To work with SCCM 2007 takes a lot of time. Unfortunatly you have to read reams of log files to know if the installation or package or whatever was successful. Sometimes it is boring, because you just have to wait and push the F5-button every second. We can not interrupt the other employee, therefore it could take hours to push out a simple package and to find out if it works fine.
But I get another small project. To install and manage a information pc for a railwaystation here in N.Ireland. I will use the programm „FLIP PDF“ to convert the pdf files to a flash presentation. The tool is very nice and ease to use.
I just have to wait for the computer. Meanwhile I try to find out how to start the computer via Mouse. Because the information pc has to be secured as much as possible. The only device which the user can use to navigate trough the flash presentation, will be a mouse (and just the left-button).
Its weird, we can fly to the moon but it seems to be unpossible to power on a computer by a mouse. The rest of the computer will be secured by windows group policy.
There are some movements at work. I explored some solutions for Microsoft Outlook how to share Contacts from each pc with each other. I looked closer to OsaSync. It’s a freeware solution with the possibility to share/synchronize contacts from four PC’s. Unfortunately, it doesn’t share/synchronize distribution list, but I showed them how to send a distribution list with a mail and how the receiver can use them out of the mail, so nothing special, nothing difficult.
I continued working on my CCNA Voice, also looking up my mistakes in the Cisco NetRiders Challenge to improve my knowledge. If someone wants to have a closer look to the Packet Tracer Activity at the Challenge, I will upload it.
On Saturday my girlfriend and me went to the Phoenix Park and afterwards to the Dublin Zoo. It cost 15€ each, so very expensive. It wasn’t as good as some people tell us, but it was ok.
On Sunday my girlfriend had to leave, because her holidays were over. So I am on my own.
Maybe I will upload some pictures from the Zoo later.
Hi folks!
At work we occupied with bugs and translations, like the last weeks. That means we have to find bugs on www1.hostelworld.com, this is the beta website with a new design and new functions. During the next few weeks the beta website of hostelworld should be transfered to the first website of hostelworld.
At Friday I took a girl from germany over the city of Dublin and our apartment, after I picked she up from the airport.
At Saturday we looked some sights of Dublin and went by the tram with 2 peers of the other apartment to a big shopping center. On Sunday we visited the „Irish National War Memorial Park“, thats a ancient monument from the first world war. After that we cut across the biggest park of Dublin, the „Phoenix Park“ and saw some deers there. In the evening we enjoyed the brilliant win of Germany in a bar with 11 screens.
„54, 74, 90, 2010
Yes we all join in
With the heart in the hand and the passion in the leg
We will be World Champion.“
I hand the pictures of some sights in later.
Greetz to Belfast but principally to Berlin!
Chriz
Yesterday another week started which is supposed to be as unspectacular as usual. There is not much to do at work but that’s finde because there is a lot of football matches that are waiting to be watched. But I’m able to tell you something eventually interesting about last week.
Last week I had some more installations to do. Basically, I install one of them, take an image and apply it to all the others. Afterwards I set a new system ID and thats it. Thursday and Friday were more interesting. I was on site with Mark (a technician from Nitec). We had to replace a PC in Lisburn at a Company which is dealing with dental prostheses. Then we went over to a site where there was a problem with the Citrix server. A harddrive failed but we couldn’t replace it because of the HDD being too old. The server was 7 years old and applying a new hard drive would cost the customor an amount of about 600£ so we decided not to schedule further on and even charge him for that. There were a couple of PC installs later on but nothing special, just plugging them in, join a domain and finish the task of. We had an issue with a PC that was infected by some viruses and trojans. We removed them and had to provide a repair installation for that PC. So you see, that is not really what I’m supposed to do as a network related IT guy, but that’s just the way it is over here. But I was having a good time with Mark because he has got this typical irish humour which I actually like the most about the irish people ^^. During our journey he phoned Jonny (the guy I’m working with in the first 3 days of the week) and told him that I stole his car and left him behind beside of the road. After a few minutes he explained Jonny that he was joking, but he is very good in sarcasm so that Jonny actually believed him the first time.
My weekend was quite exhausting but interesting, too. My girlfriend and a good friend of mine visited Belfast last weekend. On Friday, we met Mr. Schlenger in the Bourbons Bar to have something to eat before getting into a Pub („The Laverys“) to watch the rest of the World Cup’s football match. I think it was Uruguay vs. France. We explained Mr. Schlenger how we settled in and that most of us are feeling comfortable living in Belfast. A lot of experiences were covered and we were happy to tell him how many cultural differences we found between Germany and Ireland. There was much to tell about and not all of our stories could have been told. I think it was great that at least someone participating in the organisation of the exchange vistited Belfast and managed to see all of us. We’ve had a very good time in the Laverys for the whole evening although Mr. Schlenger had to go to bed a little sooner than we had to. I regret that I don’t have a camera but I think al the other guys took a lot of pictures of the Laverys and Mr. Schlenger.
On Saturday I god up early because of having bad pain in the back. I got to sports and felt better afterwards. Later on we went into the City to purchase some things and to give my friends from Berlin an understanding of the City and to show’em the good sites of the City Centre. After coming back, we went to „The Bot“ to watch England’s first football match.
"The Bot"
After watching the game, we walked over to „The Empire“. It is a very impressing pub in the South of Belfast. The building was a church before and they just rebuilt it into being a pub. There was a liveband playing there and we had a lot of fun (spending a lot of money). I attached some pictures of „The Empire“. They had a windows filled up with stuff from Jaegermeister and we took pictures of that as well.
We met a lot of irish people and we were at in the pub for a really long time talking as much english as possible. After the pub closed we went to our friends from Switzerland who we met in the few weeks spending here. Down at their place, we met other people from different countries. I think a lot of them are international students in that house.
We used the Sunday to relax and to see the City Centre again. In the evening we went to „The Bot“ again to watch the Germans winning against Australia. Nothing too spectacular for me and my girlfriend because we went off after the game even earlier than the others. Sebastian told that in his previous article.
I think that is a good summary of the last days 5 that I spent in Belfast. Of course there is a lot more to tell about but it’s defenitely not suppoosed to be written in the blog…
On a really rainy sunday, Oliver and me visited another football ground here in Belfast.
We talking about Glentoran F.C. and their famous stadium „The Oval“. The club is located in the north-east of the city. You may remember the Groundhopping Part I when I visited the home of Linfield FC? Glentoran’s biggest rivals are Linfield. Linfield and Glentoran are nicknamed Belfast’s Big Two as they have traditionally dominated local football in Northern Ireland.
The Club colours of GFC are green, red, and black.
Unfortunatly the Oval are more like an army base. With really high walls and barbed wire. Therefore it was quit difficult to take any picture inside the stadium.
Oliver and me tried our best, I hope you like it!
Just take a look at the MAIN entrance! You may remember the entrance in Daylmount Park, they are so different from germany.
Another big different to germany is the location of the stadiums. In Germany most of the football grounds are in outlying districts or far away from the city center. In Ireland and N.Ireland you walk through the streets and if you turn around the corner you stands infront of a big stadium. If you don’t look up and maybe notice the big floodlights, by the way they are so cool, you don’t even expect to see a stadium. One reason for this is, most of the grounds a smaller refer to stadiums in germany. For example the Oval have a capacity of 15.000 people. (Windsor Park: 20.332) I am still addicted to these kind of stadiums!
After we get back home, totally wet, we prepared ourselfs for the first groupe stage match for Germany against down under. Means we tried to get dry.
Then it was time for Pub Hopping! We conquered the Botanic Inn and annexed it. We won 4-0 and celebrated the victory late into the night.
What about some new Belfast stories?
There is still nothing special to tell about my work right now…
But I can tell you about my funny weekend where I was really sick, lying in my bed.
Well, actually that’s it I was sick. On Sunday morning (around 3 am) my flatmate Bartosz woke me up with a noisy, piercing cry. After I was able to get up and went down the stairs I couldn’t realize anything except an open door. After closing the door I went back to bed. A while later Bartosz came to my room and told me about the things which have happened. There were two young thiefs in our house which were running out as Bartosz came home. He saw them and started to shout out for help.
By running away Bartosz caught/vanquish one with his Judo experience (Hey Steffen!) after they’ve splitted up while running away. The Police was coming soon and picked up one of the guys which Bartosz caught. At 10pm the forensic people came around for securing of evidence, they also told us that the other thief was caught too.
Except of this we were out of gas at saturday afternoon. The counter showed a remaining volume of 15m³ but it’s gone offline anyway. Nothing special so far ‚cause there are Centra shops which have opened 24hours a day where we can pay for our gas. But I really have to say: this way of paying gas sucks! WTB our „good old“ oil (:
Today I stayed at home because I feel sick. I don’t know if I am going to work tomorrow but at last I got some time to write another blog.
If you wonder why I don’t write much about my work instead more about going out and you think that these guys are actually in Ireland to work, you got a point. Sadly my work is really boring at the time so there is just nothing to tell you about. I am really disappointed from the choice of the “Swaninstitute” to put me in this company. The first two weeks in the company were quite interesting because I got to do some IT related tasks for example writing some scripts or SQL queries. But since my direct superior is on holidays for almost two weeks now, I only build Excel tables. Yeah that’s basically it. You see there is not much to tell about work. Still I met a lot of young people at work; some of them are good friends by now. So it’s easier for me to stay at the company. Furthermore I don’t speak English at work, just at the lunch break and when I am on my way to/from work. I still most of the time speak English at the pubs. I keep in mind that you might be interested and I will tell you if I got to do some interesting stuff to do but till that day I will keep up telling you about the nightlife and the City of Dublin.
Last week Mr. Bavar paid a visit to Ireland. He visited some of my colleagues including me at the companies on Thursday and went to Belfast on Friday. Friday in the evening we went out to grab some beer at the pub located in the hotel of Mr. Bavar “Arlington Hotel”. There even was a Live Band playing at the pub. Afterwards we met some colleagues of Tim and we went to the pub “Sweeneys” and later to “The Purity Kitchen”. On Saturday Tim and I went to the beach at Howth again to relax at the beach for some time. In the late evening we went to a rock bar “Fibbers”. We just heard the last two songs from a band playing live in the pub but fortunately they got a dance floor. So there was no reason to go home. We even got invited for a dance by some girls. On Sunday two friends of mine from Berlin visited us here in Dublin for a couple of days. So we did some Sightseeing on Sunday and Monday. On Monday there was Holiday for Everyone in Ireland and we got the chance to visit the Shakespeare festival. In the evening on Sunday we were invited to a home party from a friend of mine and on Monday we went to the Porterhouse (the Folk one). I already told you about the Porterhouse in another blog of mine. All in all we had a great weekend. Here are some pictures:
Arlington Hotel Friday Evenig with Mr. Bavar
The Porterhouse
Live Band @ Porterhouse
Shakespeare Festival
On Tuesday evening I went to a concert from “Rage Against The Machine”. Sadly we just had seated places because the standing tickets were sold out. Here some pictures and video of the last song. The sound quality is really, really bad. Sorry for that. By the Way the concert hall is called the O² Arena, like the one in Berlin.
Rage Against The Machine
I took me about three days to upload the video, thats why the blog is late again.
I told you, that a microsoft expert came to us at tuesday. We were able to send out some packages (Service Pack 3 Update) to a few clients.
Unfortunatly there are still some clients who are not configurable by SCCM. Most of them are offline, these are not a problem (just wait). The problem are the clients who are online and still not assigned to the site server.
To find out the reason why, it’s very complicated and it’s like to be looking for a needle in a haystack (only for you Basti ;)).
This weekend is the „girlfriend-weekend“ because Olis and Davids girl will be here and I have to move down to the couch.
Finally the World Cup starts today!! I’am looking forward to see all the matches!
Yeah!
And to everyone who are waiting for another Groundhopping Part:“It’s not over yet!“
The last Wekkend Mr. Bavar and Mrs. Janecke were to visit us! On Friday we met her in a pub at her hotel. We talked and drank. But not to much, because they wanted to get the plane to home, unfortunately they could not so long.
So, then we are went further in the club, called „Fitzsimons“, and since we did party, until we „kicked out“ are… as ever… so 3pm.
On Saturday I was at the Guinness Brewery. It is unfortunately not purely in the right Brewery. For visitors, there is the Guinness Storehouse, where the most important parts of the factory were adjusted. It is seven floors high and when you reach the top, you get a pint (which is 568ml) for free.
There you can see over the city and until the sea. But, like I sad, the weather was not so good this Weekend.
On Sunday, we were initially in the Q-Bar, where we drank a beer and chilled. Then we went into the adjoining club, called „Twenty One“. This is a club, which play R&B and a bit charts, mostly. What we did not know, this evening was a foam party there. Yeah … It was super fun, although I was at the end pretty wet, of course. At this point, greetings to Germany! 😉 And yes, we have long celebrated 🙂 … because we had Monday one holiday. It was a spring holiday.
The beautiful weather we have sent to Germany this weekend! For here it is very rainy. … Ireland, as I imagined!
Since tuesday, Mr. Schlenger is here in Dublin to visit us. And we were tuesday and yesterday with him in a pub, called Porterhouse.
I wanted a few pictures to upload, but there is not enough space and that although the pictures of me are gone. Maybe I can make up for it yet.
Hey again!
Well, last time I said that I would blog something like useful information about Belfast, but I would prefer to do this next time because it happened so much last weekend, especially on Sunday the 30th May… Additionally I hadn’t enough time to finish this (a bit larger) Blog earlier, sorry for that.
Since the very beginning of our staying in Belfast Friedrich, Riccardo and I wanted to see one of the steep coasts here in Northern Ireland. Probably the most famous coast over here is the “Giant’s Causeway”, so we decided to check this out on Sunday.
Therefore we had to search in the Internet for the possibilities to do such a trip – and we found a good offer: The travel organization “McComb’s Executive Travel & Tours” offers a tour across the Antrim Coastal Route to the Giant’s Causeway with a few ‘photo stops’ and other attractions included for 20£ per person.
The tour lasts from 9.20 am to approximately 7.00 pm, thus we had to get up early on Sunday morning. At the McComb’s office we bought the tickets and waited a short time before the travel starts. The bus was totally full and our driver, he calls himself ‘Mr. Sexy’ xD, was really kind and funny. He talked the whole trip about the many sights, points of interest and about the Irish and Northern Irish history.
Our first (and short) stop was in Carrickfergus for taking photos from an old castle. At least we realized that we definitely chose the right day – the weather was awesome! While taking photos and kidding around, we were accosted by two girls from Stuttgart: Anna, who studies since two years in Dublin, and Christine, who visited her. Based on that, we found two nice travel companions… 😉
the upper part of the Shepherd's steps with Christine and Anna
Along the Coastal Route we saw so many beautiful landscapes like hills, cliffs and even beaches. The beaches here looked like the Caribbean ones, which were kind of strange and amazing together, because I never expected that in Northern Ireland. A hundreds of photos later we had another short stop at a small and nice harbor and at a viewpoint where we could see a rope bridge, of which more later…
After a few more driving minutes along the coast and through pretty villages and another three hundreds of photos later we finally reached the Giant’s Causeway. The bus parked besides a restaurant, where you could have a meal if you ordered one at the bus driver before. But we didn’t.
Now you had to choose between 2 paths down to the Giant’s Causeway: An easier, shorter and almost boring one or a longer, more exciting path within a stair part called “Shepherd’s steps”. Well the second path sounds tempting, so the girls and we three followed its call.
the hexagon shaped stones of the Giant's Causeway
The path leads us towards the cliffs with an impressive view of the Causeway below. We reached the “Shepherd’s steps” which have approximately 160 steps, it was quiet cool. On the way down we made several stops and watched at the breathtaking panorama. After the stairs we followed the path straight on, looked around again and continued going down.
Finally on the Giant’s Causeway we made a short stop and had a little lunch. While eating we had a good overview of the countless hexagon shaped stones, it was amazing! After the lunch we were going to discover the area and took thousands of photos. At this point I could get the statement from the Irish: “The Giant’s Causeway is known as the 8th world miracle.”, it was really marvelous and I begun to wonder how all these stones get their hexagonal shape. I remembered the old legend which the bus driver told us before:
„Hundreds of years ago there was a giant called Fionn who builds a bridge to walk to Scotland to fight another giant. But when he saw the Scottish giant he was afraid about his size and fled. The Scottish giant followed him. Fionn’s wife laid a blanket on him in order to cover him from the Scottish giant by pretending that Fionn is her baby. Therefore the Scottish giant was afraid, because he imagined that the father of the baby must be very huge, thus he fled in panic and destroyed the bridge in case that Fionn wants to follow him.“
(Not a real quote, but that’s approximate all as far as I remember…)
In actual fact the basalt columns of the Giant’s Causeway are originated millions of years ago by volcanic activities, lava flow and some eruptions.
me climbing one of the basalt columns
Some of the stone columns were approximately 8 meters high on one side (on the other side more columns like a hill), so it was a perfect chance for me to climb a bit… 😛 Regrettably the time was really barely and we had to rush with all our doings, although we had 2 hours for discover the Causeway.
Back in the bus we bought some tickets for the rope bridge (4£ per each) and the bus started to move. Our next stop was only a few minutes away in the village Bushmills. There we visited the world’s oldest licensed whiskey distillery where we could buy and taste some whiskey. Around the distillery was a strange smell in the air, I can’t describe it anymore, but it was kind of funny. ^^
For tasting the Bushmills’ Whiskey normally you had to pay, but lucky as I am (haha) I got a voucher for free Whiskey tasting from the bus driver after a short small talk. We followed him to the bar where I, and even Riccardo without a voucher, drunk a glass of Bushmills’ Whiskey. While this we talked to a trucker from New York who also took part on the trip to the Giant’s Causeway.
After our little Whiskey session we staggered… uhm… walked back to the bus and drove to the last attraction: The rope bridge. On our way to the bridge we had another two short photo stops at an old castle ruin (the bus driver called it one of the most romantic places in Northern Ireland) and at a cliff near a very long and beautiful beach.
I am the posing one in the middle ^^
After we arrived we hiked along the cliffs and I was amazed of the view below: The water was like you would normally expect from the Caribbean – crystal clear and cyan with bright sand below and no seaweed (like almost everywhere today). That fits the nearly cloudless sky and the warm air temperature perfect. Just before the rope bridge was a queue so we had to wait as well, but it wasn’t too long anyways. Finally it’s our turn. We went down a little stair and entered the bridge. The way like the bridge waggled and swung was kind of funny. You had a nice view down between the gaps, by the way… On the other side, there was only a small (but high) island, we enjoyed the nice view and took another 3700 photos. You could see the Scottish coast from there very clear. After a few minutes our time was running out again, so we had to return to the bus.
From now on we drove straight through the country in the direction of Belfast. Time to relax and digest the whole exciting day, but only when you are able to ignore the always-talking Mr. Sexy (headphones are very useful in this case :P)…
We arrived in Belfast shortly after 8 pm, and the bus driver says that this was his longest tour since years. The bus stopped at several points and we had to say goodbye to the girls. We get off at another stop and went home.
Later this evening Friedrich and I went to the Bot in order to relax a bit, but against our expectations it was totally full of people – I’ve never seen such a full pub! No way to relax, but it was fun anyways. All of the girls there were responding well to the Euro vision Song Contest winner Lena, as they heard that we are from Germany. Also we met a crazy English guy, but never mind… xD
Just one more thing: I strongly can recommend this (or a similar) trip to you, it is absolutely a good investment! And prepare to take millions of photos!
Wow, I never thought that I’ll write such a novel… Oo
I hope my grammar is not that bad like Master Yoda’s… xD
Yeah!
