Archive for category Journal
Exchange Certified & Jumping In The Deep End of the Win 7 Pool
Posted by Ken Thompson in Brain Busters, I.T. Certification, Journal on June 8, 2009
Well it has been a while in between posts as I have been trying to work out why the hell posts using Windows Live Writer are now putting in weird formatting. Starting to think it’s something going on with the site rather than Windows 7 now as have tested on numourous Win 7 PCs (could be a Live Writer specific problem also though). Going to hang out until WordPress 2.8 is released this week and do a fresh install of the website and see if that knocks it on the head.
Well I successfully passed my 70-284 exam last week, Implementing and Managing Exchange Server 2003. From memory I got 843/1000, so happy with the result, even if it did take me 2 goes. But it has sparked a new motivation to get my next certification as I released that I only need 1 more (70-291) and I will be a Microsoft Certified Systems Administrator (MCSA). So getting back on the books in a big way as I am very keen to acquire that title on my way to MCSE and other certifications in the later half of the year.
This week I jumped in the deep end of the Windows 7 pool and installed it on both my netbook and my work laptop. I did it via USB and it was super simple (I’ll post a how to this week sometime, I promise!). I’m having some issues on my work laptop connecting to the Windows 2003 domain at work, the same symptom I had at home with slow folder redirection for My Docs etc to a Windows 2003 server. At home I ended up just turning folder redirection off for the moment, but definitely need to get on top of it at work soon as it won’t be too long until we are getting new PC’s shipping with Windows 7. I’m looking forward to the potential problems ahead though so that after using it so much on a variety of systems I will really get a handle on it for successful implementation at work.
Daemon Tools have released a Win 7 compatible version of their program also which I am wrapped about as PowerISO which I have been using slowly decides that one virtual drive will never work again; you create another which works; same thing happens eventually and so on!
Anyway, back to basking in the glory of 3 Windows 7 PC’s and behaving like a Octupus multitasking on all of them!
Life's Lessons
Posted by Ken Thompson in Journal on May 25, 2009
Well, the Pixsoul airwaves have been rather quiet the past couple of weeks because I have been super busy at work and the rest of the time studying for the Microsoft Exchange 2003 certification. I sat the exam last Monday and knew perfectly well that I lacked knowledge on some key areas that I don’t utilise in real world practice (Security and Routing Groups). But Microsoft have their Second Shot offer still running, so I figured I had nothing to lose by sitting it; at worst I would get a gauge of where I am at.
So I went in, knowing that my current preparation was half-baked but I still had a chance of passing. After the test, as I was running through my answers and figured out from the questions I had no idea about in comparison to the ones I was confident that I was going to be cutting it close to passing or failing, it could go either way.
So I pressed submit and waited for the words to flash up on the screen…”EPIC FAIL!”. Ok, so it didn’t say that, but it was still disappointing! As expected I came close, getting 648/1000, 52 shy of passing. But I know where I need to work on and I am already back on the books and mucking around on my exchange server, ready to dish out some punishment to the exam PC in a week when I re-sit.
It kind of woke me up a bit though, I need to get focussed on the study and not sit an exam until I know I am ready; rather than when I want to achieve each certification. I’ve been too focussed on time and not on quality and it would be good to hold on to my current GPA of 91% rather than throw it away in order to get some certifications more quickly.
28 Days for the Body and Mind
Posted by Ken Thompson in I.T. Certification, Journal on May 11, 2009
Well this year is absolutely zipping on by, I can’t believe it is almost half way already! It has been a great year thus far, but I am falling behind in my certification and education warpath. So this morning I have set myself a target to achieve my next 2 certifications in the next 28 days. I have also decided to tie in a de-tox for this period as it surely can’t hurt the study efforts and my body has definitely earned a break.
The rules are simple, in the next 28 days:
- Obtain 70-284: Implementing and Managing Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 Certification (I have already booked in my exam for next Monday morning and have got Friday off for a 3 day study-a-thon weekend)
- Obtain 70-291: Implementing, Managing, and Maintaining a Windows Server 2003 Network Infrastructure Certification
- No Alcohol
- No Junk Food
This will bring me back on track reasonably well and I plan to do my 70-293 before the end of the financial at least, maybe another…but the de-tox will definitely end at 28 days…it’s going to be a long 4 weeks!
Back to the study….
Windows 7 RC Blamed for Internet Slow Downs
Posted by Ken Thompson in Journal on May 7, 2009
iTnews Australia has reported that there have been slow-downs for Australian internet users as a result of the Windows 7 RC release. There has been a 50% spike in traffic from the Akamai server farm which is believe to host the files for download; as they host and deliver (amongst many other things) Windows Updates. It’s really great to see such a positive take up of Windows 7 RC, obviously they have made a fantastic product but their marketting efforts are obviously really hitting home. From the reaction of the general public, hopefully we will see a large take up of Windows 7 and related technologies and won’t be dealing with any laggards or haters stilling clinching on to their Windows XP machines after a couple of years.
But then again, maybe that increase in traffic from Akamai was just me furiously downloading updates on our freshly setup WSUS servers…we definitely got throttled because of that, Internode data blocks to the rescue though!
Exchange 2003 – All Systems Go
Posted by Ken Thompson in I.T. Certification, Journal, Projects, The PCs That Kevin Built on May 4, 2009
Well it has been a few weeks now since I got my server going and I had yet to get Exchange fully functional. I had only got as far as installing it and having all the services running, but hadn’t hooked it up to my websites or started using it rather than my web server’s POP3 email accounts.
I have started studying for my 70-284 (Implementing and Managing Microsoft Exchange Server 2003), so that inspired me to get everything going; especially as it’s exactly what I am learning about right now. I have actually decided that I will sit this exam next as I am finding it very interest (and a little easy!) and it will break up the studies a bit. I want to do the exam within the next 2 weeks as I really need to get some of these exams out of the way and get back on my certification war path.
I really didn’t have that much to do, and I’m pleased to say everything went exactly to plan and I had everything hooked up and working in no time at all; a pleasant surprise to the norm. So I changed my domain’s MX records to point to my FQDN address, which is a dynamic forwarder (as I have a dynamic IP from my ISP, the router updates this FQDN any time it changes). Then I setup the following port forwards to my server:
- 80 – HTTP (already activated for other services)
- 25 – SMTP
- 110 – POP3
- 443 – Outlook Web Access
- 389 – LDAP (required for remote access user authentication)
- 143 – IMAP4
Then I enabled and started the POP3 and IMAP services (for access on PC’s I have linked to other Domains & Exchange Accounts) and I was in business. Too easy!
I did hit one stumbling block though. I want to use one exchange account which is configured with 2 SMTP accounts for different domain names (Pixsoul and XXIV) which works perfectly for receiving email from either account. However when you send email it address it from the default SMTP account, so you can only send email from one of the accounts – no choice. I have done a lot of playing and poking around but it appears the only way to have this work is to create 2 separate user accounts in AD, linking each individual email to their accounts…I will keep searching though and post up on the success / failure of that tomorrow.
Fresh Aussie Hip Hop – MC Phrase
Posted by Ken Thompson in Journal on May 4, 2009
I have been hanging out for this album since I heard Phrase’s first single Clockwork in mid 2008. I love my Aussie Hip Hop and this album has definitely raised the bar, looking forward to see what Phrase will bring in the future with a killer first album like this.
I’ll be at the corner raising my glass, and banging my head in July for sure!
Medieval Tech Support
Posted by Ken Thompson in Journal, Work on May 3, 2009
Windows 7 – Learning Portal
Posted by Ken Thompson in I.T. Certification, Journal on May 3, 2009
Well unfortunately I missed out on getting a shot at the beta Windows 7 exam. But in reality, it’s no skin off my nose as I won’t be using or deploying until mid to late 2010 at the earliest; the only benefit of doing now was that it was free, the professional relevance was irrelevant.
Despite that I am still using Windows 7 and won’t be going back to Vista or XP (except at work, an XP environment) at all. I am still learning the ropes of the OS and came across a new resource for learning Windows 7:
http://www.microsoft.com/learning/windows-7/default.mspx
A few more bits and bobs there to look into, namely sample chapters of new Windows 7 documentation. The timing couldn’t be better either, with Windows 7 RC1 being officially released on the 5th of May. But I expect all you fellow Windows 7 geeks to already have the leaked version! I’m yet to install mine, but definitely looking forward to the Windows XP inbuilt VM; I will post more on this when I use it a little bit.
Growing Pains
Posted by Ken Thompson in Journal, Work on April 26, 2009
We have been having an odd issue on our Citrix servers at work since we upgraded them from Windows Server 2000 to Windows Server 2003 in late February. You can’t open MS Access files by double clicking on them, it just does nothing. All the file associations are correct, as are permissions, it’s just a strange occurrence. It hasn’t been high on the priority list to do as users can still open the files from within MS Access using File > Open and navigating to the file from within Access. To be honest, I had completely forgotten about the issue as we had not put in place our ticketting system until recently; I only got it fully setup and functioning last week.
I fixed them up today, we have about 50-60 of our employees using both of these servers at work so it’s impossible to do serious work on them (involving reboots; or risking it) during business hours. Fortunately I can do the work remotely in the comfort of my own home, all rugged up (it’s getting wintery in Melbourne). So fixing the problem didn’t end up being overly difficult, I did a full uninstall of Microsoft Office on our servers (We have 2 in our Citrix “farm”), rebooted them, re-installed Microsoft Office 2003, applied all the updates and rebooted again. I tested both servers and everything looked to be functioning correctly under several different test and live user logins.
During all of the testing I noticed that the scripts for some users were running of a domain controller at another of our sites…not the 2 domain controllers which are at the same site as the Citrix Servers. It wasn’t a big issue, logins functioned, but were just slower than usual as they would travel on a 2MBPS VPN link to the other site (about 10km away), authorize and pull the scripts back down to the Citrix box when a user logged on. When they should have been using 1 of the 2 DC’s in the same room, connected to the same 1GBPS switch! The problem was that Active Directory Sites and Services was incorrectly setup; the DC at the other site was sitting in the main office’s Site OU, not it’s own. So I moved it over, checked that the correct subnets were assigned to the appropriate sites (which they were) and viola; when logging in to Citrix it would now do it faster and use one of the 2 DC’s in the same server room.
Which leads me to the point of my post; our work has grown (and continues to) very rapidly and our IT infrastructure structure and systems were not designed adequately to cope with this. It’s not that anything there is drastically wrong, we have around 150 users who are all working happily away and the systems are performing well enough. But the systems were never designed for much expansion, they were designed to cater for the problems at the time, quick fixes. As such, we have a lot of ad-hoc solutions to problems that have sprung up along the way. It’s like a kid’s tree house with little odd rooms tacked on all over the place!
But quite frankly, I love it! Of course, everything needs to be fixed, a lot of it completely re-designed and implemented from scratch. But it is a great experience for me starting out in IT, I am learning so much every day and putting in place everything I am learning in my Microsoft Certifications. Obviously the aim is to get everything working as smooth and efficient as possible, but it does make me think that if it was all running as smoothly as I plan to have it, work would be very boring.
Why are the best ISPs based in SA/WA?
Posted by Ken Thompson in Journal on April 24, 2009
I was just having a look around at ISP’s as I do every few weeks thinking that someone might have magically changed their quota’s to a bazillion gigabytes, thus tempting me away from my current provider.
It got me thinking though; all the providers I check, which I consider to be the best ISP’s in Australia, are all based in WA / SA.
- Westnet
- ADAM
- iiNet
- Internode
Which makes me wonder why…why are all the best ISP’s based in some of the lowest populated areas in Australia? Why have we not seen similar success from companies based in VIC / NSW?
Maybe they get more grants over there, or have less competition from the big guys. Or maybe it is one of those “necessity is the mother of invention” deals, where the big guys just aren’t offering adequate service in those states / areas , thus paving the way for small providers to capture a broad range of the market.
Anyway, I would be interested in hearing peoples thoughts, opinions…facts!
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