So it looks like I won’t be taking any Microsoft exams after all! Well, I won’t be doing the course like I did last time, as there wasn’t enough interest in it for them to do the course! I may get the material from the internet, study in my own time, and then go somewhere to take the exam, but with work wanting more of my time, and university starting next week, I’m not sure what time I’ll have!

Speaking of which, I enrolled last week for university again. If you didn’t know, I’m at Queen’s University in Belfast, studying Computer Science. This would be my final year, but I’m becoming a part-time student, and only completing half of my course this year, working for a full-year, then returning in February 2010 to complete the course and (hopefully!) graduate in June.

And with all that going on, plus a trip to Donegal at the weekend for surfing, I haven’t had much time for gaming. I still need to pick up The Force Unleashed, and finish off about a dozen games! Any recent playtime has involved Mercenaries 2 (which is a lot of fun) and not much else! Maybe getting into a few challenges on 360voice can give me the motivation I need. That and the completion challenge some of the guys from over there (including myself) have going on!

I’d also like some free time to do more personal coding and computer stuff (read: geekathon!) like virtualize my laptop and more fun API based tools. Maybe work will slow and university will be easy….yeah, right! Anyone come up with a method to stretch the 24 hours in a day to 40?

I received an e-mail yesterday saying that my MCP qualification would be expiring next year. I attained my MCP in Windows Form applications in June 2007, but I was unable to return last year (due to work commitments) to complete 2 more exams to be an M(icrosoft) C(ertified) A(pplication) D(eveloper). Now I’m faced with either returning to finish my exams and become MCAD, and then sit one or two more ‘upgrade’ exams to change from MCAD to MCPD, or else start the MCPD course from scratch for another 2 years.

Currently talking it over with the course administrators to see what they suggest…but either way, MS certainly knows how to make money from certification, lol!

I’ve been dabbling with virtualization for a little while now. My brief history is that I started using it officially when sitting my first MCP exam, and used Microsoft Virtual PC in my class. Then, when I got my new laptop, I decided the ‘modern’ thing to do would be to take a virtual image (using VMWare Converter) of my old laptop, and run it on my new laptop if I later discovered I needed a file or something.

Last weekend I was introduced to hard disk corruption of the worst kind (that I personally have ever seen) and Vista just wouldn’t start. To cut a long story short, after 4 days of fighting to get it working, as I prepared to reinstall the operating system it just started…without complaint! Ever since then I’ve had no troubles (touch wood!) but it got me thinking as to how bad I am for a personal disaster recovery. If my laptop was to go down I’d have a little backup of my most important files, but the things I would lose and miss the most would be my program settings, and having to go through all that again! Thus I had a brainwave, and after much research I have discovered the best solution for my problem.

I have installed Ubuntu 8.04 on my laptop, and installed VMWare workstation for Linux on there. Now, my machines (so far just my Vista machine) are virtualized on it in nice virtual files. I just run them, and I’m up and running in my normal environment. I take a backup of that file, and I can restore my machine very easily, onto any physical computer with great ease! I’m getting with the times and the technology behind this is simply amazing!

So far there’s been no major issues (again, touch wood!) and I look forward to completely changing over to virtual machines.

If anyone has any tips on using virtual machines as your primary machines, or needs advice on installing VMWare Workstation on Ubuntu, leave your comments.

Couple of new updates I applied to the blog, just to let you know.

• I installed a new stats plugin to keep an eye on various statistics about the blog (visits, comments, etc.). I had been using StatCounter, and continue to do so (as they’re really good!) but the free log they give allows up to 500 entries, and that was filled a long time ago. I figured that if this stats plugin can give me the same info, but unlimited entries, then I’ll be happy!
• I also activated a plugin I’d installed long ago but never activated, to eliminate comment spam. The reason I hadn’t activated it earlier was that it needed as wordpress.com API key, and I just never acquired one. The stats plugin I wanted needed it 2, so I thought I should do it. You probably never seen comment spam here, but that’s mainly because I try to keep on top of it and kill it before it reaches the posts. Hopefully this plugin will do that job for me!
• Lastly, I upgraded a PHP plugin I had installed to the latest version, though I’m pretty sure I’ve never actually used the plugin in the live blog. Maybe someday… While I was at it, I upgraded the blog from Wordpress 2.6 to 2.6.1. Not sure what’s new but I’m yet to see anything myself!

That’s all for now!

OK folks, it’s been a long time coming, and the results are in…

So it appears I was right all along…I am a gamer inside! This all stemmed from GamerDNA (the parent company of on of my all-time favourite websites, 360voice) and the fact that they want to show each gamer exactly what makes up their gaming style. They have developed a series of quizzes, on various types of gaming, that all-in-all tries to show you what type of gamer you truly are.

Enough talking for now though. If you haven’t been there and signed up and yada-yada, get on over their, and you too can have a cool looking GamerDNA profile like mine. Then, fill in the quizzes and get your GamerDNA worked out. Plus, if you visit my profile and then sign up from that page, I get ‘respect’, which you’ll come to understand when you get there, lol!

I’m really hoping this site grows and grows. It’s a recent startup and initially things are looking great. 360voice gave xbox 360’s everywhere their own voice. Now GamerDNA shows gamers their true DNA makeup. Whatever next?

If you want to see more detailed results of my tests, have a look here…or below:

Decades of Influence - Not sure why I got 1970’s (when I was born in 1987?!) but I guess I just have always been a bit retro, lol!

FPS - Shock Trooper! I like the sound of it…

RTS Multiplayer - A rusher. It’s like the Shock Trooper of the RTS genre I guess, lol! My main (read: only) RTS history has been Starcraft and C&C: Red Alert…and I guess in both those games I didn’t really like waiting around. Start, build army quickly, invade, fail, rinse, repeat…

Bartle Gamer Psychology - An explorer, eh? I guess this actually sits quite well with me. One of my favourite genres has always been sandbox, and what better way to explore than in a Sandbox environment. Killer was joint top in this one, and I guess that fits with my other favourite genre of FPS. Accurate results indeed!

Since I haven’t posted in quite some time I thought I’d put up a quick update of all the things that have been going on. Maybe it will help explain why…

• Since my last post about toothache I’ve been to the dentist 3 more times. Firstly to get a filing, then again to get it fixed after it hurt like hell, and then again to get it removed and filled properly, as well as another one! My teeth are not good, lol!
• I’ve also been to Marbella in Spain on holiday for 2 weeks with my girlfriend. We had a great time and we stayed with my dad (who lives there) in his new apartment. It’s really nice and the complex has 3 outdoor swimming pools, one indoor swimming pool, full spa (2 jacuzzi baths, jet powered water areas, steam room and sauna), and a gym. It was VERY relaxing!
• I’m back to work today for the first time since my holiday and I fly to England tomorrow for 10 days. While there I’ll be clearing out the apartment I have been staying in as my contract over there is ending as I prepare to go back to university at the end of September.

So as you can see I’ve been very busy, and will be for the rest of the month. It’s been the first time in a while that I’ve been ‘offline’ for so long and it started to feel strange. I was on the internet for a couple of days during my trip but nowhere near my usual amount. I’m slowly getting back into routine with work, and starting to post over at 360voice a bit too.

I also want to get a few of the API projects I’ve been working on, moved on a little. My main target is to get my watcher tool to accept other people’s alternate accounts. While away I had a brainwave about how to do a lot of the API caching that I haven’t been doing, so if I can get my existing projects using that I’ll be happy too!

I also want to start a couple of smaller projects that I’ve had in mind, but I doubt that will be done for another couple of months. My brain is full of ideas, I just don’t have the time to spend on them! =(

Yesterday, while driving home from work, I had a sharp pain in my mouth. This continued until I got home, getting worse with every second. I had never experienced toothache before, and I can now say it is not pleasant at all!

The pain only got worse, up to the stage where it was just painful to open my mouth to breathe! I got myself doped up on painkillers, and the only thing that was really annoying me about it was that I couldn’t eat. So, I continued to suffer the pain, suck down painkillers, and get hungry until bedtime. I thought sleeping would be tough but I took enough tablets before bed to knock me out until 8am, lol! I woke up feeling much better, but knew I had to get it sorted. After calling several (if not all the) dental practices in my town, I finally got an appointment made for 4pm. Over 4 hours later I sit in the airport, mouth finally no longer numb, and look back on the past 24 hours. They weren’t pleasant but it has taught me a lesson…look after your teeth!

Well, I finally got word that my xbox has arrived back, all well and better. It arrived on Tuesday, and considering I only sent it off on the 20th June, that’s a quite impressive 11 days turnaround. I expected it to take much longer!

I’ll be back with it tonight, so might get testing it out then or tomorrow, to see exactly what they’ve fixed and what they haven’t. I also took a note of my old serial number, to see if they’ve sent me a replacement or fixed mine. I’m hoping for an HDMI replacement but I doubt it!

Anyway, I can say for certain that I am happy with the turnaround time. Whether I’m happy with what they have done however, remains to be seen!

Finally, I can let everyone know that I’m the latest 3VCE over at 360voice. Check out the announcement here, and if you don’t know what a 3VCE is, have a look here. I’m very pleased to be given this title, and I love the forums over there so, as you can probably tell, I’m both very happy and excited.

Thanks to those who helped me get there, and to ChangeAgent, Fatty Chubs and Squidpunch for keeping the place awesome. It seriously rocks over there! =D

This actually happened at the end of last week but I’ve been quite busy and haven’t had a chance to update this. I’ve also been thinking about changing my blog a little, maybe splitting up the topics so that there’s more useful information on it…but I’ll come to that later!

Ok, so in my last post, I talked about MS Xbox Support, and how great they were being. I finished by mentioning that I was planning a little ‘trickery’ so that I could ship my box from one place, and have them send it back to another, which would also sort a little problem out for me! Well, the day before I was due to fly home (where I wanted them to send it back to) from England (where I work, and the place I wanted them to pick it up) my mother called to say a man from UPS had arrived to pick up an xbox. I was very confused, as I had been told by the customer service agent, both in an e-mail and on the phone, that he would send me a label and I would arrange the collection. Apparently they were also sending a man with the label, who would put it on the box and take it from me…he left that bit out! So, it turned out THEY were deciding where it would be picked up, not me! Confused as to what to do, I thought I could always bring the xbox home in my suitcase, and send it off from home. That way, it would arrive back where I want it, and I’d rather do my side of the transportation before it got repaired, rather than after. In other words, if I broke it during transit…they’d be repairing it anyway!

So now, the box is in Germany (I think!?) and it has been received at the service centre. Hopefully it will be on it’s way back shortly…though I don’t really care when as I have 2 consoles and it’s only going to my girlfriend’s brother anyway, and he’s going ot be on holiday for 3 weeks!

And now for something completely different (I was watching Monty Python last night…if you’ve seen that you might get what I mean )…

I was thinking this morning about my blog and how I do have a decent number of readers. Not as many as I would like, but not nobody! I thought about making it *sparkle* more before, but I think I may have got an idea that, frankly, I’m surprised I hadn’t looked at it this way before. When I read another blog, what do I want to read… I’m guessing that’s what you also want to read. Would I like to read all about somebody else? Not really…well, not unless I have reason to! Mainly, I read something about an interest of mine, and that then makes me think “I wonder who wrote this”…that’s where personal blogs come into it!

I’m thinking about splitting my blog up into multiple blogs, or at least sections. I haven’t looked at how Wordpress allows for this yet, but I’m sure I’ll find a way to do it. I figure if I have sections where I write about games, programming, news, etc. then that way, people will be reading about things they want to. Then, I’ll also keep this personal aspect to it, as a sideline. As I said, not sure how to do it, but I’m sure it’s possible. Keep an eye out for changes, and if you see anything you like or don’t like, let me know!