End of week #4

Hello everyone,

first of I’m sorry that I couldn’t update the update the Blog as planned on Friday & yesterday, Sunday, evening. The reason for that is our network, somehow every weekend or network begins to act up and then it’s no longer possible to access the Internet, well at least not entirely because sometimes its possible to access websites saved in your DNS cache but even that is rare. The main problem is that some idiot changes the configuration of the gateway for the whole network, mind you all apartments are going through the same gateway, and resets the changes we made last weekend to get it running again and we are not able to access the gateway at the moment. As a result we have DHCP leases with the duration of „forever“ and duplicated addresses, I’m only able to write this blog entry because there is no one on the network so early in the morning (most people are sleeping till noon).
To come to the point, this point entry will sum up my experiences for the rest of the last week and I will continue my normal blogging cycle.

Alright lets get started!

On Wednesday I was visited by Mrs. Neumann, my supervisor at the Max-Planck Institution, and Mr. Bavar, the supervisor for the AFIB, to check how I’m doing.
We had a little chat and I showed them my workplace, told them about the work I do at the museum and they got to meet my colleagues. As they had a tight schedule they couldn’t stay long and left after 20 minutes to visit my classmate Henrik and our accommodation.

I look a bit stiff, don't I?
Groupshot of Mrs. Neumann, Mr. Flanagan and me

The rest of the day I spent with writing the documentation for the DrayTek routers I’m installing and started to clean up my desk in preparation for the arrival of the bench table we ordered.
And for the people who don’t know what bench table is I’ll give a short explanation, the rest of you can skip to the next paragraph.
A bench table is basically a computer case for testing purposes, it allows the user to access and exchange parts easily without taking out other parts. They decided to buy one after I pointed out that it would be easier to test hardware for defects at a bench table then assembling a new test PC every time they want to test a graphics card.

On Thursday I was tasked with the problem to find out how to install the Microsoft System Center Client software on a Mac client. Well I found out what the necessary requirements are but I will have to work my way through the necessary deployment of certificates and distribution points, I think it could take a while till I fully understand how to get things running.
The next day I went to work at Ulster Museum again where I helped Graham and Robin to take down the screen in the lecture hall, after the screen was down we had to calibrate the colors for the projector, because now it’s projecting right at the wall, and adjust the spotlights for the stage so that they don’t throw shadows. It was quit fun because we got to toy around with the new A/V (audio & video) rack the installed, which meant we inserted a Blu-ray disk and watched videos on YouTube, but all in the name of calibration of course 😛
On Friday evening we had a LAN Party again but I went to bed early because we planed to hike up to Belfast Castle and from there up Cave Hill.

The next day I knew the plans have been cancelled because most of them went to bed between 2 or 3 and they wouldn’t be up till noon.
But after I got up at 8 and saw that the weather looked really nice I decided to go alone and started my hike at 9:30 after I packed my bag with water, cereal bars and of course my camera.
I walked past City Hall, of which I took pictures but they were deleted because of foobar (unknown reason), through the city centre, took a left at St. Annes’s Cathedral, took a right at Carlisle Circus and walked straight down Antrim Road until I reached the entrance to Cave Hill Park after a 90 minutes walk.

looks farther away than it is
Halfway there

Man was I relieved to see the entrance
Entrance gate Cave Hill park

 

From there I took the path that lead me to Belfast Castle, a truly wonderful building with a neat little park/garden and an incredible view over Belfast.

I took my break on the far right bench
Backside of Belfast Castle

At the castle I took my first break and ate breakfast, sandwiches bought at Tesco on my way through city centre, and enjoyed the view over Belfast from a bench in the park. Shortly after that I started my ascension to the peak of Cave Hill.
At first I walked through the forest surrounding the foot of Cave Hill and followed the Cave Hill trail marked by stones along the way.

These where at every crossway
Helpful little helpers

 

just to give you an example of how the path looked
Path trough the woods

 

When I broke through the forest line and looked up the step face of Cave Hill it was truly breathtaking. I took a short break to enjoy the view and to eat a cereal bar.

This picture is nowhere near the reality
Indescribable with words

Along the way I found out why Cave Hill is called Cave Hill, because of the caves, big surprise I know :D, there are five caves of unnatural origin in Cave Hill, that’s what Wikipedia says but I only found one.

I didn't climb into the cave because I was alone as I reached it :(
Entrance to one the name giving caves

Anyway following the path leading to the top I enjoyed a growing panorama spanning all of Belfast, Belfast’s surroundings and even a glimpse of Scotland beyond the sea in the distance.

view over the Belfast bay
great view isn't it?

After around 90 minutes of hiking I arrived at the top of Cave Hill and was almost blown away the strong winds, that suddenly appeared because the step side of the mountain shielded me all the way up.
Arriving at the top I made my way to McArts Fort, the point on Cave Hill with probably the best view, there I met Andrea and Joanna, two really nice girls from Switzerland.

View at McArts Fort

Man I still look stiff, and on a side note I was almost pushed over by the wind -.-
Me at McArts Fort

We made our way back down on the other side of Cave Hill, going around the old quarry and arriving back at Belfast Castle. On our way down I was attacked by an angry bush with thorns, I its possible that I walked into it, and almost slipped on one of the steeper parts on the way. At the castle we went into the cafe in the cellar of the castle and had a tea and sandwiches and talked about our experiences in UK and Ireland. I was telling them about Belfast, Joanna told me about her stay in Scotland and Andrea about her stay in Galway. After that we took the bus back to the city centre and parted ways.
I was home around 4:30pm and went straight into the shower to relax and clean up and went to Lavery’s Bar in the evening to get a pint of Guinness and enjoy the atmosphere.

Yesterday I woke up with aching leg muscles and a stiff back, the former is a result of the hike the latter is caused by a to soft mattress.
After breakfast I waited for the rest to get up and we didn’t leave the apartment after that, with the exception of going to a shop to get whipped cream for the cheese noodles we had, they were yummy I tell you 😀
We mostly played old video games against each other, e.g. Command & Conquer Red Alert 2, CS 1.5, but the setup and configuration for everyone took longer than we hoped for.

Alright I think that’s enough for the moment and I thank everyone who has read up to this point. I hope all of you had a nice weekend.

Yours sincerely

Tobias

Long weekend failed

Hi guys,

how are you? I hope well. This weekend we had the long weekend with the bank holiday.
Our plan was, that we would rent a car and visit Ireland and the Cliffs of Moher. Everything was booked.
At sunday, as we arrived at the airport, we search for budget office first. As we spoke with the people from budget, we got to know that we are too young to rent a car. We were very konfused because at the budget website we found other information.
After this big problem we canceled the reservation. The guy from budget advised us to visit another shop. But no car rental would give us a car.
After this mess Stefan was luckily able to cancel the hotel free of charge. So we didn’t lose money.

After we arrived in our appartment we thought about what we would do this day. So we met with our other colleagues and visit the Trinity College and a very nice parc.

Saint Stephen's Green Parc
Saint Stephen's Green Parc
Trinity College
Trinity College

After a long walk Stefan and I had a burger from Supermac’s and chilled the evening.

As a result the weekend wasn’t as good as we planned it. But for the next weekend we will visit the Cliff of Moher and other place with a bus-tour like Lars did.

Blarney Castle, Rock of Cashel and a bit of Cork

Here is Lars again,

 

the last few days where very hard but also very interesting. J

Yesterday I stood up at 5:30 to be as early as possible on the starting point of my tour to Cork, Blarney Castle and the Rock of Cashel. I arrived just in time and the tour started. Our Tourguide was really funny and friendly. Also his german was very well. I talked a little bit to him and I found out, that he was born in the Netherlands, studied in Southafrica and works in Ireland. Very funny guy. He was the best of my 3 Tourguides I had here in Ireland.

Our first stop was the Rock of Cashel. On this rock is a more than 1.000 years old stronghold with a cathedral, a cemetery and some Towers. It has huge importance in the Irish history. St. Patrick itself is responsible for a lot of ceremonys here and lived here a while.

Now we went to Blarneys Castle. An old Castle with the Blarney Stone on its top. The legend says, if you kiss the Blarney Stone, you become gifted with eloquence and the ability to win discussions without any problems. Well, what happens, if two people debate, which both kissed the stone? I think, they will explode…

No, I didn´t kissed the stone. Everyone does this. And I don´t want their health-problems…

But the Blarney Castle was still very interesting and the different gardens there were just awesome! One of the gardens was the “Poison Garden”. The “Flowers” were easy to get and most of them really poisonous and some of them were very deadly. Nice to see them. 😉

After this we went to Cork. It is the second biggest town in Ireland (approximately a population of 200.000) and nearly completely uninteresting. I was there for more than one hour. And really, I wouldn´t like to live there.

Even if Cork was just a joke, the Tourguide and the other both stops were worth the money!

So, here the pictures, enjoy!

 

Meeting with my boss

Wendsday was a normal day. At work I programmed my web service again and fixed some programming issues.
After work Stefan and I went  to the “bookworm” to send our packets and then we went shopping to Lidl. At home Stefan cooked for
us. Yes I didn’t cook because this evening we had burgers and Stefan serves brilliant burgers
After a good dinner we watched the football game, it was very good 😀

Thursday I published my cloud/web service. At the beginning we had some problems, but after I solved these it worked.
After lunch I met Mr. Bavar and Mrs. Neumann, we talked with my mentor about my project etc .
Shortly after the visit from Mr. Bavar and Mrs. Neumann I programmed again. I changed my program , so that I get an email with the information,
which I will put in a database.
After a nice workday Stefan and I went to the pub at the Arlington hotel,where Mr. Bavar stayed. He spend tried us to a Guinness and we talked about something.
It was nice that we could talk so casually and not is official as I expected.

Work

Hey guys

On Monday we had one of the wonderful Irish days. When I stood at the bus stop the sun was shining while I had to protect myself from the hail. That’s Ireland!

At work there were problems with Zabbix! Now I have found out that the version I used had a problem with a PHP file. An error in the file should be converted to a string and that didn’t work. Then I found out that in a new version the problem isn’t existing. But when I wanted to update it, the data base and a PHP file did not survive the update process. So I had some more errorsL. And it isn’t so easy to uninstall Zabbix because it’s not a normal packet that you can easily uninstall with one command. You have to remove a lot of directories and by that the operating system was broken. So I set up a new Debian VM and tomorrow I will have to test the new version.

On Wednesday Mrs Neumann and Mr Bavar visited me and we had a very nice conversation about my project.

The Day after Wednesday = Thursday

Hey, I think I should name all my titles like this. It’s so incredible creative… No.

My Brother asked me, if I had no bank holiday yesterday. No, I hadn’t. Why? Well, there is a day which is equivalent to the first of May in Germany. This day is the first Monday in May. The first of may has nearly international historical reasons, but the UK and Ireland thought, that it would be a bad idea to have a bank holiday in the middle of the week.

The economy is served better with a non-work Monday after a weekend, than with a non-work day in the middle of the week. So I think, this is really smart.

I was asked how it works with the understanding. Yes, I really have to say: Bad. Really bad. Usually you should be able to speak or understand English in a few weaks. But this is not going to happen. I had ever problems with the understanding of English and it’s much more worse with the irish dialect.

I have to ask everytime at least once, if they could be so kind to repeat what they asked.

Though their dialect is quite useful. For example: They do not pronounce a “s” when they say “th”. Usually they say “I tink so” or “Tanks” instead of “I think so” or “Thanks”. I never liked the “s” anyway so I am using this part of their dialect too.

 

That’s it for today.

A German Final…

Hi folks, it’s me again.

 

Today we watched the match between Bayern München and Barcelona. Man, what a match.

First I thought that the Trainer should have changed Arjen Robben but later I was glad the he didn’t.

The match was so intense and we all had a lot of fun.

A German Champions League Final, awesome.

At this point I want to greet someone special in Bavaria and say congratulation. 🙂

 

At work we are finalizing our web application and are now trying to implement more and more JavaScript, JQuery and Ajax to beautify the Webpage.

Also I am learning more OOP concepts for PHP and JavaScript to make our code easier to maintain.

 

That’s all for today.

 

See you soon.

Markus

Wednesday

Hi,

as you may see, I named the title like the day we have today. Why? Because I don´t know what to tell you.

I think, I will tell you something about my last few days at work.

I have to say, I really like my work. The people are friendly, funny and patient. I help where I can and fix several smaller problems with our Anti-Virus Sophos, a program called nGenera and things like this.

I was asked if I could start tomorrow at 6:30, so we can switch our firewall. Why they asked me? I don´t want to show off this much, but at the moment I am the person there with the most experience in networking-things. I think, I should get paid better. 😉

 

So… I think, this was my entry for today. We read us.

#12 – half the way down, Expectations vs Reality

Hi Dudes! (Would Erik say)

So, as we are through half way, I thinks it is a good idea to compare what I expected to whats reality here.

What we knew was, that I will stay in one accommodation with Erik and two guys who where unknown to us. Of course I expected at least a little bit of trouble, especially about cleaning the apartment, as it would be usually.

Also, I expected to be quite tired after the arrival and I expected a certain amount of chaos on our landing. I didn’t have too much expectations about the apartment, as we have heard as many good as bad things from former years. I didn’t know if I had to share a room or not and I did not care too much.

For the living I wasn’t really able to think of our location, I hoped to be close enough to a supermarket. Also I believed that the supermarkets where about the same (they aren’t!). And I never thought I would have to work a lot here. I thought of short days with plenty time to have a look at the country.

I have been proven wrong in a few cases and correct on others.

Well, I have long working days with little time to have a look at the country. On the other hand I Learn A LOT at work which comes in quite handy.

We haven’t had any trouble with our „apartment mates“ so far, we all eat together and coordinate the cleaning and shopping „expertly“ and we work on it to make it last.

Also I never expected to share a room as small as mine is (with no room between the 2 beds) while having such a great penthouse apartment. The location is just incredible, just 5 minutes foot walk away from the center.

I did expect the prices for food to go up. I recommend anyone to NEVER go into a „spar“, they have German gas-station prices. Just search for Lidl or Aldi, they are decent enough.

And even though we work that long we still manage to use the weekends at best while we have the greatest of all weathers! (God damn I am so lucky!)

Oh, and we had a bit of chaos on our landing as we were picked up buy guys that had written „OSXIMT“ on a piece of paper. Additionally they just dropped us of in front of the hostel and we had NO idea what to do.

Can’t think of anything more right now, just ask in the comments if you have questions!

See you later! (Yay, blogs done for the week already! 😀 )

— TO BE CONTINUED —

 

 

Start in Week #4

Hello everyone,

I’m sorry for the delay but I was too lazy yesterday evening to write my blog entry, that’s why I’m doing it right now.

All in all the last two days have been really quiet, on Monday I was tasked with testing hardware that was lying around if it was still usable and had to tinker around a bit with the silent installation of my Adobe Reader installation package.
Yesterday I had to exchange the cooler mount in an old NEC computer, which was broken and replaced the thermal paste. Furthermore I got the software of an old Laptop up to date, which basically meant to install the newest patches, newer versions of the standard software, e.g. CCleaner, MS Office 2010 and update the drivers, if there were any new drivers which wasn’t the case.

Yesterday was crazy Tuesday at most cinemas, so Hendrik, Robert and I took this opportunity to watch the new Iron Man 3 movie. Because I knew from my colleagues that the cinema would be really busy on Tuesdays I bought the tickets for Hendrik and me on my way back from work.
The movie started at 20:20 and my plan was to leave the apartment at 19:45 but after I heard that Robert wanted to accompany us we left at 19:30 and it was the right decision because the screening was sold out shortly after.
After we bought Roberts tickets we had another 30 minutes until the movie started so we went into the nearest pub and got ourselves a Guinness, respectively a cider for Robert and went back to the cinema around 8:00 because we wanted to get good seats as it was first come first.
Before we went into the screening room I bought myself a big coke, which turned out to be a big mistake because I had to go to the toilet halfway through the movie but didn’t want to leave so I had to hold it in.
We left the cinema at around 23:15 and went straight home where I took a shower and fell into bed. And I forgot to mention I only paid 5.80£ (~6.90€) for the whole experience, I never paid less for movie visit 😀
Oh, and before some asks, the movie was awesome, but I’m not really objective because I love Marvell 😛 but if you’ve seen the first 2 movies and liked them you will definitely like part 3, further more Ben Kingsley was just awesome as the Mandarin.

That’s it for the moment, thanks for reading!

 

Yours sincerely,
Tobias