Every once in a while I visit websites where they don’t appear as intended on Firefox (read as they don’t render well). The most annoying part here is changes in their text box sizes. They will be totally out of their dimensions in comparing to the same webpage on IE. Scott Granneman links to a fantastic extension for Firefox where we can resize the text box sizes now. The extension can be found from http://www.extensionsmirror.nl/index.php?showtopic=2796.

On the side note, my Firefox is doing all the things that my old dear browser Opera was doing it for me. I am exploring more and more day by day. Just installed three more extensions today.

I just finished watching Virtual Server (Virtual PC too inside) demo by Tony Duno. A must see demo who want to understand Virtual Server technology without going through the mumbo jumbo and long technical documents. Robert you are doing a great job by bringing us these interviews. I have done a demo of Virtual Server myself and have to say that it’s impressive. Does VMWare have a similar kind of Server? Will have to find it out now.

Talking about Virtual PC’s yesterday, I just remembered to tell you all that VMWare 5 is out now and available to public. Here’s an annoucement. The best new features I like are Teams, Movie Capture and Clones. I will tell you more as I go.

After wanting to do for many months I think I have decided that I will now spare the time to finally prepare for some certification exams. The exams I have to give are Microsoft Windows 2003 Upgrade exam (70-292 and 70-296) and Cisco CCNA exam (640-801). I wanted to give this exams since last two years now, but other work took all the priority. But now I have decided to make these exams my priority.

I have set aside three months for preparing for these three exams and then sit the exams. We will see. I will be using my blog to update on my study schedule and progress. I will also post on the following:-

· Will update about my study plans
· The resources I am using for studies
· All the relevant links that I could find for a given exam objective
· Daily read, interesting and relevant links from Cisco, Microsoft and the Internet
· My findings if any
· Links to the Microsoft and other labs
· Exam study tips

The intention is to help other fellow readers with their studies and to get comments and help from them if they care to share their knowledge. Also regular postings will keep me on my toes and on schedule for my exams. I will be utilising lot of my blog reading time to study now, so normal blogging might be a bit less than usual during next coming months. I am planning to create two categories and make post related to these exams under that.

I am a bit of certification fanatic myself. Although I hate paper certified people. What I mean is those people who are certified but don’t know much about the subject. I am talking about people who cram answers and pass the exams. I believe in understanding and exploring the subject. More on this later in the coming posts. Wish me good luck!.

I have just finished watching the Virtual PC Video on Channel 9. Thanks Robert for bringing it to us ( you are doing a great job at it)but I am disappointed with the interview. I was expecting more from this interview. I was expecting for something that I did not know about Virtual PC’s. Tricks and tips. Tips on optimising Virtual PC’s. Obviously Robert Scoble gave Ben many chances to add something to the conversation, but Ben did not have much to offer to his audience. He did not even have cool stories! Atleast he could have told his audience where all the Virtual PC’s are used and where it will be used in the future. They are just not used in software development business! Ben could have told us more about the features of Virtual PC’s and gave few demos (there are heaps of interesting features). Microsoft can target more audience than they might be doing now!

Well for myself, I use Virtual PC, Virtual Servers and VMWare workstation. May be Robert you can interview me on VMWare workstation ( I don’t work for VMWare) and I can give you a more interesting interview than what Ben did. Ben no offence mate, you did not looked juiced up about your own product.

Today Microsoft announced that it will provide support to it’s Server products on Virtual Server environment. Here is there support policy. Yes they won’t be supporting some of their products and here is the list of those.

Email SPAM is not bothering me now a days as much as blog Spam. Rude people are spamming this blog in the form of comments to the posts as well as sending Spam refererrs. This blog engine has a black list facility, but that is not the best way to go in my view. There has to be a better option. I have made some changes to .htaccess file too. So how do you fight the referrer spam? Care to share any suggestions?

Actually, it already expired yesterday according to Australian time, but I just remembered that it will expire today in US. It’s still 12th April there. I don’t have to worry. Everything is under control at my end.

I posted about Myself below as I think that there should be a section on the website/blog which lets the visitors read about the writer of the website/blog. I know that this is not there on many of the blogs I read and is irritating for me. So here we go. It took a long time to be posted, but finally it’s up here. Now I will update the blog template so that a link to this post remains on the main page all the time.

Welcome to my blog. Here I will introduce myself enough so that you all reading my blog knows that I am a real person named Tejas Patel and feel comfortable reading a blog from a person that you might not know.

So my name is Tejas Patel and I am a male in his 20’s living in Melbourne, Australia. Indian by birth I came to Australia few years ago and since then am residing here for good. I am here with my wife and loads of other friends. I am a easy guy who wants to enjoy each and every day of life while doing something that helps the community. I started with blogs and blogging at the end of December 2003 and have made quite a few blogs since than. My main ones are http://itdigest.blogdrive.com, http://geekswithblogs.net/tpatel and finally this one at http://www.itejas.com. My picture gallery can be found here.

I like talking about software tools, productivity, technology and how people can enhance their lives using technology. I am trying to dig a hole in the field of computer security (Information Systems Security, more to say) as well. I like to talk and discuss on religious and spiritual topics.

I have Masters in Information Systems and have few more technical certification and working towards few more.

Yes, I do work for somebody for now. I am not putting those details as I want to keep this blog separate from my work and my work does not have any kind of blogging policies yet. When they do, you will see me editing this page as well :).

What kind of person am I? As I say, I am easy going, friendly, smiling and many other positive things related to me kind of person. My negative side is I make friends easily ;).

I think this much of intro should give you a good idea of me. If you want to know more about me than contact me. Incase you need to contact me, you can do so by putting a comment on the blog, emailing me (the address can be found from the home page of this blog) or by Skyping me.

Update:- I just got started with a project. The project is called CertRef and the website can be found at http://www.certref.com and more details on starting of this project can be found from here. It is a wiki based website intended to make a resource pool for vendor certifications.