Stupidly... I ate lunch

Instead of starving myself I decided I should eat the reasonably tasty catered lunch. Fajitas. Yum. Unfortunately all the sessions that I was interested in are now being policed by little event coordinator (eh hem) personnel, because the rooms are beyond capacity. Chairs are full, walls are packed, floor is covered. So sad, no large scale apps or anatomy of an Android app for me. Next up, hopefully will be getting started with Google Apps. It will mean cutting things short, no spell checking, no grammar checking, no editing at all. Which appears to be the norm so far today. I hate that! My current hope is just that I get a little bit more power in the sad event that 1) They don't have power in the code session (if I make it), which IMO would be silly. 2) I don't get there in time and have to go somewhere else which almost certainly (thus far) will not have power.

Off to the coding session, Getting Started With Google App Engine. Here's hoping!

Android session

I just got out of the Introduction to Android session in room three. A fabulous presentation about the state and goals of Android as a platform. Discussion included licencing, goals, features and the constant allusion to actual handsets. When? When? When? According to the Open Handset Alliance they will start to be available in the second half of this year. Vague. :-( The first Android developer challenge with a 5M$ purse has wrapped itself up with over 1700 submisions and the second will start sometime after the ephirieal release of real hardware.

Meanwhile we can use the Android emulator which they assure us provides identical functionality as a device will. I'm a little sceptical, having developed in virtual devices (Palm) in the past with mixed results, but oh so hopeful. In stream of consiousness, and between sessions, I don't really feel I can do justice to the presentation but it reenfources my need to refresh my Java programming. And it seems move on from my beloved Vim to Eclipse which, given that all Google toolkits have Eclipse plugins, seems to be the favored environment at Google, and in particular the Android team.

Regardless, my battery is back to 40% (which I'm sure to grind through bits of in the next session) and 'Leveraging Web 2.0 Design Patterns For Enhanced Accessibility' has already started, so I'm off. I'm sure I'll be standing/sitting on the floor again. Ah well such is life, but my back still doesn't have to like life.

Wrapping up (sort of)

As the keynote continues people are starting to file out and, presumably, they are getting off the network which has been suffering terribly from the number of people connected. But good stuff continues. Currently the iLike.com people are talking about OpenSocial enabling them to easily integrate into Orkut, MySpace, hi5, et al.

OpenSocial is adding (in the near future) some RESTful features.

FYI, the short blog posts are only for larger(ish) thoughts than can really be expressed on the twitter.

My poor battery

The signal strength of the open WAP is a little on the weak side so I'm having to run in performance mode to get the range. Down side? I'm killing my battery. There are power strips strewn about in the "lobby" and I hope that the rooms that aren't the keynote have power too or I'll be offline in a very short period of time. Count down currently at: 1 hour 6 min.

Keynote, some live thoughts

There are hardly words to describe how packed the keynote is and how much good stuff is being talked about in such a short time. I'm sitting on the floor leaning over to try to get a view of the screen right now and wow! Gears, App Engine, GWT, Android and more!! They have opened up the App Engine so that anyone can use it and are announcing that the new GWT (release candidate 1.5) is available today. With the new GWT is Java 5 support and performance updates.

Vic is currently talking about the OpenSocial initiative and Google's participation. "You kind of have to be blind to have missed the explosion" of social networking apps.

.....

I simply can't keep up...

Google I/O

I arrived at ~8:15 and at 9:20 I was finally registered (note, I was a pre-reg and only had to pick up my badge.) The view (there'd be a picture but I forgot both my MSPro => MS converter and mini-usb cable) is/was insane! Standing room only on the first floor and serpentine lines to stand in. I discovered also the failing of learning Dvorak, it's impractical to 'hunt-and-peck', while standing in line, on a keyboard that hasn't had the key-caps switched (or there would have been an earlier attempt at a post).

The objective now? Grab a snack and look at the schedule again to figure out where to go first, which may be dictated by where there is still space. I say snack because 'breakfast provided' is more than a little overstatement. 'Continental breakfast' provided is far more accurate, and I'm happy for it. I'll be attempting to post occationally, stay tunned!

OMG! WTF?! Twitter fell down! bbq?

What will tu interweb do, its quintessential web 2.0 micro blogging system is DOA? Trundle on I suspect. Are we surprised though? No. Not really, Twitter does this. Some people out there are going through withdraws right now. They can't talk, can't communicate! OMG, they are deaf and mute all because a web site is down! How sad.

Twitter has it's problems to be sure, mostly that it goes down all to often IMO (and when it does the badge breaks things *eh hem*). On the other hand it's fun, and that makes it cool. Amazingly millions of users continue to use Twitter despite its' annoying habit of choking on itself. Or is it? Twitter personifies the "Social Web", facilitating 'real-time' communication with hundreds of people at a time. People who care!!! .... That you are currently taking a shower and singing badly??

Regardless there were millions of users when I started this that all let out a resounding scream because their "friends" couldn't hear them. They Tweeted, then realized, "OMG!!! I'm disconnected!!!" When Twitter comes back, could be already, I'm sure the same group will let out a great resounding sigh of relief. They can continue their lives. Their friends will here them, know that they are okay, and care! Me? I'm getting ready for a meeting...

sigh...

Old-School tech

Just a quick note.

Last night I performed a full service on my 1923 99K Singer sewing machine. I had expected to just do a quick oiling but found that everything was disgustingly grime encrusted. Sewing machines 85 years ago were simpler things though and have relatively few moving parts, and very few "small" moving parts. So, I busted out: three flat-head screwdrivers, two wrenches, some acetone, Q-Tips (I must have used thirty or so), oil, and a little brush. Tools assembled, I proceeded to take the damn thing apart, clean and oil all the bits. Several times during the process when I thought a part was clean it would separate into two, or more, parts. Disgustingly grime encrusted! It took a couple hours to disassemble, clean, oil and reassemble. After which I dropped some oil on/in all the right hinges and oil holes, plugged it in and voila! It chugged along and reved up as the oil in the motor loosened things up (a little extra oil applied while running helped things along beautifully).

It took about thirty minutes to get the bobbin wound (some adjustments to be made on the winder) and now all I have to do is get it to pick up the thread. I had to scavenge one screw that had gone missing on the foot's push rod because the rod was moving and twisting which caused the foot to twist. Twisting foot means breaking needles, which in turn means shrapnel (a bad thing!).

I forgot to take pictures of the whole process, which Ramble pointed out this morning I should have done. Damn him! I'll have to remember to do that when I restore my Singer treadle machine and my White model 41. Does anyone have a hand-hold plate for an old White? Please!

Regardless, I'm very happy with the results. Sewing machines from that era (up until the 50s in my opinion) were works of enduring art. A straight stitch and some fancy feet, which I happen to have. :-), are all you really need. Built to last!