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Articles: 1, 2, 3

Welcome ! Tim Holyoake joins Sun Microsystems as Chief Technologist for UK
2008-01-18 12:04:00
Very pleased to say that Tim Holyoake has just joined Sun Microsystems in the UK. Tim has an immense amount of experience in UK Public Sector and Government IT, and joins us from Software AG, where he was one of there leading, and most successful, technology ambassadors. Greg Nolan, Technology Director for the UK at Sun, said this in his welcome message for Tim to the UK team: Tim's career prior to joining Sun in January 2008 has been in the software and services industries. Most recently, he spent more than six years at Software AG, working as their principal public sector consultant specialising in service-oriented architecture and integration technologies. He was directly responsible for supporting the public sector sales team and assisted in developing strategies to enable it to become one of the most successful new business operations in Software AG worldwide. Prior to joining Software AG, Tim helped Mediasurface establish its Manchester office, worked at Computer A...
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Links for DD-MM-YYYY Not Likely
2008-01-10 10:42:00
A response to Alec Muffett's recent post "A disappointed (occasional) reader?" on his excellent blog. I'm sure Alec won't mind me having posted the following comment in response to his article: Hi Alec, Although I sympathise, especially as a fellow 'blog writer it appears one has to produce a very regular cadence to ensure continued, and growing, readership, I have to agree with your reader, mentioned above. The fashion for producing a blog post which is simply titled "Links for DD-MM-YYYY" and contains nothing but links is becoming ubiquitous - and even sadder is in full sway across blogs.sun.com. Like anyone I like to see interesting sites and links, however I go to blogs to read blogs, to gather opinion, see what peeps are chatting about, etc., etc., not to checkout someone else's bookmarks. I believe that one has to think very hard about what blog postings are for, and if indeed "Links for DD-MM-YYYY" type postings are an adequate and appropriate mechanism for shar...

Tom Hanks, Oscar winning Actor, Producer, Director and... Aston Villa Fan
2008-01-10 03:30:00
Blimey, to think I actually have something in common with Tom Hanks ... Turns out Tom supports Aston Villa , probably the best football team in the whole wide World. Whilst he was over in the UK to promote the premiere, and release, of "Charlie Wilson's War" (a comedy film where Tom plays Texan Congressman Charlie Wilson, secretly assisting rebels in Afghanistan in their war with the Soviets, which contributed to the collapse of Soviet Union, and then led to the rise of the Taliban and Islamic Radicalism), Tom recently said: "I'm big on Aston Villa because the name is just so sweet. It sounds like a lovely spa" I've always liked Tom, and his films, but now I really like him. However he obviously wasn't about during the festivities in nearby Lozells and Handsworth in the 1980's. Actually that's a little harsh as Aston Villa is located by (and named after) the beautiful Aston Hall - I've got some photo's knocking about from when we did our last family visit and I'll ge...
More About: Oscar , Winning , Actor

Excellent article by Glenn Brunette on the Top 5 Solaris 10 Security Featur
2008-01-08 09:19:00
Excellent article by Glenn Brunette on the "Top 5 Solaris 10 Security Features You Should Be Using". It is more than well worth reading as it succinctly explains some of the features which give Solaris 10 advantages in security over it's rival operating environments and operating systems. I won't spoil it for you by re-iterating Glenn's message here - so go and have a read.
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Tic, Tag, Toe
2008-01-08 04:37:00
Or rather "tagging, tags, and blog tag policy" or even "what's the best / most optimal tag nomenclature / syntax". After redesigning the blog interface I decided to start to rationalise my tags - and to institute a 'tag policy'. Tag Policy Use "-" to delimit multi-word tagsUse all lower case characters But "Why ?" For a long time I had been using the "+" symbol to link multi-word tags, but I found that Google Translate (which I use for the language translation capability, up on the top right of the page if you're reading the blog at http://blogs.sun.com/eclectic/) was having problems processing URL's which contain "+" or "%2B". Here's a little table I whipped up documenting the issues I was coming up against using multi-word tags, after trying out a number of delimiters, not just "+", against a variety of technology. Delimiters tested were: "+", "%2B", "_", " ", "%20" and "-". Sites / technology tested were: Roller Blogger (4.0-dev, the version we currently run ht...

Welcome ! Alain Andreoli joins Sun Microsystems as Senior Vice President fo
2008-01-07 21:19:00
All the very best to Alain Andreoli in his new role as he joins Sun as Senior Vice President , Global Sales and Services (GSS) for Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA). According to Sun's official press release about Alain joining Sun: Andreoli joins Sun, reporting to Don Grantham, executive vice president, Global Sales and Services, with more than 25-years of technology, sales and leadership experience having most recently served as CEO of cc-hubwoo, the leading global provider in "source-to-pay" electronic solutions and supplier network management. His experience spans a variety of markets including consumer electronics, semiconductors, data storage, networking, IP communications, IT/data center services, software as a service and IP community networks. Prior to joining cc-hubwoo he was president and CEO at Xiotech. His career includes 14-years at Texas Instruments where he most recently served as Chairman of the Global Industrial Segment and nearly five-years at StorageTe...
More About: Sun Microsystems , Vice President

Out with the old, in with the new - blog design that is...
2008-01-07 01:37:00
Given I've just redesigned the site, I thought it would be nice to keep a visual comparison of the old 2007 look and feel versus the new 2008 blog interface and design. Sadly image rendering in IE and Firefox lags behind that of Opera and Safari (the four browsers I review the site with), so these images may be a little 'out of focus'. If that's the case for you please get back to me and I'll see if I can do anymore to improve the issue, prior to the two 'largest by volume of users' browsers catching up of course. Example 1: UK Government G2G Messaging Sub-Systems 2007 version 2008 version Example 2: Messaging Sub-Systems in the UK Government 2007 version 2008 version Example 3: Comparison of Major Messaging Sub-Systems in the UK Government 2007 version 2008 version Example 4: Evolution of UK Government Messaging Systems 2007 version 2008 version
More About: Design , Home , Blog

Radical Alex Cox 'Repo Man' inspired weblog redesign
2008-01-05 04:09:00
Thanks to Alex Cox I've radically redesigned my 'blog inspired by the product branding used in his seminal 1984 film 'Repo Man'. Written and directed by Alex, with the ex-Monkee Michael Nesmith as Executive Producer, Repo Man stars Emilio Estevez and Harry Dean Stanton as repossession agents on the trail of missing car with a little extra in the boot (a stolen 'nuke). It's a satirical and surreal comedy, widely seen as one of the first truly independent movies (along with it's stable mate, the excellent 'Rumble Fish'). It has a great, mainly Punk, soundtrack, including Black Flag's 'TV Party', and songs performed by Iggy Pop, Suicidal Tendencies, The Circle Jerks, The Plugz, Burning Sensations, Fear and Juicy Bananas. I was really struck by the product branding used in Repo Man - it's pure and simple function over the aesthetic (with a good dollop of humorous irony thrown in for good measure). After writing to Alex to ask his permission to use the branding as the b...
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Happy New Year 2008
2008-01-01 01:05:00
Happy New Year to all !
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Merry Christmas 2007
2007-12-25 09:00:00
Merry Christmas to each and everyone !
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Ted Chippington, back at last, and an interview with Stewart Lee
2007-11-29 09:00:00
The best thing about YouTube for me has been it's ability to remind me of some great memories I thought I had forgotten. Here's a clip of Ted Chippington, a local comedian, who was doing the comedy circuit rounds when I was a teenager in the Eighties. Ted was special for a number of reasons, not only that he was very much before his time, heralding the post 'Alternative Comedy' style - whilst 'Alternative Comedy' was still in it's infancy, but because many of his 'gigs' were as the warm up act for local Punk bands (like the all girl, Pop-Punk quartet Fuzzbox, and the early Punk / Alternative band The Nightingales). This clip is from Ted's appearance on 'Pebble Mill at One' - which was a local 'topical' daytime show hosted from the BBC's Pebble Mill Studio on the Pershore Road, in Edgbaston (sadly the Pebble Mill studios have been knocked down now, and we are awaiting a new science park to be built in it's place). Ted performs his version of 'She loves you...
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Weblog language translator - blog translation on the fly with Roller specif
2007-11-28 18:15:00
Finally got round to upgrading my 'Weblog language translator' from beta. Key to improving it was removing the roll over based banner I had implemented (the Google translation service, which I piggy-back off of, only translates circa 3k characters, so the banner header, full of links was using up the majority of the translation). Obviously this points out a few of the flaws of the implementation, namely reliance on Google to provide the service (and of course a dependency on the call syntax not changing), and all of the weaknesses that follow on from relying on the Google service, not least the translatable character limit. This time round I'm much happier with the implementation - and I've done a fair bit of testing to ensure it's fit for purpose. Unlike the other implementations out on the web I've added Roller specific functionality, implemented in JavaScript, creating a 'main' (or rather 'weblog') page for each language. I did this because I wanted to tailor...
More About: Blog , Language , Translator , Translation

The Mighty Boosh, New Rave, Aluminium Potasium Sulphate and Monoammonium Ph
2007-11-12 23:00:00
The Mighty Boosh have returned for a third series - and all I can say is thank you Aunty Beeb for bringing it back ready to blow away the Winter blues. For those not in the know The Mighty Boosh is comedy show staring Julian Barratt and Noel Fielding (who mainly play Howard Moon and Vince Noir respectively). I think it's the funniest thing on at the moment - even better than the fantastic My Name is Earl. From the outset it reminded me of my favourite comedy series of all time - The Goodies - and according to my preferred source of Revisionist information was in part based upon The Goodies in that it represents a complete "world" rather than being simply another sketch show. It's not due on terrestrial telly for a few days (BBC3 at 22:30 GMT on Thursday the 15th of November, 2007) - but thanks to the lovely people at BBC Online you can watch it over on their website. The blurb has this to say about the first episode "Eels : Sitcom about a jazz fan, a fashion victim, a mys...
More About: Rave , Aluminium , Lumi

Remembrance Day, 2007
2007-11-11 23:00:00
So Remembrance Day, 2007, it always seems to roll around so quickly - and how quickly we all seem to forget the debt we owe those who have fought and died for us to live comfortable and peaceful lives at home in the UK. I don't want to get into the legality of the current conflicts in Iraq, nor the issue of us being in Afghanistan, what matters on Remembrance Day is that we all remember what we owe to those who have sacrificed there lives for us - whether we asked them to or not - and for the sacrifice which is still going on today by the members of our armed forces across the world. This used to be a difficult time for me, coming from a mixed English and Irish upbringing - (especially when I was younger and trying to understand which 'side' I was on) - as I've got older this has got a lot easier. On Remembrance Day, more than any other time, I'm not English and I'm not Irish - I'm both. It's often not remembered that in 1916, the same year as the Easter Rising, wh...

Happy Halloween 2007
2007-10-31 21:14:00
Happy Halloween ! Here's the Bonzo's... Link to above clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q2fXUe-dmy 0
More About: Home , Happy , Allo

Wayne Does Blur
2007-10-10 00:33:00
Thanks to Terry Jones, partner Systems Engineer extraordinaire, who filmed this debacle. Also present were: Greg Nolan, Dawar Ghazani, Neil Davies, and Stuart Davy (apologies if I've forgotten anyone). Yes, that's right, it is supposed to be "There's No Other Way" by the magnificent Blur . Link to the clip above: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mnPP6xQRWH U And here, of course, is the way it's supposed to sound... lol... Link to the clip above: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CwzooafTdU o
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Sun CEC 2007 tomorrow
2007-10-07 10:53:00
So just one more day until I fly out to Sun CEC 2007. The thing I'm looking forward to most is getting to see a large number of my buddies, friends and colleagues from the Technical community in Sun. The thing I'm looking forward to least is the flight - I love flying (especially the take-off and landing) - but the hanging around in airport lounges and sitting in one seat for hours on the plane really gets me down. Still I can't wait to see the guys and I know it'll be and amazing line up of presentations and workshops of field experience (from the last couple of CEC events I've been to) - the Sun 'Field Engineering' highlight of the year.
More About: Tomorrow , Morrow , Tomo

Welcome to the 'blogosphere Peter...
2007-10-02 00:38:00
Really glad to see Peter Alsop join the blogging community at Sun. It's great to see a new blog appear from the UK and Ireland technical team - especially when it's someone I admire as much as Peter. His 'blog is over at http://blogs.sun.com/psa/. Peter's a very talented fellow and a great orator - he's immensely passionate about technology and it's application in the real world and is one of the most enthusiastic speakers I know. I first met Peter five or so years ago, when he was the team leader of the System Engineers in what we at Sun call the 'Commercial' industry. But I really remember him for his excitement over Java and the possibilities it brought to the UK development community. Here's a photo from a couple of years ago, when Peter had roped me into an event at his local university, Hertfordshire - the event was a J2EE (Sun) versus .Net (Microsoft) discussion - and was a friendly and convivial affair, despite the strongly worded title (not just because we ha...
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Sun Customer Engineering Conference 2007
2007-09-22 12:12:00
Just two weeks until Sun's major Field Technologist get together - the Customer Engineering Conference (CEC) 2007. This is a yearly event - being held in Las Vagas this year - and virtually in Second Life. Over 3,600 Sun Customer Engineers and around 300 Sun Partners from around the world will meet in Las Vegas, Nevada. The event always feature keynotes from Sun executives but this year will also include Industry leaders too. There will be a ton of things going on during the event - all around field focused, customer engineering. Apparently it will "deliver critical training with focused technical tracks and breakout sessions", plus there will be "a demo pavilion, and abundant networking opportunities for all participants". The real highlight for me will be seeing Andy Bechtolsheim: The Value of Design: Sun's Systems Launch Join John Fowler and Andy Bechtolsheim on Tuesday, October 9th, at the launch of the next-generation CoolThreads servers and blade designed ...

Who are the Pirates when the record industry resorts to entrapment ?
2007-09-19 12:00:00
Here's the indomitable Trent Reznor extolling his Australian fans to "steal" his latest album (Year Zero) - in fact to "steal, steal, steal away". Apparently the price of CD's in the antipodes is extremely high, with much of the money made kept by the music production and distribution industry. In an interview in May with the Herald Sun in Australia he said this on the high price of CD's: "You got record labels that are doing everything they can to p--- people off and rip them off." Lashing out at his own record label (Universal Media Group (UMG)) he said, "I've garnered a core audience that you feel it's OK to rip off? F--- you'. That's also why you don't see any label people here, 'cos I said, 'F--- you people. Stay out of my f---ing show. If you wanna come, pay the ticket like anyone else. F--- you guys.' They're thieves. I don't blame people for stealing music if this is the kind of s--- that they pull off." Although I find it hard to believe that if Tre...
More About: Pirates , Industry , Resorts , Record , Entrapment

Wikipedia - Historical Revisionism, Negationism and Dystopian Fiction
2007-09-10 12:00:00
Wikipedia reminds me ever so much of Winston Smith's job in 1984 by George Orwell (or Eric Blair), as I recall Winston constantly rewrites the past to suit the needs of the present. Surprisingly however (or not) Wikipedia's entry for 'Historical Revision ism (Negationism)' doesn't include any references to itself. The chap in 'Brazil', the 1985 film by Terry Gilliam, has the same, or very similar, job to Winston, as I further recall. My favourite 'traditional' dystopian story is Malcolm Bradbury's 'Fahrenheit 451', although I enjoyed Alan Moore's 'V for Vendetta' when it came out in 18 years ago, when I was 18, in 1988. However I suspect that I'll enjoy Aldous Huxley's 'Brave New World', when I eventually get around to reading it (although I didn't get on with his 'The Doors of Perception (1954)' which I read half-heartedly at 14). I appear to have read, and own, an unhealthy amount of the material on Wikipedia's List of dystopian literature - strange...
More About: Fiction , Wikipedia

Marble driven, wooden, binary adding machine
2007-09-06 03:28:00
This is great - I saw this marble driven, wooden, binary adding machine on my friend Doug Clinton's 'blog and I just had to add it here. As Doug says "This is just awe-inspiring (for any self-respecting geek, that is)" - and I really couldn't agree more. I showed the clip to a few of the guys in our City (London, that is) office today - and they unanimously agreed too. Doug's post permalink "A binary adder made of wood. Incredible video" and YouTube's post link "Marble adding machine" - just to keep it all together.
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Games the kids play
2007-09-05 03:44:00
Current games on the boy's PCs... Age of Empires III Age of Empires III - The War Chiefs Dawn of War - Dark Crusade Dragonshard Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix Jade Empire Neverwinter Nights 2 Oblivion Overlord Power Rangers - Ninja Storm Rayman 3 Rayman - Raving Rabbids Rise of Legends Star Trek Armada II Stronghold Legends Supreme Commander The Lord of the Rings (Battle for Middle-Earth II) The Lord of the Rings (Battle for Middle-Earth II)- The Rise of the Witch-King Warcraft III Warcraft III - Frozen Throne Zoo Tycoon 2 Zoo Tycoon 2 - African Adventure (part of the 'Zookeeper Collection' edition) Zoo Tycoon 2 - Endangered Species (part of the 'Zookeeper Collection' edition) Zoo Tycoon 2 - Marine Mania Zoo Tycoon 2 - Extinct Animals (includes the 'Dino Danger Pack')
More About: Kids , Games , Play , The Kids

The Fair Finance Consortium - fighting Financial Exclusion one step at a ti
2007-08-30 03:33:00
I'd like to introduce you to just one of the organisations fighting financial exclusion in the West Midlands - the Fair Finance Consortium. The Fair Finance Consortium is a collaboration of 10 independent Not for Profit financial services providers who operate throughout the West Midlands, members include: ART Black Business In Birmingham (3b) Black Country Enterprise Loan Fund Black Country Reinvestment Society Coventry and Warwickshire Reinvestment Trust Impetus North Staffordshire Risk Capital Fund plc Sandwell Advice and Money Link Street UK The Arrow Fund The Halal Fund All of the members are either Independent Not for Profit businesses, Charitable Foundations (Ltd by guarantee), or Industrial and Provident Societies (IPS). Unlike 'For Profit' organisations loan capital (money earned from loan repayments) is recycled, and loaned out again and again. In my mind the most important work that the FFC does is in fighting financial exclusion - helping small busi...
More About: Financial , Fighting , Step

Caernarfon Castle
2007-08-28 10:52:00
Here's some photos I took on my Sony Ericsson W880i the week before last whilst the family was on Holiday in North West Wales. Caernarfon Castle is one of the castle's built by Edward I (Longshanks) during his conquest of Wales - and is a wonderful example of the height of castle building of the time (started in 1283 and nearing it's current layout circa 1323). It was the birthplace of Edward II, and is the traditional seat of investiture of the title of 'Prince of Wales' - currently held by Prince Charles, who received the honour in 1969 (not without some protest from Welsh Nationalists it should be noted). The castle is also home to the regimental museum of the Royal Welch Fusiliers (no I haven't spelt that wrong - it's an archaic English spelling of the word Welsh). It's well worth a visit if you're in North West Wales - as are the other castles started by Edward I - Conwy, Harlech and Beaumaris Castles.

Enterprise Architecture @ Sun Microsystems
2007-08-24 09:06:00
As I mentioned in this post Enterprise Architect ure Practitioners Conference 2007 here is my presentation in full from that event - along with the speakers notes. Not yet attached is the overview of differing architectural skill / capability 'domains' which I 'white-boarded' at the event - but I'll do a post later which includes a web friendly version of that and link it in. Don't forget that you can use the 'Body Image Size' function over on the right hand side to resize the images to something you find more acceptable. Enjoy ! Enterprise Architecture @ Sun Microsystems Welcome to the Conference ! Introductions Contents The 3 major uses of EA @ Sun Microsystems EA used internally at Sun Sun internal EA has delivered... EA used externally for Sun Customers : Why do customers involve Sun in there EA Programmes EA used externally for Sun Customers : Supporting customers EA teams helps Sun to... EA used externally for Sun Customers : Three EA case studies... EA case s...

Enterprise Architecture Practitioners Conference, 2007
2007-08-23 22:48:00
I've finally prepared my slides from when I presented at the Enterprise Architecture Practitioners Conference , 2007, so just thought I'd finalise by covering the day and getting the slides online... I have to say it was a great day - Enterprise Architecture (EA) is one of my favourite disciplines and getting to present on the subject for the conference was something I'd looked forward to since the previous years event. The conference was hosted in Paris, at the Paris Hilton, just off the Sienne - it was hosted by the Open Group, and I was kindly asked to present by John Spencer, the recently retired Director of The Open Group's Architecture Forum, and once I was there I was warmly welcomed by Allen Brown, the President and Chief Executive Officer of The Open Group. As you can probably guess I'm very passionate about EA, in fact any (almost all) of the methods and techniques for getting a contextual, "Big Picture" view of an IT / IS estate ecosystem (what I like to call 'M...
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Scott McNealy to be honoured as a Distinguished Fellow of the British Compu
2007-08-13 03:28:00
Scott is due to be honoured as a Distinguished Fellow of the British Computer Society (BCS) - and will be joining me as the only other Fellow of the BCS at Sun. Fellow is the most senior professional grade of the BCS, it is in itself quite an achievement to be awarded with one, and Distinguished Fellowship is even rarer - being presented to members of the computing profession who have made an outstanding contribution to the advancement of computing (the last one was eight years ago). The presentation is being made during the BCS's Winter Gala and Candlelit Dinner, by BCS President-elect Rachel Burnett, on the 14th of November (the day after Scott's birthday) and the location is the beautiful Goldsmith?s Hall in London. When I last spoke to Scott he said he was "Really looking forward to it.". You can learn more about the event here at the offical event website. The event is open to non-BCS members, as well as members, and tickets can be reserved from the website above - h...
More About: Scott

Goodbye Tony Wilson...
2007-08-12 02:27:00
Very sad to hear earlier today that Tony Wilson passed away this week (Friday the 10th of August). Obviously Tony will forever be remembered by his relationship to the UK (and mainly Manchester) music scene, highlights include bringing the Sex Pistols to the attention of the world outside of 'the smoke' (London to the rest of the World) in the UK, managing Joy Division (nee Warsaw), and then New Order. Part owner and manager of Factory Records (home of the Happy Mondays) - then part owner and manager of The Haçienda (often credited with being one of the 'birthplaces' of Rave and the rise of the 'cult of the DJ'). However for me it will be Tony's commitment to Regionalism and his passionate rallying against Centralisation that I will miss the most. I suspect that if he'd lived it would be this area that he would have eventually been remembered for. I wish his family and friends all the best in this time of mourning.
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No 'Blog entries for the last couple of weeks...
2007-08-12 01:45:00
So I haven't been posting much over the last couple of weeks - although lots has been going on. Unfortunately for the readers of this 'blog all my 'spare' time, which I'd normally spend on doing my 'blog, has been redirected to writing up patents. Fortunately I hope I've been contributing to the wider technology 'IP' pool. I've been raising three patents, all in the area of 'Macro IT': Sizing and Capacity Planning Large Complex Systems, Securing Large Complex Systems, and SOA Adoption in Large Complex Systems. It's by no means a done deal that they will be accepted via the Patent process at Sun - but obviously I'm hopeful - and I'll disclose more about the details of the individual inventions as the patent submissions are being processed. I learnt two very valuable lessons - one I anticipated, the other I didn't. Firstly it's a bureaucratic process, and takes effort in producing the appropriate corresponding 'copy' for each of the sections of the submitta...
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