In a few months time, I’m hoping that we will be able to convert our loft to a new guest room/my office (den); however that means that I need to do some serious rationalisation of the amount of “stuff” we have accumulated. I did sort out a lot when my second son was born and my wife and I started sharing an office but there are so many things I’ve been keeping “just in case I need them”. For example, old text books from ‘uni – with the rapid pace of development in IT it seems highly unlikely that they will be relevant today but it seems a shame to let them go.

I have started to move in the right direction as, this morning, a whole load of course notes from Microsoft official curriculum courses went into recycling sacks based on the fact that they date back to the mid-late 90s and relate to unsupported technologies:

• 687C – Supporting Microsoft Windows NT core technologies;
• 688C – Internetworking with Microsoft TCP/IP in Microsoft Windows NT 4.0;
• 730C – Fundamentals of Microsoft Exchange Server 4.0;
• 758C – Supporting Microsoft Internet Information Server 2.0;
• 973C – Microsoft Exchange Server 5.5 series – design and implementation;
• 1100B – Upgrading to Microsoft Windows NT 5.0;
• 1267B – Planning and implementing Active Directory;
• 1560A – Updating support skills from Microsoft Windows NT 4.0 to Microsoft Windows 2000;
• 1561A – Designing a Microsoft Windows 2000 directory services infrastructure;
• 1562A – Designing a Windows 2000 networking services infrastructure;
• 1563A – Designing a change and configuration management infrastructure for Microsoft Windows 2000 professional;
• 1579A – Accelerated training for updating support skills and designing a directory services infrastructure for Microsoft Windows 2000.

It feels good to have such a clearout but what if I need those notes? Sure, the likelihood of me implementing NT 4.0/Exchange 4.0 or even Windows 2000/Exchange 5.5 these days is pretty slim (and they’ve all been stored in boxes in the loft since 2001), but I just might want to look back at what Microsoft were recommending in those days! I’m in a bit of a dilemma here – am I throwing away a piece of IT history, or just reversing a dangerous tendency to hoard? As there is no-where at work for me to store this stuff, the only other option is to buy a bigger house!