Hmm, I take that back Alex..

Alex and Adecco
Seems I was wrong about him, he called me on Monday to confirm that Situp had authorised this Thursday and Friday off so I can rest in peace, or peices since I will be working this weekend that makes a continous amount of 15 days working or at training!

World Cup
Its hitting the nation now, and I really wish I could skip/quit work so I could enjoy all the live football... Look out for Korea and Japan this time around - they have more european estabilished players now too.

James Thornton
We start the Exchange module this week, 2400c for those who know the numbers.
The morning and afternoon class have been mixed up and split between Alvin and another teacher - Naz.
Me and 4 others and shifted to Naz (Including Dave), Bloody sauna in his classroom I must admit.

Everthing Else
Finished watching my new DVD "Final Fantasty VII: Advent Children", a very good buy for 10quid.

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Slight Change of Plans..

Situation at Sit Up

Seems Alex is getting abit lazy, he hasnt heard from HR at Situp and cannot chase them up(what the hell?) and with me not scheduled to be in anyway next week - according to their scheduling system - Alex wants me to just not turn up next week and hope hell doesnt freeze over. Somehow I think it might work, but its not the way I wanted to do this.

Anyways this week has been awfully slow, but I am becoming good friends with Dean and Shaun, so there is some good in all this after all.
I actually bid on an Iron on the website and got it for 21 quid plus 7.99 postage (!) so I am officially on the board with my first purchase (yey!).

Manga and more Manga

The biggest single peice of news for me this week was the amazingly flukey discovery that someone out there has a heart and God is listening - Inuyasha is still being scanned online and translated by fansubs! I found a good site that links to all newly released Manga that is online

www.mangaupdates.com

Which sounds releated to the much similar www.baka-updates.com which deal with Anime releases. Although I have missed out on about a volume since the end of Volume 45 (missed out on about 6 chapters)this is going to be great news and I hope groups continue to release this stuff as Viz who are doing the licensed translation are only on something like volume 27 or something, and the Anime finishes about volume 35 or something.

MCSA

Finally we finished the Implementing Server 2003 infrastructure - and boy I hate it! I am way off the pace and have bought some much needed "exam cram 2" books to cope with the load. Next week is Exchange and its 9-5 and we will be mixing classes! So me and David will be in the same class!

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6 Work days minus 1 day off sick equals 17 hours aday awake....

Well after a week of mayhem, I really am sad to be leaving Sit up channels after such a short term, but hey better to do it on a formally correct basis then a gross misconduct dismissal kind of way, at least that's what I think! Since as far as Sit up are concerned I cannot get any leave, and Adecco cant sort anything out so it is me who has to make the ultimate decision (although kudos to Alex at Adecco for not giving up trying!).

I managed to win the 1st Division and the WEFA Champions League (on WE10 or Pro Evo 6 to those slow people), and this time no one wants to buy any of my players (What??), and I end up releasing 4 of them and signing about 3 kids and one slightly oldish guy just to make up my numbers!

We finished the Win 2003 module this week and me and Dave came in on Wednesday (man I could use the day off...) to install all the disk images for the next module (2277c) which is about windows server 2003 network infrastructure. We got the new books and I tell you what, none of it is going into my head (its all theory and nothing about real life at all, that and the fact I keep falling asleep in class...)! I have been catching up by watching CBT Nuggets prep videos supplied by Vivek (thanks a bundle), and now I know how custom sub netting kinda works(doesn't mean I can do it though!), and some of that DHCP and DNS theory is starting to sink in.

Work has been a drag and only plus side was that we don't have a real team leader yet so the other team leaders were on training this week so we took it easy and happened to get shifted upstairs and downstairs on a regular basis (no sweat, means we have to spend 20 or so minutes logging in/out!).

Saturday came around and we had a decent game of football (we won 10-6), I twisted my knee badly when I saved one of Justin's only shots on target and my foot kind of "hyper extended" in a twisting motion kind of way. Does that make sense? Imagine that you keep your upper thigh dead rigid and straight, then twist your foot side to side or wiggle your foot around - it puts strain on your knee ligaments and mines are quite week from not going to karate now - my knee ligaments / tendons are in a painful way and not the first time too. Not to mention get slide tackled and kicked so many times I prefer not to mention it and kick some of their hides!

Beat Parv 4-0 with France (he was Czech rep), strangely it was 0-0 after 90 minutes and in extra time Henry and Zidane showed the world what Winning Eleven 10 is all about - finesse and total control, that and Parv quit the game with 4 minutes to go!

Watched Bleach episode 80 and 81 - finally this side tracking with the Bunto crap is finally getting a touch more exciting. I'm going to lend my Nadisco DVD to David to try and get him into more subtle and immersing animes then say Gundam Wing (I know many people will not like that comment!) and maybe convince him to watch Serial Experiments Lain (which me and my sister are watching at the moment again) and even maybe Inu Yasha! (yes maybe that is) Would be cool to convert another person into a InuYasha fan (first my sister then Parv and Zesh too) - ah the satisfaction of talking to someone who has come down to the same low level as you...

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Off Sick - Last week's Summary

Notice: The wonderful Fa Cup final last Saturday - a must watch for anyone who missed it.

We started course the Server 2003 book last week, we needed to finish it also the same week but since we are so damn slow in this class we ran over to this Monday and Still haven't finished it!!

I used the E-Learning Microsoft voucher on their site and did modules 8-10 on it and noticed some scary differences - the fact some info is on this e learning course and not in the book and vice versa. I took the assessment and failed badly with 62% which was good considering the question where so hard, I immediately ordered some book off Amazon so help my revision!

Started work proper on the Sunday last week and boy it drains you out! 3pm till 11:30pm getting home about 1am! We did 4 days last week with 3 days off and then starting again this Sunday.

Alex tells me I may have problems getting leave for my exchange module - might have to say bye bye for this job already! I am sure we can come to some conclusion in a professional manner...

Main highlight last week was watching Arsenal lose to Barcelona at work while attending to calls! Good fun that day!

Been feeling sick since Saturday - I had a hair cut on Friday (and as a classmate said "someone shaved off allot of hair!") which is usually not an issue in the summer but the current weather is cold and rainy so my stomach starts to feel abit strange - mainly means I need to get to a toilet ASAP! So I missed work today, which is ironic as I was ok in class (cos its so damn hot in that classroom) and as soon as I step outside my stomach starts talking!

Well at least its given me a chance to post this. Hopefully we will start out network infrastructure class tomorrow or Wednesday.

Oh, and I finished 2nd in my 1st season in the division 1 on Winning Eleven 10, a shame I didn't have the funds (or attraction) to buy any decent players.
So the same old scrap next season then!

Me and my cousin had to pass up the chance to get season tickets for Manchester United - Nooooooooooo! Simply cause we couldn't afford them! (minimum is about 600 to about 800 pounds) We couldn't find any one to share our tickets with! Hopefully when I am working proper I can get a season ticket next time (fingers crossed)!

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Friday = weekend = rest

Today was the final day for the XP (2285) course we are doing, we had to finish the book today!
The afternoon session had the day off so we had to stay back long enough to finish all the practicals in the book.

Afterwards Alvin got us to copy over the Virtual Harddrives needed for the next course (2874) which is about Windows Server 2003.
I learned alot more about Differential Hard disks thanks to my attempt to install SBS 2003 on Virtual Server 2005, and so we actually got the hard drive deployment right!

We got sort of "acheivment" certificates for completing the course, but now we all want the main certificate for passing the exam! (Of course)

Not to mention I beat the daylights out of Juventus 3 - 0 last night and Barca 2-1 this morning really made things good.

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Good Thursday...

Started the day getting smashed by Barcelona in my first cup match in Winning Eleven 10 - Time to quit me thinks...

Went to JTG and Alvin was 2 hours late because he was at his Son's school - I should have stayed in bed longer me thinks...

He tells us that we are over a lesson behind the afternoon class and while they get Friday off, we might have to stay behind into the afternoon on Friday to finish this module...

Some how the finance department fails to add up 18.40 pounds and 18.40 pounds and give me 18.00 pounds back instead for my travel money! (how did that work out?)

Meanwhile at Sit up Channels (where I am now training for my Contact centre job), we had a quick refresher and then took a "Proof Of Learning" test. I killed the test with a class best of 96 percent, while the little Indian girl got 93 percent which was good considering she is under confident in herself, the next best was 87 percent.

So we aced the test and spent most of the day on the phones...

The only downside to the day is that the 18 pounds I got at JTG seems to have whittled down to 7.07 quid ! I really need to bring lunch from home...

NB. My browser - Flock- which I use to make these posts, in junction with Blogger's server, doesn't like POUND symbols...

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I Start a Damn "Call Centre" Job This week - Hurrah!

Been playing Winning Eleven 10 on 6 stars in the Master League.
I got hammered in my first season, only 2nd from bottom! In my 2nd, I managed to finish 2nd in the 2nd division to earn promotion to the 1st division. So far I have had the following fixtures in the 1st division:
Bayern Munich (V= I won), Bayer Leverkusen (V), Real Madrid (V), Roma (Loss), Man United (Draw), Liverpool (Loss), Inter Milan (D).
So I am about 6th in the league - not bad considering I have a tiny sqaud so I am playing my reserves half the time - and I havent even got to the cup matches yet!

Finally got our XP Course Manuals (official stuff) for the XP Module of the MCSA, looks a breeze but the Manual is a useless stand alone read - you need to use the CD and be physically doing the stuff on a PC so you can take it all in!

Went to Addecco on Monday at 1PM, which was a waste of time only spent 15 minutes there. Just found out the shift pattern is 6 days in a row (48 hours) and then 3 days off - Dammit!
The 3 days training is 1PM till 8:30PM and then 3 days off, next monday we start our proper 3-11:30pm shifts.

Started the Training on Tuesday and it was quite daunting till the last hour when one of the trainers actually showed us a call and then we realised how easy it was! Stuff the documentation and the manuals they give you - you just follow some of the script and the general flow of the call is damn easy!

Wednesday was interesting - At JTG the couple who are there were having a typical couple's tiff, and at the Call Centre Job we did loads of live phone calls and some more cramming information and procedures into our heads for a final written test tomorrow! 3 of the guys did 16 seconds of rapping (our whatever you call it) and they were damn good! One of them writes lyrics and does good there and then stuff and has a good vocabulary. The kind of discussions and arguments these guys get into is really crazy! One guy was 30 mins late, in this place if you are late 3 times you get sacked!

The place is good fun working in and the guys are fun and it is easy money - just a tad monotonous or repetative so to speak. I am just worried about the return time - takes over an hour at 8:30 - what will it be like at 11:30PM??

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Last Weekend

My day at JTG setting up the network and the virtual PCs:
Me, Viveq(k) and some guy called David from the afternoon class went about wiring up all the HP machines we had in the classroom.
Setting up the router and getting the network working. We installed Virtual PC and copied over the base virtual machine files needed for this module,
we also set up user accounts for the morning and afternoon sessions.

Why this took from 9am till 4pm to accomplish really beats me, considering when I was at Noden I had 2 hours to shut down all the servers,
move them and rewire them, upgrade them and all sorts on my own on a bloody Saturday!

Pell and Bales turned me down *no warmth and emotion*??:
Self explanatory really - when you are told to read a script only bloody news readers can fake it and not sound abit drone.

So I am expecting that women who interviewed me must be looking for a young female or some south African/Australian person that usually litters the Pell and Bales call centres.

Picked up my Bro from Terminal 3 his flight was 3 and a half hours late

Parv came over and we played Winning Eleven 10:
What can I say, the game physics are improved - in the air ball work is better.
Stronger players don't give up without a really tussle which is nice.
International teams are now Licensed - such as England, Holland, Argentina etc.

On Parv's Laptop he installed XP Pro on Parallel software, he tried Linux but it was waste of time :)

Somehow after installing a pirate XP Pro on his emulator his Mac book Pro and
every thing started to become dis functional - I WONDER WHY, Hmmmmm :)

Crap football match, got beaten so bad I have forgotten the score! I got a bit pissed off that everyone wasn't taking me seriously when it came to paying up,

and because I was left so short I wont be booking the pitch next Saturday so they can sort it out themselves.

technorati tags: winning, eleven, 10, pes, 6, ftg, mcse, networking, pell, bales, call, centres, macbook, parrallel

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View from my room at James Thorton

Nice View from up here, over looking Hammersmith Tube and Bus Stations. 

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Some Progress

We Started (or Semi Started) the XP section of the course. Me and Viveq are coming in tomorrow (rest of the classes are cancelled) to install XP Pro on all the machines.

Supposedly someone from Microsoft is also coming down for a visit/inspection (Hint hint) so we cant come in jeans and t-shirt like I was originally planning to.

I got to teach Tej how to wire a RJ 45 cable, and he went on to teach all the others - which made my day worthwhile.

Had an interview at Morgan Spencer and Pell & Bales for their Charity Fund Raiser call centre positions - was nice to go back to their Old Street Office and check things out, but seems I let my self down on the role playing tests.

I got home and thought I would give Alex a call (from Adecco), seems there was no shortlist so I start on Tuesday! Wicked, but training on Monday and Tuesday starts at 1PM (which I cannot physically make so I will point that out to them).

Parv was back yesterday, and he was impressed at the power of the Pound vs the Dollar, which currently is about 1.86 Dollars to a Pound - which is a 3 year high by my reckoning.

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This Week

We had no training on Friday or Monday - which was a really bummer.

Had a decent game of football against Umair and his college mates again, this time losing only 7-5 and I didnt score any of the goals.

Man United collapsed at Chelsea 3-0 and now Chelsea are champions and Rooney has a broken bone in his foot so he is out of the World cup!

Played football on Monday too and got beaten badly in the first game and it was too easy in the second.

Back to training today and Alvin wants me and Viveq to come in one day this week and prepare all the PCs for the classes!

Adecco called me today, saying I am on the shortlist for the temp position I applied for and I should know by the end of the week if I am starting next week.

The hours are 3pm till 11:30pm which is quite gay, but will do for a few months at least.

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The week in vision

Well of course me and Viveq aced the test this week, the tutor refused to give out the results though...
He keeps rambling on how the weaker students need to get their act together when the XP module starts (yea yea ok get on with it now).

I went out and bought 3 boxes of instant noodles (getting fed up of my sister's cooking to be honest), and bought a nice shiny new Nike football.

Parv is in the US of A, and last night was on MSN to tell me he has parted with $1999 dollars (yes that about 1299 in pounds) for a nice new shiny Macbook Pro 15".

He says its faster than my computer (ok then, but I didn't sure as hell have to pay 1299 pounds for this machine, OR the shuttle PC I made OR the Dell laptop I have NOR for repairing my old Toshiba laptop- in fact combine all the cost together I don't think I even come close to 1299?), not to mention my PC is a 512MB P4 3GHz on a very old motherboard, but at least I can play Pro Evolution Soccer 5 on it?

On that not I decided to take PES5 up again and started playing on-line again, I was formerly at around 100 points (class1 amateur), after 2 days of trying to get used to this crap I am now Class2 with 600 points.

I say this crap because when you play on-line its like you are using a dumbed down version of the game engine, and it stinks to be honest.
Wont stop me playing it though!

Zam (my cousin) is posting me PES manager and Winning Eleven 10, which he is loving every minute of - he says the animations have improved 10 fold.

I am on my own this weekend and am bored out of my brains. Watched Arsenal draw 0-0 with Villareal to reach the Champions League finals (1-0 on agg), joining Barcelona who had the same result. Missed another Middlesborough come back special at the Riverside to beat St. Bucharest 4-2 to go through 4-3 on agg to the UEFA cup final.

Man utd face off against Chelsea today. No one thinks United have a chance at Stanford Bridge, but to be honest this is the deciding factor in our title campaign this season. If we beat Chelsea we will remind them that no matter who they go out and buy this summer we will be there to challenge them for the title next season.
And to beat them at Stanford Bridge would be a major boost for United and United's Fans, it would only be a minor set back for Chelsea's millions and a crushed ego for Jose - the special one - moaning mornino.

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The Test - Tuesday

Well, I spent good part of last night taking the A+ practise test 3 times, only to pass on the final attempt (80%).

I got in today and the test started at 8:45 and was about 20 pages long - the first half all written and the second was multiple choice.

I clocked it all with about 90minutes to go, Viveq (the other decent IT literate guy) was second at about 45 minutes left and everyone else failed to finish in time.

The test ended at 12:30pm! Thank god it was an open book test - so at least I could find something to write in the written test!

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Its like Deja Vu.. Monday

Alvin had given us 5 chapters to cram in during the weekend. Of course that's not going to happen!

On Saturday Umi was back and we had a cracking good game of football - ended up loosing 12-8 but I managed 3 goals and played most of the game as a lone striker - hopefully it wont always be on my own!

We did the gardening - I mowed the lawn, trimmed the hedges and washed the car, my sister did the digging up weeds etc etc

We need to sell my Mum's car - a nice 1999 P reg Mazda 626GXi if anyone is interested.

I watched Liverpool beat Chelsea in the FA Cup Semi Final 2 - 1 Goals from Riise and Garcia and a single goal from Drogba - made my day that did to see Chelsea lose the chance of a double.
Watch Henry score another wonder goal for Arsenal as they drew 1 - 1 with Tottenham to end their chances of finishing in 4the place.

I managed to read 3 chapters last night in order to at least look like I have done something. When we got in the teacher surprised us by announcing that there will be a test tomorrow to gauge our performance. Since most of the students are non IT proliferated, they were all in an uproar and this was of course holding up the class in general.

This continued for most of today's session - I was royally pissed off. Rather then make issues about not understanding this and that and asking questions about the exams they should have concentrated on getting through as much as possible in this session and finished revising at home.
I wont be revising because I want to see what score I will get in a real world scenario - when you don't have time to research these things and need to know there and then.

In the meantime I completed Metal Gear Solid 2, and must admit that it is the biggest waste of Konami's money I have ever seen.
A shame no one looks at the storyline and game play these days and just looks at graphics and design!

technorati tags: mcse, training, football, umair, gardening, washing, car, mazda, 626, sell

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Borrringggg...

Day 2 of the lecturing and I am slowly starting to fall off the pace - due to boredom.

Well I did get some questions wrong so its not all bad, I took a mock 70 question exam and scored 675 points out of 1000, the pass mark is 800 so not too bad on my 1st attempt - these are A+ exam questions!

Went to lunch with Parv, did some HTML work with him to introduce his Flickr Bridge into his blog's sidebar.

Also beat him 3-2 in games of Pro evo 4 (WE8), and 3-0 in games of Tekken 5 (Law - me vs Xaiyou -him).

Watched M'Boro get beat by a very nice goal from S' Bucharest in the UEFA Cup S. Finals 1st Leg.

technorati tags: mcse, exams, a+, parv, html, flickr, blog, pes4, we8, tekken5, boro, uefa

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My name's Alvin

Today our teacher got the course really started, his name was Alvin something...

He seems to have been in IT a good 20 years, so best not to be cheeky or anything.

We started off brushing over the basics - not before each of us introduced ourselves, then we went through the A+ hardware objectives and discussed them.

He wants us to read the first 4 chapters at home - BORRING!

I mean I cannot stand the A+ book I already have at home - because it is mindless reading stuff I have done sooo many times and is so borring!

Well at least we wont be covering A+ in detail - but we can take the exam after, so that is something to thing about.

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And so it begins...

Today was the day it starts - my MCSE course that is.

I arrived well too early at James Thorton, 8:35 to be exact, after waiting till 9:20 we got called into a room full of new monitors, keyboards and mice etc.

We were handed out travel forms for applying for student discount on travel and also told we can reclaim any travel cost at the end of the month.

What I didnt like was the fact once you get your MSCA and go on a outplacement, in the evenings you have to do E-Learining, I thought it was all instructor led! Not nice. Although the labs are open and instructors are present - so I can easily pop down here to get some help.

Also I didnt like was that the hours for training in the MSCA module is going to stay at 9-1pm, which is alot different for 9-5pm!

I did like the fact you get student discount and an ID card, you also get A+ training material for which you are encouraged to go for the A+ exam which is not included and therefor not paid for by JTG (James Thornton Group).

We finished early (10am) and I headed to HSBC and then home. Started job hunting (now I can look for afternoon jobs as well as evening ones).

technorati tags: a+, mcse, mcsa, JTG, james, thorton, group, training

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The Easter Weekend

Had a right royal laff with my cousins over the weekend.

Saturday night we had a Monopoly Finale - My sisters were eager to take revenge for the beating handed out by my older cousin sister.

Some how I must have had bad luck - I was in jail for most of the start - so I only bought Mayfair and Vine Street.

I some how wheeled and dealed to get Park lane too - completing that set. And paid 1500Pound for all 4 Stations.

From then on I blew everyone away! Good fun!

Monday we had a game of Football at Vale Farm - 12PM till 3PM. We had a 6vs6 match up which saw us fall behind 6-1 in the first hour.

We managed to turn the game around and won 10-9 with me bagging a goal for myself.

Some how I wasnt too effected by the football - no injuries and so forth. I had a nap and then had a shower and I was still OK.

Went downstairs and then all of a sudden my left knee just gave in! Like it had been sprained or bruised or something.

Strange, the effects started to wear out by the evening - but this has me worried that my knee can just play up like this.

I will have to keep an eye on it in future.

I start my MCSE Training tomorrow at James Thorton Group in Hammersmith - I hope its good, I have had bad training experiences in my time trust me!

I took a mock exam on a MCSE exam site and only got 3 wrong! Not bad.

technorati tags: football, monoploy, knee, injury, mcse, training

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Im in Luck - Saturdays

Canon Europe Web Self-Service

My Canon Ixus 400 has started acting up more and more - there is a "cf card error" which is now not going away.

The card is fine - I tested it in my Ixus V3.

By chance I found this page on Canon's site - there seems to be something wrong with the communication with the Compact Flash Cards.

I had to cancel football today - since Daniel, Thomas and Courts are at a easter mass/vigil no one wants to turn up.

Rescheduled it for Monday instead (when the Sports centre is closed so we can use the Astro Pitch for free!).

Started playing with Yahoo Widgets - formally known as Komfonbulator or something. Kinda handy if you know what kind of widgets you would like to have.

Bought TaxCalc 2006 Lite - I will submit a self assement next year to try and reclaim the PAYE tax I have paid this year, which is a incomplete tax year.

technorati tags: tax, canon, ixus, v3, warranty, repair

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Good Fridays..

Went to Friday prayer with Parv - only when he dragged me out at the last minute since I wasnt feeling well.

They had to do a 3rd prayer because there was so many people this Good Friday - suprisingly most of the extra people are Pakistanis - Where are these guys at normal every weekly Friday prayers? Every week the African Muslim minority outweigh the Asian Muslim "majority" and it is only on Eid or during the Holiday season you will see all these asian Muslims crawl out from under their hiding places...

Went to Dallas Chicken shop afterwards and felt I have been eating too much - linked up with old folks Adil and Rizwan.

Aunty came down from Manchester today with Sofia and Sofina - up all night talking about everything basically.

technorati tags: easter, good, friday, holidays, religon, prayer, muslim

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