Justin's Blog

July 31, 2004

Enterprise Architecture chapter is up

I finally finished the Enterprise Architecture chapter today. I could have written a much larger chapter than the 25 pages I submitted as it is such a large subject. Half the chapter was dedicated to the theory and my experience with Linux in this space, and the other half was about Enterprise hardware, SAN and DR scenarios. A bit thin, but hopefully will give the readers food for thought rather than just a pure technical book. The AR process is going to be long and hard I think as Roger and I are new to the writing a book thing. We are not too worried about that as we both want a good, solid book about Linux, which we both feel has been sorely missed so far. Hoe many books can your read about the installation process for RedHat for God's sake!

The Wiley site now has a picture of the front cover, with Roger's and my name on it, so that is quite nice.

If I do not say it in the future, I really do need to thank:

Lenz Grimmer - TE
Henne Vogelsang - TE
Paul Weinstein - Apache chapter

Debra Williams - Open Source editor at Wiley
Kevin Kent - Our editor

Master and Commander

While Aimee was on her second hen night, I ordered Master and Commander from Sky PPV. I really did not have high expectations about the film because of Russell Crowe, but as usual, and I hate to say this, he was fantastic, as was the film itself.

The cinematography was truly breathtaking, as were the visual effects. Some day for night shots were a bit scrappy, but on the whole, VFX was great.

I highly recommend you to see this film if you haven't. It really is a great piece of cinema.

July 23, 2004

Firewalls chapter is up

I have finally completed the firewalls chapter of the book, that just leaves Enterprise Architecture and SLOX to do and I have finished before Author Review happens before the wedding.

I have had severe writers block (I did think it was a fictitious statement by lovies before) for the past two weeks, but I managed to finish it last night.

Mike Armstrong is reviewing it for me at the moment, so hopefully it will be ok.

July 22, 2004

Bang goes the degree!

Well, with the wedding and the Wiley book to finish, I have had to drop my degree course for another year, which is annoying seeing as I was getting 90% marks in my coursework. In the same vein, I also cannot carry on fencing as I have to travel with work a lot and I cannot guarantee I can be in London for 7:30 anymore. I may, after the wedding look into getting private tuition so that I can actually dictate to a degree when the lesson takes place.

It is also AImee's Hen night with people from Cinesite, I hope she has a good time!

Income Tax

I just had to endure the pain of filing my tax return for the IR today. Just because I did some freelance consulting two years ago I now have to fill in a Tax Return every year, and it is horrible. It means I have to keep every piece of paper relating to tax that I receive.

Damnit!

July 21, 2004

Stag party is over

Well, most of us caught the flight on Friday morning, although Mike left his passport in Surrey and had to get a later flight, muppet. Oh yes, and James overslept so had to get a later flight from East Midlands.

We arrived in Amsterdam and "relaxed" a bit before meeting up with Mike and James in the Old Sailor pub.

The weekend was amazing and we had T-Shirts printed up with our stag names (apparently I looked like Ted Danson, so that was mine!) and we had a great time in the coffee shops, I think!

We kept on taking the michael out of the ladies who frequent the red light district by making them think we wanted some quality time with them, but as far as I know, nobody actually took them up on the offer (although at some point during the weekend, all people were away from the group for at least half an hour, so you never know).

We went to the Banana Bar and Moulin Rouge, which was, ahem interesting, especially as I was the stag.

Photos of the weekend are in the gallery.

It worked

Wow, ecto actually works!!! Try it out (there is a client for MS too, blurgh!).

Trying out ecto

I am tired of having to login to MT over the web and am currently testing ecto, an OS X blogging tool that apparently works with MT (we will see if it works in a sec when I post).

Will let you know how I get on...

July 12, 2004

Stag do, raaar!

My stag party in Amsterdam takes off from Gatwick on Friday afternoon, so I am really looking forward to that! Not sure if I will be able to take photos due to incapacitated facilities, but maybe.

4 weeks and I will be married, whoa!

New job

Didn't want to post this till all my customers were aware I had gone, but I have left CSF as I was, well I guess the word is "poached" by SCC (a competitor). I am now the Principal Architect for SCC when it comes to Linux.

SCC is a massive European company that are heavily pushing Linux, and I have been brought on to look after Linux for them, as well as being an Architect (as opposed to a consultant).

I deal with the high level business problems and design solution based on Linux, or with some part of Linux in mind.

They are doing great things, and are 100% (maybe a bit more too) behind Linux, so I am very happy.

July 11, 2004

Congrats James!

Hey James, congratulations on getting into Nottingham man! I used to live in Derby and I know Nottingham is a blast, you will enjoy it alot.

New house

Sitting around the flat today, I realised we need to actually get off our arses and buy a house when we are married. I am sick of living in a place I cannot do anything with.

Apart from the fact that Perivale is a dive, I just don't feel like it is a home and I am starting to get pissed off with it. I have been here for just over three years now, and I just wish I had got on the property ladder when I joined SUSE (about 5 years ago). The equity in a property I would have bought five years ago would be immense.

The only thing we can hope now is that the house prices collapse if we ever want to get a place in London. I do not really want to move out of London to afford a place, but it is looking like the only option at the moment.

Even on the salary I am on, the prospect of buying a place seems to be edging further and further away.

Sort youself out Gordon and do something about the ridiculous house prices in the UK!

Update on the SUSE BIBLE

Well, Aimee is down in Sussex sorting out the final plans for the wedding and I am at home trying to knock out a few chapter of the book. It is 1:30am and I have just finished the DNS chapter. I submitted the LDAP chapter earlier today, so that is two chapters in one day. It must be a record or something!

That leaves about 3 or 4 chapters left for me to do by the 25th of this month before the book goes through Author Review. The wedding is in the 7th of August, so I need to work quickly on it before it all kicks off and I go on honeymoon.