July, 2007

No it is not the end of August yet (sorry all you parents) but it is time to go back to school. I am heading off to Redmond for some in depth training and hands-on labs on Windows Compute Cluster Server, also know as HPC or high performance computing. HPC is a bit of a niche but it is huge in the academic and financial areas. Microsoft is also relatively new to HPC although CCS has been out for a while...

It has been a little quiet around here lately! Too quiet! Why? Well it is summer and even IT Pro Advisors get holidays, but we are also in full planning mode for the next set of tours that are kicking off in September. I heard this little bit from the WWPC and just had to share it! February 27th, 2008 is the worldwide launch date for for Windows Server 2008, SQL Server 2008 and Visual Studio 2008...

We wrapped up Day 1 of the HPC Workshop yesterday and it was been an interesting day learning about the fundamentals of HPC (Linux and Windows) and got to the point where we have each built up our 4 node HPC cluster. I have to say that there are much more difficult things to set up on Windows 2003, after the OS was intstalled, it took about 15 minutes to build the 4 node Compute Cluster Server (CCS...

So Day 2 of the HPC labs is wrapping up. I finally got a chance to actually run some tasks on the cluster I built yesterday. One very cool application I installed and run was Visual Molecular Dynamics (I feel smarter just saying that) which is an OSS application that has been ported to Windows and can take advantage of HPC clusters. You can run it on your desktop too if you want to impress a date....

No matter how tasty they look, keyboard and mice should not be fed to family pets. Nor should they be allowed to be chew toys. Ask poor 'Fluffy' and 'Rover' why. Real mice with little teeth do not interchange easily with the "computer kin". Just don't understand why. Stopped asking after several attempts. Using surplus 5 1/4" platters to make into 6 gig hard drives was a BAD IDEA. (Thank you...

I read a lot of blogs, technology, sports, entertainment and anything else I find interesting. It is how I keep up with what is going on and with people I know. I find blogs to be a great way to find out what the word on the street is as most of the blogs I read are not corporate blogs, but are written by regular people. This is especially true for IT related blogs because as an IT Pro Advisor I always...

Microsoft Most Valuable Professionals (MVPs) are exceptional technical community leaders from around the world who are awarded for voluntarily sharing their high quality, real world expertise in offline and online technical communities. Microsoft MVPs are a highly select group of experts that represents the technical community's best and brightest, and they share a deep commitment to community and...

Graham Jones (Surrey, British Columbia, IT Pro) In part 4 I discussed some of the challenges of using FORTRAN 66 in process plant design. In part 5 we get into the guts of the numerical solution of large numbers of ill-conditioned (ie. tough!), simultaneous equations. In order to describe the issues I am going to have to throw in some “math terms”, which I hope won’t throw you too much of a curve...

A little advice for you guys. We all know the real truth. The following advice can help you when your computer won't start... Pray. There are computer gods. They may actually hear your prayer. And depending on what offering you give them (Cheese Doodles, Steak Dinner) the may or may not grant your request quickly. Use Magic words. Many people look down upon the need for this. Many others completely...

Graham Jones (Surrey, British Columbia, IT Pro) Before I launch into part 7 in earnest I would like to relate a recent conversation that I had with a good friend of mine. We both worked for ICI in the UK but didn’t become colleagues (and eventually friends) until we met in Canada. I was telling him about this series of blogs and how it was a great trip down “memory lane” for me. He proceeded to tell...

Graham Jones (Surrey, British Columbia, IT Pro) Part 6 sees me in an entirely new job in a new location; in many ways in a whole new “world”. I am now living in “bonny” Scotland having never been there before and experiencing what it is like to be a “ Sassenach ”. As one of my new neighbours said to me one day, “ you know, we really don’t like the English”. To which I said, “but I’m English!”. He...

Graham Jones (Surrey, British Columbia, IT Pro) Part 8 now finds me in Canada. So what brought me to Canada apart from a ride on a “paraffin budgie”? Well, I was out of work for one thing but I heard through my good friend (the one who used to be my boss back in part 2) that an engineering company in Vancouver was looking for someone to start up the use of Computer Aided Design (CAD) from scratch....

Sean Kearney has taken a musical approach to this weeks funnies. Caution I couldn't get the Addams' Family song out of my head for days! CanITPro Theme Song Sung to the Addams' family. circa 60's They're nerdy and they're geeky, Twisted and kinda freaky, The jokes they say are cheeky, The Can IT Pro team. There's Damir and Rod and Ricky, Barnaby's kinda tricky, John is really picky, the...