training

SharePoint 2010 Advanced Developer and IT Professional Training

Standard

Earlier this year I was fortunate to take a week off and virtually attend the SharePoint 2010 Ignite Developer training. This was an intense deep dive into the new capabilities of SharePoint 2010 and included a number of virtual labs where we got to practice new learnings on actual servers.

After digging around my email for links to these training materials for download I was pleased to find that this training has now been made public, including many of the virtual lab exercises! See links below and enjoy.

SharePoint 2010 Advanced Developer Training
SharePoint 2010 Advanced IT Professional Training

PC Building: Hyper-V Server

Standard

Last winter I set out to build my own PC. This was something I had never dared try before but felt I was obligated to complete to truly call myself a geek.

This would not be a machine loaded with components with names like i7 and Radeon. I wanted to build a Hyper-V server; one that would host 4 or 5 virtual machines that I could experiment with, utilize for testing/training purposes, and do things that i just couldn’t do with my company laptop.

After a few months of shopping, giving NewEgg.com and Fry’s a bunch of money, and assembly in my spare time I now have something I am pretty happy with. (Given this is my first PC build)

I hope to use this box heavily over the next few months as I ramp up on SharePoint 2010 and try to complete my MCPD-EA.

Processor:
Intel Xeon X3440 Lynnfield 2.53GHz 8MB L3 Cache LGA 1156 95W Quad-Core Server Processor
Allows me to utilize the multiple cores for the multiple virtual machines and supports Hyper-V.

Motherboard:
Intel S3420GPLC LGA 1156 Intel 3420 ATX Intel Xeon 3400 series Server Motherboard
Paired with the processor and gives me plenty of SATA ports for a bunch of hard drives setup with on-board RAID.

Power Supply:
Antec EarthWatts EA650 650W Continuous Power ATX12V Ver.2.2 / EPS12V version 2.91 SLI Certified CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS Certified Active PFC “compatible with Core i7/Core i5” Power Supply
I think this should be plenty of power given I am using on-board video.

RAM:
Kingston 4GB 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM ECC Registered DDR3 1066 (PC3 8500) Server Memory Model KVR1066D3Q8R7S/4G (X2)
Pretty spendy but supported by the motherboard and 8GB is enough for the 4-5 virtual machines I want to run.

Hard Drives:
Western Digital Caviar Blue WD3200AAJS 320GB 7200 RPM 8MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5″ Internal Hard Drive (X2)
Western Digital Caviar Green WD5000AADS 500GB 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5″ Hard Drive (X3)
Initially, setup a RAID-1 with the Blue pair and a RAID-5 with the Green set, however, had to remove the RAID-5 array when the RAID controller consistently had problems and ended up corrupting one of the drives. I don’t know if it was the RAID controller or the drive but got rid of the RAID for now at least.

Case:
Antec Two Hundred Black ATX Mid Tower Computer Case
Got a great deal from my local Fry’s Electronics. Makes my lame-o server look like a gaming machine, which is nice.

OS:
Windows Server 2008 R2 with Hyper-V

Avanade Training Recap

Standard

It has been a while since my last post so I thought I would recap how the training course turned out.

 The training program at Avanade for new college hires is awesome. Two words… free food! But seriously… Avanade offers, not only a mix of learning techniques and material, but the dedication of smart, passionate people to support those techniques and help push people to get off to a good start in their careers. The simulated project that my team and I worked on turned out to be quite a learning experience. We learned a lot about developing .NET in a team environment as well as what it means to be a consultant at Avanade. In the end we delivered one of the better solutions of the group and had a satisfied customer.