Communities @ One Converence

Leighton Andrews AM, Deputy Minister for Regeneration, Welsh Assembly Government gave a speech at the Communities @ One conference in Cardiff last Friday, there was no news on extending our project, but money will got to communities @ One brokers to continue their work, lets hope we will get funding too.

My Certificates Have Arrived

I worked very hard to pass three Microsoft Exams last November and December, the certificates have arrived! Bill Gates even signed them, OK maybe not personally, but I have two certificates (electronically) signed by the richest man in the world! Only 36,360 other people world wide have a Microsoft Certified Desktop Support Technician (MCDST) Windows XP certificate. I'm learning to become Microsoft Certified System Administrator (MCSA) certified next......

Well Done to PC Surgery Volunteers

Last Friday all the DCN team and centre managers from each partner where at an important meeting about future finding, hopefully with the Lottery. While we were in out meeting Colin, Steve and Iwan ran the PC Surgery in Glynneath. Unlike last time, where I was able to support using Skype, I couldn't get Skype to work. The meeting was held at the Development Centre in Ammanford (above) it used to be a bank, and has thick brick walls, so I couldn't get Skype to work during the meeting, I spoke to them during a break, all was going well. When I arrived back in Glynneath, in the afternoon they had managed to help three clients, Iwan even had time to post! http://pcsurgery.blogspot.com/

Well done!

BTH elp N otifier.exe

One of the good things about PC Surgery is the rapore and fun you have with volunteers. The surgery is informal and humour is important. Today in DOVE Colin and Doug were helping a client with annoying error boxes appearing every time windows starts. Colin has previously run anti-virus and anti-spyware so the "programs" were still trying to start, but as they had been deleted so Windows could not find them. Colin was reading the error message and Doug was typing in to google search, Colin: capital B-T-H, lower case e-l-p, capital N, lower case o-t-i-f-e-r-dot-e-x-e, which was fine, but tickled me. When Doug has finished the google search, the program could have been spyware, which has been deleted. The recommendation was to goto the registry and delete the program from the run registry key, I couldn't resist asking Colin to Start>Run>type in regedit press enter, then say he could type in B-T-H-e-l-p-N-o-t-i-f-e-r-.-e-x-e or BT Help Notifier . Exe without spaces, as I've know Colin for over 18 months he got the funny side!

Flat out in DOVE

We had a busy PC surgery in DOVE today, 4 clients done in 1 hour! All satisfied clients! I even had time to encourage the volunteers to Blog, I thought I had better blog also. I even had time for a coffee, update the stats, 95 clients to date, all by 12 O'clock. Time for lunch.

Im a MCP and MCDST

I've been doing allot of revising recently, I've taken three Microsoft exams over the last three weeks and they are very hard, to give you some idea for one exam I revised all weekend and every evening in the week; I watched 9.1/2 hours of nugget videos, I read an Exam Cram book (220 pages), I re-read a course book, I re-did some virtual machine practises and finally took some Transcender practise exams, I was up until 11 or 12 each night! Allot of revising, but its worth it :) My wife has been very supportive, I haven't taken her shopping on Saturday for three weeks! But I can now call myself a Microsoft Certified Professional (MCP) (after passing one exam) and a Microsoft Certified Desktop Support Technician (MCDST) (after two exams). The first exam I passed with 933/1000 the second I passed with 863/1000 the last one I passed with 842/1000, the pass mark is 700. I need another two exams to become a Microsoft Certified Systems Administrator (MCSA), I've got the books (2 x 1,000 pages and 2 x 600!), but I'm taking it easier over Xmas :)

Gly PC Surgery Volunteers can do IT

Well done to the PC Surgery Volunteers in Glynneath today. Nicky and I were in an important meeting all day today! Instead of cancelling PC Surgery the volunteers run the Surgery, with my help via Skype (video link), they helped 4 clients! Again well done to Steve, Iwan and Colin.