After some technical difficulties the “Windows 8 for IT Pros Jumpstart” started about 50 minutes later than planned. For people new to Windows 8 I think that Stephen Rose and Joey Snow covered most of the important features that are relevant for enterprises. For me personally however, it was mostly repetition since I’m already very familiar with Windows 8.
The recorded videos are available now as well: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-US/windows/jj687764.aspx
Nevertheless, for people who are interested, I’ve saved the chat / Q&A from the jump start which also includes a lot of links to use if you want to know more about specific features.
Some links from the Q&A include:
For people who are either struggling with the new user interface themselves or expect their family, friends, colleagues or customers to struggle, I suggest you take a look at my previous blog post.
If you’ve missed this event, it has been recorded and will probably be posted online somewhere in the next two weeks.
Also for those who are looking to upgrade their certification to Server 2012, next week there’s another jumpstart “Prepare for exam 70-317 – Upgrading Skills to Windows Server 2012 Jumpstart”. I hope to see you there.
Tags: Free, ICT, Joey Snow, jump start, jumpstart, Learning, Stephen Rose, Windows, Windows 8, windows for IT Pros
In Server 2012, Storage Spaces has been added. It allows you to pool multiple physical disks together (regardless of disk size and connection type) as one big logical disk. For those people familiar with Windows Home Server (WHS), the concept is similar to Drive Extender. For more information read the Storage Spaces FAQ or this blog post.
After the Storage Pool has been created, you can create one or more Storage Spaces (virtual disks) and configure them as either a simple volume, mirror volume or parity (software raid).
Even though this seems great in theory, in reality the write performance on a parity volume is painfully slow at about 25-30 MB/s. Besides the performance, there are also other aspects that you might not appreciate. So before implementing this in a production environment, test it extensively in a testing environment. You can also play around in Microsoft’s virtual labs.
It’s a pity Storage Spaces didn’t meet my expecations, because I was really looking forward to replace my Windows Home Server with Drive Extender. But for now I would recommend sticking with hardware RAID solutions.
Tags: drive extender, ICT, Microsoft, raid, Server, storage, storage pools, Storage Spaces, Windows, Windows 2012, Windows 8, windows home server, Windows Server, Windows Server 2012
Currently, there are many technological advancements taking place every day. To keep up with them is already very hard. To make it a bit easier I use RSS feeds to quickly filter what I think might be of importance to me.
A list of the RSS feeds I currently use can be found here , but you can also download an XML export of my RSS feeds here for easy import to your preferred RSS reader (assuming it supports XML import). I also advise you to check Microsoft’s RSS feed index so you can customize it to your own needs.
I personally use Google Reader for my RSS feeds because then my RSS feeds will be accessible from everywhere as long as I have a browser and an internet connection. When you are often on the road without an active internet connection, a dedicated client with cached articles from the RSS feed might also come in handy.
PS: The Microsoft blog rss feed had many articles added daily and can be hard to keep up with, but you can pretty quickly weed out duplicate articles and articles in foreign languages.
I hope this has been helpful to you.
Tags: bookmark, bookmarks, Cloud, developments, ESX, ESXi, favorite, favourite, gadget, Gadgets, ICT, Microsoft, news, rss, rss feed, technology, virtualization, VMware, vSphere, web site, web sites, website, websites, Windows
Cloud computing is getting increasingly important nowadays and I expect it to keep on growing substantially. As most ICT professionals I’ve read a lot about cloud computing and I know some parts of it. To increase (and test) my knowledge about cloud computing, I decided to try and get these certifications:
These exams don’t just focus on the technical aspects of the cloud, but also on the business aspects and what cloud computing could mean for your ITIL processes.
I passed both exams todat with scores of respectively 86% and 80%. But I have to say that I did not like the exams very much. I feel this way because cloud computing is such a broad concept and the “best” solution often depends on many factors, which of course are not provided in the exam. I think these exams would both benefit greatly from using cases/scenarios. It’s a pity I did not see any option to comment on the exam questions either.
If I’d have to choose which certification I found most valueable, I’d go with the Comptia Cloud Essentials certification.
Free study materials I used:
I thought the quality of these study materials were mediocre at best and I have my doubts about the correctness of some of the statements. Especially because cloud computing is defined in many different ways and because the “best” answer often depends on the situation which is not described. But as with everything, you can learn a lot from it by being critical and looking up everything you don’t know YET and/or have doubts about. You will learn more this way, which is far more important than just getting certified. I personally learned a lot especially about specific cloud services. Unfortunately I did not have access to paid materials, otherwise I would have loved to check out the Train Signal CompTIA Cloud Essentials training videos seeing as they have a reputation to provide high quality material.
I will now close with some wise words I read on Seth Godin’s blog post called “Curiosity was framed“:
Curiosity was framed
- Avoid it at your peril. The cat’s not even sick. (HT to C. J. Cherryh)
- If you don’t know how it works, find out.
- If you’re not sure if it will work, try it.
- If it doesn’t make sense, play with it until it does.
- If it’s not broken, break it.
- If it might not be true, find out.
- And most of all, if someone says it is none of your business, prove them wrong.
There are many more great posts on Seth Godin’s blog so be sure to check it out.
Tags: certification, certify, CLO-001, Cloud, cloud computing, Cloud Computing foundation, Cloud Essentials, CLOUDF, CompTIA, CompTIA Cloud Essentials, Curiosity was framed, Exin, Exin Cloud Computing Foundation, foundation, Free, ICT, Learning, Seth Godin, study
When I tried to include a RSS feeds web part to my public sharepoint site just the way I had done many times on intenal sharepoint sites, I found out that the RSS viewer web part was not available.
After searching the internet I found out why this was the case and I also found a workaround using a custom solution/webpart.
Even though it is possible to use RSS feeds this way on my public sharepoint site, it is not what I expected. In my opinion an RSS feed web part is such a fundamental part of websites nowadays that it should be available by default in Office 365 / Sharepoint online.
I hope that this will be corrected in the upcoming release of sharepoint (2013) for Office 365, but the preview still doesn’t provide this capability unfortunately:
Tags: Cloud, ICT, Learning, Microsoft, Office 365, Public Cloud, rss, rss feed, RSS Feed Webpart, Sharepoint, Sharepoint online, Tutorial, Tutorials, web part, webpart
At November 23rd the 1st Dutch Powershell User Group (DuPSUG) meeting will be held in November at Master IT in Eindhoven for free.
Sessions:
- Using Windows PowerShell 3.0 to manage the remote Windows 8 workstation
Ed Wilson (Microsoft Scripting Guy)
- PowerShell and WMI
Richard Siddaway (PowerShell MVP)
- What’s new in PowerShell 3.0
Bert Wolters (Microsoft Certified Trainer with Master it Training)
- Protect your PowerShell scripts with version control
Stefan Stranger (Senior Premier Field Engineer at Microsoft Netherlands)
- From command, to script, to function, to advanced function, to tool.
Jeff Wouters (freelance Technology Specialist at Methos IT)
Read more about the meeting, the sessions and the speakers here: http://www.dupsug.com/
Also keep in mind that the available seats are very limited, so quickly sign up if your interested.
Tags: advanced function, application, Bert Wolters, DuPSUG, Dutch PowerShell User Group, Ed Wilson, function, ICT, IT, Jeff Wouters, Master, Master IT, Microsoft Scripting Guy, power shell, Powershell, Powershell 3.0, Richard Siddaway, Script, Scripting, Stefan Stranger, tool, Version control, WMI
Today I got a mail informing me about free “VMware Your Cloud or Mine” events being hosted in the Netherlands:
- Thursday October 18th in Rotterdam
- Tuesday October 23rd in Eindhoven
- Thursday October 25th in Utrecht
- Tuesday October 30th in Zwolle
Check the link to sign up and get more information about the event.
I will be attending the event in Eindhoven at October 23rd.
Tags: Cloud, Event, Free, ICT, Learning, private, Private Cloud, public, Public Cloud, VMware, VMware your cloud or mine, VMware your cloud or mine event, Your cloud or mine
Over the last couple of years I’ve been using an Asus WL-500W wireless router to provide wireless access to our network. As a real tweaker I ofcourse replaced the default firmware with DD-WRT firmware and set the transmit power to maximum. This worked perfectly.
Lately however, my parents were experiencing some issues with wireless access from their phones and tablet. So the first thing I tried was to check if there might have been wireless networks on the same channel that were interfering. I checked this on my Windows laptop using Wi-Fi inspector and on the android phones and tablet using Wifi analyzer. Even though the number of wireless networks in the neighbourhood have increased substantially, here were no real indicators for issues. I did try optimizing and changing to a different wireless channel, but this also did not solve the issue. I think the increased transmit power might have taken its toll over the years.
Since I’m up-to-date regarding ICT developments, I know there is a new wireless standard 802.11ac under development and that recently a number of routers have been released based on the draft of this new wireless standard. The added value of these routers is mainly speed, but they are also very costly AND they require the client devices to be 802.11ac compatible as well (which they are not).
Instead I bought the TP-Link TL-WR1043ND plus three 8dBi anttenas (TL-ANT2408CL) because:
- It is a good wireless router.
- It can run custom firmware.
- It is relatively cheap.
- It has gigabit ethernet ports.
- I do not need 5GHz (dual-band).
- With the three 8dBi replaceable antennas, the range and signal strength will be unmatched in this price range.
The total cost of the router, 3 antennas and shipping was 65 euros at https://www.redcoon.nl. The wireless reception is perfect now and I recommend these products to everyone. Keep in mind however that wireless performance is very dependent on your environment and surroundings, so results may vary.
Tags: 802.11ac, 802.11n, antenna, DD-WRT, ICT, network, reception, router, TL-ANT2408CL, TL-WR1043ND, tools, TP-Link, wi-fi, Wi-Fi Inspector, wi-fi router, wifi, Wifi Analyzer, wifi router, wireless, wireless network, wireless router
For those people unwilling to read the entire post, here’s a direct link to my own list of operations and a description of how to perform them using specific input methods.
Context
In the past the Windows user interface has been changed. In hindsight I would classify these changes as evolutionary (Windows 95, 98, XP, Vista, Windows 7). I did however notice that a lot of people still had and many still have trouble working with it. Most people however are currently able to perform those things they want to be able to do. With Windows 8 however, a lot has changed and people need to re-learn how they can do what they want to do. I think this will be intimidating for many people and will probably also prevent people from upgrading for some time. This video should give new users an idea of what the new interface looks like. You can also check other links on this page. Also check this video to get an even better feeling of how to use the new user interface. If you are willing to spend some more time on getting used to Windows 8, you can also check the videos from Lynda.com Windows 8 Consumer Preview First Look. With this blog post I hope I can:
- Help people understand what has changed without going in too much detail.
- Provide insight in what options there are to fully leverage potential/productivity.
- Provide practical tips and tricks to help people enjoy using Windows 8.
Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: gestures, graphical user interface, gui, ICT, Metro UI, Metro Windows 8 UI, Microsoft, Modern UI, UI, User Interface, Windows, Windows 8, Windows RT
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