New Server
Over the past couple of days you may have notice the blog and various other sites I manage have been down over the weekend. This was mainly due to some downtime on the DNS servers, the primary, located in Newark was turned off as some building work was going on close to the server and I didn’t want tiny rocks getting in though the fans but also because I was moving the DNS server to a new host.
I thought I might as well get some experience on various systems in some of my spare time while on my placement year so I got myself a server. It’s a HP ML115 and it is now hosted in a datacentre just outside of Birmingham. I’ve beefed up the standard spec of it with some large hard drives and quite a lot of ram! It’s currently hosting 3 servers. One of which is a Windows server which is now hosting this blog. I’ve come across a few errors since as wordpress doesn’t really support IIS but I think I’ve finally cracked it. I’ve also noticed a huge decrease in page load time; it was starting to get annoying on the old host.
My next challenge is to install Exchange server. I’m struck between trying out Exchange 2010 or properly configuring Exchange 2007 but before this I need to finish configuring Active Directory.
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2
I’ve spent the last week or two on and off pretty much playing the new edition to the Call of Duty Series. Modern Warfare 2. It is an awesome game and much improved over the last COD installation from Infinity Ward. Going by the news it seems I’m not the only one that likes the game. I’ve heard that some online stores were taking 150 pre orders at its peak. However some don’t like the game due to some of its levels, Russian has banned the game due to a certain level containing and airport, terrorists and some dead civilians. While playing the level I did think that this was a little over the top more so because I read about how the levels may offend certain people. Its a game though although it could be real its not.
Single player I thought was very short. I took me 6 hours to complete, not all at once though. I’ve only playing COD4 and 5 and they seemed much longer. The story however following on from COD4 is very good and leaves it open to what I suspect will be COD8. Multi-player however is a little different to what I expected this was mainly because I got the game on XBOX rather than getting on Steam for playing on my computer. I find it quite annoying that you don’t get the options that you did on COD4 and 5. I like to be able to go on and play a certain map but on XBOX you can’t search game with a certain map unless of cause you are in a private/hosted match but my Internet connection isn’t fast enough to host.
They have took this system to the PC as well. No longer can you run and host your own dedicated server with custom settings or dedicated level rotation. This is the main reason I did not get it on the PC.
The online Multi-player on the whole is awesome too. Infinity Ward has done it again and created an awesome game.
Fitted The Xtreamer Cooler
I fitted the Xtreamer cooler the other night. I was a little concerned how easy the how-to made the whole process look, nothing is easy. To be fair though once I’d got the side panel off, which must have been stuck down with the worlds strongest double-sided tape the whole thing was a breeze to complete. It even looks good as an end product with the cooler attached. On a plus note it worked afterwards. I hadn’t slipped and ploughed a screwdriver across the chipset.
I haven’t however watched it enough since to see if the cooler actually works but reading around others seem to think so. Its also stopped acting up. After a little playing around after my previous post, here. It turned out the Windows Home Server wasn’t 100% happy with the Xtreamer on the network. Its fine now, the problem was the WHS, at idle spun down the hard drives when they were not in use and when the Xtreamer started to stream a file there was a delay while the hard-drives spin back up. This is ok when your streaming to Boxee, a PC etc as there is about a 2 second delay the Xtreamer however seems to get confused. I think I’ll file a bug report when I can test this more.
On a similar note the Xtreamer with its HDMI output is pushing me towards getting a HD TV. I’ve been watching the new series Life on BBC/iPlayer and the awesome shots they have in HD are just amazing but I’m stuck watching it on my PC monitor… for now.. any recommendations?
The Xtreamer Cooler Has Arrived
So my Xtreamer cooler has arrived and I thought I’d take this time you tell you and upload a picture from my iphone. Will have to fit this tomorrow but hopefully this will kill some of the annoyances with it when it starts to over heat!
Did You Know 4.0?
I’ve posted a youtube video of this before, here, but now an updated video has been circleing the web. Still find it interesting how the times have changed and how they will change in the future.
Will the newspaper be redundent in the future? I already find when I open one I already know the main news story just from reading them off the internet…
Windows 7
Well I’d thought I’d get on the band wagon that is Windows 7. Its a little scary when you hear on Radio 1 that Microsoft wanted you to have a house party on the launch day and that there is a Windows 7 branded Burger King burger that would most likely decrease your life expectancy by half and also a Family Guy episode but anyway Windows 7 is here. However as you might know I’ve been using Windows 7 for a while and this post isn’t going to let you about how amazing it it, in fact I suppose this post is more an update on my placement. I just called it Windows 7 to get in with the cool kids.
I’ve nearly finished converting a website from a static html design in to a content management system called Kentico. I’ve never worked with Kentico, let alone aspx, but after about a week of scratching my head and wondering what the hell is going on I finally made progress. Its been a good learning curve and it takes me back to my web designing day. The site its self is nothing fancy the aim of this is to allow the site to be developed further so it is very much a conversion process than creating the site from scratch. Which brings me on to a little rant…
A web development company designed this site considering this I was quite shocked at how poorly this website had been built. Its seems like consistency has been thrown out the window. An example; Half way though a page the text font would change! How do people get a way from designing such rubbish quality work?
Any who it seems like a new project for me is to create a new Windows 7 domain set-up for a local company. I’ve got experience in 2003 domains so but a 2008 domain shouldn’t be too different or maybe even easier? I think not but that what research is for!
On that note I think I’ll end this rather short but slightly informing post. This weekend I’m off to Sheffield to see my sister are university
