So, i have been wanting to talk about this for a couple of weeks, but never actually got around to it. In September, some time, i will be heading back to college, part time. I am going back to get my Degree, which i have wanted to do since i left Clown College and now this will happen! :)

Its going to take 4 years. So, since i start in a few weeks (not got the final date just yet) i though i better write up some of my plans to help me though college…

  1. Laptop: So, at the moment i have my MacBook Pro. its fully loaded with 4Gb ram, and i was thinking of replacing the HDD, which is currently a 320Gb 5200RPM drive with a 500Gb 7200RPM drive. i would love to go for SSD, but the price is not right yet…
  2. NetBook: I have the MSI Wind at the moment, and its about a year old. it does have 2gb of ram, but its not the fastest in the world. Mind you, speed is not that important: Battery is. So, Nokia are releasing a their Booklet 3G, which has 12 hour battery life! that sounds more like it!
  3. Source Control: this is probably the most important thing. Since there will be code and assignments to be written up and submitted, i think i should bring some of my learning’s from the work place into the college. In work, we use a Team Foundation Server, with Team Suite, with all the fixings (including the for Database Professionals edition) and use it religiously for code and DB changes. i am going to do the same with my code and documents for College. At the moment at home i have a VisualSVN Server sitting on a VM. there is a scheduled task to backup the latest revisions of the code to a SVN dump every 15 min, and i use JungleDisk to backup that folder to Amazon S3 every 15 min. the problem i would have is if i cant connect to the house (more on connectivity below). i don’t like the idea of having code or docs checked out locally and not stored centrally… So, i have been looking at the idea of using sometime like GitHub or Unfuddle… Currently testing both, and will post something when i have a decision…
  4. Connectivity: At the moment, i have 2 3G modems: an old Vodafone Branded and Locked Huawei E220 and a Three Branded, but fully unlocked Huawei E169. I use the E169 more since its smaller, and faster (7.2mb/s compared to 3.6 on the E220), but i have been thinking of changing to a Novatel MiFi 2352. i am liking this idea because it is tiny, fast, has a 4 hour battery life, can be charged via USB and can share my 3G/HSDPA signal with all my devices (NetBook, MacBook Pro, what ever mobile i have at the time and iPod touch). I will also be using a VPN connection to connect to the house. this will allow me access to my file shares in house and also remote desktop to my workstation and servers.
  5. Music: This is a big one for me. When coding or writing docs, i need to listen to music. So, my iPod touch is a must. Thing is, over the last few weeks, i haven’t used it as much for music. that is because i use Spotify. Well, today it was confirmed that Apple has approved The Spotify app for the iPod Touch and iPhone which will mean i can download my music and listen to it on my iPod anywhere! I will be upgrading to an iPod Touch 2nd Gen or 3rd Gen (still unannounced, but we all know its coming) because of its extra capacity (my 1st gen has 16gb, but more is always handy) and Bluetooth support.. very important since i want a pair of these: The Nokia BH-905 Bluetooth headset. These are not cheap (About 300EUR) but they are suppose to be the best headphones ever made… they are on my birthday list and i have been dropping hints (like saying to the sister “I want these for my birthday!