Heads up: DreamSpark is on its way to Australia!

Here’s something all students should be looking forward to. DreamSpark is due to arrive at Australia very, very soon. Keep the following date bookmarked in your diary and Outlook:

DreamSpark Launch @ 2 September, 2008

DreamSpark for those who don’t know, is where students get to download professional developer and designer tools completely free.

The launch will be a part of the FREE Microsoft event for students, called Microsoft Student Day 2008. It’s going to be a massive day with tons of students from all around Sydney rushing to be one of the first to get DreamSpark for themselves.

Keep checking my blog for more details coming up soon!

Microsoft Certification Exam - Windows Server Virtualization

Randomly browsing the Internet yesterday brought me to a interesting post - a free beta exam. This was posted up on the Channel 8, a students community supported by Microsoft.

So I took up the challenge, and signed up for the exam that’s on today. With one night’s preparation time, I wanted to see how far I can go at this exam. Wait - I don’t even know what’s in the exam!

A quick search led me to the exam topics for Exam 71-652: TS: Windows Server Virtualization, Configuring:

• Install Hyper-V (14%)
• Configure and Optimize Hyper-V (20%)
• Deploy Virtual Machines (30%)
• Manage and Monitor Virtual Machines (36%)

Ok, Now. Hyper-V sounds like it’s something to do with “hypervisor”. I do recall seeing this word somewhere… Oh well, I’ll just see what I make of it later tonight.

Back home, I pulled out a spare computer, and installed Windows Server 2008 on it. Following some instructions on TechNet, I tried to install Hyper-V, only to find that this feature is only available to 64-bit installations of Server 2008.

No, I can’t just reinstall a 64-bit Server 2008, because my test machine was the Acer Laptop with a Pentium-M (x86) processor. It just so happens that I don’t have any computers that had 64-bit capability! Not even my Lenovo V100 - it has the first generation of the Intel Core processors, so it’s only 32-bit.

I guess there was nothing more I could do. I went back to studying for the uni exams next week.

Today, armed with a general knowledge of computers, I took the exam at Excom Education Sydney. Well I have played around with several virtualisation tools before - Connectix/Microsoft Virtual PC, vmware server and player, Basilisk II, PearPC, (k)qemu, innoTek/Sun VirtualBox, and Microsoft Virtual Server 2005, but nothing really specific.

At the end of the exam, I survived. I think.

But all I can say is that the focus of Hyper-V is not just another virtualisation tool, it is something that offers much more in terms of enterprise integration and management. (Think ESX in VI3). It’s not just about making something work, it’s also about best ways to optimise for performance and availability.

Even though the exam was not easy, it was fun. If you’re thinking of taking this exam, you better hurry because the beta period ends on June 23!

MSDN Academic Alliance - Now available to USYD SIT Students

As a student at School of IT, University of Sydney, I know what students will always like. Free stuff!

Today, Greg Ryan, the duty programmer at SIT have extended the Microsoft Developer Network Academic Alliance (MSDNAA) program to everyone studying in SIT. What does that mean? Well simply put, you have just been recognised by Microsoft as a student studying at the school that have signed up for this program.

This means, you now have access to gigabytes and gigabytes of Microsoft software, including Visual Studio, Windows Vista, XP, Windows Server, Expression, Visio, Access, and the list goes on. What’s more, it’s all FREE!

SUITS Seminar

Thursday 15 May marks the day for yet another #!SUITS seminar. Just an overview, the Sydney University IT Society have been running these seminars ever since the society is formed. Recently, we have changed the format so that during the hour, we have two guest speakers.

Today, our first speaker is Meitar Mozcovitz, who is a passionate web developer. Yes, a REAL web developer who actually cares about users and other developers. That’s why he came and chatted to us about a good way to make documentation useful.

I’m trying to get hold of his presentation, and once I do, they’ll be put up onto the #!SUITS tutorials page.

The second speaker was Prof. Jon Patrick, from our very own School of IT at University of Sydney. His talk was about how natural language processing techniques can be used to solve headaches around inconsistent medical terminology used everywhere. As part of his research, an intelligent system with was created that could interpret thousands of notes and messages, even ones using funny medical symbols and terminology, and produce a formally structured report using standard terminology. Sounds good? Well it’s even more so since it’s pluggable to any existing system without major changes. Ah, the possibilities..

It’s Not Cheating - Extended!

Here’s good news for those of you who have been wanting to get Office Ultimate 2007, but didn’t get around to it. Microsoft has just extended their program to October 2008, a good few months from the previous deadline of 15 May!

So that is your second chance to grab you very own genuine copy of Microsoft Office 2007 Ultimate Edition for only $75. Offer is only eligible for Australian Uni and TAFE Students.