weekend report

hey all,

so that was a relaxing weekend!

On Friday the guys and I were in the pub again where we had a relaxing evening.

After I slept long on Saturday I worked a little bit on my new Linux machine! In the evening we played some rounds CS 1.5 and then we just hung around with some other guys from our house.

On Sunday I made some Linux stuff because I installed a Debian for me with the awesome windows manager that I used to show graphical windows and my shells! So I skript a little bit and edited some Config file´s.

Thats all from weekend! 

weekend retrospective

Hey,

as you can imagine my weekend was boring because I was ill and had to stay in the apartment.

It all started last week when I got a sore throat and then I got a cough!

Therefore I can not write that much today because I’ve done nothing but sleeping, watching movies and eating!

I can tell you that we have made boulettes with a cheese filling. That was awesome!

Sorry for that short post but I didn’t do more this weekend!

I will write more about this week in the following days!

 

Start into Week #6

Hello Everyone,

it’s the start into the sixth week and only two and a half weeks are left, to be honest I’m looking forward to be back in Germany especially to sleep alone in my own room and in my own bed.

Well on Monday I started testing Hardware that was lying  around the office with the new benchtable and as it turned out most of the hardware was broken.

On Tuesday I started working on the new thin clients we got for testing purposes and I had to install the newest firmware which was a pain in the ass, because it is not possible to install the newest firmware over USB. No that would have too easy you have to do it over a special Webshare or FTP. After trying it over a web share we set up a makeshift FPT server and hey that worked, but you couldn’t just install the newest firmware, no you had to install the firmware in the order it was released, e.g. if the newest firmware is 1.3.3 and the installed firmware is 1.1.4 you have install all version between these two in the order they where released before installing the newest.

But as it was Tuesday, which meant it was crazy Tuesday at the cinemas, I went to watch the new Star Trek movie together with Robert. And the movie was good and I can say with confidence that if J.J Abrahams does as well with Star Wars as he does with Star Trek there will be awesome movies ahead 😀

That’s it for now.

Yours sincerely,

Tobias

Middle of Week #5

Good morning everyone,

it is Saturday morning and I’m preparing and my stuff for the tour to Giant’s Causeway, that’s right I’m finally going! 😛 I’ll report my experiences, supported by pictures on Sunday evening, because this entry is for the last 2 1/2 days 😀

Lets start with Wednesday afternoon, well after I got off work I went shopping in the city centre and slightly underestimated the weight of the stuff I bought with result that it took my the double amount of time to get home than it took me to get there and a stiff neck next morning.

Thursday was, aside from the stiff neck, a pretty quit day. We got our delivery from Amazon including the new bench table I was telling you about in one of my last entries. So I had the pleasure of assembling the case and putting the hardware into/onto it and installing the operating system. But the operating system turned out is confused, because it detects 2 displays where is only one 😀 quit a mystery and I haven’t figured out yet what is causing this problem.

This brings me to Friday. Robin picked me up at 9 and we went to Armagh to visit the Armagh County Museum. Of course we didn’t went there for pleasure there was work to be done. This work included installing a new HDD and restoring the data from the old HDD onto it, replacing an old printer with the printer I prepared last week and last but not least to install the new DrayTek router and establish the VPN connection to Cultra Manor…oh and we had to install a wireless access point because they had no wireless access until now.
At the end of the day we accomplished all of our tasks except for installing the DrayTek. The Problem is that the current router is using an option to tunnel the public IP-Address of the firewall to the Internet, or something like this we are still figuring out what the company responsible for the firewall and internet setup  did. And because there is no visible option on the DrayTek to achieve a similar function we couldn’t install the router without everyone behind the firewall to lose their internet connectivity.
We left the current setup in place for now and starting on Monday I’ll try to find out how to get the DrayTek working or to implement a secure VPN connection between Cultra and Armagh with the micro server as a client, instead of a Site-to-Site VPN we would have an Server-Client setup.
I wanted to take some picture of Armagh as it is a beautiful town but the weather was terrible just like the last days we had rain most the day and I wasn’t able to take pictures without risking my camera. I just hope that the weather will be better for the tour today so that I can take pictures for me to share.

Have a nice weekend!

Yours sincerely,

Tobias

Bank Holiday

Hey 🙂

this is a blog about Monday our free day.

On Monday I didn’t sleep that long, just until 11 o‘ clock :P. I couldn’t sleep that long because I had plans. We wanted to go up to the Cavehill and wanted to check out Belfast’s castle.

So at 12 o’clock Daniel, Clemens, Sean and I started walking in the direction of the mountains. The way up to the mountain is almost 10km long.

First we took a look at the castle. It is a small castle with a restaurant or something like that but we didn’t go inside. Outside was a little garden with nice flowers.

After a little break in the garden we started to go up. It took us about 45 min to go up because the hill is just 400 m high but it is a nice promotion and you get a very nice view over Belfast. See for yourself.

When we were up we had a large break and enjoyed the prospect.

So here are some pictures. I hope you enjoy the pictures.

Incidentally, we had to walk the whole way back. We were back by 18 o’clock. My feet hurt and I needed a shower. 😀

Unfortunately I did not get the blog entry finished by Monday because I had an headaches in  the evening!

And on Sunday we had problems with the internet but now it works with the LAN cable! Tomorrow someone will be coming by to check the bad network here.

        

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

End of Week #3

Hello everyone,

it’s Sunday evening (more like night) and you what that means. Correct new blog entry! 😀

In my last entry I wrote that I would be driving to Armagh with Robin, little misunderstanding on my part, Robin told me we were going to Omagh  and just understood Armagh (because of his accent they sound exactly the same) , but I will be going to Armagh at some point during the next weeks. Robin picked me up near the Botanic Gardens and took the opportunity to take a look around the park and it’s really really beautiful.

Tropical House, Botanic Gardens

 

The museum in Omagh is the Ulster American Folk Park, which displays the lifestyle of the irish people before they went to America and after they arrived there.
For this purpose the build up typical living houses workshops and everything, in most of the rebuild workshops they demonstrations and they have actors in many of the old buildings who tell the visitors of „their“ situation. All in all very neat but I haven’t had much time to look around because a) it was raining really hard most of the time and b) I had work to do…obviously  :P.

Entrance to the new world @ Ulster American Folk Park

 

The main reason we went to Omagh is to install a new server which is acting as new domain controller with full replication of the one that is already running, because the one currently hosting the AD-service is really old and if that one fails (possibly in the near future) it gets thrown out and the new one will take over.
Furthermore we had to install a new access point and I was to set up a new router but I wasn’t able to do this because the IPS login credentials were missing, which means I will have to do this later. I hope to use this opportunity to take more pictures and to get a better look at everything.
Another good thing about this day was that I got to see more of the irish countryside and I’m always baffled by the extreme difference between Germany and Ireland.

No double rainbow and no pot of gold :(
Raibow on the way back to Belfast

 

And on the weekend we didn’t get the chance to go to Donard Park, mostly because the weather report said we would have bad weather which turned out to be quit fine (except for the wind), so instead of going to Donard Park we had a third nice weekend in Belfast’s Queensquarter.

On Saturday we had a big party in the Building because Rubén was celebrating his birthday, he is one of our spanish neighbors upstairs, and the same time the guys in the apartment below us had another party.
Today I was the first one to get up, again, and started to clean the kitchen/living room because it was kinda filthy 😀 After the rest got up and had Breakfast we went shopping again and had a small but funny LAN-Party.
Next weekend the guys and me are going to rent a car and go on our 3 day trip to the Giant’s Causeway and surroundings, we are all really excited and Robin will help with plotting the route we should take to get the most of our trip.

That’s it for the moment, I hope all of you had a nice weekend.

Yours sincerely,

Tobias

Yeah, it’s friday!

And again a week comes to an end.

There wasn’t anything new at work, just the same as the last days.

Today we had interesting weather:

In the morning we had a wonderful blue sky and no clouds. Then I thought, “wow what a wonderful day!”. When I looked out of the window one our later it rained and the sky was grey again. Half an hour later the sun was shining again. The whole day the weather changed in that way.

Our street has some similarities to a ghetto. The house next to ours‘ is abandoned. There some kids make fire and riot. So we often have the police in our street. On wednesday the fire brigade was in there as well, with two cars.

At the moment a crocodile sits next to me.

I think we want to go out in some minutes.

 

Here you can see some pictures from the sea.

 

sea

 

sea

Middle of Week #3

Hello everyone,

the last two days have been really tiring, because we started testing the first distribution and remote installation system for the Staff-PCs. Up until now every PC was installed manually but with the rising count of workstations and Laptops my colleagues decided to implement the distribution of Windows over the network.
And my job in the last two days was to assist Graham with the testing of the system. For this purpose we occupied the training room at Cultra Manor and set up 15 new Office clients and 12 new Laptops.

Cultra Manor

 

In the end we had only a half remote installation, which meant we had to install most of the software and drivers manual and cost us a lot of time (10 hours on both days) but we got the Job done and the clients are ready to be handed over to their new users. But we will try to optimize the procedure and reduce the manual configuration of the clients to a minimum.

only took the picture because I played around with my camera :D
The new laptop clients

 

In addition to the work at the clients I installed the VPN-router yesterday and it works like a charm, we had to do a little research to find out that the ISP is using VLAN insertion for the dial up connection.
Tomorrow I will drive to Armagh with Robin to install the counterpart for the router in Cultra and set up the VPN connection and probably help Robin with a few other issues that he has to take care of. I hope to take a few nice pictures of Armagh as I will not have the chance to go there that often, mainly because it takes about 90 minutes by car to reach it.

Read you on Sunday, and to show you how beautiful my workplace is, here is a picture taken from maybe one of the highest points at the Folk Museum.

A view upon Cutra Manor and beyond

 

Yours sincerly,

Tobias