Peter Norris

My last post was January 17, nearly a month ago. I said I was going to try to blog at least every-other day and clearly, I failed. I’ve just been really busy with school and every time I think about blogging its a bad time. Hopefully now that its reading week next week I should be able to get caught up on everything and get back to blogging more often. I’ve got a couple of post ideas I’m going to work on in the next few days so check back soon.

Blogging, Life, School | 1 Comment »

A new semester at university has started. So far, there isn’t very much work. In fact, I don’t think I have any work to do right now. I’ve only had 3 of my 5 classes (the other 2 are tomorrow), and so far there’s nothing too special. Although, I am looking forward to Algorithms and Data Structures course. It looks interesting. As well, my Cisco security course looks like I might actually learn something and get to do some fun things in the lab.

It was my birthday 3 days ago, and now I’m 20. So far, nothing has been different from when I was 19. Hopefully that will change soon.

I have some ideas for the blog that I’m going to work on over the next little while, as well as finding some ways to monetize the blog. I need to find some source of income and the blog looks like a good option.

Until my next post, remember to keep your firewall turned on.

Life, School | No Comments »

Today i turn 20. Its an important day. Not only have i been alive for 1/5 of a century, but it also marks a turning point in my life. The last 20 years have been primarily about school, whereas the next 20 will be about my career and starting a life of my own. Sure, I still have two more years of school, but out of 20, thats not many. 

These past 20 years certainly weren’t a waste. I made lots of great friends, most of whom I hope I’m still in contact with 20 years from now, I went to Italy, started university, and so much more.

Over these next 20 years I plan to accomplish many things. Finish school, get a job I don’t mind waking up for, make a life of my own. The list goes on, but nothing (except maybe school), has any certainty to it. But one thing I’m almost certain about is I don’t want to stay in Toronto forever. San Francisco sounds nice.

Rather than looking at this day as just another birthday, I’m going to look at it as an island on a sea of change. Its time to make some changes, take action, and make something of myself. Here’s to another 20 years.

Life | No Comments »

A new year, a new start. 2007 was a decent year, but certainly nothing to write home about. There were some things that I wanted to do, but unfortunately didn’t accomplish. Hopefully 2008 will be much better.

I’ve decided to come up with a couple of New Years resolutions and goals. Some of them I will post here, others are more personal that I won’t. 

First, I’m going to try to blog at least every other day. I was really bad at blogging this part year but hopefully this year I can change that around and actually be successful at blogging. Second, I’m going to try to monetize the blog and get a small bit of income out of it. Speaking of income, I also want to start doing a bit of design work and get my name out there. I also want to try to learn PHP and Objective-C so I start coding web apps and Mac apps. Why? Just cause I want to, plus I think it could be good for my career.  

2007 wasn’t  a particularly bad year, but as I already said it wasn’t the best year either. This year I’m going to be more outgoing, and to use a way over-quoted phrase “seize the day.” No more procrastinating and sitting and watching TV when I could be doing work. No more saying, “I’ll do it tomorrow.”

To everybody, good luck next year. Don’t fall into the rut of procrastination. Make 2008 a year to remember, not a year to forget. And remember, don’t be afraid to Think Different. 

Life | No Comments »

Yesterday I purchased an 8gb iPod Touch. I have to say I’m impressed. It’s an amazing piece of technology and does exactly what it says it does. The only problem is, I managed to put a couple of scratches on the back less than 24 hours and buying it. Anyone have any tips on how to remove (or at least make less visible) scratches?

Apple, Life | No Comments »

I know I haven’t posted in over a month. I’ve just been busy with school and other things. I keep saying, I should post, but I never do. School has been going good so far. Most classes are good. A couple I could do without though. A brief summary is below.

Cisco: This class is Intro to network security. And when I say intro I mean intro. Its very basic, we haven’t actually learned much and the professor leaves a lot to be desired.

Cybercrime: So far this class hasn’t been too special. The prof is the former head of the child exploitation unit of the toronto police. Starting next week they’re going to be bringing in a bunch of guest speakers talking about security stuff so this could be good.

Computer architecture: I like this class. The prof is great and we’re actually learning about stuff I’m interested in. So far we’ve talked about some different processor architectures and we’re going to be doing some assembly programing.

Object Oriented Programming: In this course we’re learned object oriented programming with c++. The prof is great too and this should be a good course.

Marketing for the IT Sector: This course focuses on marketing in the IT sector. The material, while it sounds interesting, is a little dry (at least how we are learning it) and the prof is decent, but not great.

In other news, our dog Sally had puppies 2 weeks ago today. There are some pictures here and here.

Life, School | No Comments »

In one short week it’s back to school. On Monday September 3rd I’ll be moving back into res for another fun filled year. This is year two of four and I’m definitely looking forward to going back. Classes officially start on Thursday the 6th, but I don’t have my first class until the following Monday the 10th. I have a pretty decent schedule this year. My schedule for the fall term is as follows:

Monday
11am-2pm: Marketing in the IT Sector (Lecture)
3pm-6pm: Cisco Security 1: Fundamentals of Network Security (Lab)
7pm-10pm: Computer Architecture (Lecture)

Tuesday
11am-2pm: Cybercrime (Lecture)
2pm-5pm: Cisco Security 1: Fundamentals of Network Security (Lecture)

Wednesday
9:40am-11am: Object Oriented Programming (Tutorial)
7pm-10pm: Object Oriented Programming (Lecture)

Thursday and Friday
Nothing!

Aside from I plan to be involved in some extra things, such as a Mac user’s group and a security club. I’m really looking forward to year 2 of IT Security at UOIT. 

Life, School | No Comments »

A hacker by the name of Gabriel says he broke into the network at Bloomsbury (the British publisher of the book series) and stole a document containing important plot details of the 7th book in the Harry Potter series, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. The details were posted online at insecure.org.While it’s always possible that these details are true, chances are they are not and Gabriel just wants to have fun with diehard Harry Potter fans. I don’t want to spoil the book for anyone if these rumors are true, but if you want to know what they say, click here.

Life, Tech Stuff | No Comments »

I went to write my CCNA (Cisco Certified Network Associate) exam today, but came out without a certification. You need an unimaginable 849 out of 1000 to pass, and I had 734. I knew the exam was hard, but in my opion it was too hard. There were a couple of things on there I don’t even remember ever doing in class at school which covered the material.

There was also a simulation question in which I had to configure something on a simulated router. I had to configure an access control list to permit and deny HTTP traffic from different users. I had access to one router only, which was the one I was supposed to configure it on. This should have been simple to do, however the ip access-list command needed to do this was “not supported in this version of the Ciso IOS”. How am I supposed to configure an ACL on a router that doesn’t support the command needed to do so? I think this question was worth a lot of marks, which isn’t fair because I couldn’t even answer it! I know I should have done more studying than I did, but I don’t think that would have helped. Now I’m out $70.

I can attempt to write it again but the next time it will cost me about $170. Next year we do the material for the CCSP certifications, but in order to go for that I need my CCNA. I don’t even know if I want to go for that though. To get my CCSP I have to write 5 exams and pay close to about $700 probably. I don’t think it’s worth it. Being certified in using a Cisco firewall (one of the exams) doesn’t seem like something that will get me a job. I know the exams cover non-Cisco material, but they are very Cisco specific. There are other companies out there other than Cisco. I’d rather spend my time and money on vendor-neutral certifications, some of which are even more recognized than Cisco certifications. I might decide to go for my Network+ and Security+ certifications instead. These cover the same principles as the Cisco exams but do not focus on configuring and using any specific device, which I can easily learn if the need arises.

I want to do security consulting and research, not network administration. I don’t think I need have vendor specific certifications. This is going to require some thought (and $$$), so I’m going to spend some time weighing the options and hopefully all will work out in the end.

Life, School, Tech Stuff | No Comments »

Its been more than a month since I last updated. I’ve got to start to do this more often. Anyways, life has been decent. School is busy as usual, but thankfully reading week is here. I’m just gonna try to relax for the most part, but I have a couple of assignments I’ll have to work on and three midterms to study for. For the most part I’m just looking forward to relaxing. That’s all for now. I promise to start updating more often.

Life | No Comments »