This week Eric, Max and me finally managed to get more IT-related worktasks. We were introduced into the 1st and 2nd level support helpdesk in the firm. The Tech Department consists of many people which are given tasks between programming and supporting of the employees. There’s plenty of work to do since the different branches in NI keep over 1000 employed and there are more PC’s then persons in the buildings. There are Linux, Windows and Mac Operating systems which will make the work for us even more interesting. The last few days we had to move PCs from one place to another and keep the workplaces in an operating state. We also had to tidy up a storage-room which had caused some trouble because some people were not okay with it, but Peter managed it to reconcile the problems. All in all we’re looking forward to a few exciting weeks but until now I really enjoyed my stay in Belfast.
Thursday the 22th
Hello everyone,
the halfway is nearly taken and I got a project on my own from my workplacement. need to configure a test environment with Windows Server 2012 R2 and install the Data Protection Manager in conjuntion with a SQL Database Server. After finishing the initial setup I have to create a Backup scheme and I have to migrate Windows XP PCs to Windows 7 and also there’s a lot of other work to do.
My supervisor showed me a program which I never heard of before. It’s called HBCD and it’s very useful. It boots into a live Windows XP or Windows 7system and enables you to create an image of a HDD and play it back. It also includes loads of other useful tools and features.
The project is quite difficult, but I’m sure I can manage it.
The other people in my workplacement currently install a PXE-Server for the PCs which will be migrated soon.
Hyper-V „Server“
Doe to the fact that we use Hyper-V as virtualization solution, I build a Hyper-V „server“ myself today. And i say server in quotes because we only had a Dell Core 2 Duo PC left for testing. I was lucky that it got 4 GB RAM and it ran surprisingly well. But i had some problems that the system center that is used to manage the VMs only works in a domain with a domain admin and I can’t add the V-server to the company domain. So i build my own. And like I said it ran astonishing good.
Crazy Tuesday
Hi there!
Yeah, actually this week was kinda boring until now, because the colleage who should introduce me into my project is still not here. But it seems that the project will keep me occupied for some weeks, so I’m looking forward for some interesting stuff. The last few days I’ve tried to improve my English skills with some Duolingo tasks which had been recommended by a befriended developer from Germany. Today I will be on tour again for some field work. And for those of you who are surprised at my title: The most cinemas here have a cinema day on Tuesday and at the Movie House on Dublin Road these days are called „Crazy Tuesdays“. Every movie costs only 3 £ for everyone, so of course we used this day to watch a movie. We’ve watched „Bad Neighbours“ which was really funny. Only the end could have been better. And next week we want to watch the new Godzilla movie but this time in 3D.
Workout
I returned The Notebook to Travelling Languages yesterday after work and used the opportunity to ask about our trip to Connemara this weekend. I’m really looking forward to it but I guess everyone knows that by now. I have also made plans for the weekends in June. Nothing’s written in stone but I want to go to Howth and Greystones/Bray because the views are supposed to be great and I can hop on to the DART for both so it’s not going to be too expensive.
So I was telling you about buying my hiking boots. Naturally, you have to break them in before they get comfortable. Well, I am trying to do that since yesterday and seeing as I only have today and tomorrow to kind of soften the leather a bit, I actually don’t believe I will achieve much until I need them this weekend. However, I had a nice long walk yesterday because the bus that was supposed to be at the station in “2 minutes” finally arrived after about 30 minutes of waiting for “2 minutes”.
Of course, it didn’t stop to let anybody on because it was full. Now, the good thing about the real time information of the Dublin Bus is that… ummm… it is that… phew… umm… okay, there is actually zero, zip, nada, zilch… *taking a breath* …bupkis, diddily squat, nothing good about this crappy display. Those things are lying through their LEDs and they are devoid of any emotion so they can’t even feel bad or good about it. They are lying and they just don’t care!
So after waiting roughly another 10 minutes only to have the second bus pass me by without stopping either, I decided to eff this ess and walk home.
This is the route I took: https://goo.gl/maps/g2sqR
It turned out to be a nice “walkout”, my heart racing not only from the exertion but also from the rage boiling inside me. That rage ebbed off while the exhaustion grew and after another hour, I arrived home to three Spanish girls trying to cook what I assumed was to be an omelet. Ann was watching them as they were following the recipe of one of the girls’ grandmother. Now, it was actually only potatoes and eggs in the pan but I was told that it’s “not easy”. I settled with expressing my agreement and underlining that with the widely known fact that the fewer ingredients a dish has, the harder it is to prepare… just think of preparing tea – that’s a science in itself. 😉
This morning it dawned on me that I had left my hoodies at work and since I didn’t want to wear my coat, I came to work wearing my leather jacket. I ♥ my leather jacket! It will come in handy today because the Dublin Staff Relay is happening after work and it is supposed to rain in the afternoon and while I hope that our tent will be enough to protect us from the downpour, it sure is nice to have an extra layer of protection. But let’s just hope for the best!
Cheers,
Angelo
Edit: I just wanted to check the weather again and it first showed me the forecast for Germany. You guys have 31°C while I have 13°C and rain. Now, I knew what I was getting into but there is no reason I shouldn’t be able to be even just a little disappointed right now.
Midweek Madness
Hi everyone!
Tim managed it for us to get better working conditions. So next week we can finaly start to do some IT work. Our task will be to set up multiple training rooms for the new hired people and we also get to work with Macs and some network related stuff. All in all I am really looking forward to that. Also there is a thing that is constantly bothering me this week. I am so sleepy. Everytime I got home I go to bed. I don’t know why but even after getting up I am still tired. One time I slept like 17 hours. I hope that will change in the next time.
Not a smooth start in the week
On Monday I continued to estimate the data outlets and cable length in ‚Castle Court‘, I needed half the Day to finish that task.
After my lunch Mark (another Mark!) gave me a new task, to estimate the data outlets and cable length in the Ulster University on 9 Floors. I also have to estimate the cable length for the CCTV and access control
in the university. On Tuesday I was halfway through the estimation for
the data outlets and the cable length for them.
Later that day we decided to make some burger and suprisingly it worked better than expected. We were a little bit concerned due to our awesome pans that got a nice little dent in the middle therefore are only getting hot in the centre. This morning Mark and I took a look at my measurements and the blueprints for ‚Castle Court‘. As we went through my measurements and the blueprints we realised that we have a little problem the cables are too long (over 90m). And without any additional information or a site visit we’re can’t solve that problem. But we can’t do a site visit so we had to do a lot of assumtions for the pricing of that job. We will see how that goes.
After having lunch and a little chat with my co-workers I continued to do the measurement for the Ulster University. I finished the measurement for the data outlets, tomorrow I’m going to finish the estimating for the CCTV and access control. And hopefully I won’t encounter any problems.
Surprise surprise!
The last days passed very fast. I had to do a lot of work and my boss decided, that my workmate and I must develop a new network infrastructure in the next weeks. The reason is that the location is a new place of the company. The company has a functional network but he needs different subnetwoks for different functions. I also assembled a few PCs for customers with special requirements and wishes. I prefere such tasks, because I love to deal with hardware.
The warehouse is full of hardware and Peter(my boss) told me, that I can use every item that i need for my tasks. I found a lot of Cisco equipment which is in a good condition. I was suprised that I found such devices in a warehouse full of „old“ hardware. It is also a good training for me to configure Cisco routers and switches, because I am looking forward to pass the CCNA exam in a few weeks.
Who knows what I will find in the next days.
Your George.
Getting Ready
Monday was kind of a slow day. I was still stuffed from Sunday evening because Eamonn (my host dad) made potatoes and potatoes and beans and a few more potatoes and fish and soup. He also talked me into having a pint of Guinness with him and later when I complimented him on the food, he slipped me another pint. I had a really bad night that night because my stomach was aching in almost every possible position that I tried to sleep in (and there aren’t really that many sleeping positions). I did have breakfast, although I didn’t think I could fit anything in that morning. Work was good, as I put a couple of cables in place, to replace some of the old patching and worked on the documentation of the whole thing some more. I got offered a server to install a couple of VMs to try whatever I liked and I love the opportunity to try that out some time this week.
Today, I switched some of the ports and so far nobody complained. I guess I will take that as quiet confirmation of my good work because nobody affected was actually aware that I have changed things. I also had to “fix” a printer earlier today. The Lady at the front desk changed the toner and after that the printer got hung up on the idea that it would be cool to process the job using the manual tray. There was no paper in that tray, naturally. So I did what the printer asked me (or anyone who would be willing to listen) to do: push the “OK”-button to use another tray. I did that and the printer was happy to oblige and print to the end of all days or at least till it runs out of toner again.
People here are getting ready for the Dublin Staff Relay on Thursday which I will attend to help with the organization because I can’t really run 5k in much faster than 45 minutes and I believe that’s just not going to cut it. I still like the fact that I’m being invited to all those company events. The staff here tries to maintain an internal social network which is an awesome idea because as I explained some time ago, most of the people working for System Dynamics don’t really get to see each other when they’re on-site with the clients.
After work today I went to O’Connell Street to one of the many camping/outdoor shops there and bought a pair of hiking boots, for ~70€, for my tour to Connemara this weekend and also the upcoming company hiking event I will attend in the first week of July. I’m very excited about this weekend and I hope that the weather will turn out nice so I can take lots of pictures of Ireland’s wildest region for you guys… Or no pictures and just enjoy the hell out of it 😉 we’ll see 😛
Take care
Angelo
next week schedule
For the next week my schedule at Speechstorm is going to be to find out how the grammar structure which is already in place could be modified to fit into the other upcoming projects. I already wrote a detailed overview about the differences which are crucial to the development of the project. A good example is that if someone in Spain is telling you to take the bus in southern america this could be understood as humping the bus. Finding such differences is very important as many people could get upset by finding out that a similar but not equal language is used just for the purpose of not doing that extra bit of work. Obviously Speechstorm is taking this effort and I am more than happy to contribute to it.