNY TO PARTLY
SUNNY! No rain during any of the days for an entire month.

The Complete Itinerary is at the end of these set of photos.

John 20, me old, Michael 17 and Tim 14.

Above is my oldest son John wearing an OpenOffice.org t-shirt on top
of the leaning tower of Pisa.

Tim on a donkey riding up the long trail in beautiful Santorino.

Above is the picture of my family and my parents (aka Slim and Weasie) on the wrap
around porch we had in our Royal Carribean Brilliance of the Seas Royal Family Suite (biggest suite on the whole ship :-)

John, Tim and Michael at the Coliseum.

There were three nights where it was black tie on the ship.
We rented tuxes so we were not carrying them all around Europe.

I rented a Ferrari 360 Modena (400HP, V12) and took it on the same Monaco
Gran Prix F1 Circuit.

We had GREAT sunsets every single night on the cruise.

ITINERARY

June 23rd fly out from Dulles to Zurich

June 24-28: Jesolo, Italy (outside of Venice), Hotel
Mediterraneo pronounced YaySolo We went to Venice and saw
'The Bridge of Sighs' now I know Robin Trower did not come
up with this name for his famous album :-) Great food and
the only place you should ever order pizza.

June 28-July 1: Munich, Germany, Mercure Hotel Munchen

We went on a three hour tour of Munich. Highlights for me was the Science and
Technology Museum in Munich. The Hofbrau House is always a highlight :-) My
wife did not buy my rationalization that I was *only* drinking two beers at
night. I guess when each beer is a litre, that is different :-)

July 1: Zurich, Switzerland; Hotel Continental Zurich is a beautiful city and
we took a train to Luzern which is the most beautiful city on planet earth. We
will go back there to spend much more time. Tim jumped off a 20 foot platform
into Lake Luzerne.

July 2: Overnight train to Barcelona
We have first class cabins with dinner and breakfast on the train.
Eurail is the only way to travel in Europe. We met a very nice family
from Texas that was heading to the same Mediterranean Cruise we were
going on.

July 3: Barcelona, Spain:
Thanks to my father, we stayed at an amazing hotel called The
Circulo. Barcelona has lots of great Tapas restaurants and very
interesting architectures such as never finish church.

July 4: Board Ship, Brilliance of the Seas
We had the largest suite on the entire ship - The Roya Family Suite.
It was huge, multi-bedroom, huge living room with a wrap around porch
with our private concierge.

July 5: Nice, France Julie and the boys went to the beach and I investigated
sports cars. Highlight for me was renting a Ferrari Modena 360 and taking it
on the same circuit as Monte Carlo F1 Gran Prix.

July 6: Pisa/Florence, Italy
We had private tour of both cities. The history of Pisa and Florence
is amazing. We were the first ones up on the Leaning Tower of Pisa
and I bet the first "Open Office" photo on top the tower :-)

July 7: Rome, Italy Rome is a City that is the must category of life.

July 9: Mykonos, Greece There were 60knot winds the morning we
were to leave the ship, so we did not visit Mykonos.

July 10: Kusadas, Turkey Too many things to highlight, I will update later.

July 11: Santorini, Greece A very beautiful city on a steep cliff.

July 12: Athens, Greece BEST food of entire month.
Too many things to highlight, I will update later.

July 14: Naples Too many things to highlight, I will update later.

July 16: Barcelona, Spain, Circulo

July 17: Overnight train to Zurich

July 18: Zurich, Switzerland; Hotel Continental
We visited Luzerne again.

July 19: Return Home

Career Advice on the Back of a Business Card....

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? "

If you would like to see the results of Dr. Smith's queries and/or provide your career advice that would go on the back of a business card, then please go to this site.:

Dr. Roger Smith's Advice on Back of a Business Card Site

I think it is very cool that Dr. Smith is doing this because the type of advice that I saw others provide are priceless!

My personal response was the following:

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.

If I know them well or their parents well, then I add the final piece of advice:

5) Never, EVER, sleep with someone who has MORE problems than you do.

3.5 Million Manufacturing Jobs Lost since 2001

I just heard an amazing statistic that since 2001, 3.5 MILLION manufacturing jobs have been lost in the United States! This is where standards such as MTConnect really matter for the United States. We must increase the productivity for the manufacturing technology industry and MTConnect is the absolute first step because until manufacturing technology systems can speak the same language, the industry will continue to languish. The great news is that, as you see below, MTConnect is doing tremendously well thanks the the huge success of IMTS 2008.

The most important group in any standards effort are the customers. The customers are absolutely starting to demand MTConnect. Below are the MTConnect Participants who are the thought leaders in manufacturing technology and are changing the world in a very positive way by embracing open and royalty-free standards (the list below is as of September 26th, 2008) that came from the MTConnect homepage.

MT Connect Technical Advisory Group: Members Assembly & Test Worldwide, Inc. Digital Technology Laboratory Corporation FANUC Robotics America, Inc. GE Aviation GE Fanuc Intelligent Platforms, Inc. The Gleason Works I/Gear Software, Inc. LMAS, UC Berkeley MAG Industrial Automation Systems National Institute of Standards and Technology Mazak Corporation Parlect, Inc. Remmele Engineering, Inc. Bosch Rexroth Corporation Sun Microsystems, Inc. TechSolve, Inc. MT Connect Technical Advisory Group: Observers Hurco Companies, Inc. Okuma America Corporation Siemens Energy & Automation, Inc. MT Connect Contributors/Implementers Agie Charmilles CNC Engineering CAMTEK Division of Vero CNC Engineering Drake Esprit Flow International GibbsCAM Haas Automation, Inc. Hardinge, Inc. Huffman Corporation Infimatic LNS America, Inc. Milltronics Manufacturing Corporation Mori Seiki, Inc. NUM Omax THINC Partners Refresh Your Memory Star-SU Sunnen

Bragging on my middle son Michael's academic achievments :-)

Bragging on my middle son Michael's academic achievments :-)

My middle son Michael Edstrom graduated with a 3.95 GPA from Broad Run High School in Ashburn, VA last month. Michael will be joining his brother, John, at Virginia Tech next year. Michael was in the top 10 percent of his class. The top ten percent was from a 3.94 to a 4.46 average. It was a class of champions, as brought out by this article:

"Dr. Ed Markley is not one given to hyperbole.

In 13 years as Broad Run High School's principal -- and 27 years as a principal overall he's not been one to heap on meaningless praise.

That's what made what he said to the 342 members of the Class of 2009 on Saturday, June 20th, particularly meaningful. This is probably the most outstanding graduating class that we've ever had.

First of all, you're great people, almost to a person. I couldn't ask for better kids.

Markley then recounted how this class led a school that received consecutive Governor's Awards for academic excellence, won four state athletic championships this year alone as well as producing a state champion in debate and earning $1.6 million in scholarships. By any measure, he said, this class was exceptional."

Broad Run's 2009 valedictorian was Nam Nguyen with a grade point average (GPA) of 4.46. The salutatorian was Corinne Lepe with a GPA of 4.39.

The top 10 percent of the class, with GPA's ranging from 3.93 to 4.46 included:

• Laurie Adams
• Justin Alexander
• Gi-Tae Baik
• Robert Bobbitt
• Allison Bogle
• Vanessa Bornholdt
• Nicole Bruno
• Catherine Casares
• Monica Chiu
• Michael Edstrom
• Nancy Ellsworth
• Kathryn Finney
• Jessica Foster
• Kelly Friedmann
• Hubaida Fuseini
• Michelle Gabro
• Elizabeth Geary
• Kelly Giltner
• Jacqueline Glass
• Kaleigh Ham
• Katherine Hayden
• Devon Hudson
• Cortney Jiggetts
• Christine Jordan
• Diana Kao
• Mari Kent
• Rohan Kothakapu
• Nicole Lavella
• Han Lin
• Julie MacDonald
• Wesley Malychev
• David Mann
• Jean Manuel-Tayag
• Scott Miles
• Mary Mitesser
• Alyson Mullee
• Patrick Murphy
• Jenny Nguyen
• Thang Nguyen
• Shannon Northcott
• Stephanie Parker
• Eric Pasztor
• Marissa Petty
• Michael Pokrass
• Ashley Pruett
• Michael Schweikert
• Erik Shamloo
• Sravan Tumuluri
• Christopher Tydings
• Megan Waterman
• Bradley Whitwell
• Ashley Williams
• Jaewon Yang
• Eric Zoepfl

It was truly an amazing group of kids. For the list of the top ten percent, see here.

Posted at 10:25AM Jul 09, 2009 by edstromvette in Personal | Edit | Comments[0] | Permalink

Sun is #13 in Top 100 Best Places to Work in IT for 2009

This is very cool recognition:

Sun is number 13 in Computerworld's list of the "100 Best Places to Work in IT 2009".

Having been here at Sun for over 22 years, I absolutely believe it. I wonder where we were ranked during the dotcom heyday? If you know, please leave a comment here on my blog....

Thanks and Goodbye Evie....

My Aunt Evie passed away on Friday January 16th, 2009 in her home in Zumbrota, Minnesota.

Evelyn Gloria Irene Husbyn was born March 10, 1929, in Minneola Township, Goodhue County. She grew up on the family farm, attended country school, and graduated from Zumbrota High School in 1947. On Jan. 17, 1948, she married Stanley "Tat" Thompson in Zumbrota.

Below is Evie and me at my sister's Ph.D. graduation at George Mason University in 2006. Evie is the lady in the white hair second from the left.

They owned their own businesses and were extremely successful. I remember working at their Skelly Gas Station in Zumbrota, Minnesota with my cousin Richard Franklin while our Grandpa (Melvin Thompson) would oversee our duties. My Grandpa would give discounts to all customers when they filled up their cars or trucks, but it was a total to mystery to me on his percentage discount logic. When I asked Tat and Evie on what math logic that Grandpa was using they just laughed. They told me, "Dave, Pa does not have any logic, he simply makes it up as he goes." Neither Tat nor Evie would tell my Grandpa to stop, because they knew that it made Grandpa feel good to give the people of Zumbrota a discount on their gas.

Tat and Evie epitomized the smart, caring and cool couple.

Tat and Evie always had the coolest cars. There was a time in 1970 when Tat owned a 1969 Dodge Charger R/T that had 7.2 litre engine at 375hp, 0-60 in 6 seconds, 0-100 in 13.3 seconds and top speed of 150mph. That year and model car was voted the best muscle car of all time. Evie had a 1970 Ford Torino Cobra Jet that had the 429 cubic inch engine with 370hp, 0-60 in 6 seconds and was Motor Trend's Car of the Year in 1970. Tat and Evie's love of cars, trucks and motorcycles (Tat owned Harley-Davidson's long before it was fashionable to do so) really created a love of cars, trucks and motorcycles in everyone's lives they touched. One of my life goals was to have a car faster than anything that Tat or Evie owned. Finally, at age 42, I bought a Corvette that as faster than anything Tat or Evie owned. But, Tat and Evie had more cool in their little fingers than I have in my whole body :-) You can not buy cool.

My family moved around lot growing up. When Tat and Evie would come visit us, the excitement level was palpable. Tat always had a big wad of cash in his pocket. No one on planet earth knew more jokes or stories than Tat Thompson. What always amazed me about Evie is that no matter how many times she heard Tat tell a story, Evie would always laugh out loud like it was the first time. One time when Tat and Evie came to visit I was in the process of buying a 1972 240Z and need to pay cash to the owner so I had $2,100 on me. After Tat and Evie were there for awhile, I said to Tat, "Tat, I don't have any clue on how much money I have in my wallet right now, but I will bet you $100 that I have more than you do." Tat said, "well, I don't want to bet you, but let's find out." Tat had about $700 or so. After I got to about $1,000 Evie just started laughing. It was like that MasterCard commercial - pricelesss.

Evie was extremely smart in dealing with people and had a level of common sense that was unmatched. Evie's mother, Ida, was the same way. I remember when I was 18, I was giving Ida a hard time because she had (literally) $3,000 in a freezer in Tat and Evie's cellar. When I told her that she was not making any interest by doing that, she simply responded with two sentences that put me in my place and I am reminded of that conversation today.

Ida asked me, "Dave, let me ask you one question. If you went to the bank to get your money and that bank was closed down and you lost all of your money, how long will you remember that day?" With our economy in the toilet and getting worse, I think of Ida's advice often....

Evie will be greatly missed among all who knew and loved her....

Thanks Dawn of SAP and Michael of Oracle

On the night of December 19th, 2008 I was flying in back to Dulles, from Cincinatti with a stopover in Charlotte. I was coming back from a great MTConnect Technical Advisors Meeting where we voted through the MTConnect 1.0 Standard. It was a GREAT meeting and a historic day. More about MTConnect later this weekend.

Because of fog, we looped around around Charlotte until the pilot said, we are running out of fuel and need to land in Greenville-Spartansburg. We get to Greenville-Spartansburg and sit on the runway for 45 minutes.

The pilot comes on literally says:

"Folks, when we are grounded for weather related factors, we are not
required to provide housing or transportation. If I were you, I would
get a hotel room. Good luck."

Ah, airline service at its very best...

Luckly for me, I ran into four fantastic people. Vance, who offered to give me a ride to Charlotte. The hero for all of us was Dawn of SAP. Dawn is the highest level of traveler at US-Airways - Chairman Preferred. Thank god for Dawn, she called the Chairman Preferred 800# and got all of us set for flying out to Charlotte the next day. Michael of Oracle got the rental car. All Todd, the exotic car shipper, and I had to do was ride to Charlotte with Michael and Dawn. On the way there, Dawn used her very high level with Marriot to get us a distressed rate of $99 instead of the $169 normal rate.

We all joked that this was like the movie Planes, Trains and Automobiles :-) I did joke with Todd that he reminded me of that guy in the movie Something About Mary and the Rest Stop scene. Luckily for me, Todd laughed.

We got to the hotel in time to get in our rooms by 2:00am and I was up at 5:30 heading back to Charlotte to fly out. Luckily for me, everything went well today getting back for Dennis Govon's Farewell Party.

My faith in humanity was lifted last from South Carolina heading to North Carolina with the kindness from Oracle and SAP's employees.

The Most Historic Day In My Lifetime

Tom Toles of the Washington Post that captured just how important today is with this op ed cartoon.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. --That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed....

Without question, this is the most historic day in my lifetime and if we ever needed a transformational and inclusive leader it is now. Barack Obama has been given a very tough hand, but I believe that he has all the tools to be a truly great President of the United States of America.

New Role Chief Technologist (CT) for GSE in the Software Line of Business

I should have blogged about this announcement of my new role when it occurred on June 4th, but I was so busy with JavaOne and a lot of customers, that I have not had the time for blogging.

Since this is the first day of Sun's FY10 and I am on vacation here in Ocean City, Maryland waiting for the morning fog to burn off, I thought I should mention my new role Chief Technologist (CT) for Global Systems Engineering (GSE) in the Software Line of Business (LOB). That is a long title, but one that I am very, very excited about and thankful to have this new role at Sun. I was the CT for North America and then the Americas (including Canada and South America).

Sun is still second to none in the ability to create strong software communities in the open source world. We are continuing to tweak the monetization framework to adjust to this evolving economy. Without question, open source already has won and it is just a matter of time before everyone realizes this.

Below is a snippet of the text from my announcement on June 4th, 2009.

Dave joined Sun in early 1987. In 22+ years at Sun he has held a variety of positions working with a broad range of products and applications for a wide ranging set of customers in both commercial and government markets. Dave has been in the computer industry since 1978 and has held programming, management, sales and systems engineering leadership positions for a variety of companies, and has been working with Unix since 1981. Most recently, Dave was the CT for North America's SW Practice holding this position for almost five years.

Dave led 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. Each week, Dave hosts a technology webinar, with Brian Leonard, for Sun's global
employees and Sun's global partners.

Dave was the "father" of the Mid Atlantic Area Technology Center for Sun. This multi-million dollar Center had over 300 customers 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.

Thanks Chris and my Father - Two Tours of Duty - Memorial Day

I received an email from my cousin Chris Edstrom. Chris has done two tours of duty in Iraq as well as a tour in Afghanistan. I was at my sisters house yesterday and my father was there. My father did two tours of duty in Vietnam and is the world record holder for number of years with Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia (CLL).

Chris and my father are just two of the many heroes we should have thanked yesterday for their service to our country.

As someone who lives in Northern Virginia, I am very proud of the GI Bill of Rights that Senator Webb proposed. It is absolutely inconceivable to me why ANYONE would be against this Bill.

As The New York Times wrote on the 50th anniversary of the G.I. bill: “Few laws have done so much for so many.”

“These veterans were able to get a first-class future,” Senator Webb told me in an interview. “But not only that. For every dollar that was spent on the World War II G.I. bill, seven dollars came back in the form of tax remunerations from those who received benefits.”

Senator Lautenberg went to Columbia on the G.I. bill, and Senator Warner to Washington and Lee University and then to law school.

The Bush administration opposes the new G.I. bill primarily on the grounds that it is too generous, would be difficult to administer and would adversely affect retention.

This is bogus. The estimated $2.5 billion to $4 billion annual cost of the Webb proposal is dwarfed by the hundreds of billions being spent on the wars we’re asking service members to fight in Iraq and Afghanistan. What’s important to keep in mind is that the money that goes to bolstering the education of returning veterans is an investment, in both the lives of the veterans themselves and the future of the nation."

I think back to when I was with Joy W. and my wife listening to Oliver Stone present at a small College in California. Oliver Stone was asked, "why did the Vietnam war go on for so long?" Mr. Stone replied, "Do you really NOT know? - that is EASY, because Senators and Congressman's sons were NOT dying."

Why is it that it is always the politicians who were never in battle are ALWAYS the ones who are quickest to send our sons and daughters in harms way, but then have the complete LACK OF CHARACTER AND LACK OF COURAGE to take care of them when they come home?

Thank you Senator Webb for you LEADERSHIP!

Five Unsung Heroes of the Virginia Tech Tragedy

"Courage is the first of human qualities because it
is the quality which guarantees all others."

Winston Churchill

The tragedy at Virginia Tech is still heart wrenching. As a parent of a VT freshman, it is still hard to comprehend the magnitude of this tragedy. There
were many heroes on VT's Campus on April 16th, 2007. Many
are well documented in the press.

There are five individuals who were behind the scenes
that are absolute heroes in my mind. Those five heroes are
the individuals who run online Collegiate Times which is
VT's main online paper and kept the world informed on the
latest breaking news coming out of VT on this senseless
tragedy. These five individuals were literally working
around the clock, giving up sleep to keep their fellow
students, parents, family, friends, faculty and the rest of
the world informed.

These five unsung heroes all have the "first of human
qualities" - courage. It would have been perfectly
understandable if these five individuals would have given
up when their servers went down. But they did not. They
had the courage to literally work around the clock to get
the server back up *and* keep the rest of the world
informed of the latest updates to one of the most of
horrific days in the history of our country. The five
individuals are:


Chris Ritter, Online Director
Tim Tutt, Web Developer
John Edstrom, Associate Web Developer
Gabriel Martinez, Associate Web Designer
Collin Smith, Multimedia Editor

One of the many amazing statistics is that the
Collegiate Times received up to 53 million hits by
early afternoon on Monday April 16th.

Wikipedia has a nice history of the Collegiate Times with the
picture that appeared on the Collegiate Times April 17th, 2007,
edition titled "Heartache."




Below are just some of quotes on the fantastic work that
these five unsung heroes did under
tremendous pressure.

The OnLine Newshour on PBS

"The Internet became a prime place for people to
get the news out of Blacksburg. The college
newspaper, the Collegiate Times, scooped the major
media, getting the story online, right after the
first shot rang out, and staying on it non-stop
ever since.

The 104-year-old paper received up to 53 million
hits by early Monday afternoon, forcing the site
down for a time. It also listed some of the dead
early Tuesday morning, prompting the New York Times
Web site and other news outlets to link to the
Collegiate Times."


The Shield - University of Southern Indiana Student Newspaper

"The information on the Web site is remarkable.

Besides the list of confirmed deceased, the site
provides a graphic map of the shootings, a photo
gallery, personal accounts and interviews and
related stories ranging from emerging donation
details to the impact on the nearest hospital. The
staff has handled the facts correctly, but not
without compassion, which is a difficult task.

The Collegiate Times editorial says, "When
considering the number of deceased victims, 32 is
devastating, but those lives are not just a number,
each one is a member of our community." Journalism
cannot be disregarded due to a personal tragedy,
since citizens rely on journalists for information.
Such journalists must remember, however, that
although horrific tragedies stir media attention as
sensational, there is nothing sensational about
human suffering and coverage must be conducted
tastefully.

Well done Collegiate Times staff.

To those that believe campus newspapers are a waste
of time and funding, let this tragedy serve the
purpose of proving the necessity of campus
newspapers nationwide."


Chronicle of Higher Education

"National Public Radio is among news organizations
that have profiled and praised Virginia Tech
student newspaper, The Collegiate Times, which has
become a crucial source of information for other
reporters covering Monday's events.

The papers online edition, said NPR's Larry
Abramson, has grabbed international attention
indeed, on Tuesday The New York Timess home page
linked to the student publications list of
confirmed victims of the shooter. Mr. Abramson
also pointed out that Collegiate Times staff
members know how to mine Facebook for information
inaccessible to many older reporters who are
unfamiliar with the social-networking site." -


WGHP Fox TV VIDEO:


"The team at The Collegiate Times, the campus
newspaper, will remain. So far, they have been
setting the pace for all journalists"



Middlebury Campus


"The face of a crisis, the writers, photographers
and editors of Virginia Tech's student daily, The
Collegiate Times, transcended their roles as
college journalists to not only inform their
community, but to inform the world. With many local
news sources shut out, only limited comments coming
from Virginia Tech officials and an entire campus
on lock-down, the importance of these students'
work was heightened to an extreme. The written,
photographic and video posts to The Times website
throughout the day were among the most vivid and
honest portraits of the campus available. Working
from computers outside of their offices, the
students held nothing back, and produced a raw,
emotional narrative of the tragedy. Their reporting
was effective, critical and in every sense, brave."

Editor and Publisher


"While the editors of the student newspaper went
about their work with inspiring leadership,
internal communications by Virginia Tech
administrators showed the University was less than
fully prepared. As more and more details about the
sequence of events have been released, it has
become clear that administrators did not notify the
entire campus or order a full lockdown until more
than two hours after the first round of shooting
began. Whether or not any of the deaths in the
second round of shooting could have been avoided,
we should realize the need for all institutions to
prepare for the unimaginable. And in the face of
this shooting, college administrators everywhere
should recognize the need to share information with
their communities quickly and clearly, even as the
full extent of a crisis may remain unknown."


"The college paper at Virginia Polytechnical
Institute kept a running account of the tragedy
that struck the campus today, with more than 30
students gunned down in at least two areas of the
campus, a dorm and a classroom. The shooter is
allegedly dead as well, but not identified. It is
not known if he was a student ...

Here is how the student-run Collegiate Times
reported it, blog-style, with the most recent
posting first. A full article is now posted there,
which includes the note that police "are also
investigating if it has any relation to the recent
bomb threats on Tech's campus."

Seattle Post Intelligencer


"For unique reporting on the massacre read the
Collegiate Times, Virginia Tech's student-run
newspaper."


University Daily Kansan

"While news organizations like CNN have done a
thorough job in covering Monday's events, I'd like
to point the readers of kansan.com to Virginia
Tech's student newspaper, the Collegiate Times.
After overcoming early technical difficulty when
the news initially broke, they've done what I feel
is an admirable job as the student voice of the
Virginia Tech community.

In the process of learning about these tragic
events, be sure to not overlook the students
themselves. http://www.collegiatetimes.com"


WRAL

"I found a couple sites with unique angles on this
story. One of the most interesting is The
Collegiate Times, which is VT's student newspaper.
Their staff apparently first reported this shooting
this morning. The server is overwhelmed right now,
but it will be interesting to check their coverage
in the days and weeks ahead."

Forbes

"Monday's shooting at Virginia Tech provided a
grim, real-time stress test for the effectiveness
of Web 2.0 technologies. And on Monday, all of them
seemed to work: Information flew through text
messages, blog posts, Web sites, online videos and
social networking sites.

The Internet reacted to the event immediately--and
more quickly than Virginia Tech administrators, who
took two hours to warn students, via e-mail, about
a first shooting. The Web site of VT's student
newspaper, the Collegiate Times, crashed when
students flooded it after the first shooting. As a
replacement, students created a low-tech blog,
CollegeMedia.com.

It posted the first entry about the event at 9:47 a.m.,
minutes before the second shooting began."

Yahoo News

"The student newspaper, the Collegiate Times,
regularly updated its website proving to be a
valuable resource for the campus as well as the
national media."



Daily Californian


"And as this happened, students at the Collegiate
Times, the Virginia Tech student newspaper, were
able to live-blog the days events. The Web site
began the day with a post at 9:47 a.m. EST,
reporting Shots were fired on campus and
provided continuing updates throughout the day. The
entries of the papers staff provide an
illuminating window into the fear and questioning
that doubtless gripped the campus in those
uncertain hours."


"The Collegiate Times, Virginia Tech's campus newspaper,
was the first media outlet to break the story Monday with
on-line reports of shots fired on campus."

Manhattan Mercury

"No amount of on-the-job experience or education
could have prepared Kelly Furnas for what he's
faced this week in his capacity as an editorial
advisor to the campus newspaper at grief-stricken
Virginia Tech University.

.....

To be honest its been pretty much non-stop working
with the student newspaper I have not had time on a
personal level to sit down and digest everything
yet," Furnas said.

The Collegiate Times, Virginia Tech's campus
newspaper, was the first media outlet to break the
story Monday with on-line reports of shots fired on
campus.

"I can't put into words how proud I am of our
students," Furnas said. "They have provided
desperately needed information to their readers,
and they have done that with gusto. I think the
campus newspaper's reputation with the students
here has helped a lot."

The Age (Australia)

"'The school's student newspaper, The Collegiate
Times, filed up-to-the-minute online dispatches. At
4.44pm: "Police have confirmed that the shooter
took his own life." At 4.54pm: "University
Relations has confirmed 31 deaths at Norris Hall,
in addition to two deaths at West Ambler Johnson."


Gulf Times

The Collegiate Times (its server quickly crashed
and a blog written by editors with messages from
students appeared instead on the web site of the
newspapers owning company), as well as to media
outlets around the world, including CNN and the
BBC. Regardless of where the contributions are
aimed, the back and forth on facebook.com and other
social networking sites are equally an instant and
new resource for news producers and reporters

NPR


"As reporters from around the world descend on
Blacksburg, Va., one publication stands out:
Virginia Tech's student newspaper, Collegiate
Times, is doing a truly remarkable job of covering
the story."

About 15 staff members were rushing to update the
site about every 15 minutes with news of the
convocation, shooting investigation and candlelight
vigil plans.

"We're getting like 10 billion phone calls,
everyone from Al Jazeera to tiny radio stations in
Iowa," Kendall said.


LA Times


"The paper's scoops included eyewitness accounts of
the shootings, interviews with a classmate of the
shooter and a list of victims' names that was
posted late Tuesday. A reporter was one of the
first to question administrators about why they
didn't warn students during the two hours between
the two shootings Monday morning."


Poyneronline

"The Web staff for Virginia Tech's student
newspaper, The Collegiate Times, was also
scrambling for solutions after its servers crashed
around 10:30 a.m. the day of the shootings.

Online editor Chris Ritter's main goal was to get
the site back to its original state -- a large,
graphical and Flash-intensive homepage. When that
couldn't happen, Ritter and his staff opted for a
simple text page with blue background -- to ensure
they could communicate information quickly to
users. After that page continued to overload its
own server, The Collegiate Times tech adviser,
Scott Chandler, suggested that the staff use the
College Media server, the parent company which
hosts the publication's site.

Once the site stabilized on the additional server,
The Collegiate Times began posting photos and
videos to a third server usually reserved for
design research and development. To prevent
crashing again, a Virginia Tech server is now
hosting videos and photos for the site.

Monday night The Collegiate Times staff redesigned
its homepage from scratch to have a Web site that
was "intuitive and a graphically pleasing display"
of its special content for the shootings. The
Collegiate Times began creating breaking-news
multimedia when escaped convict William Morva shot
two police officers at Virginia Tech on the first
day of school last August.

Since then, Ritter said users are looking at the
Web for information more than ever before, and the
staff has adopted a Web-first attitude change."


Roanoke Times on CT:
Coping Through Journalism Video