A new geek in the making

Not a self proclaimed attempt to appear stand-offish, rather a new self confidence building after attended one very interesting event today:

Women in Leadership Conference 2009 organized by Gorgeous Geeks held at The Legend Hotel Kuala Lumpur.

I went alone. Not knowing one particular Pengurus were actually interested. Well, I got used to do all that alone eversince my attempt to invite few colleagues to attend events failed simply because (in my opinion) either they just weren’t interested or they just failed to see beyond the application and assuming everything will be denied. And I am so glad I did. As always, I am again inspired by the success stories especially with women. To see Yasmin Mahmood in person and other household names that equally talented and poised, made me left the event in awe, and determined to make something out of my life. Managed to networking and gained new friends, so its all in all are good.

A little bummed though, that I did not get the Goodie bags and Lucky Draw prizes. It’s due to that late registration! dang! If only I have registered and paid myself early on (which I ended up paying first anyways). *sigh*

I just wish I will sustained this dream this time. Hello again technology, hello again world, here I come.

p/s: It still tough though stepping onto that gold pavement road of theirs…

IT is definitely an unpredictable world to be living in, I learned it the hard way in the past two years, it’s easier when you are involved from the very beginning, from the design, URS, Testing and Deployment. But when you were suddenly dragged in a handover session with another team filling in all the initial stages, it is brutal! You were expected to learn the whole book of architecture in one hour, go through the SOP in another hour and deploy it withing the next 24 hours. This is including all the other ad-hoc stuffs that supposedly were part of your job description as the major factor contributing to your ever infamous KPI. So, where do we go from there? Take a deep breath, cry from the inside, and go through every lines carefully as mistakes are not expected within the timeframe.

And so I did. Yet, changes after changes only added to more challenges in hand, stress becomes another routine to bear with every single day. After kept it so long inside, it managed to build a lump in the scariest place. Thank God I overcome that. And life goes on. Just as when team were trying to gets the hang with everything at hand, another challenge be put upon your shoulder. There are issues of compromises. A defects or errors that were injected from unknown sources. And how to deal? Enforce the ITIL implementation. Put into action all those ISO stuff. Every course of actions have to be initiated formally in writings, justify it, and get approved. By saying this and I mean, if it urgent, you go on and chase those people that were supposed to endorse it. I can do it, so why are there are certain people who still able to find an excuse to not have this carried out just because you can’t find an authority at their “usual place”. You know what i think? I think that’s just plain lazy. If it happened to me one or two times, I certainly have changed. Because in order for the world to revolve around you, you have to give in before you taking it all back in.

Following that, what’s left for that perfect implementation is with additional help of a very simple but impressive checklist, and by checklist I mean, another manual or SOP in addition to the approved SOP that have followed the ISO std. I am saying this based on us being only human; mistakes made, troubleshooting process with trials and errors and some unobvious config usually overlooked. It is time for us, I mean for me to take my job seriously I guess, be from good to great because with that determination, then only come passions, and with that; success will follow very closely.

Got a surprise phone call from a delivery company wanted to confirm my address last month, she said their guy is going to deliver a laptop ordered for me. A little excited and skeptical at the same time. Don’t want to be involved in some kind of scam or anything similar, I gladly declined (a little dissappointed though). Few hours later got another phone call, this time, straight from DELL representative asking me why would I refuse to receive a supposedly gift from them. I said, “what? why would you give me a laptop for free?” Apparently, this is 2009’s marketing strategy for DELL, giving away laptop to randomly chosen customers based on those business cards thrown in the bowls during all those seminars and workshops. Or so she said. I guess I am one of those lucky ones, after few Q & A later, I finally agreed to accept the laptop. And as promised, it arrived the very next day, yes my friend, I am now a proud owner of a free laptop DELL Latitude E4300, not the fancy schmancy RED DELL I always wanted, but hey, who will give up free stuff eh?

So, what do I think about it? It’s light, it’s cute, suit me very well, and it’s mine!!!! yeay!!!!

How do you deal with 5000 users that are more needy that your children if you ever had one? I wouldn’t know because I never have one… but these 5000 users and peripherals are really a pain in my neck. So, what if we don’t know the risk that been going behind my back, never stop bothering us the ghostly silhouette?

Anyway… how do you deal with an attempt to port 445? How do we stop those from using up all our network bandwidth and slowing all the critical applications. it sucks even more when you happen to manage both, one have to overlook the other sometimes. On my part, the protection part have always been overlooked. Can you blame the idea that me alone taking care all this when nobody else wanted. Instead they keep condemning there are better solutions?

Grrrr….

It’s the final day, and I am stucked again in the office. It felt bad to be bitter on the first day of Ramadhan. But I definitely have been sulking when think about it. Perhaps I won, or not, I wasn’t there to witness it eh? perhaps they cancel my winnings for not being there? I dunno…

The most that is lost is the fact that I cannot enjoyed the rest of track sessions offerred to us. bummer!

Work has become more demanding and confusing by the minute… more unknown problem need to be solved. etc etc etc.

Full day today at the Kuala Lumpur Convention Center! yeay….! Was psyche with a full day that’s gonna filled with events, running from one place to another before the holy Ramadhan starts tomorrow and I will too tired to do anything. Missed out one good event yesterday, namely “Women In Technology” Luncheon. Might have helped boost up my confidence to be more involved with my work don’t you think?

Nevertheless:

• Attended Windows Vista SP1 Overview track
• Attended “It’s 11:00 ppm – do you know where you data is?”, yeah Steve Riley! finally met him in person, and, he’s funny… So, where is our data anyway? hmm…
• Attended Server Core: Running Minimal Server track. No comment!
• Attended Microsoft Certification Demystified, everytime, everytime I heard about training and certification, the adrenalin rush to gain new knowledge just pumped throughout my veins… and yet, did I make a move? Well, after failed four papers, and the others pass with flying colours… hurt me whenever it lingers in my mind.
• Participate in the Instructor led Lab – Microsoft Forefront Client Security for Vista. I imagine antivirus will be out of job when all the machines in this world finally upgrade to Windows Vista. It is a good tool when malware and spyware has always been a challenge in managing client machines eh?

The best things throughout the day was when my colleagues and I exploring the exhibition Mall yet again, wished for our names to be displayed among the lucky ones, to win yet another prize in the “spin the wheel” or “lucky dip” session etc etc etc.

Perhaps I won the trip to Europe tomorrow?

I am stucked in the office! (

Well, duty call, what can I do? still… I am pissed! And, my boss bugging me about AD made it worst!

Did you ever felt like you are intimidated with people around you and you got demotivated each time? I feel dumb and dumber as I aged these days. No passion to thrive for excellence like I used to be. One mysterious girl with HUGE ambition… *sigh*

So, what it is about AD? Why is it that the replication been taking too much of the bandwidth? Is it even legit data given by the Network team? It just doesn’t make any sense. At least to me.

 Where is Darien Neagle when I needed him?

It’s the first day, and I was excited like a schoolgirl starting her new school year, came early for registration, psych about the new bagpack, now I have a new bag to bring to work everyday.

While waiting for my colleague:

• Got  myself digitalized into WINDOWS Live Cam Session. It is all about the Windows Live baby! Don’t forget to vote for me – Video no 3014. http://videolive.spaces.live.com
• Drink away one coffee after another: Note to self, check liver status soon.

 After colleagues arrived:

• Attended the keynote opening speech. Long and bored after the dance sequence: “Malaysia, truly Asia”
• Check out all the activities and tracks session, choose one or two
• Waiting for lunch, I’d say, not worth the waiting… (hint: do something about it)
• And off I went to attend sessions. “What’s new in Windows Server 2008″ by Justin Francis, know him, and boy don’t we all love to go back to that ol Nt and coding system. It is all about Power Shell.
• Next, the EDM312 session by Mr Adam Cogan, boy, was he funnyy eh? Now I know there are more to reporting in SQL 2005. It’s just about licensing. One thing we all hate!

Summary for first day: Satisfied, can’t wait for another day in Tech-Ed.

Looking back at the agenda, I got more psych every minute, there are familiar names that I am looking forward to see delivering tracks sessions, there are my former lecturers for my MCSE classes, vendors who been working with us etc etc. And most of them are younger than me. Envious on their success…

hmm.. suddenly I see green.

Nevertheless, I still cannot wait to go about Tech-Ed…