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This is my Blog that consist of my very opinionated views of my little world as I see it. I publish this site for my convenience and unless I have given you my site address directly you are a mere visitor to my personal blog site.

Feel free to read and comment positively but remember you are solely responsible for determining the suitability of this information. Content can change depending on my whims.

© Ray    

PS. I copy stuff from other web sites for my convenience and it is published in the public domain by virtue of this being a blog. Where possible I will list the original web site and kudos to the original author. I do this because some web content is important to me and bitter personal experience has taught me that important web sites can disappear or be changed for the worse and that annoys me. If you feel done in then send me a mail and I will remove your content but please do get a life!

17/07/2008

Need to update your IBM Certification?

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A new promotion from IBM and Prometric has just been announced:

Pilot Promotion: IBM is evaluating the use of a Double Take voucher. As a result, we are introducing the Double Take offering for the limited number of tests, listed below, through the end of 2008. At that time, we will evaluate extending the promotion to many of our other tests across our product lines.

http://www.prometric.com/ibm/DoubleTake.htm

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Lotus Power Systems
By clicking the link you will receive a voucher that you can use to save some money and face if you fail the first time!

Thank you for registering for Double Take!

Voucher Number: Obfuscated
Please print this page for your records and supply your e-mail address below for an electronic confirmation.

Here's how it works:

More information can be found at the IBM Certify web site
http://www.ibm.com/certify

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Where to get more Info:
https://www-304.ibm.com/jct03008c/certify/certs/lt_index.shtml
The BEST study aid?
http://www.certfx.com/
My next challenge?
http://www-03.ibm.com/certify/tests/objL802.shtml


Posted by Ray Davies At 09:33 Location Kingston | | Say what? (0) | del.icio.us  Technorati  Digg This 

07/07/2008

Windoze XPee and Netbooks (ULCPC) -- An Update on the Windows Client Roadmap

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I was reading this article the other day.
"Microsoft to stop selling Windows XP on Monday - Jun 29, 2008
REDMOND, Wash. (AP) — Microsoft Corp. is scheduled to stop selling its Windows XP operating system to retailers and major computer makers Monday, despite protests from a slice of PC users who don't want to be forced into using XP's successor, Vista."
However, being a old ex Microsoft BP I get spammed every now and again. Here is what Microsoft says behind the scenes! (very funny) The full article is in the Read More but here are the highlights!
"If you are a customer looking to buy a low-end system (often refered to as a "NetBook" or "Ultra-Low Cost PC") that uses very low-end hardware that won't run Windows Vista, then we are making Windows XP available for some time on these systems. In addition, we have programs to make Windows XP available in low volumes from local PC manufactures-and of course major OEMs have the option of offering these "low volume" offers as well."
Low end system? Duh, you mean low cost! very low-end hardware? Duh, you mean a brand new high spec Intel Atom chip with 1GB of memory upgradable to 3GB for £30?

Here are some more Microsoft head in the sand pages.

From--> http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2008/jun08/06-03ComputexPR.mspx
"Netbooks are commonly referred to as ultralow-cost PCs"
"In April, Microsoft announced the worldwide extension of the availability of Windows for this emerging class of devices"
"Customers and partners have made it clear to us that they want Windows on their netbooks and nettops,” said Steven Guggenheimer,"
"we are now offering our channel the option of purchasing Windows XP with their Eee units so they can provide a compelling offering for customers."
Uhmm, excuse me? Why not just ship the netbooks with Microsoft "vaster". Oh yes, I forgot!
Take a look at this license page and get ready to cry!

This is so funny! There is a save Microsft Windows XP campaign!
http://blogs.itworldcanada.com/savexp/

And more
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080603-microsoft-forced-to-offer-xp-for-ulcpcs-vista-shafted-again.html

And the icing on the cake?
http://www.computerworlduk.com/technology/hardware/laptops/news/index.cfm?newsid=9006

"That's where the hardware limits come in. Besides limits on the screens and hard drives, to be eligible, the systems can have no more than 1G byte of RAM and a single-core processor running at no more than 1GHz."

http://www.liliputing.com/2008/07/what-is-liliputer-brief-introduction-to.html
http://www.liliputing.com/2008/04/over-past-six-months-or-so-asus-everex_24.html

Microsnot fans should take note here. If you think for one second that the latest Netbook PC's are not capable machines you should take another look as you are being brainwashed.

All these machines run Linux perfectly and will run Ubuntu Remix perfectly. In addition, once you spent £30 on a memory upgrade the machines will run the full IBM stack including Notes 8.x, Quickr, Sametime, Lotus Connections, IBM Portal and much more.

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Please click here to read More. ..

Posted by Ray Davies At 12:07 Location Kingston | | Say what? (1) | del.icio.us  Technorati  Digg This 

07/07/2008

Jonny Crockett and the Survival school in Devon

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With the recent turmoil in world weather and increase in sea levels I thought it pertinent to update my survival skills just in case

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I get updates from "Jonny Crocket" every now and again for survival courses in Devon but there is never any space on the popular courses. However, this landed in my inbox the other day:- Hi, Please excuse us emailing you, but we wanted you to know that there is 1 place available on our Weekend Bushcraft and Survival Course in Devon on the weekend of 1-3 August 2008. If you would like to take this place, please let us know by calling us on the number below.

Best Regards
Jonny Crockett

I am now booked on this course and I am really looking forward to it. Here is a link --> http://www.survivalschool.co.uk/Weekend.htm --> The Gallery

My last course in the UK was with Ray Mears and was very good. Here is some pictures (hmm, the template needs work) !

Posted by Ray Davies At 11:20 Location Kingston | | Say what? (0) | del.icio.us  Technorati  Digg This 

07/07/2008

My Wordle links

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Create a Wordle picture My CV My Current RSS Feed

Posted by Ray Davies At 11:03 Location Kingston | | Say what? (0) | del.icio.us  Technorati  Digg This 

07/07/2008

Installing Ubuntu inside windoze vaster or xpee

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The Ubuntu juggernaut is gathering speed and if you want to see what the fuss is about then here are some ways for you to experience Ubuntu without compromising your Windoze partition.

There are several flavours of Linux (for the desktop) on the market but here is an analogy to explain why the Ubuntu uptake is round about 80% of new pilot installs. Linux is like a gobstopper or jawbreaker for my US friends. The components used are all the same the only difference is the way it is layered and packaged. With 10 varieties to pick from you will always have a favourite, one where the mix is just right. In the linux world that is Ubuntu. There is nothing wrong with Fedora or any other distribution but they are just not as nice.   Capisce?

Ubuntu can be installed in several ways and the recommended way is of course to run Ubuntu as your primary desktop but that is hardcore in a windoze centric world. So here a few methods you could consider without compromising windoze:

Primary partition with no option to boot back into Windoze - Use VMWare or Virtual box for annoying .net programs and WINE for nice windoze programs.
Grub menu with options to boot into windoze vaster and Ubuntu and other Linux partitions - requires re partitioning or a second disk etc.
Live boot off a DVD/USB stick for Ubuntu or other Linux  distros.
VMware player,Virtualbox or Microsoft Virtual player or some other Virtual machine I don't know about.

The easy way to install Ubuntu on windoze WITHOUT re-partitioning or faffing about is to use wubi. Wubi will download the correct version, 32bit or 64 bit, of Ubuntu / Kubuntu / Xbuntu / Edubuntu or Ubuntu Studio for you from the repositories and install your choice as a loop mounted install from within Windows.

This is not a Virtual machine! This is not a Windoze application!

It simply installs Ubuntu on to your NTFS hard drive without repartitioning the drive. You still need to boot into Ubuntu to use Ubuntu. I have included far more detail in the read more section. Once created you can transfer your system to a USB device or simply back it up using LVPM - http://lubi.sourceforge.net/lvpm.html

Virtual environments: - VMWare player ISO files
Now this is what you really really want! Download the VMWare player for free and download the corresponding ISO file and done!
Here are the ISO files: http://isv-image.ubuntu.com/vmware/

Virtual environments: - Sun xVM VirtualBox 1.6
Here is the download link --> Virtual box -->  Sun
Flawless install. Took minutes. Absolute dream.

Virtual environments: - Microsoft Virtual PC
You can also use Microsoft Virtual PC for free (for now) http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/winfamily/virtualpc/default.mspx
If you are a glutton for punishment and want to run this then you will have to press F4 and then F6 and add vga=791 noreplace-paravirt see here for more details but you will waste half a day and may have nothing to show for it. Also no USB support etc. Also, only (some) support for generic kernel. Here is a nice howto.
Please click here to read More. ..

Posted by Ray Davies At 10:00 Location Kingston | | Say what? (0) | del.icio.us  Technorati  Digg This 

02/07/2008

Get ready for the 21st century, better late than never!

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So who killed or at least maimed the internet? Checkpoint of course. Way back when I submitted a paper about IPv4 and IPv6 and the response I got back from my peers and Cisco was less than helpful. At that stage Checkpoint released a new product called FW1 and one of the most misguided and detrimental features in FW1 was called Network Address Translation (NAT).  

The internet was running out of address fast due to a class A, B and C split. Class A addresses were available to the biggest corporates and 126 ranges were available. IBM took 9.0.0.0. Each class A address range could accommodate 16,777,214 hosts. The 16,384 class B addresses allocated could each host  65,532 devices and the 2,097,152 class C addresses could host 254 devices. This was a bad system and was made even more complex with sub-netting that determined how the class address was split and how routers would cope with it. RIP and Spanning tree algorithms was a nightmare to configure and diagnose.

The niche that Checkpoint saw was that there were 3 private address ranges, 10.0.0.0 - 10.255.255.255, 172.16.0.0 - 172.31.255.255 and 192.168.0.0 - 192.168.255.255 that no router would route across the internet. Checkpoint then used NAT and IP Masquerading to present a single address to the internet or at least a small number of addresses using Classless Inter-Domain Routing (CIDR) and then translated all the backend devices to this single IP Address. Good or bad? Bad!!!

Every time you get a spam email or your system is attacked you should thank Checkpoint. Every time you try and connect to some valid service on the internet and can not because the FW has blocked you thank Checkpoint. The IP standards include ports to be used for services such as port 80 for web and 25 for SMTP. Domino sends RPC data via port 1352. These are standards that should be adhered to but if you are Microsoft you could just say, bah humbug, and send RPC packets across port 80 for OWA. Every home office router supports NAT and in addition every ISP allocated addresses dynamically unless you have paid for a static IP Address.

So what I am going on about? IP Address allocation and routing is complex, what about it? The thing with an IP Address is that it should be unique. When something is unique it is traceable. With IPv6 every single device, ever, will have an address allocated to it. In essence it means that anything that device does can be traced back to source. Each and every spammer and hacker could be traced to source and held accountable. Each robotic device we create would have connectivity and we would be able to trace the fault to source. Each mobile phone would be a IPv6 node that could consume or provide services. IPv6 is the most important breakthrough ever and we should all embrace it as soon as possible.

Just think, soon we could have IPv6 bounty hunters that would go and find rouge devices and terminate them! Whoo hooo, roll on the future. Here are some articles about how close we really are to IPv6. Network World - Feds: We are ready for IPv6 D-Day, Network World - IPv6 will hit like an avalanche, NTT America CTO predicts

Posted by Ray Davies At 09:33 Location Kingston | | Say what? (0) | del.icio.us  Technorati  Digg This 

30/06/2008

It's been a long road - Gettin from there to here

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 I was watching a rerun of the penultimate episode of Star Trek Enterprise Series 3 the other day and although Captain Archer was a bit of a wet fish initially the character did develop and I must say I really enjoyed the episode. I have listened to the theme tune many times before but some how it has now really grabbed me. It is very inspiring so here is my little homage to it.

 

 

Star Trek Enterprise at tv.com

It’s been a long road
Getting from there to here.
It’s been a long time,
but my time is finally near.

And I can feel the change in the wind right now
Nothing’s in my way
And they’re not gonna hold me down no more
No, they’re not gonna hold me now

Chorus:
Cause I got faith of the heart
I’m going where my heart will take me
I got faith to believe.  I can do anything.
I got strength of the soul
And no one’s gonna bend or break me
I can reach any star.
I got faith. I got faith.
Faith of the heart.

It’s been a long night, trying to find my way.
Been through the darkness now I finally have my day.

And I will see my dream come alive at last
I will touch the sky
And they’re not gonna hold me down no more
No, they’re not gonna change my mind

Chorus:
I’ve known a wind so cold.
I’ve seen the darkest days.
But now the winds I feel are only winds of change.
I’ve been through the fire and I’ve been through the rain.
But I’ll be fine

Chorus:
‘Cause I got faith of the heart
I’m going’ where my heart will take me
I got faith to believe
And no one’s gonna bend or break me
I can reach any star.  I got faith - faith of the heart.
It’s been a long road


Posted by Ray Davies At 12:25 Location IBM | | Say what? (0) | del.icio.us  Technorati  Digg This 

16/06/2008

Things to do with selotape

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It's been a while. I have been busy! anyway, thanks Spokey!



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There is more... Click the button.
Please click here to read More. ..

Posted by Ray Davies At 10:12 Location IBM | | Say what? (0) | del.icio.us  Technorati  Digg This 

01/05/2008

Ideas, daydreams and reality

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Sometimes reality bites. I have a head full of ideas and lately I have seen a few of them materialise by others. I am not bitter, no, not at all. Actually the ideas I have that could make it as a service or product requires investment and having been through that once it is not something I would look forward to. One of my ideas was a car share system. I documented my thoughts on this page --> Carbuss,. It seemed a good idea to me but when I floated the idea to others I was ridiculed. Well it seems my idea was not that far fetched. A new site called PickupPal has just been launched that does what I suggested. The how it works can be found here --> How it works.

I also added my idea to IBM's InnovationJam where it would been seen by a much larger community. I wonder if anybody in PickupPal read this?

Here is the USP for PickupPal:
At the core of PickupPal's technology is a high-performance Geographic Information System (GIS) software application that sorts and matches based on a series of pre-engineered criteria.


More Daydreams from Ray.

Posted by Ray Davies At 09:13 Location Kingston | | Say what? (1) | del.icio.us  Technorati  Digg This 

15/04/2008

SA in crises

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Not funny. Is this a melt down or flash point? A collection of news reports about South Africa and the current power crises. Hier kom groot kak. http://southafricanhell.blogspot.com/

Posted by Ray Davies At 18:35 Location Kingston | | Say what? (0) | del.icio.us  Technorati  Digg This 

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