Why I hate IPExpert’s DRM for their workbooks

Last week I got back on the horse and started studying again to get myself ready for another attempt at the CCIE voice lab. I had a pretty poor session (by my standards), and resolved to get on with it. So this weekend I fired up all the phones, routers and virtual machines and started on an area of weakness – CME features and functions. IPExpert have a nice lab on this which is all CME - yes three CME – highly unlikely for the real lab – but it does enforce those CME principals.
Well as I’ve mention before, I’m no fan of IPExperts DRM and for the workbooks have printed them into OneNote and make my notes etc in there. However, I haven’t done that with the proctor  guides – as I have the PDFs and am likely to be online – and it seems that I can no longer do the OneNote shuffle (I tried a while back and it said OneNote was not a valid printer). So I got to a certain question and was having trouble with it (rustiness), so I went to the proctor guide, got asked for my login and password by that annoying FileOpen plugin which it accepted, and I got a book full of blank pages. Initially I blamed Adobe, as I had recently updated Acrobat Reader to version X, so I tried on my Adobe Reader version 9 laptop – same thing. So now I was frustrated by the question and frustrated by not being able to look up the answer and had wasted much valuable study time.
I have logged a support ticket, but its the weekend and there is no support on weekends. It really annoys me as I promote IPExpert as a great training provider and then this. I’ve paid for the material, and for their bootcamp, and yet I can’t access what I own. I’m not likely to give away what I paid for, and I don’t object to watermarked PDFs (which they are) – so lets get rid of the DRM it just causes me to tell people not to buy the product.
PS. I did eventually work out the answer, I was just misreading the requirement, and eventually I got past the issue. Lesson there – just because you think it might violate the question, doesn't mean you shouldn’t try it!

Update: IPExpert support got back to me and suggested that I re-download the PDFs to update the encryption. Yesterday when I tried to re-download all I got were "404 file not found". Today they download fine and I can read them again. Thanks IPExpert for your responsiveness - but I still hate your DRM.

Now What ?

So it’s been nearly 30 days since my first CCIE voice lab attempt and I’m soon able to take a re-sit. So where am I and what have I been doing ?

Well contrary to popular wisdom of throwing back into the books and finding where I went wrong, over analysing my mistakes and generally fretting about a re-sit, I had a holiday! And thus we go slightly off-topic. I played golf (well hit a golf ball around most of a golf course) for the first time in 20 years, thanks to my two best friends in the world – nothing better for dismissing a score report, which turned up as I was entering the first tee (as I knew what it said – I wasn’t going to let it spoil my day – although three days later when I had a look it did read better than I had expected!), than creaming a little white ball 200 yards down the middle of the fairway (I like to think that’s what I did – the reality was more 50 yards and very left or right!). I (with family of course) went to Port Douglas in Far North Queensland where I swam with turtles here.

We also got to see some really live and wild crocodiles too! He’s 3 metres in length and eating a mud crab claw!

The rest of the holiday was a celebration for my parents’ 40th wedding anniversary and my Dad’s 60th birthday – so much merriment occurred.

I also did do some study – it' just eats at you when you know there were things in the exam that you should have known and didn’t, so I now understand how to configure some of the things I didn’t expect to see (see I broke rule number 1 – expect everything to be there!), and I already feel that I have filled in some of those tiny cracks that will better prepare me for next time.

I have been struggling with flu-like symptoms since I’ve returned so I haven’t touch a router or phone in anger since the exam. I’m now looking at dates in June for Brussels – there seem to be plenty towards the back half of the month. I will have that booked shortly and we’ll go again, after all very few people pass first time do they!

Hand crafted AXL scripts and HTTP/1.x

In my current day-job, I sometimes create hand crafted pieces of AXL scripting for some of the trickier reporting aspects of auditing of provisioning process. These AXL scripts will most probably these days be crafted in Java, as I like the eclipse development environment which makes it very easy to debug these scripts (I’m not a professional developer – just someone who went to university and was taught how to write code in many languages). Just before I went away for my month to Australia and the CCIE Voice Lab, I had some reports that my script wasn’t working. Often these are just minor issues like a user not having AXL privileges or the input file format not being quite right, but this one was different – the script worked fine on our CUCM 6.1.3 and CUCM 7.1.5 servers, but not on our newly upgrade 6.1.5 servers.

So after that month off, I came back to reports that it still wasn’t working and could I investigate. So I fired up eclipse and dived right back into debugging mode. The response I was receiving from CUCM was “HTTP/1.1 400 Bad Request” – this I was not receiving from the other servers (i.e the none 6.1.5 clusters). I could not work out what was going wrong – I tried forcing the authentication to fail – still the 400 errror. I compared to other pieces of had-crafted AXL that we have, and they looked the same as mine. In the end I was on the point of giving up when I noticed in an example on Cisco’s developer site that one code snippet had the following:
        POST /axl/ HTTP/1.1
whereas my code had:
   POST /axl/

So I hunted through CUCM release notes for any mention of this change – no luck. I checked the tomcat release notes (having noted that the tomcat version changes between 6.1.3 and 6.1.5) and still no luck  - although there were a lot of changes related to POST processing. Checking the original http RFC-1945 states that “

The version of an HTTP message is indicated by an HTTP-Version field in the first line of the message. If the protocol version is not specified, the recipient must assume that the message is in the simple HTTP/0.9 format.”

However it seems that the tomcat within CUCM does not any longer adhere to that (although I can’t find this documented) and follows the HTTP/1.1 RFC-2616 section 5.1 which explicitly states that a request must have the HTTP-Version.

So I changed my code to contain the HTTP version and like magic it worked again. If only I used less hand-crafted scripts this would never have been an issue!

Not this time

So here I sit in Sydney airport (in a bar with a beer), reflecting on what happened today, and the headline is that I know already, before the proctor looks at my lab, that it’ll be take two in Brussels in the next couple of months. How do I know ? Well as can happen, I hit an issue – mgcp was it’s name and a reload of the router was the solution – I knew my configuration was good – but I didn’t think to try that until it was much much too late. I’m sure there are plenty out there who can relate.

Now how to describe the experience within the bounds of the NDA. Sydney is a relaxed lab with a great view out of the lunch window (or the lab window if you are not doing voice). The proctor is from Russia – and is very pleasant. There was one other candidate today – doing Service Provider (the last time that version of the lab will be sat!) – he was from Taiwan having his second attempt. 8am start is more of a guideline than a fixed time. I’d be there at 8, but not be concerned if you don’t start exactly on the clock.

Why so confident that I didn’t make the grade – well after I hit my snag, it sapped time and energy for the other sections as I knew I’d not have enough to make it, and there were a few other bits and bobs that had me stumped.

Was it a fair test – hell yes. Should I have passed –maybe – it was the kind of exam I had hoped for, and on initial inspection thought I had a good chance. I now understand the mentality needed to pass and I don’t think I’m far away (although the score report will say otherwise – I know where the problems were and more importantly how to fix them)

I have already debriefed myself into my ever growing list of notes on how to pass the CCIE – that was over a Tea in Starbucks – after a beer round the corner from the exam centre.

Time now to enjoy my holiday. Not worry about CCIE things for 3 weeks, then look to book another attempt when I get back to the UK.

Thanks for all the messages of support, they are greatly appreciated. I’ll do better in Brussels. I am not beaten and I don’t believe in #fail !

T-1 day and counting. Now it feels real!

This time tomorrow I’ll be head down, tail up, feeling either very happy or very distressed. It’s 1:20pm and I’m on a Virgin Blue flight to Sydney. I’ve said goodbye to the family, see you tomorrow night (about midnight). This CCIE exam thing now feels very real.

How’s my preparation been ? Well the five day self-managed boot camp peaked on day two and was a right off by three hours into day five. If the exam I get is like the lab I did on day two (Sunday), I’m in with a good chance (it was a three CUCM site lab with MGCP gateways). Then there was the enforced break – flying to Australia takes it time and its toll. I managed to skip jetlag in similar fashion to San Jose, by staying awake all day on the first day (hard given we landed at 6:55am, and I hadn’t slept since somewhere over the India many hours earlier). I did do three hours on the racks yesterday, just to strip off the rust induced by boat trips and family gatherings (many more to come after the exam!). My tee time is 12:40 on Friday, I may be a CCIE by then who knows!

So for the rest of the day, it’s land, then up to the hotel in St Leonards just around the corner from Cisco. Think I’ll pop in and say hi, just to make sure I’m at the right place. Then off to do some tourist stuff, and dinner. Read over my notes from Vik’s boot camp, then bed, early of course (But not too early as I don’t want to wake up at 4am!). Up tomorrow at 6am, breakfast at 6:30, walk down to be at Cisco for 7:45 – 8am is crunch time. There’s only one voice seat in Sydney and it has my name on it – lets hope that by 5:30 it has my number on it too!

More vRack Thoughts–INE v IPExpert

So for the last three (well more like 2 and a bit) days I’ve had to use alternate labs to the usual IPExpert labs that I have been using up to now (scheduling problems and my exam being now only a week away forced the change). So I thought I’d compare and contrast the two vRacks (and as a bonus, provide a quick how-to on setting up the INE PSTN router as the IPExpert one).

Lucky for me INE had a promotion on this weekend for Buy-one-get-one-free on rack time this weekend. So I signed up for three day’s worth (and thus now have some to spare – hopefully!). First there are a couple of obvious differences:

• INE are cheaper on a per hour basis,
• INE are more flexible in the slots you can have, shorter slots (5.5hrs vs. 7.5hrs) or longer slots (combine two 5.5hrs to get 11.5hrs!)

Then from a technology point of view:

• INE has more connectivity options, including both SSL VPN and Cisco VPN, and even a VPN-less option (although this means no audio).
• INE has the Variphy remote control application which allows the use of in rack phones – 7961s not 7960s! And it just works after a simple association to the correct user(for CUCM phones)
• IPExpert did run a promotion with UnifiedFX for a free copy of their remote control software, which I took advantage of (post coming) and it worked after a little bit of fiddling, and also controlled Skinny CME phones too!
• INE has a utility PC with RTMT, CUPC and other bits, kind of like the utility side of UCCX server for IPExpert

So how does the challenge of having one set of workbooks play out on the competitor’s racks?

Well it takes a bit of setting up, but not too much – just change the PSTN router to match – and remember that any referenced IP addresses will need to be changed (there’s a table below for what is needed). The troubleshooting pieces of the IPExpert labs obviously can’t be done – but I had no trouble doing any of the Volume 2 Workbook labs (well none that I wouldn’t have had on the IPExpert labs!).

The one thing I have found though, is that the extra time you have on the INE rack, removes one of the things that I like about the IPExpert racks – and that is time pressure – you don’t have 11 hours in the “Real” Lab – you have about 8, just like on IPExpert, so you can work in real time and the extra pressure that brings. Of the five days back to back that I’ve done – my best was the 2nd day on IPExpert. It could have been the lab I chose, but I think it was also the focus that was required. As odd as it sounds, I found having too much time available allowed me to wander away more easily (and we all know how hard it is to study in the first place).

So would I recommend the INE racks ? Well, yes. But I’d also recommend the IPExpert labs – but I have IPExpert lab material – if I had INE material, I’d stay on INE!

Here’s a table for converting the PSTN router configuration from set of racks to the other. I hope you find this useful.

IPExpert	Interface	INE
T1 0/3/0	HQ Voice	T1 0/0
T1 0/3/1	BR1 Voice	T1 0/4
E1 0/2/0	BR2 Voice	E1 0/2
10.10.100.2 (F0/0)	HQ Ethernet	177.1.19.1(f0/1)
10.10.200.3	HQ RTR Voice	177.1.11.1
10.10.110.1	HQ RTR Loopback	177.1.254.254

Cisco IOS TFTP Server limitations and CUCM Load Server

Back to the day job today (yes I know it’s Saturday – but some things can only be done on a weekend!), so no study update. However, here I am upgrading CUCM (major version upgrade), and I am working with three remote locations on high latency links to a centralised deployment. To cater for this our phone firmware is loaded on IOS gateways in the locations. This is accessed thanks to the load server parameter on the phone device configuration. This serves two purposes: 1. It causes the phones to load firmware locally and; 2. It prevents the phone from attempting to upgrade over the WAN if the firmware is not on the load server (handy if you want to add a newer firmware than provided by the upgrade – which you need to do after the upgrade).

The problem with this setup is, what happens when all the phones reset due to the switchover of CUCMs after the switch version ? Well it seems that about 10 phones upgrade from the gateway and the rest re-register. I’m not sure if this is a hard limit within IOS, but I have consistently seen that through this upgrade – so here I am resetting the device pools to ensure that all the devices are eventually upgraded (and there’s another 10 phones done!).

Load servers are still a great tool in a small deployment – but maybe I should look more closely at peer-firmware upgrading (which seems like magic). Oh yes – and it takes about 7 minutes to upgrade each of the 10 phone batches!

T-1 month and counting.

So this time next month I should know if I am a CCIE. April 14th is rapidly approaching, so how am I going ? Well, I have booked my activities for the day after the exam – golf with 2 of my best mates in the world at Royal Pines resort followed by dinner with our other halves. So no matter what happens in Sydney, I’ll be actively engaged in a pleasant activity the next day.

And the study ? Well I seem to have had a bit of a boot camp hangover (plus there have been other distractions – six nations rugby, family events, work etc.) I got back on the horse this weekend and had a bash at IPExpert volume 2 lab 6 – but only for 4 hours (more distractions). I had the expected issues: setup ntp then fix replication, MLP QoS reload router no more connectivity bug and a few other things I can’t remember, but dealt with appropriately. The difference this time compared to earlier in my study was that I knew how to deal with each issue and was ready for the expected problems. I feel I have a much better handle on WAN QoS now. I still don’t know how you can deal with the reload bug in the lab if the proctor reloads your router though – maybe just leave a note in the pod ! (or maybe its a slight variation in the version of IOS used by IPExpert vs. the real lab!).

So what is the plan for the last month ? Well, more family events over the next two weekends mean I will only be doing full labs Sunday this weekend and Saturday next weekend. I start my holiday from work on the 2nd April, so I will be having my own 5 day lab boot camp from then until we fly to Oz. I intend to spend 10 to 12 hours a day each of these days as it will be the last serious lab time I get before hitting Sydney and the exam.

My chances of passing ? I’ll tell you in a month!

What day is it ?

I’m back from San Jose now after my IPExpert boot camp. I woke at 3 this morning (after going to bed at 8pm), it is of course the first day back (I think it’s Monday!) It took my until Tuesday evening last week to work out what day it was (Tuesday was a good day – everything I did that day worked) after arriving in San Jose on Saturday. So I should be back to normal by Wednesday I think!

So how was it ? Well, in a nutshell, it was the most enjoyable, most intense, most eye-opening training course of any type I have been on, and now I feel much more comfortable about what I need to achieve in the next 6 weeks before my exam. So let’s break down what was so good about it.

First, the class – my fellow CCIE wanabees (including some CCIE alreadys) – the stamina, enthusiasm, knowledge and experience in that room would have made quite an exceptional Cisco-partner organisation! Normally in a class you expect people to be quite 9-5 about it. Not here! Everyone was in (except Monday) around 8am and didn't leave (except Friday due to flights etc.) until at least 7:30pm if not later – and this was every day!  This didn't just apply to those who’d funded the trip themselves. This was one committed (or is that committable) bunch, and a great bunch too.

The content – well the website states that there are 4 days of lecture/lab and one day of full lab. Forget that! Vik stated up front that most of us would not get to go through that one day lab at the end, as there was just so much content to cover, that it was a better use of time to do this than the 1 day lab (we received the lab and solution guide so no great loss). The real world – forget that too. This course is about passing the CCIE lab, and that is not the real world. Many times throughout the week you would think – I’d never do this in the real world – and then you remembered where you were. Partition <None> anyone ? Would I recommend this course to someone not attempting the lab ? No! It is too detailed, and otherworldly. The number of gotchas that came up throughout the week, I lost count (but made copious notes!). “What protocol provides the voice vlan to a phone ?” – think about that carefully before you answer – and be pedantic!

The man – Vik is a Liverpool Fan – that’s the last bad thing I’ll say about him (I’m an Everton Fan!). His ability to engage a class is as good as I’ve seen. He explains topics in such detail and with such authority that it is easy to digest and learn from him. We were quite a clever bunch, but we struggled to find anything that could knock him out of his stride – if we had a question he had the answer. He had a knack of knowing when we were all starting to flag and had hit our knowledge absorption limit – at which point we take a “5” minute break (I think he needs a new watch!)  His explanation of 3750 QoS breaks it down in such a way as you go – ahhh!

So was it worth it (it being the not inconsiderable monetary sum I shelled out for flights/accommodation/food/unpaid work time!) ? Well, as I sit here on the train into the office I feel it was. I’m definitely better prepared now – in that I know where I am at, and where I need to get, but also how to go about getting there. The proof will be in the final result in April – although passing first time is not the be-all, it would be nice! As I’ve said before, I don’t want to go to Brussels!

Yes I knew the way!

My trip to San Jose for the IPExpert boot camp last week gave me my first taste of California. So on the two down days I had (Sunday and Saturday at either end of the trip), I had a look around San Francisco.

First however – how do you get to San Jose from SFO – easy, just jump into a shared van at the airport and then go on a geeky magical mystery tour until you get to your hotel. Travelling down the highway into Silicon Valley you see all the names of the places where those big companies you know the names of, and some other places that you go “oooh, I didn't know that was there!” (at least as a geeky Brit on their first trip anyway!) Mountain View, Cupertino, Moffett Field, Palo Alto. Hmmm!

If you are ever in San Jose, check out Gordon Birsch for a beer and a meal , a fine pint (or 3) of the seasonal bock, and a good feed – and thus ended my travelling day 26 hours after I woke up.

Awake at 4:30 hmm isn't US TV poor at this time of the morning – breakfast – UK football streamed over the internet, then time to catch the train to San Francisco. Firstly the San Jose VTA light rail to San Jose Diridon for the CalTrain to San Francisco – on time – nice! (Although given how short the change time was should have gone the opposite direction from Metro to Mountain View which is what I did on the way back) The fast train (baby bullet!) gets from San Jose to San Francisco in just about an hour (the stopper takes 1 and 1/2 hours!) and I managed to make it. Just! I’d decided to take an open-topped bus tour, but I had forgotten my coat, and it was colder than anticipated. I can however recommend it as the best way to see everything if you are very time limited (just don’t get off the bus unless there is really something you want to do!)  I had been looking forward to seeing the Golden Gate Bridge since I booked the trip – here it is!

That’s right – cloud arrived just before I did! So rather than get off I stayed on the bus and went over the bridge. It was much clearer on the northern side – but no photo of the whole bridge without any cloud. This is the best!

Down to Fisherman’s Wharf – fresh crab for lunch/dinner and then back to San Jose (CalTrain, VTA etc.). Back to the hotel in time to get a good night’s sleep before the course started.

San Jose Here I Come!

This weekend I’m off to San Jose (not for a holiday!) for the IPExpert 5 Day Lab Preparation Instructor Led Boot Camp with Vik Malhi. I thought I’d note what I’m looking to get out of the course, and then I can check back afterwards with what I thought (and whether it was worth it!).

I get a lot of comments when I say I’m off to San Jose (the obvious one + others) for a training course – “That sounds like fun!”, “Couldn’t you go any further for the course ?”, "”Don’t they do that course in the UK ?” etc. Mostly when people think of IT-related courses they think of the 5-day low impact CCNx or Microsoft courses, so when I suggest that most of my time will not be spent in the pub, but in a classroom for 10-14 hours a day people are shocked and ask more about this mythical CCIE certification. They are then shocked again when I tell them how much the exam costs, what’s involved and that I’m doing mine in Sydney in April (“Can’t you do that in the UK ?” ) Come on Cisco, if I have to do a re-take, Brussels in not my first choice for a destination, and one of the reasons it’s taken me so long to get motivated since passing the written (in Barcelona – why do exams in dour places!) They also think that I should pass it “easy”, at which I nod politely and say “hopefully!”. If only they truly understood!

So what am I expecting ? Well – having done most of the volume 1 labs, I’m looking for filling in the gaps. There are many times, especially in the call routing sections where I’ll do it one way and the proctor guide describes another way – both get the same end result (as far as I can tell), so if Cisco awards points in a results oriented fashion, I’ll be fine! It is always advantageous to know multiple ways to do things however, in case Cisco says you can’t do it the way you know.

I hope to get some good tips on strategy, as I need to work on mine and refine it until it is second nature. I’m spending too much time thinking, and not enough time doing at the moment. It needs to flow better.
It will also be good to surround myself with a group of like-minded individuals who are all pulling in the same direction to achieve the same goal. Hopefully I’ll meet some new people I’ll come to call friends and we can go for a beer when we have our numbers (personally I quite fancy CCIE#30000 – which, looking at the latest digits being handed out, could be right about when I take my exam – any number will be fine by me though!)

It is also helping me to focus. Doing this with a 9-5 job (more like 6:30-7:30 if you include commute), it is hard to make the time to have long focused time – i.e. just the weekends – you wouldn’t run a marathon if you could only practice at a quarter to one-third distance! This is the point where the hard push towards the finishing line begins. My study program has another big push just before I fly out to Australia (where I’ll have no access to lab gear for the final 7 days leading into the lab), where I hope to get myself peaking at just the right time. We’ll see!

Right time to pack my bags!

Weekend wake-up call

This weekend I attempted my first lab double-header, two sessions on the proctorlabs.com racks in two days. My aim – to finish off the IPExpert volume 1 workbook, and to attempt a full length lab. Well, let’s say if I had any doubts as to how much work is still be done to get myself up to the required standard to pass the lab, I don’t now!

My Saturday labbing was to fill in the gaps where my previous lab sessions had left. This meant starting with lab 6 and working through to lab 13, skipping those I had already done and picking off other bits where time allowed. This is to be the last day I study with other things going on in the background – you know the usual slight distractions, music or amazing premiership football games with up to 8 goals! It’s very hard to get the nuances of IPMA  as yet another goal goes in (anybody who listened or watched Soccer Saturday this weekend will attest to that!)

The various application sections opened my eyes to functionality that is bound to be on the final lab, as it is the stuff that I don’t touch every day (or even any day) – IPMA – I’m looking at you here. I guess someone must use it! It was interesting to see and is now on my read more about list, e.g. how to tell if the question wants shared-line mode vs proxy mode. At least with the application sections there seems to be less variation in how to configure the final solution (or do I need to learn more about them so I can see more alternatives – I’m not sure yet).

Sunday, how am I going to go with a full lab – volume 2 lab 1 – I guess this must be a nice easy starter lab (and in fairness I’m probably right here!). I do wish there was a difficulty level attached to each of the volume 2 labs, as it would help gauge where I’m at (I’m sure if I google it, someone has stated the difficulty level compared to the actual lab!) As I’ve stated before, the time zone issue means that my labbing is 1pm to 8:45pm – which coincides with two major meal times – and Sunday lunch is the most important meal of the week! So I knew from the start that I was not going to go straight through and would probably not have enough time to finish everything.

For anyone attempting the full labs in one session, I have a suggestion (which I thought of beforehand, but didn’t do this time), read the lab in the hour before the rack time starts and make any notes, set up any points tracking, and any test plans you feel you will need (and you will need all of that) . That way you won’t waste any of the rack time (I will take my own advice next time).

I actually have many suggestions and things I’ll do differently next time, here’s a few.

• Don’t get stuck!
  If something is causing problems, move on and come back, especially if it is not core to getting the basics working (which may have already been done in the real lab). It is really easy to burn time, and a fresh look will often find the problem (this happened to me twice!)
• Save your configurations regularly
  It’s easy to forget this one, given that a lot of work is in the CUCM GUI, but those gateways don’t auto-save their configuration and when you enter that one configuration command which causes your 2811 to reload (not done that to an IOS device in years) – it was something to do with DSPs in telephony-service if my memory holds – then that’s the last hour or so that needs to be re-done (not such an issue when you have the proctor guide, but come lab-day!)
• Details, Details, Details
  Just because it looks like a T1 configuration doesn’t mean its a working t1 configuration. There will be tiny details – often taken for granted – that will trip you up and burn time, watch for them, be aware of them and don’t let them get you! Oh yes and if you don’t see significant digits on the mgcp endpoint screen – it’s because you didn’t select Digital T1 PRI !

So how did I go – hmm lets just say it needs more work. That’s my speed needs more work (too many typos), my time-management needs more work (spending too long on a problem – I now understand why you use VIA zones, although I still not sure I can see much of a use for them in the real world), my overall knowledge needs more work (see VIA zones comment). It’s an over-used cliché, but it is a journey of discovery and I’ve discovered a lot over that one weekend. 2 months (should I be counting in days yet?) to lab day, too late to cancel. Off to San Jose for some IPExpert  boot camp magic, lets see what I think after that.

New Laptop–Same Old Issues

As you may have read, I purchased a new laptop last week, and I said I’d answer the question am I happy with it. Well here are my first impressions and feelings on what I’ve purchased and will have to live with for possibly another 5 years.

The packaging of the Vaio can only be described as minimalist. Power lead, check – ooh great the power supply has connectors at right angles to the cable, why can’t all power supplies be like this, less chance of damaging them! Laptop battery – check. Laptop – check. A couple of pamphlets about warranty – and done.  Great not much to throw away.

The out-of-box experience of Windows has never been good – and laptop PCs have often been full of crap-ware. Sony annoyed me instantly – when it got to wireless network connection – um, I checked the store demo laptop and it definitely had 802.11a wireless, but it couldn’t find my 5Ghz network, not happy – this laptop is going back first thing in the morning! Once Windows setup had completed and the machine had rebooted a few times, I got to log in, first stop – network and sharing, change adapter settings and lo’ in their wisdom by default 802.11a is turned off! (The setting is under the advanced driver options – find that if you don’t know what you are doing!) Turn it on, and voila’ I’m on my 5Ghz wireless network – Windows update time (argh!) 2 hours later and multiple reboots, I think I’m done.

The next step is the removal of crap-ware. Sony even give the full instructions to completely remove the “complimentary” anti-virus software on the back of the invoice. This was highlighted by the man in the shop (score one bonus point for customer service), I guess they’ve had complaints. AV gone (three reboots), Microsoft Security Essentials installed and I’m away again. Add, chrome, acrobat, Skype (preloaded, but old version update me please), remove office and install my own copy with OneNote, Outlook et al. Getting there. Acrobat Reader (another preloaded needing update).

Set up Media Centre (no tuner – but the best way to watch Sky Player!) – hmm no Sky Player icon. Some Google time and a few reboots later, I found the solution here. Sky player is a must for couch surfing, but it gets confused if you use multiple browser sessions (or browsers), so it’s easier to use it within Media Centre, then you always know where it is.

Hmm, other things of note to add – GNS3 – it may not do voice interfaces, but for practicing everything else its fine. There are limits onto which versions of IOS you can usefully load on its emulated 3745 & 7200 routers for voice – 7200 for PSTN, 3745s for the rest. Wireshark of course, never know what you might need to look at. Of course putty.  Interestingly, I was able to find 64-bit versions of both of those! Not forgetting chrome  (preinstalled with an update me!).  VMWare – mental note – need more RAM.

I have added the latest Intel wireless drivers, so I can now use WIDI once I purchase the Netgear Push2TV adapter for the other end (surprisingly this is cheaper in the UK than the US – it is just hard to find). This is a feature not advertised at all by Sony – but the combination of wireless chipset and i3-370 provide it (along with the new driver and wireless display software that is).

So once all this was done (its been over a few nights as I remember what I’m missing, not all at once!) the important question – am I happy with what I’ve bought. The short answer is yes. I now use it on my commute (1hour on a train – not the tube/bike sections) in both directions, without having to carry a power supply. I can get a couple of lab problems worked through in that time, or write a blog post (like this one). The screen size (13”) doesn’t bother me, in fact its great as I can watch TV without it being obscured by the top of the screen.The keyboard is comfortable without being too large (although its taking a bit of getting used to the position of home/pgup/pgdn/end one above the other), typing on it is a breeze. As for performance, its handles everything I’ve thrown at it so far – its not a desktop replacement, so I don’t expect it to be one. Sony, you have one happy customer. Time to remove the stickers!

What has happened to laptops ?

Last week my 5th laptop power supply died (after two weeks this time – a new low!) I bought my Toshiba Portege M400 Tablet PC 5 years ago (give or take a few months) when they first hit the shores here in the UK. I was just starting consulting again and the Friday before my first gig was due to start there was a mad rush to Tottenham Court Road in London when my online order had failed to arrive even though it had been ordered for over a month. Anyway the M400 has served me well, been thrown across a car park (only a slight crack in the panel – didn’t affect the operation of the tablet) and survived, eaten a few batteries and destroyed a few power supplies. It owes me nothing now (I think it cost about £1500 when I bought it). It was time to get a new laptop.

My needs have significantly changed since that day, I now don’t need a laptop for anything other than couch surfing (consulting at a company where we are not permitted to connect our own devices to the network, been there for quite a while now) – oh and for the trip to San Jose for the IPExpert boot camp. So I wasn’t prepared to pay >£1000 for a laptop – and I am not prepared to have a Mac – much to the amusement of my anything i-loving co-workers.

I wanted something with a core i processor, at least 4GB of RAM, a decent screen and 5GHz wireless (802.11a/n), oh and not too big or heavy, battery-life must be reasonable i.e. > 3-4hrs. And therein presented myself with a problem.

Firstly what has happened to laptop screens in the last five years – I’m sure they should be better than the one in my tablet – higher resolution, nice to look at – but no! In to the stores with their high-powered fluorescent lighting and all the screens in my laptops of compromise looked washed out and awful. I commented to the knowledgeable gent in the store, and he said yes it is true there has been a significant decline in quality over time – unless you want a mac that is! He did however direct me over to what was to become my eventual winner (more on that later), which had a much more acceptable screen (although still far from perfect). I think it comes down to the obsession with HD 16:9 screens and glossy reflective coatings– which allows manufacturers to create low pixel density screens that’ll do 720p just fine – i.e. 1366 x 768 – now I know my tablet was expensive back in 2006 – but I got 1400x1050 back then (oh dear 4:3ish!) and that was on a smaller panel than on this laptop which I am typing! Want a very nice screen, get a mac, apparently!

What is the obsession with the 2.4Ghz unlicensed wireless band – everything is there! I have one concession to Apple in my house – the magnificent airport extreme. Why did I buy an expensive wireless router when there are plenty of cheapo wireless-N routers out there (and even “cheaper” freebies from ISPs). Because 2.4Ghz is crowded – even in my little cul-de-sac – and my wireless gear is in my study which is a long way (in radio terms) from my lounge – 802.11a was the solution, the airport provided it – right tool, right job! Fast forward 5 years (again) and try finding an Intel-based laptop with 802.11a/b/g/n as standard. Whoops, apparently that is the domain of  AMD processors or “professional”-grade laptops, oh yes and macs!

Laptops, along with the general population, appear to have put on weight, or become cheap plastic easy-crack paper-weights. A laptop with a numeric keyboard – I don’t want to carry around my desktop! I guess with those 15.6” screens at 1366x768 with pixels as big as your fist, there’s a lot of space to fill in the keyboard space! Again macs are built differently – if I remember correctly even the MacBook pro 15” doesn't have a numeric keypad – just a keyboard lost in a big space of silvery metal-looking stuff.

Battery-life, surely there should have been some improvement by now – but it seems the latest mid-range to high-end processors (or is it those dodgy screens again) suck batteries dry quickly. Go for something down the range (no Intel Core i5 or 7 then!) – or something plastic with very tricky power management, and they claim up to 10 hours – but I am just a little sceptical of these claims. Still a realistic 4 hours would be an improvement on my old Tosh, which could manage 2 at a push when brand new, so one for the 2011 models.

So, as you may have guessed, I didn't buy that MacBook air/pro no matter how many times it looked at me and said – “you know you want to!” I’m a Windows person at heart (for desktop / mobile), and I couldn’t handle the sniggering in the office or the extra cash it would have taken for me to purchase one. I ended up with an S Series Sony Vaio (“form over function after all” as one in the office said) – it meets all my criteria and comes in under the price bar. Yes its only an i3/4GB, but its not my desktop i7/12GB and its not meant to be. Am I happy with it ? Well so far, but that's another post!

vRack Thoughts

Since purchasing my IPExpert boot camp, I have started using the vRacks at proctorlabs.com. It has led me to some observations that I had never considered when I thought about how I’d use these and how they compare to my use of the home rack.

As I mentioned previously, I have a home setup that does not include everything that the vRack does, but it has enough gear to allow me to mock up most scenarios. I had expected the vRacks to be a top-up, but the more I use them, the more it is the other way round. Everything you need, so long as you have some physical phones at home that is! Score one to the vRack.

Firstly, I live in England, so I have only one timeslot on proctorlabs that suits – the 1pm GMT slot. This limits my vRacking to Saturday and Sunday, due to that other thing I do called a day job. Finishing (or starting) at 2am is not an option! So come on proctorlabs, can we either have more flexible start times, say starting every 4 hours – I know I’m not the only one who wants this! It would also be handy to be able to book up a time just after the start time for those of us who do just-in-time scheduling ! The always there-ness of the home lab wins on this one

Preparation is key to getting the most out of the vRack session. Read the lab you intend to do before the start time – have an idea of what you are aiming to achieve. Make sure you have those initial gateway configurations on you PC and have modified them to work with your own phones so that you can hit the ground running.

Once signed in and you have the VPN up, make sure your home phones are NOT powered up. This sounds counter-intuitive but when you have sat through a few phone upgrade/type changes (which can happen a bit if you are using a home lab too) you’ll realise that you could have used that 30 minutes better. TFTP is an unforgivingly slow protocol on high latency links – that’s why there’s peer firmware sharing and the Load Server option! Connect to the CUCM publisher, watch the vRack phones auto register, and then turn off auto-registration. Modify the preconfigured phone’s mac addresses to match your own phones – or if you don’t have matching phone types, the recreate the preconfigured phones with your phone type. Once you have your home phones configured, then power them up and connect them.

If you are using a mix of hard and softphones, then check out Mark Snow’s piece at INE on what you can achieve with the different phone types (note to proctorlabs– keep up and get some phone remote control software on your vRacks please!) I had a frustrating time this weekend with global/localization due to the end phone being an IP Communicator – I eventually worked out that it was a limitation of the softphone, but more time lost.

Log into the voice gateways and turn on debugging . Don’t be afraid - this is not a production environment! Being so used to not turning on debugging, it didn’t occur to me that this would be an absolute time-saver. I had an issue this weekend where I was sure my configuration on CUCM was correct – and it was – but didn’t have the dial peers correct on the gateway. Much time and frustration later I turned on debugging and the issue was found in seconds. For SIP/H323 gateways start with debug VoIP dialpeer and for all gateways debug isdn q931, between those two you should find >90% of your issues! I saw this tip from Matthew Berry a few hours later on OSL (check out his website it’s a goldmine of information from someone who passed first time!)

Don’t be afraid to use the proctor guide, you bought those workbooks for the answers as well as the questions! It is interesting to hear people who think using the answers is cheating – but this isn’t the real lab (that would be cheating!). I have found that the proctor guides are a great learning tool. It is also good to know that your solution also works even when it doesn’t match the proctor guide. I’m sure that will help on lab day when they say you can’t do it the way you have learned from the proctor guide. A tip seen many times elsewhere – know at least two ways to configure everything, three if possible!

Finally, enjoy it! What is the point of doing all this hard work, and spending all this money (even if it’s not your own money! – it is my own), if you don’t actually enjoy it! Every time you get on the rack you will learn something new – either about the technology or about yourself – and learning is fun!