We Love Our NetBeans!

We are tickled to have played a small role in helping out that inspiring godmother of bloggers everywhere, Sun's MaryMaryQuiteContrary. Every Friday, Mary gives away free stuff and we happened to approach her on just the right day with an idea that needed a home.

We've had the honor of supporting Sun's NetBeans project forever. (Well, really since they announced they were open sourcing it five years ago, so almost forever.) We wanted to do a fun holiday-spirited thing for a cozy press event we're supporting next week. We planned to have reporters in the room guess the number of "NetBeans" in a jar. (Ok they're coffee beans.) Remote reporters could guess based on a jpg of the jar we'd email to them. The prize was to be an iPod. Credit for this clever idea goes to colleague Juli Greenwood. (Thank heavens for the left brainers.)

Alas, reporters have those nasty ethical constraints, so with some qualms, we checked with Ziff and IDG, and knew the idea was kaput. Their reporters could not participate, and we figured we'd learn the same for others.

Sun's Laura Ramsey to the rescue. She suggested we contact MaryMary. Our own Tom Baker got to work with the custom lighting and the office Hassleblad for the glam shot of the NetBeans jar, now featured in all its glory on Mary's blog.

Stay tuned for the exciting conclusion. Only Tom knows how many beans are in that jar.