Category: Sun

Sun going Greener!

07 Aug
Raju Alluri Personal & Family, Sun

This week, I spotted new posters in corridors at work. Recommending green is the way to go. Tips from the poster are not just limited to workplace:

  • Turn off lights, monitors, systems, etc. when not in use and during weekends
  • Use public transportation, carpooling, bike (bicycle) and walk to work whenever possible
  • Reduce amount of printing
  • Use washable coffee mugs, water bottles, etc.

So the eco-responsibility of Sun doesn’t stop at delivering CoolThreads based servers. (BTW, look at this related news item.) I personally like this internal campaign.

Well, what do I do to help the cause?

  • My primary car (when driving alone) is a fuel efficient, non-AC Maruti-800. While in Hyderabad, I use a two wheeler for shorter distances.
  • When in Hyderabad, I use public transportation as much as I can. Especially MMTS train service.
  • When I use my car, I plan my travel during times when traffic is low.
  • During my travel between Bangalore and Hyderabad, I use public (mass) transportation at least for 50% of the distance (to/from train station) and use an auto (even though I can get someone to drop me off at the station) for the rest of the travels.
  • I stopped using my 21″ CRT monitor at home and recently bought a 19″ LCD monitor.
  • I listen to radio on my cell phone than on my BOSE wave radio, especially if I am the only one listening to it.
  • I use washable cups, bottles and cutlery.

Even with all this, there is a lot of scope to improve. It is a very encouraging fact that my employer is fully behind these kind of responsible efforts.

Launching the new way of talking to investors

31 Jul
Raju Alluri Advertisements, Blogging, Sun, Technical

About a decade ago, getting the financial results of a company amounted to waking up the next morning and reading it in a newspaper. Or glue to the TV and listen to financial news. For the last decade, we watched the financial results from the PR news on the web and/or on financial websites like Yahoo! Finance or TheStreet.com. Yesterday, Sun has taken it to the next level. Deliver content to interested listeners through content syndication means. Its like you getting a phone call when someone releases their financial results, as opposed to you calling them (frequently 🙂 ) and figuring out the results. Actually, it is less annoying than getting a phone call in the middle of a meeting. It is more like getting a quiet text message (aka SMS) and you being able to read it at your convenience.
In India this morning, I visited my google reader, rather than visiting my usual financial site, to know more about my company’s results. And its all there, whatever I wanted to know, in a friendly content aggregation tool that supports vi style navigation: press j and k keys to go up and down :-).  I haven’t (yet) subscribed to any newswires from financial sites, so I will read the opinion of the analysts at leisure. But I have the main content with me.

I love this incremental change in delivering news to investors. As Jonathan says here, this is a fairer way of sharing news. RSS feeds are delivered 10 minutes before the news is delivered in a traditional way to financial companies. So if you are in a hurry to know, YOU get it first!

Is it very innovative? IMO, it is just a better (fairer) way of sharing news. Just that. It is just a n-th generation evolution from stone tablets age (thanks again Jonathan for that wonderful post!).

So, here are Sun’s feeds, if you are interested!

SVE College visit

01 Jul
Raju Alluri Solaris/Unix, Sun, Technical

I visited the Shri Vishnu Engineering College for Women on Saturday. Dr. Laxmi initiated the process and Prof. D. G. Krishnam Raju suggested the activity for the day. I did a preso on Sun’s innovations for communities and how students can participate. The attendance is about 200. This is my first ever visit to this college.
I didn’t have much time to talk to any of the faculty in detail. After the talk, I had to rush to my parents. But I could spend some time at the FM broadcast station of the college. This channel, called Vishnu FM, is broadcasted at 90.4. While traveling to my parents, I could listen to the broadcast and the quality of the programs as well as broadcast is very good. They did a very good job.!

Launch of Open Solaris User Group at Bhimavaram

01 Jul
Raju Alluri Other Opensource, Solaris/Unix, Sun, Technical

On Saturday, we launched a Open Solaris User Group at Bhimavaram in the leadership of Prof. G. V. Padmaraju. The acutal process of starting this project on Open Solaris site is still in progress, but we want to socialize this in a larger student community and encourage participation.

Once we announced the user group, we started with the Open Solaris features presentation. I also presented the compiz 3D desktop.
This launch is attended by about 100 students. Photos awaited…

Sherif

29 Jun
Raju Alluri Personal & Family, Sun, Technical

Met Sherif at a local ATM today, after a long time. He is former CTO of Sun’s India Engineering Center and he is the role model for many of my IEC activities today. His company is doing a great job by enabling professionals acquire right skills for further growth. A much needed service for IT industry in India.
During my chat, knew that he is running a few production systems with OpenSolaris. Great!

On Mentoring and SEED

18 Jun
Raju Alluri SEED, Sun

Nature magazine recently published an very good article titled “Nature’s guide to mentoring.” This article outlines the key benefits of mentoring programs like Sun’s SEED program.

The article talks about the benefits of mentoring in research and scientific community. The same benefits can be extrapolated to thought leadership in industry research, product development and engineering processes. SEED essentially does the same thing. The engineering community at Sun contributes to research, development and engineering processes at/from Sun. As part of the SEED program, selected engineering community members are paired up with mentors to improve their growth potential. As a result, the quality of the engineering community keeps on improving at Sun. This has a long term positive impact on Sun’s innovations and product lines.