Oct 14 2008 1:31PM GMT
Posted by: Raj Perumal
mcse,
Microsoft certifications,
mcp,
mcts,
MCT,
Microsoft Official Curriculum,
Microsoft Study Guides,
Self Test Software,
Microsoft Press,
Microsoft Exams
When studying for your Microsoft Certifications I would always recommend studying using a mixture of classroom time, Microsoft study guides, and Microsoft approved practice exams.
The classroom time will always give you the opportunity to ask those questions in class of the teacher that you otherwise couldn’t get answered through another medium. This kind of one on one interaction is always great for the budding IT engineer first venturing out into the world of certification.
The Microsoft Press study guides direct from Microsoft are also great. You can easily find them at Amazon and order them online. They are larger than some of the smaller exam cram books but they definitely cover all the material.
Then the approved practice exams are the final step. I find that the Microsoft recommended Self Test Software exams are great as they really do a great job of testing on the proper exam objectives to prepare you for the exam. There are a lot of companies out there that claim they have good practice tests but the reality of it is that a lot of them are just garbage.
Finally, last but not least….schedule the exam already!!!! I see lots of people who have every intent of writing the exam but never go and schedule it. So what ends up happening is they keep postponing and putting off the exam until they never actually end up writing it. By forcing yourself to schedule the exam you are putting yourself into the exam/study mindset and that will give you the necessary push to go out there and do it. Trust me, it works!
-RP
Oct 13 2008 5:50AM GMT
Posted by: Raj Perumal
HP,
SAN,
iSCSI,
LeftHand Networks
Hi folks, there’s some more news from the storage world. HP bought LeftHand Networks to the tune of $360 million dollars. Now that’s a big chunk of change. They also went out and bought Colubris. Also don’t forget their acquisition of EDS earlier this year.
HP has definitely been on an acquisition binge and that leaves one wondering what the heck are they positioning themselves for. Well the purchase of EDS is well known. That just leaves the other two. I suspect HP wasn’t happy with their current wireless strategy and would like to focus it a bit more with the purchase of Colubris which specializes in wireless technologies. I’ve worked with Colubris devices and they have a myriad of options and features not available on similar wireless devices.
The purchase of LeftHand would be to shore up their lower end iSCSI storage offerings I suspect. I’ve worked with the current HP iSCSI offerings on a regular basis so it should be interesting to see how this development plays out with the current product line.
-RP
Oct 11 2008 8:49PM GMT
Posted by: Raj Perumal
Virtualization,
VMWare,
Hyper-V,
standalone,
ESX 3i
Hi folks, as you may have heard by now, Microsoft has announced the standalone version of Hyper-V! They have decided to call it Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008. It should be interesting to see what this announcement yields in the virtual world.
Hyper-V Server 2008 does not have support for Microsoft’s quick migration, has no large memory support, and does not support greater than 4 processors. If you want these features you will have to move to the Windows 2008 Enterprise or higher version of Hyper-V.
The new standalone version supports the VHD format for virutal machines, has Live Backup support to backup your vms and supports up to 32 GB of RAM although 1 GB of ram is reserved for Hyper-V itself. I for one am very glad this product is here as now the competition between Microsoft and VMWare can really heat up!
You can read more about the new version of Hyper-V here.
-RP
Oct 11 2008 8:08PM GMT
Posted by: Raj Perumal
iPhone,
Apple,
RIM,
touch screen,
Verizon Wireless,
BlackBerry Storm,
iPhone killer,
"click" touch screen
So RIM has announced the coming arrival of the BlackBerry Storm exclusively from Verizon. Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock you should know that it’s supposed to be the next iPhone killer. A touch screen BlackBerry with no thumb wheel and no trackball.
This is great news to challenge the juggernaut that is Apple. Don’t get me wrong, I love the iPhone, it’s a great device. But I think what cellular companies are doing to lock you into a contract just to own one is ridiculous. I’m hoping a little friendly competition from RIM will make these companies loosen their hold on consumers.
The new BlackBerry Storm is touch screen like I said before, and also has a 3.2 MP camera, removable memory, removable battery, and picture messaging. It also has a “click” touch screen so you can feel when you touch the screen. This type of tactile feedback should make it much easier to use than traditional touch screens.
You can signup for BlackBerry Storm alerts at the Verizon Wireless web site here. You can also read a bit more about it here.
-RP
Oct 11 2008 7:13PM GMT
Posted by: Raj Perumal
certifications,
university,
mcse,
Information Technology,
CCNA,
ccie,
ccnp,
mcp,
mcts,
college,
certify,
vendor certifications,
experience,
work placement,
co-op programs,
post secondary education,
volunteer work,
paper MCSE,
IT employment
So you’ve graduated from university or college and you’re ready to go out into the world and nail that first awesome IT job. You and your family and friends all know how good you are. You’re the resident computer whiz and you think to yourself “People would be crazy not to hire me!”. So you go out into the world and you find that you get little to no bites on your resumes.
One of the reasons is because everyone and their dog thinks they know IT but unfortunately it’s getting increasingly harder for employers to tell the difference between a wannabe and the real deal. As someone who has been regularly engaged in the hiring process over the course of my career, I can tell you about two things that stand out on a resume for an IT prospect - experience, and certifications.
One without the other just doesn’t cut it. You can have all the experience in the world but if you don’t have the certs then people will wonder how good that experience actually is. You can have a billion and one certs, but if you don’t have the experience with actual projects people are going to think you’re all flash and no substance. The “paper MCSE” comes to mind here.
So how do you get both of these? Well if you are having problems finding work, what you should do is during your education get enrolled in a good co-op program (combination of study and work) where your school places you in a company to learn the trade for a few months of the year. This way you graduate with both experience and theory.
The other way is to volunteer at many organizations that need volunteer IT help. This is a great way to get experience and do something good for your community. This also looks great on resumes. This will also help you when you go to write your certification exams because some experience in the real world will always help you pass those exams.
I always hear people make fun of certifications, but those are usually the people who don’t have the kahonas to go and write them and feel like they have to put them down to legitimize themselves. Instead ignore those naysayers and go out and get that experience and those certifications. Together that will put you a cut above the rest!
-RP
Oct 11 2008 7:01PM GMT
Posted by: Raj Perumal
Cisco,
network,
routing and switching,
CCNA,
640-802,
CCNA exam,
networking knowledge
So I used to work with Cisco products many years ago. I find myself heading back that way as of late but I have no certifications to show for it. I never really had the time due to all the other certifications I was pursuing.
Now I’ve decided that it’s a good time for me to pursue it and make the knowledge I already know about Cisco legitimate by pursuing some Cisco certifications. This will also help to dust off some of the cobwebs from some of the stuff I haven’t worked with in a while.
Currently I’m preparing to write my CCNA exam (Exam # 640-802). The CCNA exam covers basic routing & switching topics and basic networking skills along with IPv4 and IPv6. For all of you budding computer techs out there I think it’s a great exam to use to prove your networking knowledge to potential employers.
-Cheers, RP
Oct 10 2008 12:37AM GMT
Posted by: Raj Perumal
Exchange 2003,
RPC,
IIS,
SSL,
HTTPS,
Exchange System Manager,
outlook web access,
Exchange,
Public Folders,
RPC over HTTP/S,
SSL error,
SSL error viewing public folders,
0 folders found in pfmigrate.wsf
The other day I ran into an interesting problem with public folders. Someone was trying to run the pfmigrate.wsf utility (the same utility I mentioned in my blog) and they couldn’t get the script to recognize the public folders. The tool said that there were 0 public folders to migrate.
When they tried to view the public folders in the Exchange System Manager they received an SSL error. This is because someone has tried to require ssl on the public folders through IIS. This usually happens when someone is configuring SSL on their Exchange server for SSL access for their Outlook Web Access server or for RPC over HTTPS. They end up selecting all the sub folders in the default web site and apply SSL to everything. This adversely affects the public folders.
If you remove SSL from the sub folders you don’t need SSL on and then go back and try to run pfmigrate.wsf again it will work. You will also be able to view the public folders without an error in Exchange System Manager again.
-RP
Oct 9 2008 4:49PM GMT
Posted by: Raj Perumal
2008,
Epic,
Epic Information Solutions,
Technology Day,
Epic Technology Day,
October 21st
Hi folks, as you may know I work in the IT consulting field. One of my most favourite times of year is when Epic Technology day comes around. It’s held twice a year here in Winnipeg and is considered one of HP’s largest partner held events in North America. It is completely free to attend this event. This time it’s on October 21st, 2008. At technology day we talk about all sorts of different kind of technology and how it can help you in your daily lives. This is the kind of technology that I use in my everyday business to help out my customers.
I’ll be presenting at Epic Technology Day on virtualization so if you are interested in coming to see me or even any of the other presenters, come on down!
Some of the presenters are HP, VMWare, Intel, Citrix, Novell, Red Hat, and Data Domain. There is pretty much something to be had for everyone. This isn’t your normal boring vendor conference where you come to visit a bunch of booths and get a lot of free stuff. I’ve been told countless times by visitors to the event that people come to this and genuinely come out with more knowledge having learned of new and interesting ways to do things in IT. If you can make it, make sure you come down.
You can view the presentation schedule here.
You can register for the event here.
-RP
Oct 6 2008 3:45AM GMT
Posted by: Raj Perumal
Exchange 2003,
Exchange Server 2003,
public folder migration,
pfmigrate.wsf
When migrating your mailboxes to a new server you can’t forget the ever important public folders. Public folders aren’t just for shared folders that you create on your own but they also include the required system public folders which allow Exchange to operate.
When migrating to a new server you absolutely need to migrate these public folders otherwise you will run into a whole host of issues on the new server and your users will be quite upset with you. Now you could just go to each public folder individually and setup replication, but that would take forever and a day, especially if you have tons of public folders.
Instead you should use a script called pfmigrate.wsf. It’s located in the exdeploy folder on your Exchange installation CD. This script will allow you to easily replicate the public folders to your new server and then after replication is complete you can easily turn off the replication.
Full instructions can be found here.
-RP
