Tag Archives: Blogging

2012 Was A Great Year, 2013 Looks Great

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Well the end of 2012 is approaching fast and we’re about to dim the lights a bit for the festivities. 2012 was a great and action packed year.

Being awarded with the MVP title turned out to be an awesome experience. The MVP summit, the frequent interactions with colleagues and Microsoft employees, … I learnt so much form that and them that I feel privileged to be part of that ecosystem. It makes me feel I stand on the shoulders of giants. We teamed up informally and delivered some top notch sessions on Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V, learning again form each other and the questions and feedback of our audience. I met a lot of people and “networked” all over the planet.

Locally I Belgium my involvement in MEET offered me to some new opportunities like public speaking and introduced me to some great an knowledgeable experts while helping put and sharing knowledge. Thanks Arlindo!

Then there was my team, that bunch of great, smart, hardworking people who make a big difference in job appreciation. This year has had its challenges, but they’re a real crew alright. They were also there at crunch time, standing tall and saving a business. Twice for good measure.

We deployed a new storage infrastructure (DELL, Compellent), rolled out Windows Server 2012, transitioned our clusters, got  backup hardware in place etc. All this as part of an ever to deliver more value at less cost. We still have a lot to do. Not just operational but also optimizing ROI, TCO and seeing where we can replace products and software that fails to deliver value for money. Trust me, telling me that your solution is best of breed, industry leader doesn’t cut it. In this economy even less so, you deliver value and keep delivering value or the bell tolls for thee. 2013 is shaping up to be yet another a busy and interesting year.

It looks like we’ll learn a lot, work a lot, an have fun doing so. I feel truly fortunate to be able to have a good, interesting job that I enjoy.  So let’s go for another great year in 2013 Smile. I whish you all the very best for 2013!

A Festive End Of 2011 & A Great 2012 To All

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Well the end of 2011 is getting closer and 2012 is about to knock at my door. 2011 was a very busy year and 2012 show no signs of being different, quite the opposite actually. We’re going to be deploying the System Center 2012 Suite, diving in to Windows 8 Server and I’m doing some storage projects in the  >200TB usable storage space range. Getting our feet wet with the private cloud concept in production etc. On top of that I’m planning to attend some conferences and might be speaking at some of those again on Hyper-V, Clustering, Storage and Windows 8 Server.

I’d like to thank all my readers and let you know I appreciate the feedback and your words of thanks when you’ve found my posts helpful or funny.

To all my IT buddies I’ve been lucky enough to have met up with in 2011 I hope to see you all again in 2012 for some more fun and educational conferences and dinners. There is a very helpful and smart bunch of people out there and I enjoy talking with them.

To those of you who are changing employers, jobs, starting your own companies or going freelance, I wish you all the best. It’s reassuring that in these day of constant economic doom & gloom we see people moving ahead full steam and with confidence.

I have a great small team of great IT Pros & Developers working with in the trenches and hope they continue to have fun and keep finding positive challenges in their jobs. They have “the right stuff” and we couldn’t get things done without their skillsets. The challenge for management is to help ‘m get the job done nothing more or less than that, to take away obstacles and let ‘m be the best they can be.

This year was also the first time I presented to a very stimulating, knowledgeable and communicative technical audience. There is room for improvement in my presenting skills but I enjoyed it and it was very good learning experience for me. It’s not easy to deliver good content, and share knowledge. I thank all of you who make an effort to do so and I wish you all a happy, prosperous, carefree and healthy 2012!

100

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No this is not a cheap and reduced version of the movie 300. I do not resemble King Leonidas in anyway except perhaps in my defiance to those who want to coerce their will upon me in the data center forcing other solutions on me than what I deem best. To paraphrase it “This is Hyper-V!” But let’s get real, I’m Belgian so the Belgian chocolates (pralines) named after Leonidas are perhaps the most realistic link to the movie 300 I have and even then, when we need some pralines as a gift we manage to end up with a huge chocolate bunny. But I totally digress from the subject, having a high definition beamer and liking movies tends to invoke this. This blog is about 100; actually this is blog entry one hundred.

What can is say about it? I’m still blogging, which to me was one of the things I wanted to find out. Can I keep writing something worth reading? The first part I have answered myself but the second part, is it worth reading, that’s for my readers decide. So, if you have things to say about the blog, feedback to provide, opinions to share, by all means, please do. Let me know what you think. Is it useful, is it amusing? Or perhaps even both? If you feel like telling me, send me a mail via the contacts page, if you don’t mind voicing your opinions publicly just leave a comment to this blog or sound of on twitter to @workinghardinit

Thanks for reading Party smile

2010 My First Year of Blogging & Using Twitter

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Well 2010 is coming to an end. This year to me was special because it was the first year I decided to speak out on some issues,subjects and ideas on line via blogging and twitter. The idea behind both was to share knowledge and ideas, promote interaction, getting or keeping in touch with colleagues and using it as a way to exchange pointers to information or even as a lightweight support tool. That has been a success. A big benefit is that I can refer myself and others to the blog as a documentation system for solutions and musings. I’ve been able to reach out to many knowledgeable professionals and experts and I’ve enjoyed both getting and providing assistance. There is a very helpful and smart bunch of people out there, who contribute a lot to the community some of whom I had the pleasure of meeting at Tech Ed Europe 2010.  Being helpful brings me to a point Aidan Finn http://www.aidanfinn.com/?p=11002  recently touched on in a blog post: people expecting or even demanding all things for free. There is no such thing as a free lunch and what goes around comes around. I had to tell people to document their problems and post them on the forums, that’s what they exist for. Most people do that but some expect a solution to a problem that they describe as “it doesn’t work”.  I hope people got something out of the blogs and out of the twitter interaction in the same way I do form their contributions. One of the main questions I had when posting my first blog was if would be able to produce some content worthwhile posting and keep doing it over a prolonged period of time. That went reasonably well I think. In 2011 I’d like to share some knowledge and ideas via workshops, lunch & learns beyond the normal “internal” public. I’ll see how that goes. Good content, good delivery and useful application of shared knowledge of that isn’t that easy and takes quite and effort. That’s definitely something I appreciate. I wish all my IT colleagues a great end of 2010 and a very prosperous, successful, fun and healthy 2011.