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…….

Technorati tags: CCNA, MPLS, MCSE, new house, ADSL, excuses

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!!

 

Well, it’s excellent – in a word…..

I have to say it’s a very impressive bit of software – the most stable and functional piece of Beta 2 software I think I’ve ever used. I got my invite 36 hours ago – an overnight download, and an install the following night have got me to this post….

The install was painfully simple – pop the DVD in, boot and about 5 (possible more like 3) clicks later – it’s done…. so simple even my dear old Mum could probably manage it!

The initial user experience is good – it’s a very simple desktop – think stripped down Windows 2003. The console connection is clear and easy to use, and overall it’s a doddle.

My only complaint so far is the keyboard “support” there’s no option to choose what keyboard you have – so it defaults to US…. not a huge issue I hear you say – but it’s a PITA when you use @ or ” in your initial password – they’re reversed on UK / US keyboards – so logging in from a UK laptop later means you think you’ve gone mad for a couple of minutes 🙂

There’s also no obvious way to change the administrator password once you’ve set it – so if it’s compromised – you’re SOL as far as I can see at the moment – I’ll do some more testing on this one tonight and post more if I find it.

PC Backups are very cool – you install the connector software, it automagically finds the server, gives you a link to the shares and the console software and you can then setup the backups from the console in a matter of minutes – pick what you want to exclude – rather than what you want to backup – novel idea – and quite nice I think…. means you’re less likely to miss something important (and it automagically removes stuff like your pagefile and temp directories – very clever) The backup then kicks off – and it looks pretty fast – I don’t have an exact time as I got booted off the PC – WAF still counts for something 🙂

I’ll post more in the coming days as I try to work out how to migrate my data across (4 drives in a Firewire enclosure) – should be fun 🙂

 

I was chatting yesterday with my former boss – a nice fellow – he’s now doing ¨consultancy¨ for small businesses and SBS install etc – we were chatting about this and that and I mentioned WHS…. Cue blank look from Rob….. tut tut – working for in the SoHo realm and not knowing about this? Shame on you…… more shame on you for not blogging since August – and I thought I was slack!!

Still the point of this post it to try and get Rob up to speed – so here’s the links to the most important thing Microsoft have done in a long time (I’m biased as my Vista laptop has just died and I’m back on XP – and I think I prefer it to be perfectly honest!)

Beta 2 of WHS is out now – Sign Up here

Forums are here

Team Blog here

Requirements for WHS Beta 2 (and a blog you should read)

MacWorld – usually a love-fest for Steve Jobs, and all things IPod…. has proved that apple fan-boys are even more full of shit than I thought they were….. where’s the innovation in this?

• Music Player – been done.
• Touch Screen – see it before.
• E-Mail – yep, got that. Web Browser – yawn…..
• Ooooh, hang on – oh…. no it’s EDGE (not  a lot of use in the UK) – not 3G / HSDPA – so not worth having for data really in this day and age…..

Where’s the “Breakthrough Internet Device”? All I see is a bunch of things my Ipaq 3970 could do with my bluetooth enabled phone 3-4 years ago – OK so it’s all in one piece of hardware now – but it’s not exactly NEW….. My E61 will do all of the above – and it’s 3G…… 🙂

As for the AppleTV announcement – can I be any more underwhelmed? It’s not 1080i – just 720i so it’s not Hi-Def enough for my liking…. and it’s all DRM’d up – the usual Apple “Fairplay” bullshit – so I can share the content with 3 TV’s in my house – big fuckin’ deal – I still need to cable them together somehow as far as I can see…. what use is that?

Steve – I’m sorry to say this – but I just don’t give a shit…. I’d LOVE a MacBook Pro – running Vista of course….. 🙂 but OSX would be nice to play with now and again…. but the whole “I-<insert random name here>” thing fails to get my juices flowing…. I like to rip my CD’s to MP3 without DRM and be able to move them around and put them on whateve device I like – I HATE the idea of being tied into a bullshit ecosystem that means that I can’t change to the device that I like….

</rant> 🙂