19 Dec 09 Engadget's Holiday Gift Guide 2009

Have you checked into Engadget's massive 2009 Holiday Gift Guide? If not, you're making the biggest mistake of the season. Seriously. Don't let this year mark the end of happiness. Help us help you... just study the guides below (and stay tuned for even more)!

Accessories	Cellphones	e-book readers
GPS	Netbooks	PMPs
Smartphones	Television / Displays	Toys
Laptops	Desktops	Docks & Clocks
Video Cameras	Digital Cameras

Engadget's Holiday Gift Guide 2009 originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 19 Dec 2009 14:02:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Tagi: holiday gift guide, pmps, book readers, video cameras, e book, engadget, digital cameras, docks, clocks, laptops, happiness, amp, nbsp, toys

22 Jun 10 Burning the Midnight Oil

I wanted to take a moment to say thank you to a very important group of people working through the evenings and holidays - our employees, partners and customers. You know who you are.

For most of us, holidays are a great time to catch up with friends and family. They're also a time of mad scrambles. As I'm sure isn't unique to the American tradition, some among us postpone holiday shopping until the very last minute (today, even). Which leads to a late surge in infrastructure requirements from those businesses that continue to bet the world will ever get its shopping act in gear (I'll take the other side of that bet, any day).

This leads to a late surge in purchase orders (for the record, we love that part, planned or otherwise), and then a late surge in shipment activities (not all datacenters are near airports, sadly), and then a late surge in installation activity - yielding a lot of travel for those responsible.

In a perfect world, we'd then be done, and home with friends and family.

But then it doesn't end.

Christmas Day is a day of massively high load for Sun's customers across the world. This year will undoubtedly set a pile of new records. Millions upon millions of network enabled gifts will be given in December, and a huge chunk will be unwrapped and turned on tomorrow. Digital still and video cameras will start pumping content to photo/video sharing services. Mobile phones will need to be provisioned, and will start downloading and sharing content (on a global basis, the network load from New Year's Eve MMS messages goes beyond staggering). Set top boxes, networked picture frames, video game consoles, navigation devices, stuffed animals, sports equipment and automobiles - will all come on-line tomorrow. On the same day. And everyone will (and should) expect flawless service.

For some of our customers, it's their single highest load day of the year - and single most valuable opportunity to shape their brands. For Sun and our partners, it's a day we're very focused on making successful. So to all of you working over the holidays - thank you. I and my team are aware and appreciative of your efforts, and you are making a big difference.

Please take the time to rest when the work is done. Remember, the difference between humans and computers is that our uptime is a function of our downtime.

Tagi: infrastructure requirements, phes, line tomorrow, flawless service, set top boxes, millis, datacenters, video cameras, holiday shopping, perfect world, day of the year, amg, sports equipment, picture frames, late surge, chunk, video game, great time, even

10 Aug 10 Which is the Real Poisson D'Avril?

If you'd like the backstory on the April Fool's video making its way around Sun (below)... it goes like this.

My normally trustworthy administrator let me know I had a lunch appointment with my normally trustworthy friend, Ted. So I went to a normally trustworthy restaurant, where the normally trustworthy host walked me to my table - and past a series of video cameras I foolishly didn't notice. Ted lets me know he's managed to connect with Dan, a normally trustworthy colleague, who's put him in touch with a technical expert I might be interested in meeting.

Ted lets me know the guest is flying up from Los Angeles. And that he's been in an accident that might impair his ability to speak. Pay special attention at minute five, marking the first time I've seen anyone make a chicken out of a dinner napkin.

Let me be the first to point out that the video shown was highly edited. The good (and, notwithstanding this prank, normally trustworthy) people who edited the footage exercised appropriate restraint for a global audience unaccustomed to diluvian drooling. How uncomfortable was it at the table? Having watched the unedited version with a Sun colleague before it was posted externally, she remarked, "Look how well your Mother raised you, you didn't even stare."

On a far more civil note, Sun's headquarters were also attacked by a herd of squeaky dolphins yesterday, swimming in formation from right to left... rumor has it they were on their way to meet with a representative of their community who now leads our database business.

Oh, and Bill Macgowan is still at Sun.

I hold him personally responsible for my designation as the real poisson d'avril (dolphins aren't fish, after all, they're mammals), and I'll forever view him with a lingering suspicion... but he's still here.

Tagi: poisson d avril, friend ted, dinner napkin, global audience, trustworthy friend, april fool, database business, video cameras, technical expert, backstory, mammals, dolphins, colleague, fh, herd, appointment, peoe, lunch, sun