strange symphonies

Sun Tech Days: OpenSolaris Day

I got a free invite to participate in the Sun Tech Days, and the first day I had to choose between Netbeans or OpenSolaris. Well, since I am a vim enthusiast, the best choice was obviously OpenSolaris.

The event had five sessions.

• Building and Deploying OpenSolaris by Stephen Lau
• OpenSolaris Virtualization Technologies by Edward Pilatowicz
  
• New Security Features in OpenSolaris by Wyllys Ingersoll
  
• Solaris Performance & Tools Performance, Observability & Debugging (POD) in Solaris 10 and OpenSolaris by Peter Karlsson
• Get Involved, Join the OpenSolaris Community by Stephen Lau

It was a good chance for me to see the another side of the free and open source software side. Learn more about what technologies are available and choose the best choice.

I’ll only talk about two of the sessions as they were of more interests to me. The other talks were alright.

Building and Deploying OpenSolaris

Coming from the GNU/Linux side, with even very little FreeBSD background, this provided a very good introduction into the world of OpenSolaris.

How do package management works, and basically understanding the general management of the system. A very good introduction.

Get Involved, Join the OpenSolaris Community

This was actually turned into a BOF (Birds of a Feather) Session, which ended the day early. Everyone decided to head home at this time. Initially I decided to pick up my free goodies (OpenSolaris shirt, and the OpenSolaris Starter Kit).

After that, I joined up and talk to a few of the OpenSolaris folks. Also saw a person walking around wearing a Gnome tshirt to find out its Simos Xenitellis.

Met a few of the FOSS users in Malaysia, maybe more will turn up the following days.

I stayed through the end as there was a lucky draw for a Sparc machine! Goddamn they are giving away 2000 USD$ machines each day of the event! Three machines, I want at least one! Can someone give me one?

After this I had to rush to Bangsar to meetup with the MyOSS gang for dinner, and get my grubby little hands on Jaya Kumar’s OLPC, which is one cool little device.

eGenting Moment of Glory

So my eGenting Moment of Glory is finally up. Thanks to everyone who has commented on this blog congratulating me, it really means a lot.

Winner of the eGenting Competition 2006

Neither 3rd, nor 2nd. But 1st place in the eGenting Competition 2006. Well I’ve pulled off what I thought would be impossible, especially because of my choice of an obscure language that I bet 99.9% of the programmers in Malaysia haven’t heard of.

The direct reward? 6000 MYR + a Job Offer.

• The money, great, some extra pocket money.
• The Job Offer? Doesn’t seem like a bad incentive, plus it doesn’t leave me out in the cold.

The indirect reward?

• Clout. I can finally be a voice to be reckoned with, instead of just ‘another student’, especially in the face of the level of IT graduates in Malaysia.
• Hopefully recognition of the importance that Free and Open Source Software had on my education. I do not doubt that it has been one of the best mentors I’ve ever had.

I dared to defy convention, and use Ruby instead of the suggested C++ or Java.

Best of luck to all participants, I hope to see (and compete against) you next time (if I can still participate).

I’ve been told I haven’t released my Ruby solutions, which I must have forgotten. They still need a bit of cleaning up, and I’ll post it in the upcoming weeks, after I’ve settled back in Malaysia.

Sadly they haven’t uploaded the pictures yet. So stay tune to this site, and I’ll keep you updated.