Looking for a new apartment

I’m living in the Greater London area for six months now. And I must say, I don’t totally dislike it. Even though it’s sometimes tough, most of my friends live near Leiden in The Netherlands, I think I might stick around for a while. When I moved to Brentford I was glad I could move in with Dave and Karen. The room is relatively cheap, the house is nicely located and Dave and Karen are very nice people to live with.

But I guess it’s time to move to a place to live on my own again. First, I need more space to do my work. As I work mostly from home, I need a fixed place to work. Right now it’s not bad, but the space to build a lab environment is limited and I need more room to have a more permanent setup. With my lab in my room and myself working mostly from the table in the dining room, I’m moving back and forth between those rooms. It’s just not convenient and a permanent setup will make me more productive.

Second, I find it hard to live with other people (well, there’s one person I wouldn’t mind living together with, but that’s not going to happen for a while). It has nothing to do with Dave and Karen, it’s just that I’ve lived on my own in Leiden for six years before moving to London. And I just need the personal space, as I was used to a lot of privacy while growing up (one of the benefits of being an only child). And more and more I get a feeling that I’m in some sort of captivity and need to get out.

And then there are all these small things. I get a bit annoyed by the cat, or better, the cat food that makes the kitchen smell. I also like some more luxury and have some nice things for my own. Such as my big screen TV which is at my parents place right now. Or my Xbox 360 which is staying with Rick for the time being. I just miss those things and as shallow as it might sound, it will make me a bit more happy in living here.

Of course there are some drawbacks. The main one will be that it’s going to be more expensive. But I’ve seen some nice places within my budget and it will out work out. Next Wednesday I’m looking at a place a bit further up the road, which looks nice and is a bit separated from the main road. If it looks good on the inside, I’ll be moving in sometime in July. Need to work out a good schedule for that, as I’m also going to Rhode Island this summer and have some conferences I need to attend.

 

Promoting Limburg

Not sure if this is the best way to promote the beautiful province Limburg, but I think it’s a funny way to do. Not that I support happy slapping, but sometimes you have to get people on the right track

YouTube – Serious Health Warning

 

Election 2008

Today the race for the White House really starts with the caucus in Iowa. On both sides it will be an interesting race, but it will be difficult to grasp all the aspects that matter from here in Europe. The news updates on this side of the ocean are hardly a reflection of the really important things.

Since I’m not allowed to vote in the elections, I don’t really have a strong preference for any of the candidates. I’m more inclined to support a Democrat, since I do believe the government is responsible for providing some kind of safety-net for its people. So you can say that I’m a liberal in the European sense (based on the theory of Locke), while also being liberal in the current US meaning (liberalism being more or less equal to progressivism, not used in an economic or social sense).

To have a little bit of feeling with the candidates, the Dutch news site EenVandaag has created a VoteMatch application. This application asks you to answer a couple of questions based on the issues in the election. You can assign more points to issues that are important to you and in the end it returns the candidate that reflects your opinion the most. While it’s all very rudimentary (the range of topics is small and not all candidates are included), it’s a nice starting point. Especially if you’re an European and don’t know where to start.

I answered the questions and my candidate turned out to be John Edwards. Not a perfect match, we have different opinions about the financing of education and the status of illegal immigrants, but it gives me somewhere to start digging into the topics a bit deeper.

 

The strength of two telephone books

These two Dutch students have way too much spare time. At least they put it to good use: science.

 

Disappointment at PDC World Darts

It was a disappointing night for us Dutch darts fans. Both Raymond van Barneveld and Jan van der Rassel lost their third round matches at the Alexandra Palace. Jan van der Rassel played very good against Peter Manley and certainly deserved more than losing 4-1. The match was much closer than the score suggests, but Manley was the better player at crucial times. Van Barneveld played not very good and Kevin Painter took advantage. Painter played very good and got a well deserved win over the 2007 champion.

I had a great time at the Alexandra Palace. There is no better way to spend a Friday night with your friends, getting slowly drunk and watching some darts (well, there are many better ways to spend a Friday night, but you get my point). It’s a great excuse to shout ‘Barney Army’ all night and go crazy on Planet Funk’s ‘Chase the Sun’. I posted some pictures on my Flickr site.

 

Windows Server 2008: Overview

I’m reviewing Windows Server 2008 as part of my job at Citrix. While my focus there is on Terminal Services (obviously), I’m building a complete farm to see all the different parts. Must be a bad habit I picked up during my previous job, where I basically reviewed all Microsoft server products. Anyway, I’m publishing my findings here. Today the first part, a short overview of Windows Server 2008.

Microsoft focusses the attention on four main topics: Web services, virtualization, security and a solid foundation for business workloads. I’ll dive deeper into each area in different blog posts, each specifically focussed on a separate server role. In this post I’ll just skim some of the topics to give a basic idea.

The most important thing about Windows Server 2008 is that less components are installed automatically and have to be added afterwards. This makes the platform more stable, less vulnerable and it increases performance. The best examples of this are the Server Core mode and the way IIS 7.0 is designed. But it’s also true for configuring the Active Directory Services. In Windows Server 2000 and 2003 you just had to start the DCPROMO wizard, in Windows Server 2008 you have to add the Active Directory Services role first.

The virtualization part can be divided in different areas. First, the hypervisor Microsoft developed, Hyper-V. This will be a tough competitor for VMware ESX Server and XenSource Enterprise Server, just because it’s a product of Microsoft. How it performs has too be seen, but in combination with the next version of System Center Virtual Machine Manager this might become a very good alternative to other products. I can’t test it right now, the only machine I have that can do Hyper-V is currently my lab server with XenSource Enterprise Server.

A second form of virtualization is application virtualization through Terminal Services. This has been a part since Windows Server 2000 (and in a special edition of Windows Server NT 4.0), but there are new features in this release. Single applications can be published and the delivery over the Internet has been added. Good demos can be found on TechNet Edge, there is also an interview with a program manager.

The web services have been redesigned with IIS split up in components. However, they have left out Sharepoint Services by default, which is a mistake from my point of view. I really like Sharepoint Services as a foundation for delivering web services both to internal and external users.

From the security part I really like Network Access Protection. I did a demo for my co-workers last summer about an implementation of NAP in combination with DHCP. Worked really nice and offers a great deal of possibilities for better securing your network. Also, the new features in Active Directory Services look promising. The addition of Read-Only Domain Controllers is a huge deal for businesses with branch offices. Definitely worth a look in one of the following posts.

 

Back from The Netherlands

I now know what you don’t want to hear on the day before Christmas: ‘You’re flight has been cancelled!’. That was the message I received from BA at 5am, about an hour before I would have to get up to go to the airport. After a stressful 30 minutes I managed to find a flight with BMI, which also left at about the same time. After taking a quick shower and getting my bags, the bus took ages to appear, the tube was having some delays and I almost missed my flight.

But at the end of the morning, I was in Leiden talking to my former co-workers and doing some paperwork. Afterwards, I went to my old apartment to pick up the mail. There I found out that the rumors about Rick’s sloppy lifestyle were completely true, in the two weeks he had been living there he never picked up his mail. After sorting out my mail I stopped by De Kroeg for some drinks. It was nice to see some of my friends again, even if it had been only two weeks since I left.

Christmas with my parents was nice, but it was only a brief visit. I had to leave for London again on Wednesday, since I don’t have that many vacation days yet. And my presentation still has to be finished before January 8th. The trip back to the UK was quite uneventful. Aboard the plane was Raymond van Barneveld, who is playing at the PDC World Darts Championships. Well, hopefully I’ll see him compete on Friday in his third round.

 

Proud to be a gamer!

One of my favorite charities is Child’s Play. Started by Penny Arcade, it gives toys to children’s hospitals. According to Wired, this year the charity got over $850,000 in toys. Actually, according to their own site its close to $975,000. I think that’s a great thing and shows that gamers all over the world are different than the general stereotype.

 Keep up the good work and you can count on me next year. And gamers, thanks for making me proud to be a gamer too!

 

Bubble?

Nice conversion of the Billy Joel song.

 

Getting ready for Christmas

Tomorrow I fly back to The Netherlands for Christmas. That means today is a busy day. I’m still working on my first presentation for Citrix, which I have to deliver early January. I also have to pack my bags, do my laundry and run some errands. Tomorrow will be equally hectic. Starting with a 8.40am flight, I have to get up around 6.15am. After I arrive, I first have to go to Leiden. I need to sign some legal documents at my old job and I have to pick up my mail that has arrived at my old place. Then it will probably be sometime around 2pm, that’s when De Kroeg opens. I want to say hello to some of my friends there and visit Joris (who has a shop across the street).

After all that, I’m taking the train home to Limburg. I should arrive there around 6pm, depending on the weather. And then, I can finally relax a bit at my parents’ place and enjoy the Holidays. Unfortunately, I have to get back to London on Wednesday.