It's over...

The last session of JavaOne is done, I've had my last beer and scored my last item of swag.

Swag count: 11 T-shirts, 1 jacket (alumni gift), 1 backpack (attendee), 1 brain ("may be toxic, not for consumption" {"braiiiinsss!}) assorted pens, simulated hockey puck, flashlight (with a real bulb - I didn't know they even made those any more), and an iPod Shuffle, courtesy of JetBrains' party.

Score.

I had several good takeaways from this conference that I'll definitely use at work - stuff we need to know and will help us.

The big closeout party at Treasure Island was a bust for me - waaay too many people (you couldn't even see the food tables, I waited in line for 30 minutes and we barely moved.) The music was good, but I just got tired of the crowds and finally went back to the city. I guess I was lucky, I got right on my bus (about 9:15, so I'd been there about 90 minutes) and got back to the city. Others I talked to said they had to wait in queues for a bus over 40 minutes.

All-in-all, a good conference, but I'd prefer it if it were separate from Oracle Open World. That just sucked all the corporate attention away.

The JetBrains party

JetBrains hosted a party at the 21st Amendment Club. Good food, got a chance to socialize with the JetBrains developers (throwing ourselves prostrate at their feet and screaming, "We're not worthy!").

There was a contest of JetBrains knowledge, I was one of the top scorers, and got an iPod Shuffle for my reward. Sweet!


Doug

JavaOne so far...

Very inconsistent with previous years… Oracle really skimped on refreshments (Sun would have goodies between sessions), no breakfast today before the sessions (although they did yesterday), so I had to go buy breakfast at Starbucks. When I came out from the session, they had stuff - but no one knew (even the event workers) that it was coming.

The Mason street tent was on a slope (as is the street) - you really want to watch how much you drink. The food Sunday night there was good.

The pavilion as we knew it is gone. There's an area (the Hilton ballroom) where they have exhibitors, but all the tech demos and general geek fun is gone. The atmosphere is totally different. I'm guessing about 5,000 JavaOne attendees.

On the plus side, some good presentations. There's some really cool stuff coming in JDK 7 and 8 (Project Lambda in particular).

Going to the JetBrains party tonight. Should be fun.

Multiple monitors on a MacBookPro

Those of us without desktop machines lust after the ability to have more than a single monitor. My company has dual monitors for our crappy PC laptops (you can only use both of them with the docking station, which has it's own video card), and I wanted to have more than one monitor for my laptop.

I should note that I usually use the laptop at my desk with the lid closed, as the monitor I have is at a nice ergonomic height, and using a laptop all day is bad posture, which isn't good for my neck.

After a nice, long chat with a Genius (who didn't know how to do it, but pointed me to some web sites), there were two ways I found to do it:

1. Matrox makes high-end video splitter - the DualHead2Go & TripleHead2Go. These tell your system that the monitor's bigger than it is, then split the signal to the different monitors. Pros - fast, as fast as your Mac's video card. Cons - expensive ($300), can only support 2 or 3 monitors, depending on which model you buy.
2. Diamond makes a USB monitor adapter. You can get these online (or at Frys) for $72 (for the BVU195), or $79 (for the BVUMD3, which adds 3 powered USB ports to make up for the one you lost). Both models come with a DVI to VGA adapter. Pros - Low cost, can use up to 6 monitors. Cons - not so great for video, games, etc.

I went with the Diamond BVUMD3 - a very nice unit. One thing - Diamond says this is compatible with OS X, then doesn't bother to give you any drivers. If you go to the BVU195 support page, they "include" the OS X drivers - but you have to run an .exe to get them. So, I fired up Parallels, clicked on the "OS X Drivers" text - and it pointed me to a web page. Sheesh.

To make a long story short, just go to http://www.displaylink.com/support/mac_downloads.php to get the Mac drivers. I downloaded the "beta" 1.6 version for 64-bit support (Snow Leopard and all that), and it works GREAT!

There's a good site out there which details one guy's quest to get 3 external monitors -
http://daggle.com/macbook-pro-multimonitor-4-monitors-at-once-1577. http://www.macxperience.com/2010/07/11/connecting-multiple-external-monitors-macbooks/
also has a good discussion about it.

Multiple monitors for everyone!

Thanks, Larry! Google pulls out of JavaOne

So, Google has pulled out of JavaOne this year - so far Oracle hasn't notified me that my GWT sessions have been canceled. Since Google was supposed to present most of them, its somewhat mystifying why they haven't notified us of the cancellations.

Joy...