OK, I know I've been talking about ITIL for a while now. Specifically I've been talking about taking the Foundation certification exam. Well, I decided that enough is enough, so I stopped procrastinating, pulled out my credit card, slapped 165 bucks on it and scheduled my test today.
I find that actually putting my money on the table motivates me to get things done. So, I'm going to finally finish up my CBT and go get certified. After 17 years in IT, I feel pretty confident I'll get it done the first time out.
Friday, May 15, 2009
Friday, May 8, 2009
Took The Gateway Back
Did you ever make one of those decisions where you just knew it wasn't a good idea but you convince yourself that it was OK and did it anyway? Well, the Gateway was one of those decisions. It's not that the computer was bad, on the contrary, it was actually very nice for the price and specifications. But I returned it.
Why you ask? Because upon further reflection, it wasn't what I really wanted. What I really want is a Dell XPS and Mini 12. Now, the price for these two systems is considerably more than the Gateway, a price I'm certainly not willing to pay at this particular moment in life, but that I'm sure I'll be able to do in the very near future.
Why you ask? Because upon further reflection, it wasn't what I really wanted. What I really want is a Dell XPS and Mini 12. Now, the price for these two systems is considerably more than the Gateway, a price I'm certainly not willing to pay at this particular moment in life, but that I'm sure I'll be able to do in the very near future.
Monday, May 4, 2009
Bought a New Computer Today
OK. Any of you who have read my blog in the past will think this is pretty funny. Today was my last day at where I was working as their VP of Network Operations. I won't go into the details except to say that we had a parting of ways that's kind of been coming for the past several months.
Now, as part of my employment at the company I had access to a lot of computer equipment, all of which now must be returned to the company, which left me without a computer. So, I went computer shopping. At first I was thinking about a Toshiba L305 laptop for around $500. But the store didn't have them in stock, so I headed on down to Fry's Electronics to see what kind of deals they had going on.
To my surprise, they were running a "Manager's Special" on the Gateway T-6345u laptop. Now, I know I mouthed off about Gateway a few months back, but I've always kind of liked their computers. And for $450, this was a pretty darn good deal.
The system specs:
- Intel T 3400 2.16GHz processor
- 2 GB DDR2 RAM
- 250 GB HDD
- Intel Wireless NIC
- Windows Vista Premium
That's pretty descent specs for $450! So, I bought it right away. Now, I know what you're thinking "Gary, you just left your job, how can you go buy a computer?" Well, I can sum it up for you in one word: Volume. :)
No seriously, I left with a pretty darn good package, and I have some good savings, so it's all good. Besides, I have to have a computer, otherwise I'd be a computer guy without a computer. And we all know how tragic that would be.
Now, as part of my employment at the company I had access to a lot of computer equipment, all of which now must be returned to the company, which left me without a computer. So, I went computer shopping. At first I was thinking about a Toshiba L305 laptop for around $500. But the store didn't have them in stock, so I headed on down to Fry's Electronics to see what kind of deals they had going on.
To my surprise, they were running a "Manager's Special" on the Gateway T-6345u laptop. Now, I know I mouthed off about Gateway a few months back, but I've always kind of liked their computers. And for $450, this was a pretty darn good deal.
The system specs:
- Intel T 3400 2.16GHz processor
- 2 GB DDR2 RAM
- 250 GB HDD
- Intel Wireless NIC
- Windows Vista Premium
That's pretty descent specs for $450! So, I bought it right away. Now, I know what you're thinking "Gary, you just left your job, how can you go buy a computer?" Well, I can sum it up for you in one word: Volume. :)
No seriously, I left with a pretty darn good package, and I have some good savings, so it's all good. Besides, I have to have a computer, otherwise I'd be a computer guy without a computer. And we all know how tragic that would be.
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Thursday, October 9, 2008
Happy Birthday To My Blog
Today marks the 1 year anniversary of the Gary Drumm blog. It's been an exciting year. The blog has had over 9100 views, currently has 3 Feedburner subscribers, and I've published 85 posts, about one post every 4 days on average. Not too bad for a guy who isn't a professional writer.
At any rate, happy birthday blog!
At any rate, happy birthday blog!
Monday, September 15, 2008
Cool Stuff in Google Chrome
OK, so if you've been on the Internet for longer than a month, you're probably aware that Google recently released it's own browser called Google Chrome. It's a pretty slick browser with some nice features.
Of course it has tabs, and processes flash files for YouTube, but one of the coolest features is the element inspector. If you're a geek, like me, you like to see what's going on under the hood and the element inspector gives you that information at a glance.
To access it, simply right click on a blank space within your web page and select... (wait for it...) Inspect element (difficult, I know). You're presented with a sort of "debug" screen that shows you the different code elements behind the page you're loading.
Still another cool feature is the Task Manager. In the upper right hand corner you'll find a sheet icon with a down arrow. Click the down arrow and go to Developer then select Task Manager (or, for you keyboard people, just press shift+esc). This brings up a task manager specific to the Chrome browser and comes in VERY handy when you have a web page that craps out on you.
Just launch the Task Manager (in Chrome), select the offending page, then press "frapee", (or End Task, to all you non-geeks). It kills the offending page/site, without crashing your entire session, something Microsoft hasn't quite figured out yet.
Lastly, under this same window, there's the Stats for Nerds. A cool little page that shows you statistics on memory usage and processes, as they relate to your web browsing. Wanna see how much pork is in that home made sausage video you're watching on YouTube? This is where you can find out.
So, I'd higly recommend giving Chrome a try. It's not quite ready for prime time, with a few minor bugs that still need to be ironed out, but it us a fun browser and I think it's going to have a dramatic impact on Microsoft and Firefox's future designs.
Of course it has tabs, and processes flash files for YouTube, but one of the coolest features is the element inspector. If you're a geek, like me, you like to see what's going on under the hood and the element inspector gives you that information at a glance.
To access it, simply right click on a blank space within your web page and select... (wait for it...) Inspect element (difficult, I know). You're presented with a sort of "debug" screen that shows you the different code elements behind the page you're loading.
Still another cool feature is the Task Manager. In the upper right hand corner you'll find a sheet icon with a down arrow. Click the down arrow and go to Developer then select Task Manager (or, for you keyboard people, just press shift+esc). This brings up a task manager specific to the Chrome browser and comes in VERY handy when you have a web page that craps out on you.
Just launch the Task Manager (in Chrome), select the offending page, then press "frapee", (or End Task, to all you non-geeks). It kills the offending page/site, without crashing your entire session, something Microsoft hasn't quite figured out yet.
Lastly, under this same window, there's the Stats for Nerds. A cool little page that shows you statistics on memory usage and processes, as they relate to your web browsing. Wanna see how much pork is in that home made sausage video you're watching on YouTube? This is where you can find out.
So, I'd higly recommend giving Chrome a try. It's not quite ready for prime time, with a few minor bugs that still need to be ironed out, but it us a fun browser and I think it's going to have a dramatic impact on Microsoft and Firefox's future designs.
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
Expandablog - Growing the Gary Drumm Blog Community
OK, I wanted to announce to all my loyal readers that I'm now using FeedBurner to manage subscriptions. If you've already subscribed, please cancel your previous subscription and add this new feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/garydrumm.
This change will do a few things: 1. It will give me a better count of my subscribers. 2. It will give me insight into which articles are being read, allowing me to more effectively focus my writing to topics you, my readers, are interested in. 3. It gives me access to some great promotional tools, which will help me grow the blog and it's redaership.
While you certainly don't have to change your feed settings, I would greatly appreciate it.
In other news, next week begins my "Daily Posting Initiative". Every week day I'll bring you my thoughts and ideas on the tech news of the day, management, project management, etc.
Lastly, I'm going to launch an official "garydrumm.com" website where I will post more in-depth articles, book reviews, and other items in support of this blog, as well as tying in a YouTube channel that I am creating specifically for tech projects and videos.
So here we go. This should be fun...
This change will do a few things: 1. It will give me a better count of my subscribers. 2. It will give me insight into which articles are being read, allowing me to more effectively focus my writing to topics you, my readers, are interested in. 3. It gives me access to some great promotional tools, which will help me grow the blog and it's redaership.
While you certainly don't have to change your feed settings, I would greatly appreciate it.
In other news, next week begins my "Daily Posting Initiative". Every week day I'll bring you my thoughts and ideas on the tech news of the day, management, project management, etc.
Lastly, I'm going to launch an official "garydrumm.com" website where I will post more in-depth articles, book reviews, and other items in support of this blog, as well as tying in a YouTube channel that I am creating specifically for tech projects and videos.
So here we go. This should be fun...
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