Here's how I did it:
| Camera: | Nikon D50 |
| Exposure: | 0.003 sec (1/320) |
| Aperture: | f/5.6 |
| Focal Length: | 80 mm |
| Exposure Bias: | 0/6 EV |
| ISO Speed: | 800 |
Friday, July 28, 2006
DSC_0443
Some sort of Butterfly sitting on an orchid. Taken at Blijdorp Zoo with an old 28-80 zoom. Not bad considering the lens I was using.
Here's how I did it:
Here's how I did it:
Tuesday, July 25, 2006
I've taken a week vacation. The kids also don't have to go to school so we've got the time to do fun things with the kids. And I got time to try out my new D50!
I'm also skipping class this week so that means a lot of reading next week to catch up. I get the feeling 70-294 may me more difficult than it seems at first.
I'm also skipping class this week so that means a lot of reading next week to catch up. I get the feeling 70-294 may me more difficult than it seems at first.
Monday, July 24, 2006
DSC_0470
Renkoekoek aka RoadRunner in the Blijdorp zoo. Having a white mouse for it's afternoon tea.
Monday, July 17, 2006
Wednesday, June 28, 2006
70-293 passed!!
Yesterday morning I sat and passed the 70-293 exam. It was a tough one but I managed to score 844 points. As always I used the Microsoft Press book and a Transcender CD. This time I followed the advice of Transcender and downloaded the exam file from the website instead of using the file on the CDROM. The transcender questions were a lot more difficult than the real exam questions.
One thing that wasn't covered nearly enough in the book but which you should understand is certificate templates and the difference between version 1 and 2 templates.
A lot of the subjects should be familiar to you if you've passed 70-290 and 70-291. DNS and DHCP are repeated. This exam does pay more attention to WINS than the previous ones.
RRAS also comes back in this exam. Be sure you know exactly how it is decided wether or not a user has access at a specific time. Also study the various protocols and know which client supports what.
Clustering was also covered, study NLB and know the differences between unicast and multicast with one or two NICs and when you can expect NLB members to talk to eachother.
Have a look at real clustering and at least understand the various architectures and the way load balancing can be handled.
IPSEC, try it out, play with it, test it, get the hang of implementing it via policies.
Study everything you can find about certificates and their usage from mail signing to file encryption to smart cards. Know what rights are needed to perform admin tasks and know when you can and should use auto-enrolment and when you shouldn't.
The exam is hard but nowhere near impossible. From all the exams I've done so far this one and 70-284 I really do advise you to set up a lab and try a lot of things out!
Yesterday morning I sat and passed the 70-293 exam. It was a tough one but I managed to score 844 points. As always I used the Microsoft Press book and a Transcender CD. This time I followed the advice of Transcender and downloaded the exam file from the website instead of using the file on the CDROM. The transcender questions were a lot more difficult than the real exam questions.
One thing that wasn't covered nearly enough in the book but which you should understand is certificate templates and the difference between version 1 and 2 templates.
A lot of the subjects should be familiar to you if you've passed 70-290 and 70-291. DNS and DHCP are repeated. This exam does pay more attention to WINS than the previous ones.
RRAS also comes back in this exam. Be sure you know exactly how it is decided wether or not a user has access at a specific time. Also study the various protocols and know which client supports what.
Clustering was also covered, study NLB and know the differences between unicast and multicast with one or two NICs and when you can expect NLB members to talk to eachother.
Have a look at real clustering and at least understand the various architectures and the way load balancing can be handled.
IPSEC, try it out, play with it, test it, get the hang of implementing it via policies.
Study everything you can find about certificates and their usage from mail signing to file encryption to smart cards. Know what rights are needed to perform admin tasks and know when you can and should use auto-enrolment and when you shouldn't.
The exam is hard but nowhere near impossible. From all the exams I've done so far this one and 70-284 I really do advise you to set up a lab and try a lot of things out!
Wednesday, June 21, 2006
Wired News: 'UFO Hacker' Tells What He Found Is it just me or does this read like a scene from the X-Files or the lone gunman?
Thursday, June 01, 2006
Wrote something yesterday about the new Clarkconnect box I installed. For some reason the people at Clarkconnect didn't find it necessary to include the gcc. I was about to install it by hand but then I remember that they have some apt packages for extra installation. So I opened a console, logged on as root and typed:
apt-get install cc-devel
Waited 5 minutes and voila, the gcc and a load of other stuff you need when installing software from source.
apt-get install cc-devel
Waited 5 minutes and voila, the gcc and a load of other stuff you need when installing software from source.
Wednesday, May 31, 2006
Last night I replaced my old home server with a new one. The old one, a P2-350 with 128mb ram was showing signs of age. Also the 13gb disk wasn't sufficient enough for my needs anymore. I installed the new one with the latest release of ClarkConnect.
For hardware I use old Compaq Deskpro small form factor workstations. They're very nice for this sort of thing since they're small, silent and don't use much electricity.
I got mine from the office where it had been sitting in a storeroom for some years. I had two old maxtor disks, a 40 and a 30gb and 384mb of pc133 ram. Fitting two disks into this tiny case seemed a challenge at first untill I decided I didn't need the floppy drive anyway.
During install the clarkconnect installer suggested combining the two disks in one file system so now I have 70gb of storage.
Mine didn't have a cdrom player which wasn't too much of a problem since I only need it during installation, just a matter of hooking up a normal cdrom player temporarily with the case open. I could have installed one of course but these machines take those slimline players and they're expensive and hard to find.
You can often find these machines or simular ones from Dell or HP in shops that sell batches of old company equipment, in this country a nice one will set you back about 70 euros. If you do shop around for a machine like this try to find one with a lot of memory. They often have only two SDRAM sockets. PC133 RAM is still around but new it's very expensive. On ebay you can expect to pay around 25 euro for 256mb and prices are going up. Clarkconnect will run on 128mb but runs a lot better on 256mb. With Ram it's just like money, it's difficult to have too much.
I realize that a 500mhz CPU and 384mb of memory doesn't sound like a lot in this age of multiple Ghz CPUs and multiple Gb memory but it's quite sufficient to run a fileserver, webserver and low volume mailserver. I'll post some load statistics later on.
If you are running a server don't forget to enable port forwarding on your ADSL modem (or whatever you use to connect). Here's a guide for the Alcatel Speedtouch modems that are extremly common in the Netherlands.
Clarkconnect is a nice Soho linux distribution. I had it installed in 45 minutes. Configuring it took me about an hour. There's still a lot of work to do however, I need to install a website on it, setup easy access to postfix monitoring and fine tune the spamfilters.
For hardware I use old Compaq Deskpro small form factor workstations. They're very nice for this sort of thing since they're small, silent and don't use much electricity.
I got mine from the office where it had been sitting in a storeroom for some years. I had two old maxtor disks, a 40 and a 30gb and 384mb of pc133 ram. Fitting two disks into this tiny case seemed a challenge at first untill I decided I didn't need the floppy drive anyway.
During install the clarkconnect installer suggested combining the two disks in one file system so now I have 70gb of storage.
Mine didn't have a cdrom player which wasn't too much of a problem since I only need it during installation, just a matter of hooking up a normal cdrom player temporarily with the case open. I could have installed one of course but these machines take those slimline players and they're expensive and hard to find.
You can often find these machines or simular ones from Dell or HP in shops that sell batches of old company equipment, in this country a nice one will set you back about 70 euros. If you do shop around for a machine like this try to find one with a lot of memory. They often have only two SDRAM sockets. PC133 RAM is still around but new it's very expensive. On ebay you can expect to pay around 25 euro for 256mb and prices are going up. Clarkconnect will run on 128mb but runs a lot better on 256mb. With Ram it's just like money, it's difficult to have too much.
I realize that a 500mhz CPU and 384mb of memory doesn't sound like a lot in this age of multiple Ghz CPUs and multiple Gb memory but it's quite sufficient to run a fileserver, webserver and low volume mailserver. I'll post some load statistics later on.
If you are running a server don't forget to enable port forwarding on your ADSL modem (or whatever you use to connect). Here's a guide for the Alcatel Speedtouch modems that are extremly common in the Netherlands.
Tuesday, May 30, 2006
Darik's Boot and Nuke is a very nice tool if you need to wipe your disks before selling them or otherwise disposing of them. Burn it to a disk, boot, fire and come back an hour or two later to a disk wiped to DoD standards.
Dutch Paedophiliacs start their own political party. Only in this country people actually think they can get away with it!!
Main points in their party program seem to be lowering the age to star in porn from 18 to 16 and allowing kids from age 12 and up to have voluntary sex. They also want an independent organisation to screen child pornography for unwilling actors.
Main points in their party program seem to be lowering the age to star in porn from 18 to 16 and allowing kids from age 12 and up to have voluntary sex. They also want an independent organisation to screen child pornography for unwilling actors.
I think whatever 2 consenting adults are up to is between them and I sincerely hope this party will get nowhere and be outlawed. Almost makes me ashamed to be living in the same country.
Just in case you're wondering, the wikipedia article on this distasteful practice can be found here.
Friday, May 26, 2006
WK lingerie bij Veronica one of the dutch TV channels has a very nice alternative to all the commercials during half time of the world championshop soccer next month. 5 women in lingerie taking penalty shots. Can't wait to see that. :-)
Wednesday, May 24, 2006
Friday, May 19, 2006
Yabse Usenet Search Engine is one binaries search engine. Others I've found of use so fare are:
http://www.binaries.nl (NZB option)
http://www.newzbin.net
http://www.audiofind.com
http://www.binsearch.net (NZB)
http://www.mininova.org (also torrents)
http://www.newzsearch.com/ (temp. no NZB)
Be aware that such sites might be the copyright police's next target. Also, downloading binaries from newsgroups might be illegal whereever you live.
http://www.binaries.nl (NZB option)
http://www.newzbin.net
http://www.audiofind.com
http://www.binsearch.net (NZB)
http://www.mininova.org (also torrents)
http://www.newzsearch.com/ (temp. no NZB)
Be aware that such sites might be the copyright police's next target. Also, downloading binaries from newsgroups might be illegal whereever you live.
40 Years of STAR TREK: The Collection will be auctioned by Christies this october in New York. The auction seems to feature some highly collectible goodies. Personally I wouldn't be surprised if some estimates are way of. There's a script from "the encounter at farepoint" listed for a mere $300. I think that's going to be tripled at the very least. Still... it's all way out of my budget.
Friday, May 12, 2006
Converting Dynamic Disks Back to Basic Disks is something that, according to Microsoft, cannot be done. However, this site has a procedure that was tested by two of my collegues today and it does work!
Tuesday, May 09, 2006
Lack Of Mobile DRM To Cost 3.5B Euros
First the copyright mafia hits the DVD and CD front and now DRM on your phone? Surprising in this study and almost all others is that I have yet to see a single shred of evidence that proves that illegaly copied content would otherwise have been bought. And DRM on phones? Come on! I've used mobile phones since 1997, currently I'm carrying a Motorola V3. On it I have a ringtone which I've made myself by ripping a small fragment of audio cd to mp3.
Imagine having a phone with DRM that would prohibit that. I'd either buy a different phone or make do with the built-in ringtone.
First the copyright mafia hits the DVD and CD front and now DRM on your phone? Surprising in this study and almost all others is that I have yet to see a single shred of evidence that proves that illegaly copied content would otherwise have been bought. And DRM on phones? Come on! I've used mobile phones since 1997, currently I'm carrying a Motorola V3. On it I have a ringtone which I've made myself by ripping a small fragment of audio cd to mp3.
Imagine having a phone with DRM that would prohibit that. I'd either buy a different phone or make do with the built-in ringtone.
70-284 passed!!!
Yes, today I passed the 70-284 exam, also know as "implementing and managing Microsoft Exchange 2003". Due to personal reasons, nice weather, an exchange server that went down sunday night and a visit to the dentist, my preparation wasn't as good as it should have been. This resulted in a score of a meagre 700 which happens to be the passing score for this exam. :-) (Now, doesn't that fit nicely in the microsoft idea of "minimal amount of administrative effort"?)
To prepare I had three days in a classroom with an instructor. One day with a guy I can recommend if you need a good exchange instructor, Alex de Jong. In addition to that I had a Microsoft Press book a Transcender CD. The Microsoft Press book was better than previous ones I've used. Less clutter, a lot more to the point. As adviced previously by the people at transcender I download the latest version of the exam from their website instead of using the CD. Finally, transcender again as I've come to know and love. Good questions, close approximation of the real thing and good explanations (but still check with the web or the knowledgebase when in doubt).
What to study:
I'd expected some more legacy Exchange questions, I've only seen one. I think I lost points on routing group redundancy, what to monitor and installatin. Some practice exams suggest that domainprep is not a seperate preparation action if you are going to install servers in the domain anyway. I'm not entirely sure if that's correct.
The previous exams could be done by stuying theory only although that would be hard. I'd advice against trying that for this exam. In order to pass this you really need some hours at a console setting up and administring an exchange server or two (or more).
Seeing what I scored on this exam I think I won't try to do the 70-285 exam just yet, instead I'll hit the books and see what I missed on this one.
Yes, today I passed the 70-284 exam, also know as "implementing and managing Microsoft Exchange 2003". Due to personal reasons, nice weather, an exchange server that went down sunday night and a visit to the dentist, my preparation wasn't as good as it should have been. This resulted in a score of a meagre 700 which happens to be the passing score for this exam. :-) (Now, doesn't that fit nicely in the microsoft idea of "minimal amount of administrative effort"?)
To prepare I had three days in a classroom with an instructor. One day with a guy I can recommend if you need a good exchange instructor, Alex de Jong. In addition to that I had a Microsoft Press book a Transcender CD. The Microsoft Press book was better than previous ones I've used. Less clutter, a lot more to the point. As adviced previously by the people at transcender I download the latest version of the exam from their website instead of using the CD. Finally, transcender again as I've come to know and love. Good questions, close approximation of the real thing and good explanations (but still check with the web or the knowledgebase when in doubt).
What to study:
- Installation requirments (forestprep, domainprep, rights, etc)
- SMTP connectors
- SMTP virtual servers
- Front-end/back-end designs
- Clustering (pay specific attention to what needs an IP address and how users should access a cluster)
- Connecting Exchange and Notes and Groupwise (free/busy information!!)
- Scenarios when another company is taken over
- Routing groups and especially redunancy and routing costs
I'd expected some more legacy Exchange questions, I've only seen one. I think I lost points on routing group redundancy, what to monitor and installatin. Some practice exams suggest that domainprep is not a seperate preparation action if you are going to install servers in the domain anyway. I'm not entirely sure if that's correct.
The previous exams could be done by stuying theory only although that would be hard. I'd advice against trying that for this exam. In order to pass this you really need some hours at a console setting up and administring an exchange server or two (or more).
Seeing what I scored on this exam I think I won't try to do the 70-285 exam just yet, instead I'll hit the books and see what I missed on this one.
Tuesday, May 02, 2006
Enabling security tab in exchange System manager. For some reason that option is greyet out. Here's a link where they explain which dword you need to create.
Monday, May 01, 2006
Souls Alike is an excellent Bonnie Raitt fansite. I was looking for some pics from yesterday's concert.
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