Monday, February 20, 2006
Busy week
I'm sitting in an airport on the way to the States for a number of meetings. First up is a stop-over in Seattle, where I'll take timeout to catch up with Savas; I haven't seen him since our trip to HPTS last year, so it'll be good to grab a coffee (something we used to do fairly regularly). Then it's dinner with Jim, before the real work begins. When I'm finished in Seattle, it's a flight to San Jose, and the JCP Executive Committee meeting. It's my first such meeting for JBoss, so I'm looking forward to that. After another business meeting in San Francisco, it's a redeye to Atlanta. I arrive there at 7am Friday morning, with the intention of giving a series of talks about transactions (caffeine permitting!) Then it's home on Saturday. Like I said: busy!
Wednesday, February 15, 2006
Monday, February 13, 2006
An automotive interlude
A couple of years ago I traded in the then family car for a 1993 Honda Prelude VTEC SI. I'm sure psychologists could make something of the fact this move happened about a year after the birth of my youngest son! It's a lovely car: 0-60mph in just over 6 seconds, with excellent handling, a great dashboard and the perfect colour: black. Since I bought it, I've had the best driving experiences of my life and I've been driving since 1984; I definitely don't regret getting the car at all.
Now the downsides: although the boot space isn't great you can still get a family-sized shop in there (just) and there's plenty of legroom for the driver and front passenger; however, the "occasional" seats in the back aren't too bad if you're only going 10 minutes down the road or you don't want to use your legs for a few hours afterward!
Now the size of the rear passenger seats hasn't really been a problem until recently, when the kids started to grow (and unfortunately kids do complain if they can't use their legs after a ride in the car!) It's starting to get to the point where it is adversely affecting my driving experience. I've tried a lot of things, including ear plugs, loud music ("sorry, can't hear what you're saying!"), not having kids in the back seats, but none of these solutions are long term enough for them! So it's getting to the point where I'm either going to have to trade in the Honda or buy a second car. I object to the latter option because I really don't think we'd use two cars sufficiently, plus I want to do my bit for the environment. OK, I admit that the Prelude probably isn't that good for the environment as it stands, but let's not get too carried away.
Anybody have any good suggestions? One that springs to mind is that I buy bikes for the kids: it lets me keep my car, helps the environment and it's good for their health! I've toyed with the idea of a Land Rover of one sort or another, and I have several friends who rave about them (like Greg), but none of them give me the buzz I get from my 'Lude.
Now the downsides: although the boot space isn't great you can still get a family-sized shop in there (just) and there's plenty of legroom for the driver and front passenger; however, the "occasional" seats in the back aren't too bad if you're only going 10 minutes down the road or you don't want to use your legs for a few hours afterward!
Now the size of the rear passenger seats hasn't really been a problem until recently, when the kids started to grow (and unfortunately kids do complain if they can't use their legs after a ride in the car!) It's starting to get to the point where it is adversely affecting my driving experience. I've tried a lot of things, including ear plugs, loud music ("sorry, can't hear what you're saying!"), not having kids in the back seats, but none of these solutions are long term enough for them! So it's getting to the point where I'm either going to have to trade in the Honda or buy a second car. I object to the latter option because I really don't think we'd use two cars sufficiently, plus I want to do my bit for the environment. OK, I admit that the Prelude probably isn't that good for the environment as it stands, but let's not get too carried away.
Anybody have any good suggestions? One that springs to mind is that I buy bikes for the kids: it lets me keep my car, helps the environment and it's good for their health! I've toyed with the idea of a Land Rover of one sort or another, and I have several friends who rave about them (like Greg), but none of them give me the buzz I get from my 'Lude.
WWW2006 Call for Posters
WWW2006 FINAL CALL FOR PARTICIPATION
POSTER DEADLINE EXTENDED UNTIL FEB 21st 2006
The International World Wide Web Conference Committee (IW3C2) invite
you to participate in the Fifteenth International World Wide Web
Conference in Edinburgh, Scotland on May 22nd-26th 2006.
You are invited to participate in the conference by submitting
* Posters (deadline extended to Feb 21st)
* Developer Track Proposals (deadline March 5th)
* Workshop Papers
POSTERS - DEADLINE EXTENDED - February 21st 2006
Posters provide a forum for late-breaking research, and facilitate
feedback in an informal setting. Posters are peer-reviewed. The poster
sessions provide an opportunity for researchers and practitioners to
present and demonstrate their recent web-related research, and to
obtain feedback from their peers in an informal setting. It gives
conference attendees a way to learn about innovative works in progress
in a timely and informal manner. Formatting and submission
requirements are available at http://www2006.org/posters/.
Conference topics include but are not limited to:
# Browsers and User Interfaces
# Data Mining
# Hypermedia and Multimedia
# Performance, Reliability and Scalability
# Pervasive Web and Mobility
# Search
# Security, Privacy, and Ethics
# Semantic Web
# Web Engineering
# XML and Web Services
# Industrial Practice and Experience
# Developing Regions
# Applications: E-Communities, E-Learning, E-Commerce, E- Science, E-Government and E-Humanities
DEVELOPERS TRACK PROPOSALS - Deadline - March 5th 2006
The developers' community is an integral part of the WWW conference
series. It includes all those who write the code that makes the Web
work. WWW developers work at startups, IT departments, software vendors
and government, but also include researchers who have a commitment to
developing usable tools and products. The aim of the track is to showcase
the practical experimentation that accompanies both cutting-edge research
and a dedication to standards setting and adoption.
Proposals are invited for technical demonstrations, presentations and
discussions to take place within the Developers' Track throughout
the conference, in keeping with the various conference topics (above).
The proposals should concern work with significant new functionality,
capability or 'wow' factor. Submission instructions are available
at http://www2006.org/developers/.
WORKSHOPS - Deadline - Various
A wide variety of workshops address the current research issues and
future development of the World Wide Web. Papers are invited for the
following workshops. For individual deadline and submission details see
http://www2006.org/workshops/.
Wednesday, February 08, 2006
BTP closes down
The official announcement from OASIS says it all:
To OASIS Members:
This is to notify you that the OASIS Business Transactions Technical Committee has completed its work and is now closed. We thank
the members and leadership of the TC for their contributions and dedication to this effort. The work that the TC produced during its
tenure can be found at its public pages, which will remain accessible at http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/business-transaction.
Its email archives also will remain permanently accessible at http://lists.oasis-open.org/business-transaction.
OASIS work on transactional and service coordination methods continues in a number of current projects, including the ASAP,
ebXML-BP, WSBPEL, WS-CAF and WS-TX technical committees.
I've been involved with this work from the start and although it never really caught on, I think it contributed to the overall discussions in this area and acted as a catalyst. My thanks to everyone who was ever involved with this effort.
To OASIS Members:
This is to notify you that the OASIS Business Transactions Technical Committee has completed its work and is now closed. We thank
the members and leadership of the TC for their contributions and dedication to this effort. The work that the TC produced during its
tenure can be found at its public pages, which will remain accessible at http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/business-transaction.
Its email archives also will remain permanently accessible at http://lists.oasis-open.org/business-transaction.
OASIS work on transactional and service coordination methods continues in a number of current projects, including the ASAP,
ebXML-BP, WSBPEL, WS-CAF and WS-TX technical committees.
I've been involved with this work from the start and although it never really caught on, I think it contributed to the overall discussions in this area and acted as a catalyst. My thanks to everyone who was ever involved with this effort.
Tuesday, February 07, 2006
Middleware 2006
I'm on the Program Committee for Middleware 2006. Here's the CFP:
ACM/IFIP/USENIX 7th International Middleware Conference
Melbourne, Australia
November 27 - December 1, 2006
http://2006.middleware-conference.org/
The Middleware conference is a forum for the discussion of important
innovations and recent advances in the design and construction of
middleware. Middleware is distributed-systems software that resides
between the applications and the underlying operating systems, network
protocol stacks, and hardware. Its primary role is to functionally
bridge the gap between application programs and the lower-level
hardware and software infrastructure in order to coordinate how
application components are connected and how they interoperate.
Following the success of past conferences in this series, the 7th
International Middleware Conference will be the premier event for
middleware research and technology in 2006. The scope of the
conference is the design, implementation, deployment, and evaluation
of distributed system platforms and architectures for future computing
and communication environments. Highlights of the conference will
include a high quality technical program, tutorials, invited speakers,
poster presentations, and workshops.
Submissions on a diversity of topics are sought, particularly ones
that identify new research directions. Middleware 2006 is not limited
to topics discussed in previous Middleware conferences. Authors
concerned about the appropriateness of a topic may communicate by
electronic mail with the program chairs prior to submission.
The proceedings of Middleware 2006 will be published as a Springer-Verlag
volume in the Lecture Notes in Computer Science Series.
Topics:
The topics of the conference include, but are not limited to:
Platforms and Architectures:
* Middleware for Web services and Web-service composition
* Middleware for cluster and grid computing
* Peer-to-peer middleware solutions
* Event-based, publish/subscribe, and message-oriented middleware
* Communication protocols and architectures
* Middleware for ubiquitous and mobile computing
* Middleware for embedded systems and sensor networks
* Service-oriented architectures
* Reconfigurable, adaptable, and reflective middleware approaches
Systems issues:
* Reliability, fault tolerance, and quality-of-service in general
* Scalability of middleware: replication and caching
* Systems management, including solutions for autonomic and self-managing middleware
* Middleware feedback control solutions for self-regulation
* Real-time solutions for middleware platforms
* Information assurance and security
* Evaluation techniques for middleware solutions
* Middleware support for multimedia streaming
* Middleware solutions for (large scale) distributed databases
Design principles and tools:
* Formal methods and tools for designing, verifying, and evaluating middleware
* Model-driven architectures
* Software engineering for middleware
* Engineering principles and approaches for middleware
* Novel development paradigms, APIs, and languages
* Existing paradigms revisited: object models, aspect orientation, etc.
* On-the-fly management and configuration of middleware
Organization:
General Chairs:
Joe Sventek (Glasgow University, UK)
Shanika Karunasekera (University of Melbourne, Australia)
Program Chairs:
Michi Henning (ZeroC, USA)
Maarten van Steen (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Netherlands)
Local Arrangements Chairs:
Aaron Harwood and Lars Kulik (University of Melbourne, Australia)
Workshops Chair:
Antony Rowstron (Microsoft Research Cambridge, UK)
Doctoral Symposium Chair:
Karen Henricksen (University of Queensland, Australia)
Publicity Chair:
Egemen Tanin (University of Melbourne, Australia)
Program Committee:†
* Christiana Amza (Toronto University, Canada)
* Ozalp Babaoglu (University of Bologna, Italy)
* Mark Baker (independent consultant)
* Alberto Bartoli (University of Trieste, Italy)
* Yolande Berbers (Leuven University, Belgium)
* Gordon Blair (Lancaster University, UK)
* Michele Colajanni (University of Modena, Italy)
* Geoff Coulson (Lancaster University, UK)
* Fred Douglis (IBM Watson, USA)
* Pascal Felber (University of Neufchatel, Switzerland)
* Indranil Gupta (University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, USA)
* Franz Hauck (Ulm University, Germany)
* Bettina Kemme (McGill University, Canada)
* Anne-Marie Kermarrec (INRIA Rennes, France)
* Fabio Kon (IME/USP, Brazil)
* Ihor Kuz (NICTA, Australia)
* Doug Lea (Oswego State University, USA)
* Mark Little (Arjuna Technologies, UK)
* Ted McFadden (Latent Ventures, USA)
* Philip McKinley (Michigan State University, USA)
* Jishnu Mukerji (HP, USA)
* Bernard Normier (ZeroC, USA)
* Tamer Ozsu (University Waterloo, Canada)
* Gian Pietro Picco (Politecnico di Milano, Italy)
* Frank Pilhofer (Mercury Computer Systems, USA)
* Misha Rabinovich (Case Western University, USA)
* Alexander Reinefeld (ZIB, Berlin)
* Luis Rodrigues (University of Lisbon, Portugal)
* Peter Steenkiste (CMU, USA)
* Stefan Tai (IBM Watson, USA)
* Amin Vahdat (UCSD, USA)
* Aad van Moorsel (Newcastle University, UK)
* Steve Vinoski (IONA, USA)
* Craig Wills (Worchester Polytechnic Institute, USA)
Important dates:
Submission deadline: April 3
Notification of acceptance: July 10
Camera-ready copies: September 1
Submission guidelines:
Research papers:
Research papers are to be submitted electronically via the online submission system:
http://subm2006.middleware-conference.org/
Through this system, you will be requested to upload the file of your
paper (PDF format) to the conference server (please avoid bitmaps!)
Papers must not exceed 20 pages, including abstract, all figures, all
tables, and references. Papers should include a short abstract and up
to 6 keywords. Please also fill in the appropriate information in the
online form.
Submitted papers should follow the formating instructions of the
Springer LNCS Style (please check the Information for Authors page at
Springer at http://www.springer.de/comp/lncs for style and formatting
guidelines).
Submitted papers may not be submitted for conference publication,
journal publication, or be under review for any other conference or
journal.
ACM/IFIP/USENIX 7th International Middleware Conference
Melbourne, Australia
November 27 - December 1, 2006
http://2006.middleware-conference.org/
The Middleware conference is a forum for the discussion of important
innovations and recent advances in the design and construction of
middleware. Middleware is distributed-systems software that resides
between the applications and the underlying operating systems, network
protocol stacks, and hardware. Its primary role is to functionally
bridge the gap between application programs and the lower-level
hardware and software infrastructure in order to coordinate how
application components are connected and how they interoperate.
Following the success of past conferences in this series, the 7th
International Middleware Conference will be the premier event for
middleware research and technology in 2006. The scope of the
conference is the design, implementation, deployment, and evaluation
of distributed system platforms and architectures for future computing
and communication environments. Highlights of the conference will
include a high quality technical program, tutorials, invited speakers,
poster presentations, and workshops.
Submissions on a diversity of topics are sought, particularly ones
that identify new research directions. Middleware 2006 is not limited
to topics discussed in previous Middleware conferences. Authors
concerned about the appropriateness of a topic may communicate by
electronic mail with the program chairs prior to submission.
The proceedings of Middleware 2006 will be published as a Springer-Verlag
volume in the Lecture Notes in Computer Science Series.
Topics:
The topics of the conference include, but are not limited to:
Platforms and Architectures:
* Middleware for Web services and Web-service composition
* Middleware for cluster and grid computing
* Peer-to-peer middleware solutions
* Event-based, publish/subscribe, and message-oriented middleware
* Communication protocols and architectures
* Middleware for ubiquitous and mobile computing
* Middleware for embedded systems and sensor networks
* Service-oriented architectures
* Reconfigurable, adaptable, and reflective middleware approaches
Systems issues:
* Reliability, fault tolerance, and quality-of-service in general
* Scalability of middleware: replication and caching
* Systems management, including solutions for autonomic and self-managing middleware
* Middleware feedback control solutions for self-regulation
* Real-time solutions for middleware platforms
* Information assurance and security
* Evaluation techniques for middleware solutions
* Middleware support for multimedia streaming
* Middleware solutions for (large scale) distributed databases
Design principles and tools:
* Formal methods and tools for designing, verifying, and evaluating middleware
* Model-driven architectures
* Software engineering for middleware
* Engineering principles and approaches for middleware
* Novel development paradigms, APIs, and languages
* Existing paradigms revisited: object models, aspect orientation, etc.
* On-the-fly management and configuration of middleware
Organization:
General Chairs:
Joe Sventek (Glasgow University, UK)
Shanika Karunasekera (University of Melbourne, Australia)
Program Chairs:
Michi Henning (ZeroC, USA)
Maarten van Steen (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Netherlands)
Local Arrangements Chairs:
Aaron Harwood and Lars Kulik (University of Melbourne, Australia)
Workshops Chair:
Antony Rowstron (Microsoft Research Cambridge, UK)
Doctoral Symposium Chair:
Karen Henricksen (University of Queensland, Australia)
Publicity Chair:
Egemen Tanin (University of Melbourne, Australia)
Program Committee:†
* Christiana Amza (Toronto University, Canada)
* Ozalp Babaoglu (University of Bologna, Italy)
* Mark Baker (independent consultant)
* Alberto Bartoli (University of Trieste, Italy)
* Yolande Berbers (Leuven University, Belgium)
* Gordon Blair (Lancaster University, UK)
* Michele Colajanni (University of Modena, Italy)
* Geoff Coulson (Lancaster University, UK)
* Fred Douglis (IBM Watson, USA)
* Pascal Felber (University of Neufchatel, Switzerland)
* Indranil Gupta (University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, USA)
* Franz Hauck (Ulm University, Germany)
* Bettina Kemme (McGill University, Canada)
* Anne-Marie Kermarrec (INRIA Rennes, France)
* Fabio Kon (IME/USP, Brazil)
* Ihor Kuz (NICTA, Australia)
* Doug Lea (Oswego State University, USA)
* Mark Little (Arjuna Technologies, UK)
* Ted McFadden (Latent Ventures, USA)
* Philip McKinley (Michigan State University, USA)
* Jishnu Mukerji (HP, USA)
* Bernard Normier (ZeroC, USA)
* Tamer Ozsu (University Waterloo, Canada)
* Gian Pietro Picco (Politecnico di Milano, Italy)
* Frank Pilhofer (Mercury Computer Systems, USA)
* Misha Rabinovich (Case Western University, USA)
* Alexander Reinefeld (ZIB, Berlin)
* Luis Rodrigues (University of Lisbon, Portugal)
* Peter Steenkiste (CMU, USA)
* Stefan Tai (IBM Watson, USA)
* Amin Vahdat (UCSD, USA)
* Aad van Moorsel (Newcastle University, UK)
* Steve Vinoski (IONA, USA)
* Craig Wills (Worchester Polytechnic Institute, USA)
Important dates:
Submission deadline: April 3
Notification of acceptance: July 10
Camera-ready copies: September 1
Submission guidelines:
Research papers:
Research papers are to be submitted electronically via the online submission system:
http://subm2006.middleware-conference.org/
Through this system, you will be requested to upload the file of your
paper (PDF format) to the conference server (please avoid bitmaps!)
Papers must not exceed 20 pages, including abstract, all figures, all
tables, and references. Papers should include a short abstract and up
to 6 keywords. Please also fill in the appropriate information in the
online form.
Submitted papers should follow the formating instructions of the
Springer LNCS Style (please check the Information for Authors page at
Springer at http://www.springer.de/comp/lncs for style and formatting
guidelines).
Submitted papers may not be submitted for conference publication,
journal publication, or be under review for any other conference or
journal.
Monday, February 06, 2006
Another Arjuna leaver
My friend and ex-colleague Dave Ingham is leaving Arjuna at the end of this week to take up a Program Manager job with Microsoft. He's joining the relatively new Connected Systems Division and I wish him all the best in the future.
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