My pass of 70-215 went up on the prometric site on Thursday, but I’ve been watching the MCP Site to see when the pass would get through. Went up on the online transcript today, up there at the top is the “Legacy” cert for Microsoft Certified Database Administrator for SQL Server 2000. Yay 🙂
My 15th exam and I’ve been at this Malarky for over 10 years.
Passed 70-215 Administering Old Windows Servers this morning. Got 850, which was a pleasant surprise. A well broad spread of questions, including more on subnetting and routing than I expected. Expected stuff on UNIX was in there, and a total blinder on SNMP although I’d not covered much if at anything on it, the question looked simple.
I think the pass makes me an MCDBA.
Out on the bike today, so contact lenses in. Came to remove them a little while ago and could only find the one in my right eye, it was in the middle as usual. Couldn’t see the one in my left eye. Thought that was a bit wierd.
My eye was a little uncomfortable, a bit like hayfever, but localised in one place. So I moved my eye around and felt on my closed eyelid, slid it along and out popped a folded up contact lense. Yuk.
At least all are now accounted for. I’m still getting used to the malarky of putting them in, in my box of right eye lenses I’ve got 6, and in my left eye box I’ve got 10. Something wierd about my right eye then.
I’ve got my headphones on to drown out the background noise while I do my studying for 70-215 Administering old Windows Servers. I’m settling in to the excellent Muse Album Black Holes and Revelations, which has a track called “Knights of Cydonia“. At the beginning are some ever so slightly dodgy cavalry samples, and I’m sure if you listen carefully you can hear the pantomine horse Dobbin from Rentaghost. Good to see it still gets some work as a session horse.
Spam is a blight, I have to delete spam posts from the feedback on this blog, and I have spam control software on my email client.
At the moment I’m getting hundreds of messages bouncing back to an email account on one of my domains because evidently someone out there has or is sending spam with a reply address which isn’t their own.
Now although I accept the logic of a screening function that challenges a particular email if detected as spam, and offers the sender the opportunity to take remedial action, I’m rather annoyed at the stupidity of some returns which effectively say “your email is spam, go away”. I’d like to say to such senders that the numbers of spammers who use their own email address on SPAM is next to nil these days, and at the moment I think such people arenot very far up the stupidity scale from spammers themselves.
Some advice for mail admins – just delete the things, then I don’t receive 500 copies of the original spam message that you got from some stranger to me, and you don’t clog your outbound SMTP queue or the relays handling them downstream. And yes, I know some may be useful because there is a human at the other end, but frankly I’d rather try a couple of times and sort it out with my existing contact by telephone rather than rely on an email.
Way back last year I posted a quick summary of the work situation. I’d gone from technical development consulting to being based on site in the IT department of a Scottish Bank. From an original 6 month stint, I ended up being asked to stay and finished up being on site with them yesterday. I’ve learned a whole lot about the workings of a Corporate Bank, a fascinating experience and given me lots to think about. I’ve also learned one or two things about Business Analysis, reinforced certain views I had and confirmed a few others.
The people there were great, and coming to an end there has been like changing jobs, which is a major event for me. I’m sure I’ll be glad I made the decision, at the moment I’m a bit overawed by the whole thing.
My technique of booking the exam before I’m entirely comfortable has worked, the nerves are beginning to kick in and I’m getting a bit of tunnel vision which is building as I get nearer to the day. I’ve also got a daily entry in my diary saying how many days to go to the exam, so due to the all day event I’ve put in Outlook, my M600 buzzes at about midnight every evening to remind me I have, for instance, 6 days to go.
I’m at the stage when I use Transcender test software to poke holes in my knowledge, and then scour the resources for the proper answer. At the moment I’m needing to get a bit more of the variants of unattended installation into my head, and final tweaks to the different volume options available. There are a number of scenarios for multi-disk volumes when failure occurs in a disk, and how to get it back, or how to add it in.
I’m working away on basic IP routing too, which I suppose I should know after all these years doing web development. It helps me to realise what a simple view I had of such, and the headache that proper routing and subnetting has in just the basic config of IP networks. Although not really covered in any depth in this exam, the power of Active Directory is beginning to dawn on me, and again is leading to a bit of appreciation at the job Infrastructure engineers have doing the design work. Planning out the organisation to make the most powerful use of the Group Policies is an impressive feat of skill. Hat’s off to my colleagues who consult on such matters.
Working away at this exam has been a good eye opener, and I’m increasingly impressed at good old Windows 2000. Windows 2003 must be really good, and we have Longhorn on the horizon!
This week was a bit of a diversion, when I got to the car park that we meet up in, it was announced that the regular Miss Laidlaw trophy was happening. This is an award dedicated to a benefactor of EDAM, and involves a large bike and a small bike and a number of cones in a car park.
It was quite nostalgic to see a wee blue Honda CG125 sitting there, as that was the bike I did my CBT on all those years ago. They even had L-Plates fitted for genuine effect. The big bike was a CBF1000, which was really nice. And it really opened my eyes up to lighter bikes! I hadn’t realised how heavy the R1100RS was with all my luggage fitted.
We all started with a question paper on Roadcraft and Highway code signs, then a garage stop on the wee bike and cones on the big bike. I had a lot of fun, even though I didn’t do that well, hitting a cone on the first slalom and completely forgetting where I was going. It was a bit of a confidence booster being a lot easier than I thought.
I was quite scunnered at hitting the cone and forgetting the route, because I wanted another shot 🙂 , but the final round was a time trial, which upped the ante somewhat.
Hopefully back to the road practice next week, only a few weeks left this year.
Through the years, I knew I had made it when the car I drove had one key that worked all of the locks. Moving up the quality chain I was.
When I got the bike, it had two keys on the keyring. I had an invoice which seemed to suggest the top box (the 33 litre BMW top box that also fits the RT, and the 1150 RS and RT) had been bought later. I even had a lock mechanism with the paperwork. Trying the keys out, the ignition key also undoes the seat and the two panniers. The other key worked the top box.
Over the months I’ve gone through the ritual of always trying the wrong key in the top box first, for some reason bigger than me (the same reason that makes toast fall sticky side down) it always seemed to be the wrong one. If you read up about it, they tell you that you can take the stuff to a BMW dealer and get them to match things up.
A wee hunt round the web showed up Daniel Ebdon’s excellent website, with instructions on how to do things like fit headlamp relays (a future project – I have the parts ;), fit heated grips and modify luggage locks. Now that Motorworks have pictures of their new parts up on the web, I bought the lock repair kit and went for it tonight.
The hardest part is getting the lock out, it is held in by a wee slidy bit of metal on a spring. The idea is you push a small screwdriver or similar through a wee hole and push the slidy bit of metal into the lock mechanism, and this allows the lock to be pulled out on the key.
That done, I swapped the keys over and only had to change one of the tumblers. Sorted, my one ignition key works all of the locks on the bike now. I feel almost posh.
Now I have to figure out how to get my gloves on and off without tangling myself up in bits of velcro..
I woke up on Sunday morning to pouring rain, which my waterproof clothing deals with admirably, but I hate the reduced visibility that steamed up visors bring. But if I never rode in rain I’d be stuck in a lot in Scotland, so I got on with it.
I set off along the road and it was ok, with my helmet visor open on its lowest click to stop the steaming up. I tried breathing through my nose or mouth but it didn’t seem to make much difference. I took the ride in on the A71 pretty gently, but it was ok, the only thing that caught me out was standing water which I arrived at at the same time as a van on the other side. Not being in a position to swerve, I ran through the middle, creating a bow wave that splashed over my right boot. I’ve still been wearing my steel toecapped Dr Martins and the water ran up over the laces and down by the tongue. Cue wet feet for the rest of the morning.
Fuelling up at Dreghorn was followed by a roll and coffee at the Little Chef, which was nice and warm. I only left a little damp patch.
When I met up with the other EDAM folks, I was glad I’d made the effort. With the rain putting one or two off from turning up, I stood a better chance of getting an Observer. And right enough I was able to go on a run with the same Bob from last week, and started my progress card. Associates do a number of runs up to a mock test, and a number of areas are checked each week. After last week’s run I’m up to week 2 of the card, which is a great start and really reassuring when it comes to my goal of my Advanced test this year.
Bob and I did a run around town, neither of us fancying a run out into the country in the heavy rain. I found it quite a tricky route, I really hate the lack of visibility that comes with the rain, and in town with all the things to see I wasn’t that happy with my ride. Bob seemed happier, which cheered me up a bit. There were a few 90 degree turns, some with no way of looking along the road until you were right at the junction. One or two with slopes and cambers all over the place, the steep camber caught me out in one place and I didn’t do that well at parking up.
Points to work on? On certain turns or roundabouts I was missing the speed limit change, ending up going too slow on the road I was in. I guess I was thinking too much of the turn and not paying attention to what was going on around me. I am also a bit slow at getting away from the side of the road, or when traffic lights change. In my own mind another variant of the “get on with it” I try and tell myself. Mirror checks and blind spots are another, I need to switch myself to a left – right mirror check. Along with other stuff I have the highway code to get to know, more roadcraft, and my pre-ride check (brakes, fluids etc) and starting and stopping drill. All in the name of safety! And for the test I need to show the examiner that I’m paying attention to signs by a corresponding mirror check and application of the system.
Alistair Laing 