Home Server coming…. home?

Having been in the beta since it first went public, and absolutely loved the product, to say I was very excited when the announcement was made that Windows Home Server (WHS) had RTM’d would be something of an understatement!! 

Now that it’s available in the UK for a reasonable price…. I’ve ordered my copy 🙂

Novatech are selling it for £86.95 inc. VAT – considerably less that some other resellers in the UK, which is nice…… 🙂

In addition to this, I’ve ordered up some big (500Gb) SATA disks and USB caddies for them. The disks are lovely and cheap from SVP and they are supplying the caddies as well – USB 2.0 ones that support SATA / IDE / eSATA so I’m future proofed for a while at least….The plan is to rebuild the server “properly” – this will involve wiping all the data and starting again – so there’s some BIG backups to run once it’s complete…. the only downside at the moment is that I only have USB 1.1 on my old server chassis :-(  so I’m looking for a supported PCI card with USB2.0 ports now.

I suspect it’ll be a week or so before I have all the bits and I’m ready to start – but I’ll post my first impressions of the finished product once I have it built. I’ll also be posting some stuff on the fun and games I’ve had trying to get a reliable wireless connection for my XBox 360 so I can use it as a Media Centre Extender – 802.11a might be more “reliable” but it’s not easy to find hardware (at least not here in the UK) – that’s all I’ll say for now…..

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Finally…..

I’ve got myself an XBox360! I waited for the Elite version to come out here before I bit the bullet… so I now have 1080i gaming on the 42″ flat screen in the lounge 🙂 🙂 🙂

They were released the day before my birthday in the UK – and I figured that turning 30 was a good enough excuse for going for it…. I have to say, I’m VERY impressed all in all, it’s a well joined up process, and moving my gamertag over from the old XBox to the 360 was a doddle (once I remembered all my login details heheh)

One fun thing I’ve found that ties in is that you can get your 360 to blog – it’s all automated, and you can see my consoles’ blog here …. I’ll be intrigued to see how this develops as I game more and play around with the Video Marketplace etc.

So far I have to say that my favourite games are Bioshock and Forza Motorsport 2 – both very different, but excellent in their own ways.

More to come as I delve further into the games etc. If you fancy a game then please feel free to ad me – gamertag is jackeales

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Changes galore….

I’ve upgraded to WordPress 2.2.2 and the latest version of Spam Karma as well … so there might be a few bugs that I need to iron out over the next couple of days – everything seems good at the moment – but I’ve not tested everything 🙂

Aside from that, all is good – I’ve finally passed the second part of the upgrade process to MCSE 2003, and I’m trying to get organised to sit my CCNA – but getting motivated to study is tricky…. with the weather being nice and the house being finished – I just want to chill out and relax in the garden….

There’s also the small matter of my impending 30th birthday…. the panic’s starting to kick in now…..

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Day 3 – things are looking up!

It’s improving…. OSPF, EIGRP, RIP – and least we’re covering something “meaningful” at last – I think I might have actually learnt something finally!!

It’s still slow – lots of talk and not a lot of do – but it might be worthwhile by the end of it…. I know that doing it as two course would have been the end of me – let’s put it that way!!

We’ll see how tomorrow goes – and then make a final call on Friday…. the jury’s out for now….

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Bootcamp – Day 2

 

It’s not a lot better…. 25 minutes to “explain” Ping – for fuck’s sake! I’m not really in a suitable frame of mind to discuss the rest of the day – I guess it could have been worse – but it could of been an awful lot better…..

More to follow tomorrow……

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CCNA Boot Camp – Day 1….

 

Colour me unimpressed so far……. a 9:30 start… and by first break at 11 we’d just about got through introductions and associated bullshit…. this included the bombshell that was “we should be finished by 7pm each day…..” the course details talked of 9-5:30, and I figured that 6 wasn’t unreasonable… but 7?!?!?!

Fair enough… I never expected an easy ride – it’s a boot camp for God’s sake…. 9 days compressed into 5 – but I’m on a flight at 7 on Friday… so I’m going to miss the end of the course 🙁  if I’d known, I’d have stayed until Saturday!

As it stands…. we got to 15:10 before anything as complex as “enable mode” was mentioned… so the pace so far… well, isn’t exactly racing along…. by the time we got to naming conventions for ports / slots etc. it was 17:15… and that took 20+ minutes – how fucking much do you want to explain something that simple!?

I don’t think anyone is finding it hard going – if they are, then they probably shouldn’t be on the course if I’m honest 😉

 

More to follow…. hopefully tomorrow picks up the pace a bit….

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Mea Culpa

I know…. it’s boring reading posts from me (assuming I still have a reader….. you there Bobbie?) about how I’ve been a bad boy and not blogged for ages….. well here’s another one – but I kinda have an excuse….

“I’ve been busy” is a kinda lame excuse – but it’s valid this time… I’ve moved teams and house in the last 5 months – not to mention become a 2003 MCSA (I failed the second exam to become an MCSE last Monday… but I have the retake booked..)

Since Becs and I moved in together in our previous house (and especially since we got married,) we’ve been looking for a place to buy together – being a tennant has it’s advantages – but the time was right…. we started looking just after christmas, and found the ideal house in late March – it ticked everything on the “want” list and all of the “would like” list (downstairs loo – check, bigger kitchen – check, garden that faces “the right way” – check, utility room – check, garage / off-road parking – triple-check – 2 car dive & single garage!!)  I’ll post some photo’s once I get back and actually take some of the outside from the front! In the meantime, here’s one of the back of the house about 2 months before it got finished.

   

It’s a 4 bedroomed detached house – and we’re very happy – thanks for asking!!

As for work and the team move – it’s been on the cards for a little while, and I finally joined the Core IP Transit team about 4 months ago – so I’m now a part of a team responsibile for all of our IP traffic from POP’s in London to CPE / ADSL routers in businesses / homes. We also take responsibility for our MPLS NGN core network in the coming months – so you can imagine what it’s been like for me – I’m a “windows boy” I understand GUI – not Cisco CLI ….. the learning curve has been brutal to say the least. I have an excellent team to work with and ther’s no shortage of dedication and willingness to spread the knowledge – so I’m working long hours and learning a lot – a good combination – but the long hours don’t make Becs all that happy (until pay-day!)

The reason for this post? Well, I’m in London for a CCNA boot-camp to try and ge me up to speed with what I’m meant to be doing day-to-day…. so I’m planning to post something each night about the experience – we shall see…….

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Getting en-tangler-ed…. or where my life is about to vanish into :-)

 

My new friend dekrazee1 (no link as “commitment” to a blog is a bit too much for her at the moment!) and an old aquaintence Mick have been “good” enough to get me an invite into Tangler and I can feel that it could begin to suck my life away – taking every waking moment – but in a good way 🙂

It’s a chat site – but a bit different to IM or IRC – you can subscribe to conversations and topics – create you own, and generally involve a load of people you’ve never met – an interesting way to get feedback on a website / project / new geek toy / anything else you want opinions on….

I have the ability to invite some friends – I don’t know how many – but leave a comment as to why you should be invited to this very interesting beta and an e-mail address and I’ll get in touch!!

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Want a MacBook Pro in the UK?? Under 4 Hours to go on mine…

 

I’ve chucked my MacBookPro up on E-Bay  – it’s a lovely bit of kit, don’t get me wrong – but I can’t justify it… it’s more than I wanted to spend on a gadget (at the moment anyway) and I really want an XBox 360…

Having WHS also gives me another excuse for an XBox – I can stream everything to it… hide the noisy PC in a cupboard somewhere and enjoy all of my music in the lounge….

Of course this means I won’t be doing my post on OS/X – but suffice to say – it’s going to have to get a lot better Mr Jobs if you’re going to convert me…. I’ve got my copy of Vista Ultimate and an new hard drive to put it on is on its’ way…. I think I’ll be staying Windows for the forseeable 🙂

Anyway – stop reading this and get bidding!!

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