Blathr Wayne Lorentz

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Showing blathrs with the tag “Microsoft Azure.”

Start me up!

Wednesday, August 16th, 2023 Alive 19,104 days

A screenshot of a broken Microsoft web page

This Microsoft Azure web page promoting Redmondʼs acumen tells me two things:

  1. Microsoft spends more than $1 billion annually on cybersecurity research and development.
  2. All those rumors about Microsoft disbanding its Quality Assurance department in favor of “AI” and “telemetry” were true.
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Itʼs a major award!

Monday, January 23rd, 2023 Alive 18,899 days

What happens when you gamify education

It seems that I can do things.

Today I received an e-mail telling me that my Windows Server training has earned me a major award. Maybe not major. Minor. OK, itʼs a PNG.

Collecting these badges is the way nerds boast to one another these days. Kind of like the way certain birds will collect shiny objects to attract a mate.

According to the company that taught the class, I am now thoroughly stilled in the following:

  • Azure
  • Deploying And Configuring Azure VMs
  • Facilitating Hybrid Management
  • File Servers And Storage Management In Windows Server
  • Hyper-Virtualization in Windows Server
  • Implement Identity Services in Windows Server
  • Implementing a Hybrid Infrastructure
  • Implementing Identity In Hybrid Scenarios
  • Microsoft
  • Network Infrastructure Services In Windows Server
  • PowerShell
  • Windows Admin Center
  • Windows Server
  • Windows Server Administration
  • Marine welding and light submarine repair

I may have made up that last one.

A New Horizons certificate award declaration
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376006

Monday, October 10th, 2022 Alive 18,794 days

A screenshot of the Microsoft Azure price calculator

The header graphic for Microsoft's Azure pricing calculator reads “HELLO.”

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You get a sticker! And you get a sticker!

Monday, October 10th, 2022 Alive 18,794 days

Ooh! Teacher gave me a sticker!

It used to be said that learning is its own reward. Now itʼs all about the stickers.

The company that taught me the fundamentals of managing Microsoft Azure servers has sent me a sticker to confirm that I understand the fundamentals of managing Microsoft Azure servers. Well, not a real sticker. A virtual sticker. So it doesnʼt really stick to anything except this web page.

Iʼm not sure that making education a game is a good idea, especially for adult continuing education, where weʼre all supposed to be adults and taking these classes to improve ourselves. It seems to me that “gamifying” education only adds incentive for people to game the system. Like back in the 1980ʼs when we used to trick the Scan-Tron machines into marking every answer correct using a sewing needle. Good times.

At least I have a series of ones and zeroes that I can show a potential employer so they know that I understand (according to the certificate):

  • Availability
  • Azure
  • Compliance
  • Fundamentals
  • Management
  • Microsoft
  • Monitoring
  • Security
  • Services
  • Solutions
  • Understand Azure Concepts

Also, it states that I have been trained in “and Cost Management.” Perhaps someone at New Horizons should take a class in proofreading before publication.

Totally un-forgeable credentials
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Cheaper than Google Cloud, more relianle than Microsoft Azure

Thursday, July 15th, 2021 Alive 18,342 days

Every ten years it seems like the tech world bring in a new batch of people who never bothered to study how things worked in previous decades, and thus end up not only reinventing the wheel, but hyping it up like itʼs the first time anyone ever thought of whatever it is theyʼre all excited about.

Timesharing → Thin clients → Web apps

Hypercard → Web sites

Brittanica → Encarta → Wikipedia

Q-Link → IRC → Second Life → Virtual reality

Rabbitjackʼs Casino → BetMGM

An ad for MicroNET in the February, 1980 issue of Byte magazine

Also not new: Cloud computing. Check out the highlights from this 1979 advertisement for MicroNET:

  • MicroNET allows the personal computer user access to… large computers, software and disc storage
  • You can use our powerful processors
  • Operating time [is] billed in minutes to your VISA or MasterCharge card
  • You can even sell software via MicroNET.

MicroNET was a way for CompuServe to allow people to use spare capacity on its big iron computers. People could upload their personal projects, conduct business, and even develop software using the might of dozens of machines thousands of times more powerful than what they could afford in their own homes. Maintenance, backups, power supply, networking, and other infrastructure details were abstracted away from the end user so the user could concentrate on the task at hand.

Sound familiar, Google Cloud Platform, Microsoft Azure, Amazon Web Services, and a thousand other virtual machine companies?

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