Edited by David Pennington, Monday, 29 Feb 2016, 10:35
A difficult week, this week. I have a server computer here at home. This runs both a web and an e-mail server. For many years, this was run on an old, home made computer which ran like a train. Some time ago, I decided that it needed a new machine so I bought a nice little Lenovo desktop. This had Window 8.1 (Ugh) installed. I put the server software on there and off it ran. I had a BT Business broadband line which provided me with the required static IP address. When we moved, I had to close down the broadband and sign up for a new contract - this was because the business broadband was running on a residential line and BT couldn't move it along with the phone line! As I was going to be out of service for a while (10 days, they told me) I moved the server to my daughter's school (she owns it) as she had a static IP there. It has been there before so I didn't foresee any trouble. Before it went, I upgraded it to Windows 10 as this was a free upgrade and I hated 8.1.
From then on, we had nothing but problems with the server freezing at random intervals. This had happened before but, at home, we could just reboot Now I was beholden to others, apart from the fact that the school was closed at weekend, etc. Finally, after 4 weeks (! 10 days, they said) I brought the server back to our new apartment. As part of the new regime, I decided to upgrade everything so I replaced the hard disk with a 250MB SSD (solid state disk) and installed Microsoft Server 2012, which I got from the OU through Dreamspark). We had some problems with the wireless connection which was important as there was no space in the apartment hallway for the server to be directly connected to the BT Business Hub.
OK, so back to now. I spent the whole of last week messing around with wireless network connectors until finally I got everything sorted on Saturday. This constant effort has played havoc with my schedule. In the middle of this, I had my new desk and chair delivered. This came on Friday and is part of my Disabled Student status. The man came with the new desk, which was delivered as a kit of parts. It seems that the desk top comes in many different lengths so it arrived without fixing holes. The installer had to spend a good while measuring up for my top, which is 1.6 metres in length! The desk is height adjustable so, if I get too stuck sitting down, I can raise it sufficiently to stand up to work! The chair is infinitely adjustable. I had a 15 minute training session on its features. He also installed an under desk device for the server that I mentioned above. This avoids the problem of cables being stretched. There was also a footrest and a desktop iPad holder. Everything went in fine except for the iPad holder which wasn't able to shrink down to hold my iPad mini in portrait and was too narrow to hold it in landscape! I have bought a small metal one from Amazon that works beautifully - so good that we have have bought two more. You can see the desk in two heights in the images below.
This is the replacement iPad holder. I am very impressed.
So, everything seems to be Ok and I can get back to studying. However, the BT Broadband should be between 8.5 and 9.9 Mbps uploading (which is important for an e-mail and web server) but it is running at 1.8Mbps so the engineer is coming on Tuesday to knock out my planned 2 hour study stint then!
Back to the course. I am trying to keep one week ahead and I had a lot of worries about this week just gone thanks to the dramas of the previous week - in terms of hours required. However, I shouldn't have worried as week 5 is all about presentation and is of a major order of magnitude down on practical projects. In fact, I skipped all of the notebooks on the basis that, if I need to do any map presentations then I can come back and check these out. In fact, I found the whole week quite light on the core stuff. As an example, this is an e-mail I sent to my friend in the USA regarding one element of the reading material.
"I am currently studying Part 5 of the course - “Presentation - Telling the story”. I have read 58 pages out of the 87 in the week’s course book (an eBook). It comes out with the following steps: 0. Employ a data engineer and visualisation designer (!!) - or move straight to step 1 ( you have to smile - my addition) 1. Know your story 2. Choose a basic graphic form 3. Try out the basic forms 4. Adjust the elements 5. let others comment. Wow, is this what I am dedicating 8 - 10 hours a week to learning?"
Having read the last few pages of the book, I have decided to move on to week 6 without worrying and expecting to look back at the notebooks if I need to. I am doing a lot of worrying about the TMA as well but the questions that I am worrying about count for 6 marks in total so I am tempted to leave them with my best shot and hope (expect?) to get 2 or three marks for what I have done. We shall see if this is a stupid assumption or not! However, as I cannot grasp what they are asking for then I see that there isn't much I can do about it for now. Maybe it will be come clearer as the TMA deadline approaches.
Summing up the week - I learned a lot more about network cards than I needed to know; I am fed up with BT as it is now 5 weeks and I still don't have my contractual business line; I am getting more confused over the course as some parts are extremely hard and others are almost trivial (but maybe that is because of my pre-knowedge?).
Week 4 and just about on track
A difficult week, this week. I have a server computer here at home. This runs both a web and an e-mail server. For many years, this was run on an old, home made computer which ran like a train. Some time ago, I decided that it needed a new machine so I bought a nice little Lenovo desktop. This had Window 8.1 (Ugh) installed. I put the server software on there and off it ran. I had a BT Business broadband line which provided me with the required static IP address. When we moved, I had to close down the broadband and sign up for a new contract - this was because the business broadband was running on a residential line and BT couldn't move it along with the phone line! As I was going to be out of service for a while (10 days, they told me) I moved the server to my daughter's school (she owns it) as she had a static IP there. It has been there before so I didn't foresee any trouble. Before it went, I upgraded it to Windows 10 as this was a free upgrade and I hated 8.1.
From then on, we had nothing but problems with the server freezing at random intervals. This had happened before but, at home, we could just reboot Now I was beholden to others, apart from the fact that the school was closed at weekend, etc. Finally, after 4 weeks (! 10 days, they said) I brought the server back to our new apartment. As part of the new regime, I decided to upgrade everything so I replaced the hard disk with a 250MB SSD (solid state disk) and installed Microsoft Server 2012, which I got from the OU through Dreamspark). We had some problems with the wireless connection which was important as there was no space in the apartment hallway for the server to be directly connected to the BT Business Hub.
OK, so back to now. I spent the whole of last week messing around with wireless network connectors until finally I got everything sorted on Saturday. This constant effort has played havoc with my schedule. In the middle of this, I had my new desk and chair delivered. This came on Friday and is part of my Disabled Student status. The man came with the new desk, which was delivered as a kit of parts. It seems that the desk top comes in many different lengths so it arrived without fixing holes. The installer had to spend a good while measuring up for my top, which is 1.6 metres in length! The desk is height adjustable so, if I get too stuck sitting down, I can raise it sufficiently to stand up to work! The chair is infinitely adjustable. I had a 15 minute training session on its features. He also installed an under desk device for the server that I mentioned above. This avoids the problem of cables being stretched. There was also a footrest and a desktop iPad holder. Everything went in fine except for the iPad holder which wasn't able to shrink down to hold my iPad mini in portrait and was too narrow to hold it in landscape! I have bought a small metal one from Amazon that works beautifully - so good that we have have bought two more. You can see the desk in two heights in the images below.
This is the replacement iPad holder. I am very impressed.
So, everything seems to be Ok and I can get back to studying. However, the BT Broadband should be between 8.5 and 9.9 Mbps uploading (which is important for an e-mail and web server) but it is running at 1.8Mbps so the engineer is coming on Tuesday to knock out my planned 2 hour study stint then!
Back to the course. I am trying to keep one week ahead and I had a lot of worries about this week just gone thanks to the dramas of the previous week - in terms of hours required. However, I shouldn't have worried as week 5 is all about presentation and is of a major order of magnitude down on practical projects. In fact, I skipped all of the notebooks on the basis that, if I need to do any map presentations then I can come back and check these out. In fact, I found the whole week quite light on the core stuff. As an example, this is an e-mail I sent to my friend in the USA regarding one element of the reading material.
"I am currently studying Part 5 of the course - “Presentation - Telling the story”.
I have read 58 pages out of the 87 in the week’s course book (an eBook). It comes out with the following steps:
0. Employ a data engineer and visualisation designer (!!) - or move straight to step 1 ( you have to smile - my addition)
1. Know your story
2. Choose a basic graphic form
3. Try out the basic forms
4. Adjust the elements
5. let others comment.
Wow, is this what I am dedicating 8 - 10 hours a week to learning?"
Having read the last few pages of the book, I have decided to move on to week 6 without worrying and expecting to look back at the notebooks if I need to. I am doing a lot of worrying about the TMA as well but the questions that I am worrying about count for 6 marks in total so I am tempted to leave them with my best shot and hope (expect?) to get 2 or three marks for what I have done. We shall see if this is a stupid assumption or not! However, as I cannot grasp what they are asking for then I see that there isn't much I can do about it for now. Maybe it will be come clearer as the TMA deadline approaches.
Summing up the week - I learned a lot more about network cards than I needed to know; I am fed up with BT as it is now 5 weeks and I still don't have my contractual business line; I am getting more confused over the course as some parts are extremely hard and others are almost trivial (but maybe that is because of my pre-knowedge?).