On the one hand, it’s going to be good to no longer attend University. I won’t have to worry about exams, or coursework, or working on the weekend; instead I’ll have to worry about real work during the day. I can relax at the weekend and in the evenings! It’s going to be good. But, moving on means moving away. I’ve landed myself a job at Ocado (yes, the grocery delivery company; no, I’m not driving a van) as a Network Engineer, working in Hertfordshire. I’m going to have to move up there, and that will mean moving away from my friends and my life here in Portsmouth – which is not going to be fun. I’ll miss everything and everyone down here.

However, these past couple of months have been spent working hard at University to complete my final year project. The project has involved designing and developing a Network Testbed Monitoring and Management tool for the ECATS team at Cisco, the department I worked for last year. It’s been fun, and at the moment I’m just finalising my (30,000+ words) final report. We have to present the project on Project Day, the 4th June, to all and sundry who come to look round. Below is a screenshot of one of the modules in the application that I’ve developed.

This was really just a quick post to update you all on my current status in life…. I realise that I haven’t blogged in a very long time (in fact, this is my first blog post of 2010, happy new year everyone!).

Semester 1

• System Configuration and Administration: 70%
• Software Systems 1: 85%
• Internet Applications 3: 85%
• Professional Practice and Career Management: 86%
• Computing 3: 88%

Semester 2

• Group Project: 59% 68%
• Internet Applications 4: 78%
• Network Configuration and Administration: 82%
• Computing 4: 83%
• Software Systems 2: 93%

I was very pleased with the 93% in Software Systems 2, and I was happy with all the other marks too, bar the Group Project 59, but you can read why over at Dan’s blog now that the Group Project mark has been properly sorted out; our lecturer made a mathematical mistake that I spotted, which took our mark up to 68% instead.

My average for the year is therefore 80.9 83 which is a nice solid 1st, so here’s hoping I can keep that up in the final year when I come back from placement.

Speaking of which, not long at all now before starting in Reading. Here’s a nice photo of my offices, taken by someone I’ll be working with:

It’s all change.

But on the good side of that, Dan got the job at HP, which is in Bracknell, so we can hopefully find a place together somewhere in Reading close enough to Cisco for me to walk, cycle or get a bus, and close enough to HP for Dan to drive, as he’ll have the Skoda.

Also on a good note, I now have all my marks back for the first Semester, and I averaged 82.8%, which is a first again, so quite a good start to the year! Roll on Semester 2! I’m also really looking forward to the Cisco classes that Jay, Rob and I are running to train other students on the use of the Cisco equipment we have in our labs – they start Thursday, so should be really good fun.

It was good to see Toni, Chris and Ben this weekend, sorry I wasn’t actually around that much!! Glad you liked Portsmouth too, if your comment on your blog is actually a compliment!!

Prayer would be much appreciated. Not that I get the job, though, but that what happens should be what God wants to happen, be it working for Cisco or not.

Thank you :)

I don’t yet have an email.

Eek.

Going all design-y now, I’ve found a good website that collects together nice fonts. I’ve always like a good typeface (I’m sad, I know) and Fawnt seems to showcase some of the best. I particularly like the Fertigo one that’s listed there currently – I just need to find some work to use it on – maybe it would look good in a logo, but I have a feeling it might look quite nice as a header or title text on some Web 2.0 – style website. I just have no web work to do at the moment, so if you know of anyone who needs some done then please don’t hesitate to nudge them in my direction! Photoshop seems to be feeling a bit left out recently. My most recent work is actually an entry in a Worth1000 competition for Stallion Investment, but I don’t want to reveal it until the competition’s over, lest someone from W1K bumbles along here and gets an idea! Unlikely, I know, but still a possibility…

Speaking of Photoshop, I’ve been trying to use Illustrator more, getting used to a vector based drawing program is a challenge! I wish Adobe would be sensible and keep the shortcuts the same across both programs (they are both members of the same CS3 family after all) instead of making us new comers learn a whole new shortcut set. Anyway, I drew my first image in Illustrator the other day – three birthday or christmas presents:

Not too shabby for a first attempt?

Oh and can anyone answer this quesiton for an IBM Placement Application: “Describe one occasion where your original plan hasn’t gone as it should. Describe your reaction and response. (200 words)” – Help! There’s 5 questions like that!

On a happier note, Pink Floyd Pulse arrived the other day, it’s a really good album. And at some point I’ll be stealing Dan’s Genesis live CD and either ripping or copying that… for “backup” purposes of course.

On Wednesday, I tagged along to a tutorial/lab that Dan went to last week, focusing on Cisco applications and hardware. It was really, really interesting. We were there from 2 until about 5, using a program called Packet Tracer to simulate a large organisation’s network using Cisco equipment, and we had to design the addressing structure ourselves, so I was more than chuffed when it eventually worked! I even managed to set up some DNS for a webserver sat on an independent subnet!

Spent the weekend just gone at Ineke’s house in Bath. I would go into more detail but she’s blogged about it so there’s no point in both of us doing it, that’d just get boring.

My laptop is now dual booted with the new version of Ubuntu – 7.10. It’s actually very impressive, and I’ve used it an awful lot recently, arguably more than Vista. The new version of the X server overcomes many of the shortcomings of the old version, even enabling dual monitor setups and auto detecting resolutions, etc. The new version of Gnome also comes with some pretty cool (but pretty useless) tweaks and effects.

I wrote a letter to Google about my placement year, we shall see if they reply once I’ve posted it!

That’s all I can think of at the moment.

Sunday comprised of a BBQ round Blade’s (Adam’s / Student Pastor’s) house, lots of yummy burgers and sausages, and meeting plenty of Fresher’s to scare befriend and help settle in. After the BBQ we carryed on to King’s – 5 people baptism that night!

We walked some of the freshers home, and a couple came back to our flat where we watched the Life of Brian, then walked them back home in the rain. But it was all good fun.

This week we’ve barely had anything to do university wise (just registration on Wednesday), so Monday Dan, Ruth and I made a trip to Southampton Richer Sounds to get Dan his 640T (tuner) and I purchased some more banana plugs meaning my stereo is now bi-wired.

It’s been interesting getting used to living in a house, but so far it’s been better than last year. I have a really good large room, a nice double bed, a decent size desk, and it’s great sharing food and not worrying about “my drawer” in the freezer or “my shelf” in the fridge. Living with Dan and Ruth (and Phil) has been really good fun (so far!) and I like getting back to the independance of University life.

We’ve only really mooched about the house this week, apart from some pool on Wed? Thur? one of those days! And Wednesday we met with Sarah, Sarah, Jen and Mikey and went down to play crazy golf (which I won) and then Jamochas and back to ours for some of us. Ruth and I cooked food for Jen and one of the Sarahs and they haven’t died yet so it’s been ok!

Crazy evening at Kings tonight! Loads of students split into teams playing games, unfortunately my team lost (thanks Jen and Mikey!) out of 10 :( but I won dodgeball twice and the only time I lost it was just me left on our side against 5 people – and I got them down to 2 before I got out!

So yeah, good week so far, let’s hope if it continues!!

France

I went to France with Ineke and her family. We stayed in a cottage in Normandy for a week, and then moved on to a Center Parcs near(ish) to Paris for the second week. We went into Paris for a day, too. All in all quite a good couple of weeks; fun times with badminton, tennis, table-tennis, pedalos, quad biking etc!

Got a Job

Working for the Desktop Team of the University of Portsmouth. They basically handle all the issues relating to the user’s desktops, such as application distribution and the like. It’s all very interesting, especially as I now understand a lot better how the core software we work with at the Uni (Novell) works and distributes it’s applications etc. Looks good on the old CV too.

Talking of which, I need to get my CV checked by the careers service at the Uni before sending it to the Technology Placements service so I can get registered on the scheme for a Placement Year next year. This time next year I could well have been working full time on a fairly high salary (compared to what students are used to) for a few months already!!

The Hi-Fi

Basically, John was throwing out an old-ish Gale Subwoofer, so he gave it to me. It works fine, as my amp doesn’t have a dedicated sub output, I’ve just wired it into the speaker outputs as the instructions say, cranked up the level, and watched my floor shake!

Oh, and another thing…

You may have noticed the design has changed again, the photo was one I took in France. It’s a new month, new design. I wonder how long I’ll keep updating it this regularly for!!

Anyway, really should get back to work… Ineke and I are going to see Evan Almighty tonight, should be good.