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

2 weeks gone and i’m still running around at 200mph. In summary, I have:
1. Handed in my completed dissertation
2. Presented my findings in a presentation
3. Presented to the BBC on a bluetooth network
4. Received results back from my assignments - averaging 74% to date 5. Continued to work 20 hours a week and…
6. Deploy a CS:S Server along with Psychostats server and plugins.

All this occured alongside the deployment of my server and file server into Windows Server 2008 - I am now using active directory based authentication for my file shares which is nice and simples - i will miss Linux however - IIS is hard.

I installed CS:Source dedicated server which was simple, but tying Psychostats into it took me and matt around 4 hours to get working due to problems with PERL, Apache, SQL, etc not very simple to do (Be Warned!).
A lot of PHP editing and .ini config editing and we now have a 32 man CS:S server running Man Admin Plugin, DeathMatch and SourceMod plugins meaning we get lots of playing in beetween revision woop.

Aside from CS:Source i’ve began revision for my 2 exams (MPLS, QoS, BGP4 to give a brief overview of the fun ahead!).
Wish me luck.
Sam.

Well i am now truly in the mire in terms of university and just general work - 7 deadlines in the space of 3 weeks means that i am currently working my backside off with isnt fun - thankfully i have rather a lot of backside TO work off
Having completed my thesis into virtualization, i have since turned my attention to the other “less interesting” aspects of the project, having to present my findings in a very stupid way (A1 board for some reason?) amongst other things.

Seperate from university, i visited Fran for her birthday - gave her the presents which she seemed to like and we went out on the Friday which wasnt the best night out ive had to say the least lol It left us feeling rather rough the next day, so we had a cheeky nandos before heading home for ice cream and unfortunately, Sex and the city in bed (damn..).

Now i’m back to the grind for another 3 weeks, then my academia career is over (praise [insert god]!).

Afternoon All,
Since my last blog i’ve been super duper busy with exam revision, coursework and dissertation work. Generally stressful and not enough hours in the day to work, do university work and sleep - not long now though!

I have around 6 deliverables left before my academia comes to a sobbing end. I will be sad, but i’ve had my time now - think its time im re-released to the wild west of office politics i once graced so excellently.

Other than the fun world of academia, i decided to sell my Acer aspire one - managed to recoup £150.00 for it, which aint bad considering i paid £180 for it around 7 months ago. I had fun with it, but since the iPhone ive had no use whatsoever for it.

In other news, its Fran’s bday next weekend - so i will be heading to B’ham for a meal with her and something called Propaganda at the GC:Birmingham club which is supposed to be a good night. I have a bottle of veuve cliquot to get me in the mood though
Sam

Been quite busy since i last checked in. Spent 5-6 days milling around Birmingham, Essex, London, you name it, along with some dissertation work and a bit of normal work on the side.
On last Thursday, i went straight from work to Frans in Birmingham which took 2 hours and wasnt really that bad of a trip. Once we got there, i bought some more new clothes, had a nandos (With Fran obviously!) and pottered around before heading home. On the Friday we got the train to Billericay (Essex) via London, which was hectic and i ended up damaging the tendons in my shoulder lugging Frans suitcase around somehow! That Friday we had dinner with Frans mum before heading out into Chelmsford with Frans friends, her brother and Fran for her friends night out which was a good laugh although it was rather busy and a queue for the toilets at the mens (southerners!). Pottered home around 1am to the blow up bed of dreams On Saturday, we went with Frans dad and his girlfriend to Cambridge for 5 hours which was fun, walked around the parks - saw the sights, had lunch in a nice pub although i had a pie where the pie was empty and the filling was on the plate :s The drive was brutal as it was nearly 2 hours each way, so that night we took it easy and had a few drinks at her dads place before heading home to sleep.
On Sunday we went to Lowestoft which is apparently the most easterly point in England to see her grandparents, had a sunday roast and generally milled around. That night we went to pub with Frans friends for a few drinks and found the best bitter ever - Doom Bar, definitely need to find another pint of that again.
The Monday we went to her OTHER grandparents in Brentwood for another Sunday roast, before dossing around the rest of the day as i was bloody exhausted. That night me and Fran made bangers and mash for everyone which was goooood Tuesday we made our way to brum, and we had to sit on the train next to the most unruly kids and their retarded “we are everything wrong with Britain today” parents - fffff never mind. Headed home on Wednesday morning to go to work and ive been doing university work ever since - poor me.

On a side note, i bought the Belkin TuneSync iphone dock which is amazingly good value for £10.00!