Is Ben's Blog dead?

It's about 8 on Thursday morning as I type this and due to the fact that my family is still sound asleep, I've been ditzing around trying to do really really quiet things. (Argh! I hate being a morning person sometimes!) Annnnyway, one of the quiet things I am doing is surfing the web, and upon surfing said web, I discovered that I hadn't updated Ben's Blog since last Monday. Ouch.

I have no good reason on why I haven't been updating the blog. Maybe it started out as laziness, which then turned into total forgetfulness (Lord knows I'm prone to that). I don't know. But then I started thinking: why had I been updating the blog in the first place?

As you know, this semester has seen a demise of homework assignments and a weekly test. We've stayed remarkably on schedule (every single class is EXACTLY where it needs to be), so the syllabus does a fine job of letting us know what we're doing and what we've done. Honestly, I'm not so sure many of you are even reading this anymore (and why would you -- it's not like you need to see what homework you've missed or find out when a test date is). Is Ben's Blog even relevant anymore?

I've had some ideas brewing around in my mind for Ben's Blog and I think I may try them out over the next few weeks. The main thing I'm thinking of is killing the daily "classroom summarization" and replacing it with periodic "topics" as kind of an extension of the classroom. This won't be daily, obviously. And, from time-to-time, I'll post up some extra credit possibilities based on those topics. And, should I include those topics on upcoming tests?

As of this moment, I think I'm going to suspend the daily summaries aspect of this blog -- at least temporarily. I'll also be spending some very brief classtime talking about it too.

Please comment on this post, if you see it, and tell me what you think, just to let me know how many of you are reading.

Thanks for reading, guys! --ben.

Pro/Server - 2/12/2007

Today we went into marathon mode and finished up the last four (count 'em!, four!) chapters in the book, chapters 13-16. Fun was had by all.

Next week, make sure you bring BOTH the 70-270 book (for your open-book test) and the 70-290 book (for the class).

Network + - 2/7/2007 (Day)

See night-class post. The only difference is the class attendance! Only Kevin and Tim showed. As Tim would say, "F". Anyway, fun was had by all.

Network + - 2/6/2007 (Night)

I really hope you guys haven't been sitting at your computers all day hitting "refresh" hoping with baited breath that this blog would be updated. If so, sorry 'bout that.

What we did WAAAY back on Tuesday night was cover chapters 12-13. We also did some registration -- I think everyone in class was registered Tuesday... Fun was had by all.

Due to some scheduling conficts, the A+ class is not on Monday and Tuesday anymore, it's something like Tuesday and Thursday nights. I'm not exact on those class days, since I'm not teaching, but if you want more information, check a new schedule or ask Sarah Rascoe in the front office.

Managing a Network Environment (292) - 2/6/2007

Man, this blog has had a rough week. If it were a puppy, it would be really skinny inside its cage with poop everywhere. Good thing that blogs are a lot more resistant to neglect than puppies.

Anyway, our class dealt with the first two chapters of the new 292 book which was basically a review of the differences between Windows Server 2000 and Server 2003. Good stuff to know.

Also what is good stuff to know is that you can't simply copy a virtual computer installation file and expect it to work on Active Directory. D'oh! Thanks to that little oversight, we lost an hour of classtime, a prepped chapter (chapter 3) but we did gain Jesco White out of the deal. Fun was had by all.

Pro/Server - 2/5/2007

Hey guys, sorry I've been not updating this blog this week. I'm not sure why or how it happened, it just got away from me.

Anyway, in Pro/Server, we did Chapters 10, 11, and 12, which provided us with a day that went much much smoother than last week. Fun was had by all.

Next week, be sure to get ready for a *possibly* more intense day as we will be finishing up the Pro book by doing chapters 13-16. Can you believe we're at the halfway point??

Also, spring quarter registration is at hand. To keep you guys on track, most of you will be enrolled in my Monday "Implementing Network Infrastructure/Implementing Active Directory" classes as well as my Tuesday morning "Troubleshooting OS" class. Obviously, you aren't required to take those exact classes, but that's what *I* would recommend. The two Monday classes will be natural extensions of the Server portion of our Monday class now, and the Tuesday Troubleshooting class will be split into two parts: the first part will be text book stuff, kinda like what we're doing now, the second part will be actually fixing real-life computers. This class has historically been lots of fun and I expect no less fun from this class.

See everyone on Monday!

Network + (Day) - 1/31/2006

I started off class today by saying that I thought that maybe we were going just a touch too fast, so I redesigned our schedule for the rest of the semester. Then we covered Chapters 10 & 11, covering protocols in general and then kind of an introduction to TCP/IP. Fun was had by all.