Results!

Work has been long and busy. Due to imminent changes in the handling of Email and internet access for the companies 500 stores nation-wide, (110 of which I manage with about 5 other blokes), we are needing to reconfigure their setup, including the way they handle DNS queries, where they collect Email from, and proxy server settings. That's 110 servers, 300 Email accounts, and 750 machines! Not to mention things like remote VPN access, applications that require Email (to send status reports) or internet access for updates (Antivirus for example). Wowsers. All this has to be done by the deadline of Wednesday or Thursday next week - I forget which.

We've known about this upcoming change for a long time, but we've not done anything about it until now, as we've long been complaining there has been no national standard, and no documentation, on how the setup should be for all 500 stores. That's something the National Office should be doing as part of this project. We refused to migrate until they provided all of us with the NATIONAL, STANDARD configuration they wanted us all to conform to. (Especially given they have for the longest time being complaining that there is no national standard - yet they are the overseeing body for national operations...).

So we finally get some kind of documentation explaining what they are looking for. After nutting it out with them for a few days about things that won't work, etc., we finally have a plan of our own to execute.

Wednesday we dialled into the 60 Active Directory servers we have (60 different sites - each their own domain) and reconfigure their DNS and DHCP settings, as well as any applications using Email. We got through those in about 5 hours - not a bad effort. The other 50 stores (all a workgroup configuration and no local DHCP server) I sent out a VBScript to reconfigure all their local PCs DNS server settings. That would run the following morning when they next logged in.

Thursday morning we prepared and sent out an Email to the almost 300 Email users we manage, telling all those users that they all needed to change their Email settings -- an Email with lots of screenshots, and making it as simple as we possibly could. We even (at my suggestion) went as far as saying "If you click on a button that looks like this: <image of a Microsoft Outlook icon> then you are using Microsoft Outlook -- follow these instructions. If you click on any other icon to access your Email, please contact support".

We still got some 50 calls with people who either didn't use Outlook, or who managed to fuck it up (or just couldn't do it by themselves), but overall it was a good transition. Of course we don't know about those who haven't made the change yet - but as the Email says, their Email is going to stop working soon.

Today has just been continuing with the calls about Email, and I have been feverishly writing a proxy-change VBScript to be sent out to the Workgroup stores Monday night. I also have a Group Policy importer script, which I will be using at the Active Directory stores the same night. I tell you what, scripting is fantastic - it simplifies so many things, and makes 750 machines almost as one.

So in about 4 days of "doing the work", we will have migrated all our 110 stores across to the new proxy, Email and DNS servers - something the other states (managing similar numbers of stores) have been struggling to do for the last 2 months. I heard the Queensland state office were actually driving out to every store to do the configuration changes. Ouch. Especially given half their stores must be in some of the remotest parts of the country, and would take hours of driving to get to.

So that’s the working week in a nutshell. Enough about work though.

I got my results!!!

Semester 1, 2005:
CSE1201 (Computer Systems) - 84% (High Distinction)
CSE1203 (OO Programming in Java) - 89% (High Distinction)

I'm rather pleased about the first one; I wanted to get a HD if I could, and I managed to! Yay! The exam could have been an absolute bitch too - there is so much material we covered, but thankfully they told us what we needed to know for the exam.

The Java Programming though I am not so happy about. I worked my arse off on that subject, and AFAIK, I got 3 100% marks out of 4 assignments (one of them the major programming tasks -- the 4th assignment I am assuming I got 4.5 out of 5 possible marks, or 90%). I also (know) I got 97.5% on the unit test. Which, if that's all correct, I must have got < 90% on the exam somehow - which I can't understand. I knew how to do the exam; I finished it in 30 minutes! I had a week to study and practice the exam question too... where did I go wrong?

So I've sent off an Email to the university asking how I query my exam/subject marks - I'm going to follow it up. Sure, 89% is nothing to baulk at, but I want what I worked to achieve - and I want my > 90% I believe I should have got - or they can tell me why I shouldn't get those marks. Either way.

I have been going through my MP3's and deleting ones I don't like - I think I have gotten rid of about 400 so far; given I started with 750, that's over half my collection. (And I'm still going).

Apart from that, I am trying to save up for a trip to Bali about Jan/Feb next year. It will be VERY hot over there at that stage (40+ centigrade I'm guessing), and I know my body doesn't like the heat, but it's something to aim for anyway. If I can afford it, I will definitely be going somewhere... The Canadian Rockies are so calling my name, but I won't be able to afford to travel that far again for a while =(.

New starter at work on Monday; he sounds like a very straight backed, and extremely intelligent person. We will have to convert him to our ways of humour and stupidity... He's a young Indian boy; and already the jokes are coming out (in fun/jest - certainly not meant to demean or separate him). I seriously hope he doesn't mind - working with us is generally an .. interesting experience. Crude, bad, and politically incorrect jokes abound in our area of the office. As do balls and other things you can throw around an office space. (Not to mention name calling and various other stuff). It's all good fun - helps to relieve the stress. So yeah, I hope he fits in and doesn't feel excluded or left out by it.

Other miscellaneous things going on; going to a lunch with the family at my Aunties on Sunday, will try and get a haircut this weekend (badly need one), also need to clean the house - its a bachelor pad at the moment, and I hate it like that. Need to go shopping, and in amongst that I am going to try and relax. This sounds like a good idea right now... I'm off.