Check out these cool window upgrades:

My wife and I found them at Loew's, but on the web, I've found them at: http://www.polyguardcovers.com/windowwellscenes.asp

They're for the home classroom, which I think will improve the learning environment dramatically. Unfortunately, I can't put them in my home office, since it's got the escape ladder...

For the kids, it's way better than looking at steel window wells, and the worst part was cleaning out all the junk that's collected there over the past 5 years. The installation was quick and easy--about 20 minutes. If only Windoze upgrades were that easy!

Speaking of Windoze upgrades, my recommendation: Sun Java Desktop System or Mandrake Linux.

I've upgraded my old Pentium II 266Mhz machine with both JDS and mandrake. Both installs were a piece of cake. The nice part about JDS, is that it came with Star Office and Mozilla already installed. Mandrake was still the easiest, and I love KDE!

That old machine wasn't supposed to work with JDS, but it does. I've even used VPN and worked from home on it! I'm afraid it won't work on my original Dell 486 66Mhz machine that I still have. I've got Red Hat 6.0 running on that beastie, though!

I also have a Win98 box (Pentium III) and a BEAUTIFUL iMac running OS X. Our current favorite is the iMac, by far. And it's a great alternative to Windoze too.

See also: General

Personally, I'd rather everyone just talk about technology and how to make better products for Sun and the world. That's what we're here for, and what we're paid for.Nuff said, right?

I really hate it when people wander the halls, liberally spouting off their personal political opinions. In the end, someone is going to get their feelings/beliefs stepped on: those that are silent (hoping not to offend), and those that challenge directly.

Just because you do not take an interest in politics doesn't mean politics won't take an interest in you. --Pericles (430 B.C.)

Since it's an election year, I found this interesting tool. I'm not in any way endorsing or affiliated with the site, but it's still an interesting Political Party Platform Comparison tool (http://www.lp.org/issues/platform/compare/).

Interestingly enough, it says I preferred Democratic for 1 issue, Green for 2 issues, Libertarian for 2 issues, and Republican for 2 issues. Now how is that supposed to help me vote? ;-)

What this country needs are more unemployed politicians. --Edward Langley O'Rourke

See also: General

I blogged a few days ago about my desire to have additional category information wrapping each entry in Roller.

Thanks to a very helpful comment from Dave Johnson, I have been able to apply styling per category entry in my blog!

You will notice I've added color coding, and some "category tagging" to all of my entries.

Here's my browser test results:

See also: General

As much as the title sounds like code slinging, I'd like to wish my cousin, Brandon Solomine, a very Happy Birthday!

Brandon and I practically grew up together (we were born 40 days apart), and is the closest I have to a brother. Even though he moved to Paso Robles, CA (site of the major quake earlier this year) in junior high, we've remained very close.

He's going to a film school in LA to be a camera operator (hopefully for ESPN). His internship is with "Chop, Cut, Rebuild" (CCR), a car remodeling/hot rod show airing on the Fox Speed Channel (FXS).

I think his season airs beginning in February.

See also: General

I often try to get a picture with Scott McNealy, when he comes to Broomfield to talk to the troops.

This first pic is at the official opening of the Broomfield campus. I really like the fact that the Teamwork banner is just behind us.

This next pic was taken at an All Hands that featured Denny Dent painting a portrait of Larry Hambly. I saw Denny Dent when I was a student at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University. This also happened to be on St. Patrick's Day, so I decided to wear my kilt to work. Scott's comment to me was: "Nice kilt."

See also: General

I'd posted this question to the blog alias back in June, but thought I'd post it here to see if I'd get any comments.

It looks like Roller outputs some information around individual entries:

<div class="entry">
      <a href="/roller/page/shudson310/20040630"><img
       class="daypermalink"
       src="/roller/images/permalink.gif"
       title="Permanent link to this day"
       alt="20040630" /></a>

  Wednesday June 30, 2004</div>

Is there any way to modify Roller to insert the category information around each entry, so we can do additional CSS styling? perhaps wrap the entry in another div wrapper like:

<div class="DocBook">

There are links for the WeblogCategoryChooser, so the app is tracking it, just not outputing it for each entry.

See also: General

​ ​​​​The metadata our current blog entries publish with is extremely limited. If we are trying to drive the web towards the Semantic Web, we need to get better about adopting and publishing standard metadata, like the Dublin Core Metadata Initiative.

I work on the Sun System Handbook, and if you look at any of the Full Component List or Service View and Component page sources, you can see what I'm talking about. Here's an example:

<html>

<head profile="http://dublincore.org/documents/dcq-html/">
<title>Sun Fire V880 - Full Components List</title>
<meta http-equiv="Content-type" content="text/html;charset=UTF-8" />
<link href="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" rel="schema.DC" />
<link href="http://purl.org/dc/terms/" rel="schema.DCTERMS" />
<meta content="en-US" name="DC.language" />
<meta content="Full Components List" name="DC.type" />
<meta content="Sun Microsystems, Inc." name="DC.publisher" />

<meta content="Sun Parts Repository (SPRuce)" name="DC.creator" />
<meta content="text/html" scheme="DCTERMS.IMT" name="DC.format" />
<meta content="US" name="DC.coverage" />
<meta content="©2003 Sun Microsystems, Inc. All rights reserved." name="DC.rights" />
<meta name="DC.title" content="Sun Fire V880" />
</head>

Depending on how easy it is to modify the Roller software, we should be able to at least put some of the category/keyword, title and other information to help with more accurate search results (if not now, certainly in the future).

See also: General

Usually, I just watch the Star Wars fan flicks on atomfilms.com, but this is really funny.

Check it out: http://www.sun.com/aboutsun/media/features/insidejack.html

See also: General

Every year, we get the pleasure of hearing Scott McNealy give a State of Sun address in person in Broomfield.

Usually, it is just before the 4th of July shutdown, in conjunction with the John Elway Celebrity Classic. We also get the pleasure of seeing some friendly competition between John Elway and Scott McNealy.

One year it was a furthest golf chip, then furthest football pass, and a most accurate hockey shot.

No competition this year, however. Elway must not have wanted to try the bowling challenge. ;-)

I was able to get a pic with the Chief after today's talk:

See also: General

To describe the image: I love Lego, Boba Fett, was married in a kilt, and have always wanted to be an astronaut. They didn't have an image of a tornado on reasonablyclever.com, or I'd have added that too. Sure, it's weird, but I'm reasonably complex. :-)

I've lived in Colorado all my life. Some on a ranch in southeastern Colorado, some in Fort Collins (while at CSU), but most of it in Colorado Springs, and now Boulder/Denver.

In my spare time, I enjoy spending time with my wife and 3 kids, church, and storm chasing!

I've worked at Sun for almost 9 years now, in a variety of roles.

If you want the specifics in my Curriculum Vitae, check out my profile on LinkedIn.

Basically, I started out as a technical writer and document conversion specialist for SunSoft at the Rocky Mountain Technology Center in Colorado Springs, CO using a SUN4/50 SparcStation IPX. I worked on various products including Solstice Backup, Solstice Job Scheduler, Solstice AdminSuite, and the Solaris 2.4 and 2.5 Administration Guides.

After the Broomfield, CO campus was built, the folks at RMTC were relocated and the site shut down. Some moved to the Bay area, some to Burlington, MA, and some lucky folks rigged it so they could stay in the Springs.

I got a job as the webmaster for Sun Educational Services, which relocated to the new Broomfield, CO campus. I worked in that group for 3 years, with only 1 manager (my most stable position at Sun). My desktop was an Ultra 2, and was one of the easiest boxes to swap out hardware for. Our webserver was hosted on an E450, also a beautiful machine.

Looking for new opportunities, I moved over to SunSolve.Sun.COM to work on the next-generation features of the site. We tried to move the site to be XML-based, until the net bubble burst.I got upgraded to an Ultra 60 for my desktop, which I used until June 2004.

I've worked on various XML-based projects since, in a variety of sub-organizations in Sun Services, including content management, metadata management, and knowledge management. I'm also proud to work on the OASIS DocBook Technical Committee, along with Steve Cogorno and the great Norm Walsh (both from Sun). I also greatly respect the other members of the DocBook TC, who are very active in the DocBook and technical writing community.

My favorite project to date at Sun, has been working on the Sun System Handbook. It's got the best information on supporting Sun hardware, and a great team of folks to work on it.

Now I'm on a SunRay with remote access to a dedicated blade on a SunFire B1600 in a lab. This setup is working pretty well, so far.

I'm not sure what the future holds, but I hope it continues to be bright here at Sun!

See also: General

I've been working on a website (outside of working hours) with a buddy of mine for a client, and it is now live!

If you've seen the movie "Best in Show", you will realize that some folks can get a little crazy over their show dogs. Unfortunately, most dog shows don't come with a cash purse, and you basically win "bragging rights" for the year.

WaggingRights.com gives show winners a place to showcase their dog! There isn't any requirement that your dog has to be a show winner, or even a show dog, to have a page. The site does organize listings by breed, breed category, and activity. You can also opt to get custom artwork of your prized pooch, for a very reasonable rate.

Pass the word, and get your dogs listed on the site!

See also: General

Today, we celebrate our twin's 3rd birthday! I can't believe they are so old now. These last three years been a blur.

Twins are a lot of work, but tons of fun. We have fraternal twins, a boy and a girl. That makes it pretty easy to tell them apart.

Collin is a lot like me. The boy even likes Star Wars, with very little encouragement from me! :-)

Caileigh is a lot like her mom: almost too adventurous for her own good! She always brightens up a room when she walks in, and is a bundle of energy.

They both adore their older brother, Connor, and they all play very well together.

I also found out that I'm going to be an uncle again! My sister will be due next March. We are all very excited!

See also: General

I've known Jason since 7th grade. We also roomed together at Colorado State University, and he is one of my closest friends. Unfortunately, I don't get to see him very often because he works for Motorola in Chandler, Arizona. I don't know how anyone can live and work in that heat! Not to mention the tarantulas and worse: scorpions.

Jason is one of the smartest guys I know. He's also blessed with a wonderful wife and two sons. I would also have to echo my comments from an earlier post: a friend is "someone who knows all about you and likes you just same."

Happy Birthday, old man!

See also: General

Happy Birthday to my very good friend Paul, creator of the Games of James Bond website!

Paul and I started in the same tech pubs group in SunSoft at the Sun Rocky Mountain Technology Center, and have been friends ever since!

We enjoy gaming, primarily Star Wars CCG, Lord of the Rings CCG, various board games, and Talisman.

If there is anything you want to know about James Bond, though, he is your man. The website covers Savage Worlds, other RPGs, custom CCG, and more!

See also: General

I took Latin in college, and am a big history buff of the Roman Army.

Being an Xnut (without the Java), I found this quote that ties my Latin and XML loves...

"Si Exorditur ab 'X' Bonum Esse Oportet"

Anyone care to translate (without using the above link or Google to cheat)? :-)

See also: General