Sudar Blogs: My Certification Experiences

A record of my experiences with certifications. Starting with BrainBench, moving on to Microsoft (MCP, MCDBA, MCAD) and … surely one day with Sun (SCJP), together with things I come across my day to day life.

Note: This blog has been moved to http://SudarMuthu.com/blog/

Sunday, August 28, 2005

My Own Google Page

Hi,

Due to my enormous presence in the online world, Google has decided to dedicate a separate home page for me. You can check it out in the following url http://www.GoogleMyWay.com/

With Regards, Sudar

PS: If the geek with in you is still wondering, ask him to check out the url

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Wednesday, August 24, 2005

Google Talk released

I opened my aggregator (Bloglines) today and found out from Mark Jen that Google is going to release their IM Google Talk today.

I am one of those who have been waiting for this day. I went to the Google Talk site and downloaded it and installed it. The interface looks very thin and sleek and it supports both text and voice. (But yet to test it as none of friends have downloaded it yet)

And when I was looking around the interface I clicked the about box and it had the usual copy right notice and below that I found this text Play 23 21 13 16 21 19 . 7 1 12 5 and I was breaking my head to find out what they mean by it. Then only I found that I was the only one do so.

Asa has a nice guess for this and gives an explanation in his blog. If any one else has a better guess do leave a comment and also let me know about your experience with Google Talk.

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Sunday, August 21, 2005

Free ASP.NET training from Microsoft eLearning

If you are looking for some ASP.NET training or course, then there is some good news for you. Microsoft eLearning is offering 17 hours of hands-on ASP.NET training for free. (yes)
Here is the quote from the website Are you looking to learn to create ASP.NET Web applications with Visual Studio.NET? If so now is your chance to get 17 hours of hands-on ASP.NET training for free from Microsoft Learning. For a limited time only, Microsoft Learning is offering Developing Microsoft ASP.NET Web Applications with Visual Studio.NET, a 17-hour self-paced online training course, for free ($349.00 value).
I think the offer is valid for a short time only. So if you are interested then hurry up. To Yuvi: Are you reading this..?
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Thursday, August 18, 2005

Features that I want in Blogger

Improbulus wrote in her blog that Google is conducting a survey for users of Blogger. And I went to my dashboard and followed the link to give up my feedback. There were some questions like how long have been using blogger, how frequently you have been using it etc.

After that they asked for the features that I want to be implemented in Blogger. I thought posting my answer here so that we can discuss about the different features.

So here is my list of features that I want in Blogger (in no particular order)

  • Reduce Spam
  • Better support for editing posts.
  • Support for classifying posts into different Categories.
  • Trackback support.
  • RSS Feed for comments.
  • ‘Blogger tags’ for displaying the total number of comments and trackbacks.
  • Ability to keep track of the comments that I have posted in other Blogger blogs (you can list the comments that I have made in my dashboard).
  • Email notification of other peoples comments on blogs in which I have commented.
  • Ability to add an ‘about me’ page.
  • Custom Index page (the first page that comes up when we type the blog url).

So guys what you say? If you feel that I have missed out some, leave me a comment I will add it up here.

It seems that one of my feature requests is answered. Google has released a Blogger for Word toolbar. I have just downloaded it and it works great. This post is posted from my Microsoft Word itself ;)

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Monday, August 15, 2005

College Get together

This weekend, we had a college get together and it was really nice to meet all my friends after about 18 months. Each one had an interesting story to share. It was a great feeling to find out that all my college friends are really doing well. Thanks KK and Arun for making it a great success. I have uploaded some photos in Flickr. You can check them out at http://flickr.com/photos/sudarmuthu/sets/756559/
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Happy Independence Day

Wishing all a Happy Independence Day. Read about the Indian independence movement on Wikipedia.
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Saturday, August 13, 2005

Technorati to be sold

BL Ochman is reporting a rumor, that Technorati is available for sale. Any one who is watching blogsphere for some time would have easily guessed as the long standing question 'What is Technorati's bussiness model?' is still unanswered. So eventually it is expected to be brought by some big company. Robert Scoble the-talkative-but-silent-recently-microsoft blogger also reports it and says that if he would have had access to cash then he would have brought it. BL Ochman's guess is that it would be brought by Yahoo. But I feel that Google would be more interested in buying Technorati rather than Yahoo. Recently there have been lot of speculation about Google's SandBox effect which prevents new sites from showing up in Google's search result and lot of people were discussing about the non-real-time-result of Google and near-real-time-result of Technorati. So my guess is that it Technorati would be brought by Google. What do u say guys..? Update: This appears to be just a gulp of Google Juice. Technorati is still owned by David Sifry
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Wednesday, August 10, 2005

New MCP exam 70-089 for MCSE

Microsoft is releasing a new MCP exam for Systems Management Server 2003. The exam name is Planning, Deploying, and Managing Microsoft Systems Management Server 2003 and the exam no is (70-089). The objective guide for this exam shows that Microsoft has designed two courses for this exam. They are
  • 2596: Managing Microsoft Systems Management Server 2003
  • 2597: Planning and Deploying Microsoft Systems Management Server 2003
70-089 will fulfill an elective requirement for the MCSE on Windows 2003 title. It will also count toward Technology Specialist fulfillment under the "new-generation" MCP program. Currently the exam is in beta and the beta ends on Aug - 22. Exam 70-089 is an update to the older 70-086, Systems Management Server 2.0. Those who passed that exam do not need to recertify, as certifications never retire. Since I am not into the MCSE track, I am not going to take it and so can guys into MCSE throw some light about this exam and also about Systems Management Server?
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Tuesday, August 02, 2005

Got on the Broad BANDWagon! Finally

Recently I have had some very bad experience in buying peripherals for my computer.

First it was my USB-IR port (BAFO 120b), which I brought to connect my mobile (Sony Ericsson T630) to my computer using IR. I bought it from a local shop for Rs 550 and when I connected it to my computer it was not recognized by my Window XP operating system. I tried all I could do but it didn’t work. I searched about it in Google and posted about it in various forums but no luck. Finally I gave up and packed it and placed it in my shelf.

Next, I decided to take up broad band connection (Believe me till now I was using only Dial-up Connection). And I selected BSNL Dataone 500, as the plan suited my needs. And regarding the modem, BSNL gave me two options either I can opt for their modem (Huawei SmartAX MT880) or I can buy my own modem. I gave a thought for some time and then decide to get my own modem and I bought a DLink DSL – 502T router / modem for RS 2450.

I was waiting with excitement to use my broadband connection. After about two weeks BSNL approved my request and enabled ADSL for my telephone line. Then came the real problem, I was trying to connect using my modem and it was not able to do that and was getting an error. I called up BSNL and they said that the problem is with my modem and not with their connection and went to the shop (yes still I am buying from a brick-mortar shop and not an e-Shop) from where I brought the modem and asked them to replace it, since I had warranty. They accepted it and gave me a new modem and even that one was giving the same problem for me.

I searched about it in Google and posted about it in various forums and almost every one gave me the same answer, connect the modem, run the wizard and you are through. I have changed almost all the configuration parameters and even then I just couldn’t do it. People from BSNL started saying that I shouldn’t have opted for my own modem and virtually all people with whom I discussed about it started pointing their fingers on me saying that it was my fault (expect my parents). I was in real frustration for about a month and finally decide to get the modem from BSNL itself and I listed my modem in ebay for Rs 2000, but I got a response from only one person who wanted it for just s 1500.

I was at my peak in frustration and something inside me asked me to give just one more try. So I just connected it (thinking that it would be my last time doing this) and the LED’s started to blink and I was staring at the screen and my hand was trying to point my mouse pointer to the shortcut (for my connection) which I have placed in the desktop.

Suddenly my yahoo messenger popped up and was trying to connect and I was trying to close it and to my surprise it got connected, I was not able to believe this because I haven’t clicked on the connection which I have created in my network connection yet. Then I opened firefox and typed Google and WOW! Google’s home page flashed.

Finally I realized that my modem has an in-built PPPoE dialer and there is no need for me to create a connection in network connection. And all these days whenever I switched on my modem it was connected to internet but I didn’t realize it. (How bad!)

My sprits went high after finding out that I have actually made a right decision while buying my modem and now I can prove to all those people who pointed their fingers at me that I did took the right decision.

And after making sure that I am connected the first website which I opened was www.Vinuthomas.com , the forum in which I was posting my query and I found that a person named Ashok who was helping me all these days and suggesting me all the possible combinations for configuring my modem has posted a reply to my post saying that my modem doesn’t need a connection to be created in Control Panel. Thanks Ashok.

And then I cancelled my ebay listing for my modem and told my parents about it. Even they shared my excitement and finally even I got on the Broad BANDWagon!

This has some how given me the confidence and energy to start fiddling with my USB-IR port and I will post my experience if I succeed in that too..

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