Desktop Upgrades

No matter how much technology goes forward with nano this and macro that, there is always that good old beast who everybody loves that big guy who might look out of place in today's world, but, still eats data for breakfast, lunch and dinner.
Had an awesome time upgrading this one to 4 gigabytes of ram, well the customer swears by Xp and although without the registry hack can only use 3 gigs, still leaving some room for future doesn't hurt. Also added two Sata 3 500 Gigabytes hard disks and this baby will purr sorry roar!!!

Fish Tank PC

Now I admit, this is not something new, and there are clearly better examples out there, but our team at work did this in 2 days, which is quite amazing in itself (of course the time needed to source the
tank and oil was longer).

We have here is a your normal desktop motherboard nothing fancy with 4 G.B. DDR3 ram and an Intel iCore5 processor, I keep on forgetting the specifications of the processor, but that is not important here.

We did this as one of our show pieces for the 10 year anniversary at my workplace, woohoo!!!

I am also amazed at the way the machine temperature along with the cpu temperature readings.

Inside the case with proper fan cooling and ventilation it never dropped below 40 degrees for the CPU and the system temperature always hovered around the late 35 mark. With this cooling in place, we managed to get the processor temperature down to 28 degrees and the overall system down to about 25 degrees, that was freaking amazing!!. We have used mineral oil in the tank, which was quite messy, but over all I am impressed with the results.

I hope I get enough time to update you with the details of the build, till next time cheerios!!

Get Certified, with 15% off from Microsoft

Reams and reams of web pages have been spent on the value of an IT Certification, so I am not going to talk or debate the value of a certification, but just in case, you are wondering how I can save some bucks while getting certified, well fear not, Microsoft to the rescue!!!

Just make use of their promotional voucher for their exams valid until the 31st of December 2014.

Here is the link,

https://www.microsoft.com/learning/en-sa/exam-discount.aspx

and GOOD LUCK :-)

Happy Monday everyone.

GUI for CISCO devices

Configuring CISCO devices using the CLI is both fun and sometimes a daunting task, but CISCO does make it a bit easier if not supremely easy for us to configure their devices, but, you still need to know your WANs from your LANS.

I am just including a brief text of enabling the GUI based interface of a Cisco router, it is in no ways a comprehensive post, also may vary from model to model.

First we need to enable the HTTP server on the router to enable us to use the web browser or the GUI mode.

We can use local or AAA authentication, the choice is left to the individual.

For local validation and authentication make a client with level 15 privilege.

Step 1. Enable HTTP Server on the router

ip http server

2. Enable HTTP Authentication

ip http authentication local

3. Create a Local user

Username username Privilege 15 Password password

4. Open your browser and go to the ip location of switch's joined interface. It will reveal to you Web GUI of CISCO router.

http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/voice_ip_comm/cucme/admin/configuration/guide/cmeadm/cmegui.html

Weekend refurbishment

Going to refurbish this old but sturdy fella, Toshiba laptops are the best and my personal favorite.
The work involved is cleaning the laptop, adding new Ram, adding a hard disk and installing new operating system.

Windows 10 last build

The word is out, #windows10 last build of the year, exciting times ahead.

Check out @pcworld's Tweet: https://twitter.com/pcworld/status/532660244950683648?s=09

The Microsoft Platform: As of 11/12/2014 ‘Active Directory group’ support ...

The Microsoft Platform: As of 11/12/2014 ‘Active Directory group’ support ...: Microsoft has announced that as of 11/12/2014 ‘Active Directory group’ support for Azure RemoteApp will be depricated to align with the new ...

Windows 10 Technical Preview for Enterprise Edition

Has Microsoft finally realised it and included the start menu from the well, very start!

Well done MS, will soon review this, but for now, the Windows 10 Technical Preview is out and ready for download, come on MS fans may the force be with you.

Go here for your copy; http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/preview

Monday fun fact

The first implementation of the DNS or the Domain Name System as we know it was called JEEVES, written by Paul Mockapetris.
Later implementation was called BIND, an acronym for Berkeley Internet Name Domain, written for BSD Unix by Kevin Dunlap.
Today, world over BIND is the most common form of DNS implementation.

Simplify or mystify? MPSA the new kid on the block.

Only time will tell, if the Licensing structure put forward by Microsoft will be simple enough or even complicated than before.

At least it looks like a step in the right direction, let us see if it actually is a boon or bane.

If you need more information about the Licensing structure, overview etc, follow the trail here, MPSA. Ohh and it is called MPSA or Microsoft Products and Services Agreement, more acronyms more exams for you to look forward to I guess. You can also find a little bit more information about this at the following blog, 

Redmondmag.

Only some products have been updated with the new structure, the rest will be available later in the year, although the major roll out will be late 2014.

No official word yet on the price but the FAQs at the site state as being based on "three product pools: Applications, Systems and Servers." Four price levels (A through D) are associated with each product pool based on "product points." To get certain pricing under MPSA, an organization has to maintain a certain level of pricing points for one year. For instance, A-level pricing requires maintaining 500 price points over the year.

"No entry minimum is required to begin purchasing through the MPSA," Microsoft's FAQ states. "However, to maintain purchasing eligibility at Level A you must purchase a minimum of 500-points within each active product pool by the compliance anniversary date. The compliance anniversary date is established as the one year anniversary of the month you first sign your MPSA."

So get your accountants ready and up to speed with the new licensing, hopefully will save money in the long run.

On a another note, Happy New Year Everyone Welcome to 2014.