But it was really fun. First because we four were a quite good team Most things worked out as planned. So we’ve got our job done in a timely fashion. But the really exciting and fun part was pushed from our main host, the Assistant of the Managing Director of our factory. She was so helpful and kind and showed us a lot of the city. Thanks again Parisa J

I think we’ve got a really good impression of this city and Iran itself. And honestly, don’t believe everything you read in the newspaper or hear on TV about Iran. As every time you should get an impression by yourself and after that make create your opinion. For me this journey was eye-opening, because I personally had a wrong impression before.

I hope I can visit this city and especially the whole country again in future.

You can find some pictures we took here.

_Hans

So after you bought a couple of harddisks you would have enough space to store all your files. But do you ever invested a thought to a Backup? Of course, modern hard disks would live longer than they are used, but we all know Murphy’s Law’s. So never trust too much in technology

After thinking about some possibilities i ended with the “Cloud-Solution” I mean storing all my data on a the storages of a company anywhere in the world has a couple of advantages:

• Easy sync of local data (rsync, FTP, Webdav…)
• Your data is also available when you’re abbroach
• If a real big disaster occur to you equipment (got stolen, fire, water, whatever) you still have it available
• You haven’t care about the data handling
• No additional hard disks which lay around your desk
• If you’re creative enough you’ll find some more

But the most Cloud-Storage provider were too expensive for my little private budget After some searching i’ve found Online Storage Solution http://www.onlinestoragesolution.com/

They provide unlimited online storage for just 19$ per year. Yes, it’s an ANNUAL FEE.

So I’ve ordered an account to try it out and since about an month i’m an happy customer. Some features of this provider:

• Unlimited Storage
• Accessible per Web-Interface, rsync, FTP, WebDAV and CIFS
• Unlimited Sub-Users which can be manged by yourself

I’ve currently about 1TB online and still no troubles Also the bandwidth is OK. I’m getting an average of 5MByte/s (40MBit/s) from US or from Europe.

Some of you may think that there won’t be support if you really need it. But i had troubles a week ago accessing my data. When i’ve logged on i’ve just saw an empty directory . But after sending a mail i’ve got my first response within 15Minutes (just think about the time difference between US and Europe). After about 45Minutes the problem was solved and i’ve got my data back

The most data for the “initial sync” was uploaded with the internet connection of my company (100MBit up/down) via WebDAV. I use BitKinex (http://www.bitkinex.com/) for that job. It’s and freeware FTP, SFTP and WebDav client. You can easily create jobs or queues, automatically syncs and stuff like that. And it’s really stable, so it’s handles 50GB uploads easily

It’s also possible to access your account with different protocols at the same time. So I’m normally have an rsync running from my home Alix-Board (where my external hard disks are attached) and upload some large files (like Movies or ISO’s) from another connection.

I’ve googled a little bit about the company and the most opinions where quite bad. Maybe this service was bad in the past. But i’m quite happy with it. Specially for this price

So in my opinion, if you need a backup of your data, give them a try. I haven’t another service which offers unlimited storage for this little price. And if you don’t trust them, you can still encrypt your data and upload it then

A couple of days ago Anno 1404 was released. That’s the only game-series i was ever addicted to. Starting with Anno 1602 in 1999 i think that games faszinated me. I’m a friend of this kind of stratetic games. So i played a couple of hours the last days. If you like such games i can really propose it. OK, it’s not a big change since the last one, Anno 1701. But if you’re also an ANNOholic like me you must have this game

-Hans

But of course, that was just the first step. My goal is of course the MCITP (Microsoft Certified IT Professional) for W2008. Currently i can’t say which exact track i will choose. But the next exam will be the 70-640 (Windows Server 2008 Active Directory, Configuring).

For all those which are interested in my ‘training methods’. Hmm, it’s quite boring: Lot of reading (in official MS-Press and others), playing around in VM-Labs and that’s it

So, the last comment before i’ll go to bed: In my opinion the exams are much more harder than to the glory W2000-Times. But that’s a good way. Now you really have to understand that stuff. I don’t think boot camps or such ’1-week-crash-course’ are the right way. Because maybe you’ll pass the exam, but when you never really understood that material, you won’t be successful in your job when you have to use the knowledge. I’m a fan of reading, trying, understanding Just my 2 cents.

Wish you a good night

BTW: This was the first blog-post with MS Word 2007. Cool stuff