4 Weeks Later
Well it has been a while since I have posted and a lot has been going on so I do apologise. Its been just over 4 weeks since I moved to Birmingham and what a great experience it has been. My placement has kicked off to a great start and I quickly got to know the ins and outs of the company and its systems so a big thanks to Talwinder, the current placement student I will be replacing.
Birmingham its self has been awesome. Last Monday I went with my new flatmate and his friends to The Rainbow to see Kid British! What a great band and they played amazing live! I also saw The Anomalies which were also awesome and other band which were very good but I have no idea what they were called… Any who it got me in the mood for V festival which is only a month away!
My placement has been a real learning curve and I think its going to get steeper which is always fun. I’m currently looking at a Windows PBX called 3CX which may be implemented at the office.
This weekend I’ll hopefully get round to having a look at the new update for Windows Home Server. Power Pack 3 has been released under a BETA tag, which means its not quite ready for the public as it might still have bugs in the software. It brings support for Windows 7 enhancements to Windows Media Centre. Check it out here.
On that note I have been checking out a new media centre called Boxee! After leaving the Stafford house the original Xbox running XBMC has been retired as I no longer have a TV (Soon to change) so I started using Boxee as a Windows version had just been released. I was very impressed initially and continue to be bemused by its features. Boxee is based on XBMC but does a much better job at presenting its self. The applications feature is also a great edition allowing UK users to watch BBC iPlayer, although here in Birmingham I am on 2mb broadband so can’t stream the HD content. I was going to set up XBMC on my new TV though a PC rather than an the Xbox but I think now it’ll be running Boxee so watch this space!.. Going to have a to buy a TV first though.. and maybe a new small computer..??
Also a quick GOOD LUCK to Andrew, Michael and Dave who are in Germany finishing their first week on placement!
First Day
So I suppose for the 3000 word report I apprently have to write on my placement year I should start writing about the day to day business of my placement experience. Well my first day is over and done with and now it seems quite exhausting. Myself and Tal, the current placement student sorted out my computer which took a while because of some trouble with getting it to recognise the hard drive. Later I built a new computer for the MD a nice and powerful Intel quad core machine which I believe will be hooked up to a very nice new24in monitor. This also gave us some problems but a quick Google resolved that issue and it turned out a quick BIOS update was needed.
Really enjoyed my first day even with the high temperatures up in the office. On to the next!
Rain!
So I have moved to Birmingham ready to start placement on Monday. It was another humid day but towards late afternoon it started to rain with the odd thunder and lighting strikes. I needed to go to Tesco and not knowing where that was I used the sat nav which took me pass this, a sight dip in the road which had gathered a lot of water..
And yes, I did drive though it..
Move In Day
I have now got the keys for my home for the next year or so in Birmingham. I haven’t exactly packed but I should be moving tomorrow and starting placement on Monday!
I seemed to have been corner by my parents to do some IT work for them today so I think I’ll be packing much just the essentials much like friends Andy and Michael who will be traveling to Germany soon for their placement so good luck to them!
First of the Month
Which means it is 27 days till I move to Birmingham. I getting quite excited about the prospect as I get a taste tomorrow with a trip to the data-centre with the current placement student.
May has been an interesting month, I have turned 20, which I still find a little fascinating. It seems a long time yet the last 4/5 years have gone so fast.. Does time speed up as you get older? I’ve moved back home after two years (I don’t think two weeks last summer counted) and well I can’t think of anything to add to the list but anyway…
In my last post I forgot to mention I got a little camera for my birthday.. I’m not a mad snapper but I thought it be nice to have one.. so when I grab some nice photos a new section will come to life on the blog, its hiding away as its got nothing to show for now.
I finally got round to installing Windows 7 on my laptop which I am currently using to write this post. I’m liking the new features and tweaks that keep surprising me, the latest is the sub menus on the start menu. Pined items when hovered over produce a sub menu with options for you, for example its shows the recent history of the devices you have connected to with Remote Desktop which skips a step when accessing the machines as shown below…
Which reminds me! I’ve been quite impressed with Windows Home Server lately which is installed on Stewie. After reading up on the way Home Server backups machines and the restore process when I first purchased the operating system. I was quite confident that if and when my computer fell over it would be ok as I could just restore it from a backup, I never tested this out though.. I suppose it was at a time that it it isn’t broke, don’t fix it as I was in the middle of uni and formatting a pc for the fun of it wasn’t my top 10 things to do.
However the time did come for me to use it. The process was so simple. The restore CD is a Live CD, which for those of you that don’t know, is a bootable operating system that doesn’t require or use a hard-drive . It didn’t require any drivers importing at all and after a few clicks the machine was restoring its self.. Magic!!
So magic I have to say… Matt, a house mate, an avid Mac fan.. has got him self one. A Tranquil SQA-5H I believe… and I do believe soon the Home Server will be able to take backup images of Apple Mac’s using the Time Machine application.. not sure though…
On this point I have to finish and make my way back to Stafford..
Three Down Four To Go
Maybe a cup of tea does solve everything although I have run out of bags. I’ve pretty much recovered from the bug that I have developed. To follow on from the good news I have completed three out of seven tests and I am starting to get some rough grades back. One of which is my Investigating Operating Systems (IOS) module, which actually isn’t a test it was 100% coursework based, but anyway I found out today I got a B in the assignment. I’m quite happy about as I spent a solid two weeks during easter doing the work and wasn’t really sure what I would get for it.
I can’t wait for the exams to be over. Reading cisco material becomes very tiresome very quickly. I have three written exams this week and Friday is also the date for the course party to celebrate the end of the second year, although I finish the following Tuesday with my last skills test. On the bright side I am going with my house mates to all you can eat Chinese tonight which is a nice end to a bank holiday filled with revision although I did manage to fit in an hour of slaughter playing COD4.
