It’s hard to believe that this year’s Dev Jam is half over. It seems to take forever to get here and then it is over too soon.

Lots of cool stuff going on. David Schlenk has written a Java Message Service (JMS) northbounder interface. While targeted at Apache ActiveMQ, it should work with any JMS provider, and it is another great tool to have for the OpenNMS platform.

Christian did a cool little hack using a Blink(1) USB light. If you have a Blink(1) you can plug it into your laptop and then run a little Java app. The app will connect to your OpenNMS instance and then the color will change based on the severity of alarms. Cool.

I also participated in my first GPG key signing. Jeff organized it to increase our “web of trust” and once I got into it, it was kind of fun.

He promised cake, and for once the cake wasn’t a lie:

The cake went well with dinner, which came from the always amazing Brasa:

Most of us ate out on the deck. This is the view looking out toward the Mississippi:

While we have held Dev-Jam in locations other than UMN, it has become a lot harder to do so since we get treated so well here. While most attendees have been to previous Dev-Jam events, we always have a few new people, and many of them end up staying off campus in a nearby hotel. There is something about staying in a dorm room that bothers them – perhaps it was a bad experience in college.

So I thought it would be a public service to actually show the rooms we get at Yudof Hall.

Each person at Dev-Jam gets their own room. While these rooms tend to hold at least two students when classes are in session, during the summer they are singles. You get a sink and a little kitchen with a microwave, two burner stove and refrigerator.

There is a single bed, desk, an armoire (closet) and a chest of drawers.

You even get to control the temperature in the room. I like mine on the cool side and the air conditioning works quite well.

Each room shares a bathroom with a toilet and a shower with one other person from Dev-Jam. While these rooms might be a little close with two people, they are perfect for one. Plus they are incredibly convenient since the event is held in the downstairs Club Room.

So, if you ever decide to come to Dev-Jam, don’t hesitate to stay on campus.