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!“
Nothing special is happening at work. I am still uploading all the old e-mails to the new mail server and besides I am learning for the CCNA Voice to pass it after our internship.
My girlfriend is feeling better, so hopefully we can start tomorrow to visit places, which we have not seen yet.
Maybe you heard about the Cisco NetRiders Germany 2010 contest from Mr. Henze. I decided yesterday at 11pm to create an account for the competition, deadline was 12pm, and to participate in it today. I did so and do not feel very well with my result, but finally it was enough to achieve the third place of all who participated.
That means I won a place to compete in the International NetRiders 2010 contest against my peers in more than 40 countries to win a trip to the USA in January 2011 on 7 July.
I also won a CCNA voucher. Now I can do my CCNA exam, which I already passed, for free. 😀 Maybe I can transfer it to a CCNA Voice voucher. 😛
I really do not know if I start learning to maybe (…) have a chance to go to Cisco in the USA for a week or do it just for fun.
I finally could upload some pictures of my work today. I will try to describe my journey and my workplace, so let’s start with the journey to Antrim.
Roadmap (Jouney to Antrim)
This is a map where you can see where Antrim is. I have to travel by bus and by train. Most of the time I am traveling by train. The red line on the map indicates my route to Antrim.
Lanscape of Ireland
I also added a picture that I took out of the train because you can see the great landscape when the weather is good.
At Antrim’s railwaystation someone’s picking me up every day. We are driving by car for about 15 minutes. I’m glad to be picked up because otherwise I would have to walk for 40 minutes. Antrim is a nice and small town in the middle of Ireland. I really like to see the small houses and towers of the different churches there.
Technology Park View from outside
Nitec is located in a so called „Technology Park“.
I attached a picture of that park, too.
Sry, but I’m not aware of uploading pictures in my articles. That’s the reason for them being so unorganised. The following pictures were made at Nitec. Espescially in the workshop which is the place where I spend the most time at work.
I think that is all I can tell you about my work for now. I mean until there is interesting work coming in. I didn’t upload pictures from my collegues because they did not want to (the internet never forgets). Traveling to Antrim everyday can be very exhausting. I have to leave my house in Belfast at about 8am and I come back at about 7pm. You see that there is not much free time for me from Monday to Friday.
I heard that some of our instructors complained about the blog and that we write 80% about fun and 20% about work. Actually, there is not much time to meet people or improve my english or „social skills“. All our companies expect us to gain experiences about culture and language but we do not learn this at work. If you want us to improve our social skills and our language you have to understand that we have to go out and meet people. I can understand that the purpose of our internship in ireland is the work. But i think that I don’t have to go to Ireland if I just want to work. I can do that in Germany as well. The most important thing here is, that we meet different cultures, go out and meet people. And that is only possible on the weekends. So please do not complain about us writing the most about our weekend activities. Work is work, even in Ireland…..
I did not want to be impolite but I think living in foreign countries is more than just „working“.
Yeah!
