Well, since yesterday it’s been quite a busy 24 hours.

First up, was my driving theory test in Wigan, which involved train-ing it up there and back. Managed to pass with a 46/50 and 57/75 so thats the first driving objective out of the way!

Secondly – degree results. After chewing my fingers off in anticipation i found out i have achieved a 2:1 (Upper second class) honours degree in Computer Networks Which sounds awesome. Apparently, I have achieved the highest mark of my education.. career in the exam i expected to do the worst in (calculating Bit Error Rates for MTU’s, maximum block sizes, etc). 88% in that exam – which is amazing considering i was hoping for a pass!

Now my degree is finished, in the bag and complete, its now waiting on my future employer to give me a start date (confidential so i cannot name who it is) so i can move to there and begin work as a Security Specialist on real monies (How beautiful).

Finally, something interesting i learned yesterday while gabbing with a BT engineer – a cheap way to increase broadband potentially by twofold or more is to remove something called the “bell wire”, which was the old wire used to ring the physical bell inside phones pre 1980. This wire since 1980~ has been defunct, but can act as an antenna for electrical signals and interference from electronic devices which may broadcast, such as microwaves, televisions, etc.

A cheap trick is to either un-patch the “orange/white” pair from the telephone socket (requires unscrewing the socket) – this ensures you can easily rollback, cut the cable completely, or replace it with a BT Iplate, which has a bell-wire choke which reduces interference and noise on the bellwire. Pretty interesting stuff but still – layer 1 *Shudder*.

Well i’m currently working full time and trying to pass my driving test, along with planning on moving out of my house share with people who dont understand tidying into a short term let in Salford over the summer so i can continue to work while deciding what i’m doing with my future.

Other than that it’s been a pretty boring 2 weeks – havent done much other than work, mess around, work mess around.
Went to the Lake district last weekend to generally get away from life, which was nice – even if i got burnt up a mountain!
This week i’ve got my driving theory test on Thursday, degree results on Thursday and iphone OS 3.0 is out today – wooop.

2 weeks on, and i am now officially finished with university!
2 exams and a final assessment later, I am rid of revision for a while at least.
The QoS exam was hard as nails which i prepared for, so i wasnt surprised by any questions – so i’m still hoping for good 2:1 which would be great!
Once my exams were over, Fran came up and stayed for 6 days. Its been hot as hell here, so we’ve been to Ainsdale beach, Manchester city centre and back to Lowton for a BBQ – just to get out of the oven that was my room!

She’s gone back home now to do her own thing, so i’ve been left to “enjoy” the working life – at least when 5pm rolls round i can feel free to enjoy the sun, beer, guitar hero and other fun without feeling guilty like i should be revising!

Heres to a study free summer!
Sam