Yikes - it has only been 131 days (or 3160 hours) since my last post.... Sorry.

I had a nightmare last night which woke me up... I kid you not. In it, I was asked to replace all PCs at the school with Apple Macs. Scary stuff!

Interesting day at work today. I created all the new Year 9 student accounts (those who will be joining the school in September), and drew up some layouts for a new classroom which is being built. Trying to squeeze 26 computers in a small room is quite a challenge!

Trying to be more regular with my postings on here - watch this space.

Its been awhile since the last post - usually if I have something to say, I'll say it as a comment on my facebook page www.facebook.com/stujwilson, but anyway -

Wishing you all a Happy New Year. Here's hoping 2011 is better than 2010!

"I've been driving in my car, it's not quite a jaguar"

Here are some more pictures of my new car - I'm soooooo excited!

"Who's gonna to drive you home tonight?"

Well, it is an exciting time for me at the moment - I passed my driving test last Monday (23rd) after weeks of worry!

Not only that, but today I have also purchased my first car. A Vauxhall Zafira 7 seater from 2005. Secondhand of course (theres no way I could afford a new one), but comes with only 47,000 miles on the clock, road tax for 6 months AND a full 12 month MOT and service.

To be honest, I never dreamt that I would pass first time. The problem is I now have to wait until next Friday before I can collect it!

(Yep, thats me behind the wheel!)

He's Dead Jim...

Today was my last driving lesson before the big practical test next Monday (and fingers crossed, my last test ever, though I doubt that). Anyway, I don't know if it is some sort of sign or not, but I had my first road kill today - a suicidal pidgeon who obviously had had enough of life and decided to end it all by going under the wheels of a car.

Still... I feel pretty upset about it! I get upset if I stand on an ant, or accidently crunch a snail beneath my feet in the dark.

What am I like!

Work and no play....

And so ends a fun-filled week. Infact, as I posted on Facebook earlier during the week, "I lead such an exciting life, full of wonder and an unmeasurable amount of awesomeness".

Who am I trying to kid... I need a change.

Work hasn't been too bad to be honest. The summer holidays are great because I get to actually do work and get things finished without the usual interuptions from teachers and students. Infact, what I managed to do this week, it would probably take me several weeks to do! Notable jobs include updating and migrating the schools MIS SQL database from 2005 express to 2008 Standard, and moving over 1000 shared user areas from one server to a new server running MS Server 2008. Inbetween that I've also managed to re-image an entire classroom

Oh... if you ever find yourself in the position of having to migrate 'shared' folders from one server to another (we're not talking about copying files and folders while keeping the ACL settings here.... no-siree!!!), you could use the Microsoft File Server Migration Tool Kit. You could write a batch file that reads a list of folder names and shared names and let it create them for you via a loop, or you can simply export the following registry key from the source server:-

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSer\
Services\LanmanServer\Shares

... and import it on to the new server! Of course, the folder locations must be the same (in our case, in a folder called Users on the D Drive), but it worked fine, and was a lot quicker to do that any of the 'recommended' ways.

I still think I need a new job though...

This week will involve lots of phonecalls to Frogtrade - the developer of our new Virtual Learning Platform. For the price we paid for it, their technical support has a lot to be desired.