AWS Certification

 I was over the moon when I passed the AWS Practitioner's Certification exam last Saturday and couldn't believe how easy it was, well if you have read the materials. I finished the 90-minute test in half an hour.

The reason for my excitement of passing the exam was not because the certification itself but the journey to get there. I first started the first version of the online course in June/July this year. It was a 6-7 hour long multi-part video + presentation course. Being the first time, I really sat through the whole thing, didn't want to miss anything. So it took me two days to go through the materials. 

Then I was told that there was a 2nd version. So I re-did the course. This time it was more of a revision, and I got through it in about one day. Thinking I was ready, I booked for an exam. This was a remotely monitored exam in one of the test centers, where there were a couple of web cams mounted on the computer so that the person sitting in some unknown location can watch you remotely. I had to scan my ID on the scanner, fill in my details on screen, agree on the T&C's... several times only to be told that there was some technical issues and the remote monitor could not see any video streaming from the test center. By that time, I had already lost 30 minutes, so the test was canceled and rescheduled. So I wasted about half a day on that aborted test including traveling time.

Then a couple of weeks ago I was told that there was a 3rd version of the course and promised to be heaps better than the previous ones. So I re-did the online course, but this time running the video at x2 speed and finished it in a couple of hours.

After that, I felt I was ready and scheduled my exam... the rest is history.

The exam mostly makes sure that you know which AWS service is available and for what purpose. So reading through the overview pages of each AWS product is really helpful. In my exam the following AWS services are mentioned Glue, Athena, Cost Optimizer, Cost Explorer, Concierge Support Team, LightSail, Redshift, Storage Gateway, Connect... apart from the mundane ones that you always hear about - EC2, S3, RDS, DynamoDB, caching services, VPC, IGW/TGW, Route 53, CloudeWatch, CloudeFormation, Cloude Trail, Lambda, CloudFront, etc.

The certification badge is good for 3 years, after which I would have to do another exam ?! 

Rubik's Cube Resources

 * 3x3 Solution: http://lghttp.60951.nexcesscdn.net/80487FB/Downloads/resources/downloads/Rubiks_3x3_Solution_Guide1.pdf

* 5x5 Solution: http://www.alchemistmatt.com/cube/5by5cube.html

* other solutions: http://www.alchemistmatt.com/cube/cubes.html

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Rubik's cube solving

Sound of Life

Sadly the Oatley 101 sketch group was cancelled indefinitely from last week, after 25+ years. I am not sure if it is CCoVID-19 related.

As many people start to work from home, we also need to adapt to the new ways of working for the next few months at least. Online meetings are inevitable and become the norm. To me, working from home had been the norm for many years. It is interesting to see how people's attitude shift at these difficult times. Unintended background noises can pop up unexpectedly, such as baby/kids' noises, birds chirping outside... These are no longer frowned upon during conference calls and meetings. Instead, they sometimes bring smile to people's face and along with it, some liveliness to the otherwise boring meetings. After all, these are the sounds of life.