You’ve heard the old saying about “Sticks and Stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me” right? I think we know that’s not true, but it’s also wrong when it comes to buzzwords in the Enterprise. Want to see your corporate leadership and legal department run to the hills and prepare for war? Say these words together, “social, media, intranet”.

“Social Media” is a buzzword. Essentially social media sites are just web applications that allow people to interact by sharing. The sharing may be in many forms (just a few for example):

• Conversations – Forums, Blogs, Twitter
• Web Site Links – Bookmark sites (delicous), News sites (digg, reddit)
• Documents – Wikipedia, WetPaint, Google Docs
• Personal Information – Linked in, Facebook, MySpace
• Pictures - Flickr, Picassa

So choose your words wisely, especially the buzzwords! Another term your leadership and lawyers might find far more palatable is “employee contributed content”. Enterprise Social Media could be called “Collaboration 2.0 - Employee contributed content that drives knowledge management. Just makes you want to puke and go work for a start-up? Dittos.

As I’ve started to follow my co-worker’s life data feeds (blogs, twitter, facebook) I find myself enjoying people at another level. Someone who was just “another person” on that “weekly call” is now a person that did something interesting, or just had a baby, or ___________.

Think of the opportunities, and the scary things.

• Your former boss-from-hades requests access to your facebook page. Think he’ll know those point-haired comments are about him?
• You start following a leader at your company on twitter. Now you are better prepared for that next meeting!
• A leader at your company starts following you online! Well this could be scary but think of it as a way to look smart (if you are) to somebody that might matter to your career.
• A co-worker tweets about some personal views. This may be a good reminder to avoid a topic - or occasion to have lunch to discuss something you have in common.
• You are well networked from LinkedIn to twitter to ________. When the next corporate cuts come you’ll look more appealing to future employers.

Session One was a loser. Automation of MDA to J2EE (TS-7466). While a potentially interesting topic it wasn’t apparent from the description that this was basically a vendor demonstration. Those things should somehow be noted better. Every five years I sit through (as a skeptic) and listen to the model driven generated application idea. I’m always disappointed, and was again. Most of the time was spent on how the tool worked under the covers without really giving us a picture of what it did. We basically never got a real idea of what the tool did so the presenter told the crowd to just visit the booth to see that part. Worst session of JavaOne for me.

Next I went to an awesome session on Mylyn (TS-6421). I think Mylyn used to be Mylar which we trialed a couple years ago. It’s come a long way and is a great platform to track what you are doing in the IDE and just show you what you need to see to complete your task. It has awesome integration with tracking systems (JIRA, etc) and even includes the ability to organize emails and more into a work “episode”. Since so many of us context switch a lot this is a huge help. We’ll be incorporating this tool into our development efforts very soon.

I was signed up for an OSGi session, but was lured to a presentation on how to create your own DSL (Domain Specific Language). It was very well done, by two guys from Verisign. I think Sun should be scheduling more talks from accomplished IT guys at different companies like this (good presentation skills). Did I mention I’m available for next year? They covered not only how you can invoke scripting languages from Java but also how to create your own. They made a clear case for where this was useful and walked through the basics to do it with a few examples. I didn’t follow it all but I got the basics. Very useful – made me think about a card game I’ve been wanting to create.

Next I visited a session on how to choose a web framework (TS-6457). Since I am involved in a lot of technology evaluations this was actually a good session. He started out with the typical criteria (some I had not thought of) and added in some of his unique ideas. I really found this useful. Then he reviewed several of the frameworks and gave his thoughts. I think he messed up Struts 2 – he treated it like a new project. AFAIK it is just a new version of WebWorks with a new name, I could be wrong. Overall a good session but it would have been better if he went deeper on three different frameworks instead of several similar ones.

Met with JBoss on a variety of topics and then headed out to dinner with my team. Good day, I’m ready to go home, Java has worn me out and I can’t drink anymore of it! Missed Bob’s Guice BOF

The day started out with a keynote from Oracle. Some interesting stuff. The mentality of Oracle hasn’t changed much over the years. They provide an IDE, runtimes, database integration that is very seamless but hopelessly proprietary. It’s all “standards based” meaning where they use standard plumbing and interfaces. However the key thing here is LOCK-IN. They have tons of Java code to make all the magic happen and it all starts with “com.oracle”. So do you use the magic (and their tool), embrace it, debug it, or just learn to use open source solutions? Very slick Oracle, but no thanks. They ran way over time too.

The first session I attended was a panel (PAN-5435). This was a fun idea for a panel. They had 4 script language presenters (Groovy, JRuby, Jython, and Scala). They had 3 rounds to show similar features with demos and you voted on your cell for the winner in each round and a final winner. I think the winners in order were JRuby, Groovy, Scalia, Jython). If all the presenters had done their labs it would have been better (some didn’t do the example they were given). I would have done JavaScript probably as well. Decent session, fun.

Next I missed the Hands on Struts2 session for a work-related conference call. After grabbing some food I hooked up with Bob Lee for some coffee and we discussed a variety of interesting topics from Android to twitter. Always fun to talk with Bob - hopefully we can get you to move back to St. Louis some day!

The next session was a JRuby versus Groovy - TS-6050 (noticing a trend?) This was arguably the best session I’ve attended. The presenter (Neal Ford) was highly knowledgeable, gave a ton of thought of how to compare, and was an excellent speaker (bring this guy back Sun on any topic!!!). Bottom line is Groovy is a lot like Java and carries some of the verbosity and restrictions. It is an excellent choice for many applications. Things I liked about Groovy: Operator Overloading, closures, ignores private (great test tool), dynamic… JRuby had a ton of things I liked but not very “Java”. The ability to layer a DSL for a framework, expressions, mix-ins (modules), mature, very cross platform (it generated a distributable exe and app file). I think the JRuby language, save the fact it is very different than Java, has a lot of things going for it over Groovy. Top notch presentation and session, I learned a ton of stuff that would have taken a lot of time to sift through on my own.

The next really interesting session was something I deal with a lot in my job - open source - and the politics of it. What really is open source? How do trademarks affect it? Is M$ shared source really “open source”? What is OSI and how do they categorize open source licenses? Those were some of the questions I got answers for at TS-7064. Great advice to corporations participating in open source. Anytime you can see Simon Phipps speak it is worth it.

We spent some time in the Pavilion with some vendors, one interesting tool was project Wonderworld. They have some very interesting ways to use SecondLife type of environments for corporate/business collaboration and visualization. Very great ideas but I think a bit before their time.

We were fortunate enough to have dinner with some of the JRE engineering team (compiler, gc, and other developers). That was very interesting. I got to ask a java compiler guy all my crazy stupid questions (well a few of them). Very interesting to hear some of the guts of how the new JRE (6 update 10) works with the smaller JVM bundle you can bootstrap with. Some of this is way overdue and exciting to see it happen. My own company is so far behind the latest releases I know it will be a while before we can use it.

Ever feel like you are wearing the corporate version of a “kick-me” sign? I’ve found it very interesting dealing with the legal/management concerns some companies have about concepts like blogging. Most companies have knowledge management tools that allow for searching, searchable repositories (often web accessible), and gads of Intranet pages created by goodness-knows-what (you’ve heard of Sharepoint right?).

It’s all okay, just don’t use the “b word”. Don’t understand? Watch the video.

I love the last idea - let’s implement that in every corporate blog across the country!

I can see the pointy-haired boss inviting Dilbert to his office. He asks him to implement “flogging”. Dilbert smiles wondering if it could be true.

Social networking tools are becoming a commodity. Look at the script panel of any Internet hosting company and you’ll see blogging tools, interactive content management systems, wikis, and more. There are also a host of free software service sites. Blogger.com and wordpress.com are just a couple examples in the blog space. These online services offer something more than software - they provide an audience!

Through the front page of these sites, taxonomy, and search people can find your content. These sites also are starting to provide integration with other social media through open APIs like OpenSocial.

So given the option of self-hosting a site or using online services what should a person or organization choose? While there are a lot of variables to consider, I think integrating online services into a hosted community is a great option. Maybe your thought leaders should have a blog on blogger.com and incorporate that into your website with RSS/Atom. That gets your organization a place on the larger internet but still allows the content to be part of your custom website.

I think smaller organizations and communities can greatly benefit from hosting a package that best fits their needs. That might be a wiki, SN Site (PHPzabi, Dolphin, etc) or CMS (like Drupal or Joomla). Using blog feeds, IM presence indicators, and flexible profile options allow for the greatest community customizations while embracing what is already available as a service on the web.

This opinion is subject to change next week

I’ve seen all these great applications of google maps, read a bit about the API, and think someday I’ll try that out. Well I got a key and started playing around with it. Quickly I was overwhelmed with JavaScript. I’m a Java programmer and we just don’t get along with JavaScript (well I don’t). I do a bit of research and uncover an easy to use JavaScript library that does everything I need AND more with NO programming. Part of me says, “what’s the fun with that?”. The other part says, “Where is the download link?”

Check it out, neat tutorial format too.

I recently got a really great set of Bluetooth stereo headphones. I have a bluetooth PocketPC Phone (Cingular 8125) loaded with Yahoo Music (The online music rental plan for $9.99/mo). Sounds like I’m heading for a great thing…

I did some research on this setup. I found a few people in newsgroups saying it worked great. The headphones arrived. I had the latest ROM from Cingular, but I couldn’t get the headset to work for music. Back to the forums to figure out what is going on.

Turns out there really isn’t any ROM support for A2Dp, except some custom ROMS (no thanks). The folks at HTC (the manufacturer) provide a A2DP stack for M$ bluetooth - for the Tornado phone. It is a few DLL files and some registry changes. It also “works” for the Wizard (8125). Works, just like “Greatness” is a relative word.

After resolving I was going to have to use a hack I made the updates, and it worked. I tuned into one of my favorite bands, David Chowder Band - sounds great. Then I head over to some instrumental music. Hmm… What’s that instrument in the background? Is that some kind of modulating electronic HISS? Yup. Back to the forums.

The hiss is apparently some sort of byproduct of the Microsoft bluetooth stack as other PocketPC devices with the Widcomm stack can tweak the sound out. Do I keep the $100 headphones or … ebay them!?

Here is the place to get the A2DP hack ->
http://www.htcwizardweb.net/node/304
This is a CAB with all the registry changes and DLL’s. Just register first, otherwise you can’t download the file in the thread.

Here are some tuning tips, YMMV ->
http://www.firstloox.org/forums/showthread.php?p=60192

Last bit of advice? OVERCLOCK! I run mine at 240Mhz and it makes up for the bluetooth stack CPU usage.

Well after hearing a few people adding Google AdSense to web sites to pay for hosting fees, or even make some extra cash I decided to add it here to try it out. I’m also working on another website, http://lifeinnorthernmichigan.com to see if I can actually make some money with it. A co-workers neighbor that doesn’t really have a lot of web knowledge is making 1K/mo from three pretty aweful websites (but I can see how they generate clicks). Well it is an experiment.

Interesting blog on the topic.

Well I finally gave up on my Treo. 1) It was dying a terrible battery death 2) The hinge broke AGAIN 3) I work for AT&T and people look at me funny with my Sprint Treo. I switched to Cingular and got the new 8125 phone (a.k.a. HTC Wizard). It’s really awesome. I’m creating an article with all my Cingular 8125 notes with my software finds, and migration from Palm.

The story gets better on internet filters. Of course only after I write a 20 page HOW-TO guide on the SurfPass filter from cogilab do they yank it from the free-for-home-use market. Turns out everyone was downloading the free version and they weren’t making money.

The good news is an easier more powerful filtering software has come out called K9. Much better at false hits, easy to install, use, etc. Step on over to http://www.k9webprotection.com and try it out.

If you are looking for a free, effective, internet filter that can do both blacklists (banned site lists) and content filtering (looking for text in packets) I think I’ve found one that works well. You can even whitelist/blacklist your own. For example I whitelist slashdot.org (sometimes the comment pages are raw, but I don’t care). I blacklist images.google.com. Free blacklist updates, free for home use. Unlike ContentProtect (what I was using) it doesn’t hog any machine resources. Works “behind the scenes” quite well.

http://www.cogilab.com/us/homeedition/index.htm

I’ll try to put an install HOW-TO up soon.

A few things I don’t like about it are:

1) It kills the browser process after a violation. There are reasons to do this, you can change this behavior.
2) No override. You can go whitelist a site but there is no way to put in an override password when a violation is found
3) No ability to email the logs, etc. I think you can administer remotely though.
4) I think I had to login as admin and change the unlimited profile to include content filtering (blacklists was default)

Well everyone in the industry said they couldn’t keep that price of $4.99 with portable support. I just got an email from Yahoo saying (after I just BOUGHT a compatible portable player) that the $4.99 no longer includes portable support for music. That is another $5! What a rip off. I was able to lock in the current price for one year. If someone else has a cheaper price after that I’ll switch.

Wow… Over 1 million tunes for $60/year. I’d say $5/mo (like the Yahoo ad does) but that would be a lie. If you want to pay by the month it is $6.99. Still a deal. Less than half of what the cost of a similar offering from Rhapsody (Rhapsody to-go is 14.99/mo). Downside is of course they are DRM enabled Windows Media files. You can use them from 3 computers however, and unforunately I don’t have a lack of windoze computers around the house. You are “renting” a music collection and you know what? I’m fine with that. The albums I love I’ll probably still buy. Today I buy quite a few albums that I don’t care for except a song or two. I can buy just those songs on Yahoo for 79 cents now (If I still like them after hearing them 20 times). You can also take the music to a DRM enabled MP3 player.

For $5/mo it is worth it to listen to just about any music you want. The WMA files can be downloaded to your hard drive for offline use but they will expire I guess if you don’t connect or cancel the subscription. The software is pretty buggy. It logs me off periodically and then after I log in it doesn’t let me stream music - restarting the program fixes it. It is very web centric and is pretty slow right now. How would you like to size that application deployment?

Ok, so when can I do this with movie and TV shows Yahoo?

The Server Side has a free book on servlets and JSP… Sometimes they disappear so download it!

Wow, PHP, Apache, MySQL, and other useful stuff all prepackaged and configured for multiple platforms. I love open source.
http://www.apachefriends.org/xampp-en.html was easy to install on XP. I ran an install script and started the server. I installed OSCommerce in 5 minutes! server, database, and shopping cart platform all installed in under 10 minutes. Wow. And with PHP I can take the site back and forth b/w Linux (where my web hosting is) to my machine. And it’s not even written in Java!