Long due update

Hello everyone,

Been a while, and I actually have a lot to talk about! Well, onward with the show.

So, I've finished my fall semester with a 4.0 gpa, pretty fun stuff, I guess I could write my CCNA exam if I wanted to, I think I'll wait until the end of this semester though. Furthermore, Linux is becoming more and more interesting as my time in the class moves forwards, I'm learning about how to set up apache servers and bind9 among other things. I've already mentioned splunk, but the tool is just amazing, it's helped me figure out how to fix some of the more egregious errors on my server and has provided a good benchmark for what should be happening on a daily basis and what's completely out of ordinary. I would also like to mention that sharepoint is quite evil, there are so many things about it that make my head spin and just make me wish for something else. But, off of the bad stuff and onto the good. This semester has been quite entertaining, learning the advanced stuff in the Cisco curriculum, trying to make time to read some of my apple stuff and also trying to find a way to make my server log less.

On to other things, it was my birthday on February 3rd and I was pleasantly surprised to receive a tea set and an iTunes gift card, I bought an app called sparrow, it is amazing, it makes me revel in the minimalism of the design and wish that apple took some refreshers in UI design. I also started using dropbox, and I can't quite stop using it now. I don't have to bring a USB key around (unless there is no Internet in that area). I'm thinking of buying an SSH app for my iPod/iPad. I fully recommend dropbox to anyone who is sick of carrying USB keys around, you can just install it on your computers that you want files synced and drop the file into a folder, SHAZAM they're synced. If you want dropbox, go here To Dropbox.

So, Netflix has been ruining some of my free time, I've been watching all of the anime's that I haven't had the time to find or drive to watch at the time. I highly recommend one called Mushi-shi. It's also given me the opportunity to watch all of the movies I haven't seen yet wanted to. If there is a movie you want to recommend go ahead and send one in.

So our Xbox 360 broke down a while ago, so we bought one over Christmas, no problems so far, got Alan wake and Forza Motorsport 3, haven't played either of them, but their on the list. Oh, by the way, I am completely psyched for the next elder scrolls game, i loved oblivion and this one only looks like a sizable improvement.

Finally, the issue of Usage based billing, I am completely against the imposition of limits upon my Internet use. I am not an expert on the issue, but I am knowledgeable on the underlying concepts network usage and consumption and find claims by the major cable companies and telcos to be outrageous and only for the benefit of increased profit and not the end user who doesn't use that much in terms of bandwidth, but to put it in perspective, your computer is always on, always transmitting data back and forth, and that would contribute towards your cap, even worse is when you do an upgrade on your computer at home, not everyone has a software update server, or windows update server to download and redistribute updates to their home computers, which means that you will download updates for every computer in your house, which means that there is a chance that the telecoms and cable companies are making money on keeping your computer and all of the software in it up to date. I would suggest going to StopTheMeter.ca to learn more.

My landing page is on the way, I've been procrastinating too much on it and I'm going to get on it in the near future.

Thanks for listening,

Shaun.