Chatting up colleagues

Much as I'd love to tell you about all the great sessions I went to at CommunityOne yesterday, I can't because I didn't: I spent much of the day working on the java.net booth, trying to deal with a series of problems with the sound system and the Micro Track recorder that we use to record the mini-talks for distribution as the Community Corner podcasts. So, I'll have to defer to our many bloggers -- on the front page and listed below -- to give you an idea of yesterday's goings-on.

Having worked through everything after a firmware update and a little bit of expense-account spending at the Apple Store and Walgreen's, not to mention nearly going deaf from a feedback fiasco involving a wireless mic and headphones, I was able to finish up around 6 and head to the evening event, where I chatted with Michael Levin of the Swampcast and all-around Jython guy Jim Baker. After that -- and a brief encounter with Mobile & Embedded community leader Roger Brinkley, who was cosplaying as a golfer in 1940's attire (Daniel has the explanation) -- it was dinner with some of our java.net bloggers, trying to get a sense of what we'll see in today's General Session, and where we're going in general. What I found most interesting was the wide array of common interests between participants. We're not just about hacking on Java code... some authors and editors at the table exchanged notes about writing and publishing, video blogger Rachel Hill berated me for even considering going to a hard drive based camcorder (funny because I'm usually the one who's a stickler for maintaining pristine masters forever, yet I was on the receiving end of that speech), I tried to convince her to get the $200 Final Cut keyboard, and there was a brief comparison of iPhone customizations (what, you actually use Facebook?!).

Ron Hitchens was there, and he blogged about it in Make Your Network:

JavaOne is the place to be for Java people. But there is more to it than just Java. Your interest in Java is what you have in common with the 10s of thousands of other people here. You're among friends -- even the ones you haven't met yet.

It's not just about the code, it's about community. And that's one of the advantages of JavaOne week: when we're together with colleagues, we can interact more deeply and about more things.

While you wait for the general session to begin... assuming you can get on the wifi... here's what we have for you on the front page today.

• Fabrizio Giudici: Community One
• Van Riper: JavaOne Day Zero AKA CommunityOne
• Ron Hitchens: Make Your Network
• Arun Gupta: Take 3 - Pictures from JavaOne 2008
• j1-2k8-pre02: Community Leaders Weekend: Purpose of java.net
• Qusay H. Mahmoud: Excitement in the Air for the CommunityOne Fair
• Cay Horstmann: Java One Day 0
• Arun Gupta: Take 4 - Pictures from JavaOne 2008
• John O'Conner: Free, open source Linux is for hippies
• Daniel H. Steinberg: The Mobile and Embedded Ecosystem
• Kohsuke Kawaguchi: Hudson booth at JavaOne
• Shashank Tiwari's weblog: JavaOne: More than Java, More than 1 conference
• Mandy Chung: JavaOne 2008
• Arun Gupta: Take 5 - Pictures from JavaOne 2008