JIIT Sun Club

Sun has launched yet another great new and exciting opportunity for us to win fabulous prizes for just doing what we do best -- blogging about our favourite IDE and operating system's newest versions, describing our experience with their new features, how they score up to others, describing our user experience, sharing new usage tips, code samples, plugins or just about anything related to the new OpenSolaris and Netbeans IDE 6.1! - The Student Reviews Contest!

Prizes:

• 1 chance to win the grand prize of $250 in Visa Debit Card, and
• 5 chances of winning second prizes - each of $100 in Visa Debit Card.
  

Contest Period:
This contest begins at 12:01 A.M. Pacific Time (PT) Zone in the United States (e.g. San Francisco time) which is 7:01 A.M. Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) on May 5, 2008 and ends on June 6, 2008 at 11:59 P.M. (PT) which is 6:59 A.M. (GMT) on June 7, 2008

All we have to do is:
1. Download OpenSolaris OS and/or NetBeans IDE 6.1. (If you have DVD, that works just as well.)
2. Test the product and post a review!
3. Submit the URL of your review.
4. Do it before June 6, 2008.

Need ideas for what to post to claim the top prize? Here are some suggestions:

a) Describe your OpenSolaris OS installation experience and what it took for you to make it up and running on your hardware platform
b) Run benchmarks and show how OpenSolaris OS performed against a competing OS
c) Create a "how-to" on solving a specific problem using OpenSolaris OS or NetBeans IDE 6.1 (use detailed instructions, code snippets, commands and outputs etc. as appropriate)
d) Share your deep insight about OpenSolaris OS or NetBeans IDE 6.1, including your favorite features
e) Give suggestions on how to enhance the OpenSolaris OS or NetBeans IDE 6.1
f) Build a cool plug-in to share with the NetBeans Community.

Here is a sample of what a review could potentially look like (read through all the 5 pages):

Judging:
All Entries will be judged by a panel of experts based on the following equally weighted judging criteria: novelty and originality of the review; usefulness and character of the substantive feedback; the review's interest and appeal to other users of OpenSolaris or NetBeans IDE 6.1; clarity in the expression about the user experience; how the review demonstrates or showcases specific features; and/or the ability to use the review to improve any aspect of OpenSolaris or NetBeans IDE 6.1.

Note:

• For this contest, students need to review either NetBeans IDE 6.1 or OpenSolaris OS. You can review both and submit as many entries as you want, but you can win only one prize.
• NO other products including previous NetBeans 6.1 Beta versions, Solaris Express Developer Edition, OpenSolaris Developer Preview, Solaris Express Community Edition, and Solaris 10 5/08 or eariler are included in this contest.
• OpenSolaris OS is what used to be called Project Indiana. It will be launched officially in CommunityOne on May 5th.
  

Read the rules (pdf). These are available on the contest site as well.

All submissions will also be featured on the contest website with pictures if provided.

So what are we waiting for people, let's see some winners from JIIT!

The release of Project Indiana is just around the corner (on May 5th). Me and some other CA's got the chance to get hands on to the bleeding-edge RC0 version from Sun, in order to get feedback about the release from as many students as we can. I was to conduct an InstallFest of sorts on campus at the end of which students would provide feedback about their installation experience, what they liked or didn't like about the new face of Solaris. I was very excited to get this opportunity to provide feedback directly to the OpenSolaris engineering team and the higher-ups at Sun, from students of JIIT! However, at such a short notice, there were problems in conducting an InstallFest in our labs, and past experience suggested that not many people show up at such an event, owing to the need of people carrying their rigs all the way from hostel to the academic block to participate. I thought out a much better way to conduct an InstallFest this time, which was bound to get good participation and would save all the trouble.. we conducted an InstallFest in the Hostel itself.

We successfully conducted a very unique novel event at our college on Sunday, which I like to call the "Virtual Installfest". What is a Virtual InstallFest? Well, In a regular installfest, members of a user group meet at a common place, bring their systems (CPU's or Laptops) along, help each other install their favourite OS, help each other troubleshoot particular problems, drink cola and have fun. A virtual install fest is one which is conducted with no physical gathering of the participants, rather one which is done digitally over the network. It is a new means of conducting InstallFests which avoids having to require the participant to take their CPU’s or Laptops anywhere and just participate in the event from the comfort of their Hostel Rooms. Yes, thats right, an InstallFest in which You don’t have to move around your precious hardware anywhere! Just be wherever you are and join us in the event!

Well, how exactly did it all happen?

To start with, I setup a local intranet website with Drupal, which:

• Had simple pages describing the concept of a virtual installfest, the details of how to participate in the event, prizes and giveaways, and links to launch the live screencast, join the chat conference, submit the feedback form, and the downloads section (more on all this later..)
  
  
  
  InstallFest Home
  
  
• Allowed a participant to register for the InstallFest, entering his personal details, and PC/Laptop configuration too. (Drupal custom profile fields)
  
• After registeration and logging in only could a participant get access to the Downloads section and the Feedback form (restrictions enforced by using the Taxonomy Access Control module for Drupal)
  
  
  
  Downloads Section
  
  
• Fill up a feedback form, which could be accessed from a link in the main menu as well as from a tab in the user's account section. The feedback form was a Drupal "content type" with CCK fields, which allowed rich-text entry too using TinyMCE. I used the nodeprofile module to restrict maximum population for that content type per user to 1, and to make it show in the user account page.
  
  
  
  Feedback Form
  
  
• Participants could logout and log back in anytime to edit their respective feedback forms.
• New downloads were made available at the Downloads section as and when required (sound drivers, etc were provided when participants requested in the chat conference).

The downloads provided were:

• OpenSolaris "Indiana" RC0 (latest build)
• VirtualBox for Windows
• VMWare 6 for Windows (trial)

The host (me in this case), conducted several "sessions", and in each session I installed OpenSolaris RC0 inside of a virtual machine (VirtualBox), broadcasting a Live Screencast of my screen to all the participants with the help of the RealVNC server and it's java client. I just set new connections to be shared by default allowing multiple clients to connect, and ofcourse, disabled remote keyboard / mouse inputs so that people couldn't take control of my system :)

All participants and the host were connected together in a chat conference. I installed OpenSolaris and everybody followed along, and whenever anyone had any problems, he could stop me by messaging in the chat conference. I responded with the solution over the conference, so that even others can rectify it if they encounter a similar problem. It turned out to be a true installfest thanks to the chat room, as in the later sessions, participants from earlier ones started helping new comers troubleshoot problems, which is the true spirit of an installfest I believe.. The chat conference was made possible with phpFreeChat, which is an amazing AJAX-based IRC-like chat application written in PHP. Setting it up was as simple as modifying some parameters in index.php.


I tried taking a screencast of the installation to replay later, but it just took too much processor usage, and made the installation slow, so I dumped that idea and just did the installations myself everytime.

As far as the prizes and giveaways are concerned, all participants were given OpenSolaris starter kits. All participants who successfully installed OpenSolaris on their systems (or inside of virtual machines) and filled up the feedback forms were entered into a lucky draw, the winner was awarded an OpenSolaris Mug, Netbeans 6 DVD, and a Sun Cap!

To conclude, the virtual installfest was a great success. Total participation was 43 students, despite it being a holiday and most of the students were outside hostel, and the event been conducted in a single hostel. I'm sure it'll scale well next time if I conduct it across the campus.

I have uploaded the local installfest website at http://installfest.jiitsunclub.org. It can be accessed by anyone, but registrations have been disabled. I just created a view using the "Views" module of Drupal, to allow sun-insiders to see the feedback. One may choose to see it first in a tabular form, to click on the person's name to see the complete feedback or just get all the feedbacks received on a single page. I have setup a "coordinator" role, and only users of this role would be able to access the "View Feedback" section.

I encourage other campus ambassadors to take up this idea and conduct similar virtual installfests in their institutes as it is an easy to conduct event, gets good participation and uses technology to the max! If anyone wants the drupal installation I had setup, I'll be happy to mail it to you.

Useful Links: 

• Blog post announcing the Virtual InstallFest
• Virtual InstallFest Poster (PDF)
  
• Virtual InstallFest Details (PDF)
• Virtual InstallFest Website (with the feedbacks) 

VIRTUAL INSTALL FEST

in HOSTEL!

LUCKY DRAW!

1. Install OpenSolaris      2. Submit the feedback form      3. WIN prizes!

What’s an Install Fest?
An InstallFest is an opportunity to get hands on help in installing and/or configuring OpenSolaris on your computer. Unlike the monthly meetings where you can only talk about your Solaris issues, at the install fest you can bring those problems to your peers and show them what is going on. It is also about getting to know your peers in the local Open Source User Group, and being able to share expertise and knowledge in a very informal environment.

What is a Virtual InstallFest?

• You don’t have to move around your precious hardware anywhere! Just be wherever you are and join us in the event!
  
  A virtual install fest is one which is conducted with no physical gathering of the participants, rather one which is done digitally over the network. It is a new means of conducting InstallFests which avoids having to require the participant to take their CPU’s or Laptops anywhere and just participate in the event from the comfort of their Hostel Rooms.
• Technology that will make a Virtual InstallFest possible: Video Streaming, Chat conferencing, File Sharing and Web Service over a LAN!
  
  Web Service: Participants register on a local website, and then get links to:
  • Download OpenSolaris Distro ISO
  • Download the post-install questionnaire
  • Get a link to view the live webcast
  • Get a link to join the chat conference

  Installation on a virtual machine: The host will install OpenSolaris on his system inside of a virtual machine
  
  Live Video Streaming: Host provides a live screencast of his system over the network, for others to see and follow along the installation process on their own systems.
  
  Chat Conferencing: The host and all the participants are in a live chat conference. If anybody has any trouble following the installation, gets stuck with any errors, etc they can immediately prompt the host to pause so that his problem can be resolved. The host responds with the solution over the conference, so that even others can rectify if they encounter a similar problem. The participants can also find it useful to share views, opinions or exchange messages related to their installation experience in the conference, just as they would physically in a standard InstallFest.

• It is upto the participant to choose to install either inside a virtual machine or on bare-metal on his system directly. It would be more interesting to install OpenSolaris directly from an install fest-perspective, though, you may install inside of a virtual machine like VirtuaBox or VMware if you don’t have enough space to install it as a separate OS (please note that installing inside of a virtual machine requires substantial amount of RAM.. > 512 MB recommended).

What do I need to do?

1. Open your browser and go to http://installfest (note that you will have to add “installfest” in your browser’s proxy exceptions)
2. Download and Install VirtualBox on your system (from downloads section)
3. Login and join the chat conference at http://installfest/chat
4. Catch the live webcast link and open it in your video player.
5. Wait for the event to start, once all participants have joined.
6. The host starts the installation on his system, which you can see streaming live to your video player. Install along on your system. Ask for any doubts or questions in the chat conference.
   
7. Once the installation is over, download the feedback form, fill it up with useful feedback. This feedback will be sent to the OpenSolaris engineering team to suggest the overall user experience in the installation process and initial use phase. We want to send them this feedback to let them know what university students feel about the OS and what they could do to improve it. This feedback is of utmost importance.
   

What to bring? Where to go?

You don’t have to go anywhere! Just logon to http://installfest at the stipulated time of the event and follow the instructions. Have fun installing Solaris!

What’s an Are there any prizes or giveaways?

Yes! :)

• All participants who successfully install OpenSolaris on their systems (or inside of virtual machines) and fill up and submit the questionnaire to us will be entered into a LUCKY DRAW.
  
  First Prize: An OpenSolaris Mug, Netbeans 6 DVD, and a Cap!
  
  
• Each participant will be given the OpenSolaris Starter Kit. It consists of 2 DVD’s, one with OpenSolaris Community Edition Distro and the other one with various flavors of OpenSolaris including Belenix, Nexenta, etc.

Hi,

I have been using NetBeans since its version 5.5 was shipped! I started using it in May, 2007. Since then, nearly 11 months have gone by, and to my surprise I am using these days NetBeans 6.0 and 6.1 Beta!

It was a great sigh of relief, when I came across NetBeans 6.0, so much spoken about it, and it was delivered, you may check out latest Sun Tech Days video, where Gregg Sporar(NetBeans Tech Evangelist) was interviewed about the NetBeans 6.0 features...
http://theupdatecenter.blip.tv/file/623936/

Anyways, if you thought thats cool, think again! As you would be surprised, when you would bootstrap NetBeans 6.1 Beta, which boots at a blazing speed. I was shocked when I tried it myself, with 512MB RAM, on my Windows XP.

Apart from that, you would also see some of the unique features, which you can see on prOgramming bOnds, NetBeans Dzone...

eNjoy TechnOlogy.....

Work in Progress..