So over the years I have had the advantage of working in various roles. One consistent thing with all of my roles, I dealt with IT. I learned that a lot of people running a businesses approach IT the wrong way, they approach it as a cost of doing business, but it needs to be viewed in much the same way you would look at your staff. You need to invest in them to get the most value returned.

Starting at my first job, a franchise print store where I learned everything from sales, to running small presses, to compositing, photo manipulation and design, there was an age gap of approximately 15 years, between myself and everyone else in the store, I naturally had the job of dealing with most things IT (both Windows and Mac), in fact, it was the first place that put me on the path to IT, and I will be forever thankful.

From there I moved around for a little while in jobs that were either graphics or sales related, I still had a hand in IT, mostly dealing with issues in house, for smaller day to day issues, or organising with external IT companies whenever anything was beyond my understanding/training.

The big change for me in understanding real IT needs was once I started down the path towards Microsoft certification and working for in-house IT. With a better understanding of infrastructure, I had a better understanding how everything worked together, how systems can be better managed, and that systems needed to be monitored.

Having seen first hand how a smaller company would deal with IT, versus recommended practice, leaves a big gap. For one thing, we used to have a minor issue involving printer drivers. I would spend easily 6-10 hours a month fighting with printer drivers on various computers, just to get items printed out, in the right fonts or colours. Working for an IT solutions company, I have learned that you would configure a server with the correct drivers and default print settings, then have computers connect to that printer. This gives you control over drivers and updates reducing compatibility issues and has an added ability of offering a stable environment, and the option to control who has access to what printer and printer functionality. In less than the time wasted in one month, you could have a printer server offering all these solutions.

The other thing I have learned is that monitoring services allows you to pick up a problem before it becomes an issue. Something as simple as monitoring internet usage can pick up high usage before your internet quota is reached, or detecting infections due to anomolous behaviour.

One other thing I have noticed is that it also helps prevent complacency – the “we do it that way because that’s how it’s done” mentality. One aspect of IT is the continuous growth of the sector, encouraging education and knowledge expansion as different companies vie for a competitive edge, one thing I have noticed in working for a company that deals with in Service Agreements, more so than in-house IT, is the effort to give our clients the edge is greater. This is done in several ways, understanding the client, expanding on what a client wants/needs and ongoing education. The main drive behind this is that we want our clients to trust we have their best interest at heart, not just our weekly paycheck. We do this by not only ensuring that their services are consistently running, but in looking for ways to improve the way they run. Simple things like taking one of their existing setups and expanding it n ways they never considered due to advancement in technology (I would love to give an example, but the ones I have are currently for existing clients, and I would not like to breach their privacy).

Having a junior who is familiar with “computing” is great on a budget, but any company that wishes to grow and have a decent infrastructure, will need dedicated IT. My advice from my various careers is to outsource your IT, and put it on an agreement with a trusted company. I’ve seen all methods in action first-hand and can honestly say that I found the last method to be the most beneficial for the end client.

I have to say I am trying to curtail my excitement, because as much as I enjoyed Halo 4, it did not have the same feeling as previous Halo games.

I have always played Halo multiplayer a bucket load, but Halo 4 did have the same longevity that all of the previous Halo games had. I can honestly say I was still playing the Halo predecessor’s multiplayer (and sometimes campaign) in the months leading up to a new release. Halo 4 has not given me that experience.

My experiences with Halo 4 was not anything bad, but it did not have the replayability of previous games. I hammered the multiplayer of previous Halo’s, and I don’t mean I played it a lot, I mean I coordinated teams, I arranged training sessions, held LANs, and even owned multiple copies of the games. Halo 4 was the first Halo game where this was not the case.

Partly because I wasn’t 100% into the multiplayer, partly because my friends interest waned as well, I found I was running out of friends to play with, and also running out of interest to play it myself. Another big part of it was the fact that even with my fairly decent connection, I was getting bad connection to a majority of games. Whether it was because there wasn’t a beta to accurately test the way they connected game or whether the netcode was broken, I don’t know, but losing a majority of games on factors not related to the skill of my team mates or myself is something that can take the joy out of a game.

Ultimately this has left me with a less that confident impression in 343’s ability to produce a game that is going to give me replayability.

I have been following the gameplay videos and trailers closely on this one, with the hope that the game does deliver.

The new Halo 5 does have me excited, specifically in the campaign, and I think in no small part, thanks to Nathan Fillion. There is no hiding that I am a fan of his work. From my first encounter with his villainous activities in Buffy, onto Firefly, and even Castle. I can honestly say that I am going to attempt to play as the character as much as I can.

I have invested in this game, I broke my no pre-order rule and ordered the Digital Guardians edition, I hope that it delivers.

Here it is, 2 years into the current console gen, and I am feeling lackluster about how I got here.
Most of you know I started as a PS fan boy, until a chance encounter with Halo: CE changed everything. Within 24 hours of playing that first Halo game, I bought an Xbox.
The transition from PS to Xbox was a slow one, I had just as many PS2 games as I did Xbox games (more PS2 I believe). I also started my online journey on both these consoles. Xbox won at that.
Xbox 360, for me, dominated the next Gen, with 100+ games, yet only a handful on PS3, again, Online play being the major drawcard, and the superiority of Live (even as a paid service).
No small part of my enjoyment can be attributed to Bungie and the Halo games they made. Accessible, enjoyable, replayable, and something that I never considered I would lose… LAN-able.
With the new Gen, we knew there would be compromises with the (nigh) always online features, but losing LAN was something I never considered. Being online is a large network, but if you want to play locally, well that is just too difficult.
I can’t express my displeasure enough. Remembering that my early experiences were getting together at a house, and having a LAN, these were one of the key enjoyable parts of playing Xbox. Tragically I have now lost this as we move to the future.
I look at this and I consider other things that have changed with this move to more powerful online supported consoles, and most aspects are online now, suddenly my casual downtime comes with conditions; do you have internet; can you connect to your mates (in the same room); do you have the latest updates; can your country’s backwards infrastructure support simple gaming.
I guess I am just saying I miss the simplicity of being able to grab a switch, some cables and some Xboxes and just start playing.