Techie Nick

Employment Looms

Nick — Sat, 09 Aug 2008 01:39:16 GMT

As full time employment looms I’m starting to reject clients, if you have a really simple job that needs doing, like theming a CS install to look like your site, or working off a PSD, then I’ll still take on work for this, as I can even work on this over weekends outside of work.

But as for the big stuff, the last clients for this are LiveSide and Reperion. If any other clients have gotten in touch with with, sorry, but if I start work, I won’t be able to work on side projects.

Cross Post on techie nick, and dev log.

My New Laptop

Nick — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 15:02:37 GMT

Got my new laptop on Friday (18/7/08) and OMG this thing is soo cool.

I love tablet PC’s now.

Here’s some pics:

The laptop is really sweet, and runs really well. Because it’s a laptop, my documents folder is stored on my S:\ which is an encrypted drive, and requires my fingerprint, just an added bit of security when I’m away.

Hopefully, I’m gonna be traveling a fair bit over the next few months, Dallas in October, and Netherlands sometime before that. Hopefully I have enuf money for this, lol.

Anyhow, more soon

I’m now Nick Brown BSc MBCS

Nick — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 21:08:34 GMT

Just finished my final year of my BSc in Computing, passed with a 2:1, which is good considering I did really badly in my final exams. Anyhow, with this result, I can finally start looking for a job full time.

FYI MBCS = Member of the British Computing Society.

Dual Monitors

Nick — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 19:17:56 GMT

Got my second monitor today, and hehe, I don't have enuf room for both of them. :P But I managed.

O and if your wondering what that bottle is doing on top of the shuttle, that's my signal booster bottle. It improves the TV signal so it's watchable when not in full screen.

The magic of Antec Formula 5

Nick — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 16:54:59 GMT

OMFG, my processor's idle temp has dropped 10*C since applying Antec Formula 5.

Seriously.

Usually my CPU would be sitting idle (vista) @ 44*C. Now with Antec Formula 5 thermal grease, it's now idle @ 34*C. That's a huge difference.

Here's another amazing fact. From a cold start (PC powered down for 1/2 hour) the start temp was, wait for it, 26*C. I couldn't believe it, 26*C. Slowly that raised to 34*C, but still, 26*C from cold start is amazing.

I'm going to replace all of my computer's with this stuff over Easter, well all of the desktop computers.

Fixed: Heat Sink + CPU stuck together

Nick — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 19:08:00 GMT

Anyone got any idea's on how to remove a heat sink from the processor.

The processors a intel core 2 duo, so it's locked to the motherboard and the latch is under the heat sink.

I've tried a thin wire, twisting, and using boinc for an hour to heat the processor up. All failed.

The case is a shuttle SD37P2, so it's really small, and cramped so can't get in to do much.

~~Will try a hair dryer tomorrow, and if all fails will have to live with the E6400, and stick the E8200 into the new mail server~~

UPDATE [8pm 15/3/8]: Managed to get it unstuck. Played Crysis for 3 hours and twisted. That did the job. Turns out that my motherboard doesn't support the E8200 processor, so it's going back.

O well. The server will have to have a cheap Core 2 Duo.

Vista SP1 Faded Colors - Warning!!!

Nick — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 03:50:34 GMT

Just a word of warning, SP1 completely messes with the Colors with nvidia drivers, doesn't seem to effect my laptop. Compare the Pre and Post SP1 installation's blacks, look at the side of gorge W, and of the bank.

Lovely freeview's BBC news 24 in 16:9

Pre SP1:

Post SP1:

Notice the appalling black, in pre SP1 black was BLACK, but post SP1 black is slightly yellowy.

Because of this I'm going to refuse to install SP1 on my main PC until this is fixed. It's most prob a nvidia driver issue more than anything, but it's mighty annoying that the quality is so bad.

Loaded both images into photoshop and did the eye dropper, and here are the results:

Black: Post = #10100f; Pre = #000000
Red: Post = #810f0e; Pre = #800000
White: Post = #e6e6e6; Pre = #f5f5f5

Best Summed up with this:

It's mainly the black, but all of the colors are off.

And it doesn't just effect Live TV, it effects everything, playback and wat not.

And some more examples:

Watching an episode in window and the border is black, video is yellowy

In full screen the whole thing goes yellowy

Vista SP1 + Me

Nick — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 23:22:40 GMT

Thanks to my lovely technet subscription, I've legally gotten a copy of the SP1 installer. Here's some screens of the installation

All of the other screens are from a phone cause I can't take screenshots when vista is loading, lol.

Well only one cause I needed some food, but you get the picture.

And after wards, just some proof:

Hopefully things will work ok. Found maybe one bug, in media center. If you watch something in windowd mode, it can be juddery, works fine in full screen, don't know wat's causing that

Exchange 2007 SP1 + Windows Server 2008 RC0

Nick — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 20:45:29 GMT

This weekend I took down my mail server, and home server, and reinstalled it. Upgrading from beta 2 to RC0, I've found RC1 to have a couple more bugs in it with regards to profiles and folder redirections.

After installing Windows server 2008, i got cracking on setting up the servers, and joining the PC's to the domain.

All went well until it came to folder redirections. For some reason Vista + RC0 had a big hissy fit with the way I was setting them up. Thankfully I'm got round this by making new user home directories, logging that user in, setting the folder redirects up, then moving the files back in.

After that came the reassigning in the user profile registry entry (ntuser.dat) Thankfully there's only 5 users I had to do that with, real nightmare.

Anyhow, then came exchange. The main installation went fine, with no problems wat so eva. The only issue came with IIS7 and Exchange's client role. For some reason it removed most of the Website authentication rules. Thankfully, don't know how, I managed to fix that with a reinstall of the client role, and a tweak of the IIS settings. Still not sure how tho.

After that, comes the Virtual Machine to run the SMTP server.

Now because my server is a Pentium 4 with HT tech, it's not really a dual core 64 bit processor with Vitalization software on it, so using a 32bit Virtual Machine in VMware was the best I could hope for. Thank god exchange 2007 sp1 was available as a trail (180 day) 32bit preview.

Once again, server 2008 went on the virtual machine, with nothing but Windows Shell, and AD LS (Active Directory Lightweight services) on it (previous known as ADAM [active direcotry application mode]).

This install was server 2008 RC1, as I couldn't get my hands on RC0 of 32bit server 2008. It'd been removed from Technet.

Configured that. Restarted (important step this). And finished the Exchange install with the Edge Transport Role. Exported the setting, imported it. Configured the FQN of the edge transport server's external interface. And hey presto, no spam, and a working exchange install with Outlook anywhere and Active Sync.

Just time for me to import my user settings from a PST, and away I go.

I'ts been over a day now since the emails came back online, and I've had 0, count that, 0, SPAM emails. It's great. I'm used to getting 30+ in 4 hours. I feel left out now.

Anyhow, I love exchange server, love it as a email server, have a few issues with Server 2008, but I think that's prob a Group Policy setting more than anything. And loving IIS7.

http://mail.nbdev.co.uk should be back up now, along with my emails.

You might also be getting alot of emails from nb development as I've configured it to use the email server. So hopefully that works.

Coming on Friday/Moday, will be 2x2gb DDR2 ram sticks which are for my computer. Freeing up the 1gb DDR2 modules for the media center pc. And the left over ram will be sold. 4x512mb DDR2 with heat spreaders on.

Home Network 5 Plans

The next planned update to the network is over the summer, with a planned new server with proper Virtualization technology on it, prob a core 2 duo, again a shuttle for the fact that it's small.

This will free up that PC to replace my sisters machine (6 years old now) with the old server (3 years old), which will be sold, along with the duplicate machine of the same specs.

The server will be installed with Windows Server 2008 RTM, Exchange 2007 SP1, with virtualized machine with Server 2008 on it (might try the core version) and the Exchange Edge Transport Server on it. This will be completed with a x64 OS's. And will prob be the final step of the Network before I move out into the wide world of business.

Almost, GFX card KIA

Nick — Thu, 22 Nov 2007 20:56:06 GMT

I think my GFX card frooze my pc again today, while playing FSX. Restarted the machine (hard reset) and the monitor wouldn't start.

Anyhow, my GFX card had a heart attack earlier, so it's almost Killed in Action.

O ***!

Thankfully just before I started playing I ordered a new 8600 GT off ebuyer for £70. Thinking that I needed a fully DX10 gfx card.

That was good thinking on my half.

Managed to get the PC working again, after taking the gfx card out and leaving it on by my window to cool down. Thankfully it's like 4*C outside, to plenty cool to cool down the card just enuf.

Anyhow, did that, moved some wires off the GFX card's heat pipes, yes my GFX doesn't have a fan, it's lovely an quiet.

Anyhow, thankfully after that it worked again. Thank god.

My new GFX card was meant as a xmas present from me to me. A new joystick from the parents, Crysis from my brother, and some cash from my gran. With my sister paying for the joystick too. It's a £70 joystick.

Anyhow, hopefully my GFX card wont crash my PC again.

I've noticed that playing BF2142 and Call of Duty 4 that it was starting to pack up. 1/2 the time it would run really really slowly, the other half fine. Really strange.

After the cool down the pc is currently running @ 45*c and climbing. Need to get an application to monitor the GFX temp.

Lower CPU temp in 32 compared to 64

Nick — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 23:48:59 GMT

Ok, just about finished getting my pc back to what it should be, lol, but one thing I've noticed is that my CPU is now running 5*C cooler than it did under 64 bit windows. Hehe freaky.

Another cool thing is the Microsoft fingerprint reader, now I had an old one, which had drivers for x64 windows, but didn't really work all that well, I really only used it with a custom program I made to store passwords for sites. It was a cool little program, but it didn't integrate with the authentication like the Microsoft one does.

I can now log on to website (although only in IE, which is annoying) and my PC. It's great, less use of the keyboard and mouse to log into things. Very helpful for OWA's and webmails.

Anyhow, been playing Call of Duty 4 (Single player) again today, while it was downloading a BF2142 update, which tool 4 hours (thanks virgin media for bandwidth throttling). Anyhow, I finished this game on Monday, in 8 hours, playing on Normal, yer I know, kinda slow, but I had to get used to my computer slowing the game down 1/2 the time. God knows y. Must be vista's implementation of DX9. 32bit vista isn't much better either. Anyhow, now I'm playing on the next level up, of course. Kinda stuck on the snipering mission in Chnoble, stuck on the last part of it, the waiting at the LZ for the transport helicopter. Getting good at killing the men as they fall from the enemy helicopters, lol.

Hopefully tomorrow will be a better day on CoD4.

Gotta remember to make a new theme for the theming tomorrow as well, I released a new one on wednesday, but that was really to catch up with the number's I'd already promised there'd be on the theme shop.

That's all for now

How to install vista + all programs in under 5 hours

Nick — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 00:00:00 GMT

Well I've done it. I've installed vista, which took 30 mins, installed all drivers, which took another 30 minutes, installed some programs which didn't need restarting, another 30 minutes, and now just left with Adobe CS3 Web Suite, Office 2007 ultimate and Visual Studio 2008.

All of this will be done in 5 hours. Right, lets track this, it's now just gone 12am, and I started installing @ 10.30pm. So 1 hour and a half so far. Just got to restart, for the 1st time, to finish installing the drivers and windows updates. After that, install Adobe CS3, Office 2007 leaving Visual Studio for tomorrow, it likes to restart when it installs .net 3.5.

Anyhow, it will take me about 5 hours to do all of this, along with watching some TV.

6 hours if you include the 2 games I install, FS2004 + BF2142. All in all, I've got this reinstalling vista down to a fine art.

I can do it on my mum's laptop in about the same time, but the laptop is 5 years old and vista really doesn't like that, mind that's without VS 2008 and the games

I'm that good.

Community Server Extensibility

Nick — Sun, 21 Oct 2007 14:42:00 GMT

The 1st code type presentation is Scott's CSE.

Extending CS.

Talking about CSModule Events,PrePostUpdate, PreProcessPost, AuthorizePost, PostPostUpdate... Telligent actually uses CSModules for programming CS.

The UserKnown Even is raised to check that user against LDAP, AD, etc.. Other Modules include: Sections, Groups, Search, Rate, Exceptions, Configuration. The Search module can contain the search query, the search results, you can use this for search tracking, and analytics.

Scott goes on to a demo, showing the telligent CSModules that are used by default. Looking at CS.config. Looking at the CS_Overrides.config, looking at how the CSModulle events, showing the events for searching, and page requests, showing how powerful the API's are for CS.

Scott goes on to talk about spam rules, which use CSModules.

Data providers are live CS's version of assembly , low level, directly to the database and from the database.

Showing off how the tasks work.

More documentation inline in the code is needed. Scotts says that there will be more, and there should be more.

CSDC Day 2

Nick — Sun, 21 Oct 2007 13:47:00 GMT

Day 2 has just begun, with breakfast here at CSDC in dallas, TX.

Been staying at Homestead Suite here in dallas, which is where all of the telligenti's have been staying, so getting a lift in isn't hard, the problem arises when I want to get home, since most of them are off to catch flights straight after the developer conference finishes @ 2.30pm today.

Dasie cains of extension cords and laptop plugs litter the floor today, thankfully, I was here early enough to get me a seat nexct to a socket. all good

U actually have to sign a guestbook today , since I think there was some confusion around that yesterday.

Today's schedule, includes some of the stuff from yesterday that we didn't have time to go through.

Today starts off with Nicole talking about telligent partners, more later, with yet more photo's. Got a better seat today so you read the slides I take pics of

Webservices

Nick — Sat, 20 Oct 2007 21:11:00 GMT

Just had Scott and co talking about the web services coming up with Community Server 2008. They look cool, I asked a question , about coding a silverlight interface to use the API's. How cool would that be?

A complete silverlight interface, no HTML, all the HTML that comes to and from the web services would need to be converted to XMAL, but apart from that, sounds cool.

The web services sound like they could also be useful for the Migrator.

Pics on the Photo gallery