JavaOne: CommunityCorner

I'm writing this post from one of the hundreds of Sun Ray stations scattered throughout the Moscone Center at JavaOne. If you don't know what a Sun Ray is, it's essentially a stateless thin client that, when I stick my JavaOne badge into, will pull up a virtual desktop associated with my JavaOne id from a centralized server. In the case of these SunRays, JavaOne attendees have the option of using an Ubuntu, OpenSolaris, or Windows Vista desktop. When I pull out my card, the desktop will be saved in its exact state, and I can pull it back up again from any other Sun Ray at the conference. In my opinion, Sun Rays are only useful in a limited number of use cases, but a conference like this definitely qualifies as one of those use cases. Instead of cracking open my laptop and trying to hook into wifi and not drain too much battery, I can just pop into one of these stations to check my email, register for sessions, or write a blog post!

Today at 11:30AM I'm going to be at the java.net CommunityCorner located at booth 101 in the Pavilion. A few other members of the Project Darkstar team should be joining me as well, and I'll be doing a brief podcast on Project Darkstar. If you're here at the conference, please stop by to chat (and take a free pen!).