New Toy!

This summer, just a week before going to Brasil, I received a new gadget (I prefer to call them Toy’s). The Nokia 5800 Xpress Music.

I love it! Really, it joins together the kind of functionality you’d like in a mobile device. It has a few drawbacks which I can imagine more advanced and experienced smart-phone users miss. However for me, as the first phone with a camera on it (..!!..) I love it!

PRO’s

• WiFi
• GPS
• 3.2 mp Camera + Low res camera for video calls (if you do any ?)
• position sensor (screen rotates as you rotate the phone)
• Easy to extend, make your own apps and widgets
• Quite long battery life

CON’s

• No keyboard (on screen keyboard works fine though)
• GPS is slow, assisted GPS uses a GPRS carrier making it very expensive (believe me! I was roaming in Brasil and forgot to switch that off :S )
• 3.2 mp Camera is considered low res for some people nowadays’
• Not too many free applications to download
• Menu’s too static, no real (android) desktop feeling

Im really impressed! I have seen the iPhone, and thought it was too big. The blackberries…, I simply find they have too much of the “Business Flavour” and are just boring (sorry!?). The only phone I actually had in my hand and can be seen as serious competition, is the HTC Touch running the Android OS. I liked the Desktop idea I miss a bit on the 5800. This all, looking at the low cost range of course!

I already built a small application for it, a rip of the iPhone mosquito repellant. If you’re interested, drop me a comment, and I can send you a copy.

It is all Over, It is all starting… again!

The holiday season officially ended yesterday with the Kids going back to school in Spain. Bad Weather came to Barcelona this weekend, with the local weatherman declaring the end of summer. My holiday’s ended already more than a month ago, and it looks like there will be none at least untill X-mas. It is all over!

The last few months where great though! I really enjoyed my trip to Brasil, and the summer months in Barcelona are great too. The Neighbourhood parties, day’s and Nights at the beach and loads of Kite Flying!

I really managed to recharge batteries for the sprint ’till christmas. Due to the above reasons, it has been really quiet here (on this blog). The last post was even before FC Barcelona won the 3 titles they opted for and broke almost all historical records.

At work quite some things changed too! The management structure has been made more agile and I moved to a new team. At the moment, we are analysing my Job-Title, and description, to see if it still fits my position.

The new team I am working in now is called Service Assurance. This name explains most of what this team takes care of. Make sure the service is running, work on improvements and raise the quality of the work done. I also increased a level within my position, meaning … a little bit more cash in hand, and quite some more responsibilities and tasks.

The good news here is that in my new team I am tasked with the Intranet project. This is nothing new, but the new part is that I can dedicate 100% of my time to it, and I can make use of more resources.

During the last month, I have been working hard to get the first version of the Intranet online. It is there, and we launched it officially last week.

Since I changed teams, I am managed differently. Differently in Italic, as I was very close to write better. To be honest, there where quite a lot of discrepancies between me and my manager in many things. Even though I could understand, or at least try to understand most of his decisions. Now I have a new manager. after now 2 months, I can easily say I have the feeling we are on the same line. Which is good. This helps me a lot in Completing projects, as I have a sense of support from higher up the chain, which I had the feeling I lacked a bit before.

As I mentioned before the intranet project is really getting a shape. We have launched the first version running on a small (20gb) Virtual 2003 Server running WSS. This is, after all the investigation and plan-making a lot less than we originally aimed for, and the effect is visible.  Now we have to start making a case to upgrade the server to a full moss, and an SQL server for storage.

We also decided to make release 1 of the intranet as standard as possible. Fully based on templates, and only a few custom lists. This to make sure we could build a case for a more expensive MOSS Server (the idea was that if we could show that we could do it, we’d have a better buy-in from the management team).

To be honest, the possibilities of the standard WSS installation, with the 40 Famous Microsoft templates is giving us about 75% of all the functionality required.  The gaps we have identified will be mostly filled when we move to a full MOSS Server and are mostly related on how we store information and to align that with the spanish law on data protection.

Today, first 1-2-1 personal review with my new manager. She was happy, the intranet is there, on time and with a lot more functionality then we all expected… -> Im Happy!

It is all starting again!

Messi para Iniesta, xuta Iniesta…..

I Gooool!!!

Aquí teniu el fragment d’audio del gol d’aquesta setmana. Possiblement el millor que es pot baixar de l’internet en aquest moment

(en mp3, així ho pots posar en el mobil)

Here’s the audio fragment (the one I liked most) from the goal against Chelsea in the Champions league Semi-final:

http://alex.k.bcn.googlepages.com/GOL3.mp3

!!Gol de lo puto gusiluz!!

Solutions Architect? – II

This is a continuing story. Because I was not sure how to reply to the question asked, I did the least effective… I asked my boss. Not my direct report, but his boss.

This caused quite a small storm in Barcelona. (completely unrelated to the devastating effects of wind force 10 this weekend – Pictures here -) the Service Support Manager in question reacted weird. I’m not sure, but to me it looked like he did not really know what to do with my question.

I can imagine partly that that is so (which would not be a big problem to me, as nobody knows everything), However it seemed to me he felt attacked somehow.

The issue is that we currently do not have a Solution Architect and his point was (I guessed) that we don’t want one neither. He did not say it, but I interpreted his way of explaining as: “Get that idea out of your head!”.
When I asked him the initial question, it was more to see if he could maybe help me planning my career path towards such a position and nothing more (I believe carreer management is an important task for a manager?!?).
When he was finishing his wave of discontent he ended by telling me that “this issue is something I will have to raise with the Director!”, making this story… To be continued….

Am I a (Junior) Solutions Architect?

Currently as I explained in the past, my role is the one of Technical leader. This, in our company is defined as:

“To identify and exploit opportunities for service improvement within the ISC (our office) environment – both internally and within specific customer accounts. To drive and coordinate initiatives designed to achieve superior levels of service in line with Computacenter’s contractual agreements. To take responsibility for the managing of projects to enable teams to meet & surpass productivity and service standards.”

I received a mail today in which a high positioned manager in my company asked me who in our office acts as a solutions architect.Now the role of Solutions Architect is one I had in the back of my head as a possible next step in my Career. I have never been a person that knows since day one what I want  in the future (being a Gemini in IT), but lately I have been looking into several different career paths ranging from consultancy to Solutions Architect.

When I read that mail this morning, It was the first time the name Solutions Architect role caught my attention. I believe it did not before, due to the enormous amount of job titles available in IT (from which I believe most to be made up by HR staff that was not sure how to classify their staff – Also I sometimes get the feeling that people think that longer job titles are for more important roles, kind of like an extension of their …)

I found that Microsoft offers a Certified Architect (MCA) certification path, which would prepare for this role. On their website they give a good idea what the role consists of(from their point of view):

“Communicate mainly with business owners within a company and with the technical staff that delivers the solution. The projects they work on affect the enterprise and they design the solution to take advantage of the existing assets, integrate them into the existing environment, follow the enterprise architecture, and solve the business problems of the business owner or unit. They are primarily responsible for taking a project through envisioning and design, and are more consultative to the project manager during the development and deployment phases, ensuring the project stays true to the architecture, time-lines, and budgets. If problems occur, they are escalated to the solutions architect.”

This is perfectly in line with my Job Description. Now I am aware of the differences between both definitions, but believe them to be very comparable. (Also the rest of my job description, which I cannot publish because of confidentiality) looks very similar.

The next days Ill be looking into this, and mostly on how I can now direct my role to that of a Solutions Architect.

Fon-Tastic! – update

Well, today (actually my last day before x-mas leave… ) in the office we did quite a lot of testing (since we also did quite a lot of drinking afterwards, I will not be able to tell what we exactly did;)

I found however, that the DD-WRT firmeware for the fonera (now using V 24 SP1) is a bit different then DD_WRT for other routers. My friend MF who uses DD-WRT on a netgear router saw that with the fonera it is not possible to put the router in repeater mode. (this is what he uses to make the router act as a repeater… duh!!).

This made us think it would be impossible to make the router repeat the wireless signal to wireless and the we would need to be physically connected (cable) to the router to be able to connect to our “distant” accesspoint”.

We then did some tests using the different modes to be able to make the router repeat the signal of the access point it was connected to, while we where both connected though a wireless virtual interface.

This works now and I have set this up at home. It works great! My router connects to a router closeby, but not close enough for my laptop IPW3945 Wireless card to pick it up. I have attached a windsurfer homemade antenna pointing to the accesspoint which increased signal quality by allmost 20%!!!

As this was my end objective, Ill leave things as they are now. At least untill my friendly neighbour (offering his open ADSL connection and router access) makes a change on his router*.

Ill post some pictures of my setup soon! (…)

* He should be very thankfull, as his router would disconnect from the ISP very frequently, leaving him/us without internet for hours or sometimes days. This has been sorted now, thanks to a small script that runs on my router, pings google, and if the ping fails, runs the connect command.

Fon-Tastic! II

Well, after a lot of experiments and configuration changes, Ive managed to bridge an open network I have close by. I’m still experimenting some issues..

Most importantly, when Bridged, I cannot find a way to connect back to the Fonera. This is a bit of a problem, as I will probably have to bridge to different access points around because they are not available all the time.(I have read about a script that automatically connects to an open access point. This, when everything is working as expected, would be a nice option).

I will now look into bridging it using a cabled connection. This way, I believe, I should be able to access both my Fonera and the Access point router.

Fon-Tastic

UPDATE: After flashing the Fon Router with the new firmware (V24 SP1) It is a lot more stable. I now have a 2.5hrs Uptime.

un-fonned

Last week, Ive been looking into the whole idea of using the La Fonera Router to extend my wireless coverage. I have changed the plan a bit, as I started learning about the new possibilities of my new La Fonera router

Since the FON hot-spot I have close by, does not reach me I have been looking into alternative solutions.

I found the DD-WRT firmware. Supposedly after flashing the router with this firmware, the very limited FON router turns into a highly configurable router, able to act as a wireless bridge or a repeater.

However when I started reading I quickly found that the whole subject is quite extended, not to say complex. There are many many versions of the dd-wrt firmware available, and an equally amount of way’s to “brick” your fon router. (leave it unusable… as a ). Consider this a warning, as I believe to have bricked it twice, and was just plain lucky to get it back again.

There are many websites that explain how to upgrade your firmware, and I wont explain the whole process here, as I think it differs a lot depending on the type of fonera router you’ve got.

I recieved a La Fonera 2201 router (fon+) and managed to upgarde the firmware finally with the explanation given here: [LINK] (I also used the firmware linked to on that site. This however, is an older version. Use the link below to get the same with SP1 included)

I managed flashing it with the the V24 firmware, and the router booted fine. Opening The DD-WRT router configuration menu gave me the feeling my laptop reconnected to a different access-point! completely different, and it actually looked like a real full-blown router.

However, (not sure its due to the treatment the router received, or the old version of the firmware Ive put on) after a couple of hours of use (and after making about a thousand of undocumented configuration changes), the router keeps resetting and therefore it is not fit yet for a connection.

I have downloaded the newer version of the firmware(V24-SP1) here, and will give it a try tonight, hoping the SP 1 will fix the restart issue.

The second part of my plan did not change. When i am able to set the router up as a repeater, I am sure that with a stronger antenna, (I will probably modify my satellite dish with a can-tenna, Bas… if you’re reading this…. send me some pictures of your “vergiet-tenne”) I can repeat one of the very weak open wifi signals I receive.

For the moment, I did some tests (while the flashed router was still working fine) and the EZ12 Windsurfer, a small reflector on top of the FON router already gave me some surprising results: I could connect to the double amount of access points, and the signal of the ones I used to receive with my laptop wifi card has increased allmost a 20%! Ans that is still just inside my appartment.

I’m a fonero!

At home, my on line experience differs by the day. I purely depend on my neighbours who have an unencrypted connection to be able to connect to the Internet.

As I am living abroad, Internet is something kind of indispensable, keeping in touch with friends, watching some dutch TV shows etc. However, the prices for Internet access are ridiculous, as is the quality.

When I first heard about FON, I decided not to sign on, and first have a look at how the project was evolving in Spain. Mainly because this country is sometimes a difficult technology adopter. However, I now checked back, after almost a year and found a lot of fon wireless hot-spots in my neighbourhood.

Since I’m a bit of a techie, and like playing/experimenting, I have now signed up. The main idea behind this is to build an antenna which Ill put up on the roof of my building. with this, I hope to be able to access the 3 hot-spots I have around my house. However, since I do not pick up the signals from within my apartment, I will try to build a directional antenna. (I could just go out and buy one … but then … where is the fun?).

When I succeed, and manage to have an always on Internet connection, I will put up a secondary antenna (omni) to share with a much larger area. This I believe is just how the fon mentality should work; Have connected people share their connection.

I have been experimenting with home build antennas a bit, and found that in an easy way you can build a pretty string antenna, or make an omnidirectional a directional antenna. With the help of Mathias, a equally techie friend, have successfully made an amplifier for my wifi USB-Stick, which increases signal by almost 10%. This gave me the confidence I needed to start this home-project.

If anyone has a good experience with a specific antenna mod, please let me know!

UPDATE: although I signed up for fon only last Friday, today my router was delivered!! this was completely unexpected as the delivery was supposed to take 3 weeks!

Some more information about fon:

http://www.fon.com/en/info/whatsFon

Check if you have hot-spots close-by:

http://maps.fon.com/

That’s all for now, more updates to follow!